TrishaCat
The Cat in the FAF
If this is too political I understand, but If figured since this is more of a stock market news thing maybe it'd be okay.
So some crazy stuff started late last week. A bunch of redditors on /r/wallstreetbets noticed that some hedgefunds are making money by shortselling and naked shorting various companies with low stock prices, namely Gamestop (but also AMC, Nokia, Etsy, and Blackberry). To explain this in laymens terms, shortselling is when you borrow stock, sell it while the stock value is high, and then buy it back when the value is low to give back for a profit. Gamestop in particular was suffering this very hard, enough to the point where there was more stock being sold than actually existed (called naked shorting, its very illegal). Many people see shorting as essentially kicking someone when they're down, profiting off of a company's failures. Many hedgefunds run by wealthy people at wall street do this. So, a bunch of redditors on /r/wallstreetbets all decided to collaborate together to buy stocks in these companies. This caused the stock value to rise to insane degrees, to where it was continuing to rise until this morning, when RobinHood, the stock trading app, decided to stop supporting these companies and took away the ability to buy stock in them, only sell.
And now the latest news seems to be that /r/wallstreetbets is encouraging everyone to not sell their stock and all the while they wish to do a class action lawsuit against RobinHood for manipulating the market.
TL;DR: reddit bought stock in gamestop, this made rich people who made money off of the low stock value angry as it can bankrupt them, robinhood tried to stop this, reddit wants to take it to court
Some sources/newspieces on the subject:
www.nbcnews.com
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6x130/_/gl37tau
So some crazy stuff started late last week. A bunch of redditors on /r/wallstreetbets noticed that some hedgefunds are making money by shortselling and naked shorting various companies with low stock prices, namely Gamestop (but also AMC, Nokia, Etsy, and Blackberry). To explain this in laymens terms, shortselling is when you borrow stock, sell it while the stock value is high, and then buy it back when the value is low to give back for a profit. Gamestop in particular was suffering this very hard, enough to the point where there was more stock being sold than actually existed (called naked shorting, its very illegal). Many people see shorting as essentially kicking someone when they're down, profiting off of a company's failures. Many hedgefunds run by wealthy people at wall street do this. So, a bunch of redditors on /r/wallstreetbets all decided to collaborate together to buy stocks in these companies. This caused the stock value to rise to insane degrees, to where it was continuing to rise until this morning, when RobinHood, the stock trading app, decided to stop supporting these companies and took away the ability to buy stock in them, only sell.
And now the latest news seems to be that /r/wallstreetbets is encouraging everyone to not sell their stock and all the while they wish to do a class action lawsuit against RobinHood for manipulating the market.
TL;DR: reddit bought stock in gamestop, this made rich people who made money off of the low stock value angry as it can bankrupt them, robinhood tried to stop this, reddit wants to take it to court
Some sources/newspieces on the subject:

Opinion | Why it matters that Reddit users beat Wall Street by betting on GameStop's stock
Wall Street giants are calling foul after having been beaten at their own game by a bunch of guys on the internet. It's hard not to cheer.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6x130/_/gl37tau
Last edited: