Let the Apes Have Wall Street
Matt Taibbi, 10 June 2021
The much-publicized war over “meme stocks” drags a longstanding Wall Street ripoff out of the shadows, to hilarious results
On CNBC’s Fast Money last week, anchor Melissa Lee appeared to mention the unmentionable. She was talking with Tim Seymour, CEO of Seymour Asset Management, who made offhand mention of the hedge funds shorting now-infamous stocks like AMC and GameStop. “Look, there are a lot of short sellers out there who have been borrowing stock they didn’t have,” Seymour said.
“Naked shorts, yeah,” said Lee.
JBS USA said it paid $11 million in ransom to criminals responsible for the cyberattack that disrupted meat processing across North America and Australia, the latest high profile example of large corporations falling prey to extortion.
vThe Covid-19 crisis came at the end of more than two decades that witnessed a significant transformation of financial markets with main catalysts such as financial innovation, technology adoption, and financial regulations. The 2020 stock market’s roller coaster (record price levels and volatility) exposed the financial system’s fragility. This year, the increased volatility in so-called ‘meme’ stocks – i.e., stocks whose trading volume increases not because of the company’s good performance, but because of hype on social media –, has highlighted several problems in financial markets. Although seemingly unimportant, the risk that these events could pose to the entire financial system opens the door for discussions on the implementation of new regulations (or the improvement of older ones). 
French automakers Renault, Citroen and Peugeot are the latest companies to be ensnared in the “dieselgate” scandal — a massive emissions cheating scheme that started at German car giant Volkswagen.
After weeks of drift and doubt, Wall Street was looking for a decisive signal on price growth to help put the reflation trade back on track. Instead it got another mixed message.
Samsung Group’s de facto chief Lee Jae-yong attended a court hearing on Thursday as part of an ongoing trial on alleged irregularities surrounding his ascension to the helm of the South Korean tech conglomerate.