thestreet, 10 June 2021

Momentum stocks, which have been dubbed “meme stocks” by mainstream media and Wall Street, have taken the stock market by storm in the last six months.

Earlier this week, stocks such as GameStop (GME) – Get Report and AMC (AMC) – Get Report were seeing positive momentum. Even stocks like Clover (CLOV) – Get Report and Wendy’s (WEN) – Get Report joined them.

However, GameStop’s momentum turned negative in Thursday intraday trading following the company’s earnings report late Wednesday. Continue reading “Article: Former NYSE Trader on GameStop Earnings and Naked Shorts”

06/01/202106/03/2021

Article: 6 Arrested In Undercover Human Trafficking Operation In Tennessee

Article - Media, Publications

6 Arrested In Undercover Human Trafficking Operation In Tennessee

B911, 01 June 2021

SWEETWATER, Tenn. – A two-day undercover operation by special agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s Human Trafficking Unit, the Sweetwater Police Department, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, the 10th Judicial District Drug & Violent Crime Task Force, Homeland Security Investigations, and the office of 10th District Attorney General Steve Crump resulted in the arrest of several men accused of seeking illicit sex from minors.

Over a two-day period beginning May 26th, as part of an undercover investigation aimed at addressed human trafficking in the region, authorities placed several decoy advertisements known to be linked to prostitution and commercial sex cases. As a result of the operation, authorities arrested the following men and booked them into the Monroe County Jail. Continue reading “Article: 6 Arrested In Undercover Human Trafficking Operation In Tennessee”

04/26/202104/27/2021

Article: Departing GameStop Executives Eyeing Lottery-Winning Paydays

Article - Media, Publications

Departing GameStop Executives Eyeing Lottery-Winning Paydays

ERIK GRUENWEDEL, 26 April 2021

July 31 can’t come soon enough for several GameStop executives, including CEO George Sherman, who are slated to exit the videogame retailer at that time in a management reorganization driven by incoming chairman of the board Ryan Cohen, co-founder/CEO of online pet supply service Chewy.com.

Sherman, CFO James Bell, chief customer officer Frank Hamlin and Chris Homeister, chief merchandising officer, all have provisions in their contracts that call for expedited vesting of stock options, the latter Wall Street-based restricted shares that can drive executive compensation into the stratosphere — with no tax liability for the company. Continue reading “Article: Departing GameStop Executives Eyeing Lottery-Winning Paydays”

04/08/202104/09/2021

Article: GameStop plans to elect activist investor Cohen as chairman

Article - Media, Publications

GameStop plans to elect activist investor Cohen as chairman

Reuters, 08 April 2021

GameStop Corp, which has been part of a recent Reddit-driven trading frenzy, said on Thursday it intends to elect activist investor Ryan Cohen as chairman, putting him in the driver’s seat as he looks to transform the videogame retailer.

Since Chewy co-founder Cohen joined GameStop’s board in January, he has been pushing towards transformation of the brick-and-mortar retailer into an e-commerce firm that can take on big-box retailers such as Target Corp and technology firms such as Microsoft Corp.

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04/05/202104/12/2021

Article: GameStop shares fall as company looks to cash in on Reddit surge

Article - Media, Publications

GameStop shares fall as company looks to cash in on Reddit surge

Staff and agency, 05 April 2021

Shares in GameStop fell on Monday after the video-game retailer said it may sell up to $1bn (£720m) worth of stock as it tries to make the best of the 900% surge in its shares from a Reddit-driven rally this year.

The company said it would sell up to 3.5m shares and use the proceeds to speed up its shift to e-commerce in an overhaul being led by the billionaire Ryan Cohen, its biggest shareholder and a board member of GameStop. Shares in the company fell sharply in pre-market trading in New York but had recovered by the close to $186.95, a fall of 1.9%. Continue reading “Article: GameStop shares fall as company looks to cash in on Reddit surge”

03/27/202103/27/2021

Article: GameStop Takes $6 Billion Round Trip as Results Shrugged Off

Article - Academic, Publications

GameStop Takes $6 Billion Round Trip as Results Shrugged Off

Bailey Lipschultz,27 March 2021

GameStop Corp. is ending the week where it started, after an earnings-related selloff was quickly reversed, with retail investors refusing to let go of their commitment to the stock.

Investors were quick to get over GameStop’s 12th consecutive quarter of slowing sales and management’s decision to not take questions on its earnings call on Tuesday, despite warnings from most Wall Street analysts. After see-sawing to as low as $118.62, the stock was trading near last week’s closing level on Friday. That created a more than $6.4 billion swing in market value from Monday’s intraday high to a bottom on Wednesday.

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03/19/202103/21/2021

Article: Why Is Everyone (Still) Talking About GameStop Stock?

Article - Media, Publications

Why Is Everyone (Still) Talking About GameStop Stock?

Keith Noonan, 19 March 2021

GameStop (NYSE:GME) has to be 2021’s most interesting stock. The video game retailer started to pick up momentum ahead of the launch of new game consoles from Sony and Microsoft last year, and over the past two months, short-squeeze mania and other big developments have led to incredible swings for the the company’s share price.

GameStop’s stock climbed as high as $483 per share during the height of short-squeeze mania. While the stock briefly returned to trading in the range of $50 per share, it’s bounced back once again and traded at $201.75 at Thursday’s close. That price represents a 971% increase year to date and a 4,715% increase from the $4.19 share price the stock had one year ago.

Why is GameStop surging, and what comes next?

How did we get here?
The start of GameStop’s improbable, supercharged rally can be traced back to the introduction of Sony’s PlayStation 5 console and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Series S platforms in 2020. New console launches have historically led to a cyclical upcycle for GameStop’s business and stock performance.

Pricing momentum created by the new hardware launches was further intensified by news that activist investor and Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen was amassing a large stake in the company and would advocate for pushing the business toward an e-commerce focus.

From there, Reddit’s WallStreetBets group began championing the stock as a potential target for a huge short squeeze. Social media users noticed that enormous short interest had amassed against GameStop — and that a massive run for the stock could potentially be generated through a bit of favorable news and coordinated buying.

Prior to the first major short squeeze, GameStop had about 50 million shares of its stock outstanding. At the same time, roughly 70 million shares of the company’s stock had been sold short — meaning that investors had placed bets against more shares of the company’s stock than actually existed.

Short interest exceeding the company’s actual outstanding share count was made possible through a practice called naked short selling, which allows bets to be placed against shares that haven’t actually been borrowed. WallStreetBets members wound up being right about the squeeze, and GameStop bulls notched incredible gains as short-sellers were forced to buy back the stock at elevated levels in hopes of avoiding massive losses.

A combination of continued short-squeeze momentum and indications that the company would be aggressively pursuing its pivot to online retail have added new chapters to the story of GameStop’s incredible rally, and it currently stands as one of the best-performing stocks of the year. Cohen has been appointed chairman of a new committee to accelerate the business’s online retail push, a bounce for the stock has once again attracted new short interest, and the GameStop saga rages on.

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02/19/202105/13/2021

Article: Meet Patrick Byrne: Bitcoin Messiah, CEO of Overstock, Scourge of Wall Street

Article - Media, Publications, Uncategorized

Meet Patrick Byrne: Bitcoin Messiah, CEO of Overstock, Scourge of Wall Street

Cade Metz, WIRED, 18 February 2021

The problem with the modern economy, Byrne says, is that it rests on the whims of our government and our big banks, that each has the power to create money that’s backed by nothing but themselves. Thanks to what’s called fractional reserve banking, a bank can take in $10 in deposits, but then loan out $100. The government can make more dollars at any time, instantly reducing the currency’s value. Eventually, he says, laying down a classic libertarian metaphor, this “magic money tree” will come crashing down.

Continue reading “Article: Meet Patrick Byrne: Bitcoin Messiah, CEO of Overstock, Scourge of Wall Street”

02/11/2021

David K. Lifschultz: New Forms of [Wall Street] Treason?

Letter

Max Keiser does not really understand what the monetary expansion has to cover.

Central banks are transferring wealth from the average person to the likes of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos – RT’s Keiser Report

You have according to the BIS 600 trillion in derivatives against a 81 trillion dollar world GDP or a multiple of 7. The BIS coordinates only the banks so this figure does not include insurance company derivatives or others in private industry unless a bank is connected to the transaction so it is grossly understated. Some Swiss bankers tell me it is more like 1.2 quadrillion and others up to 2.5 quadrillion. 1.2 quadrillion gives you a multiple on the world GDP of 14 and 2.5 quadrillion a multiple of 30.

Continue reading “David K. Lifschultz: New Forms of [Wall Street] Treason?”

02/11/2021

Article: 15 Hedge Fund Managers Made $23 Billion In 2020

Article - Media

15 Hedge Fund Managers Made $23 Billion In 2020

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, 10 February 2021

The historic gains by a handful of Wall Street tians demonstrates “the disconnect between the stock market and the real economy,” said finance professor Reena Aggarwal, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Financial Markets & Policy. While high volatility and low interest rates buoyed hedge funds, much of the population struggled “with worries about health, jobs, mortgage payments and student loans,” she said.

Read full article.

02/11/2021

Graphic: Profiteering by Hedge Fund Titans

Graphic

Source

02/04/202103/04/2021

Article: The GameStop Saga Exposed the True State of our “Free” Marke

Administration, Economist

The GameStop Saga Exposed the True State of our “Free” Market

Last week was a crazy week for the markets, to say the least. The retail bros were back to troll Wall Street. But this time, their victims were some of the biggest names on Wall Street. Hedge Funders like Ken Griffin, Steve Cohen, and Point72 (Steven Cohen’s fund) alumnus Gabe Plotkin.

Then Chamath Palihapitiya joined the GameStop parade and promised to donate all of his profits to David Portnoy’s Barstool Small Business Fund created to support America’s small businesses affected by the Pandemic.

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02/03/202103/03/2021

Article: GameStop shares halve

Article - Media, Publications

GameStop shares halve

Shah Husain Imam, 03 February 2021

GameStop Corp shares more than halved in value on Tuesday and silver prices retreated as the Reddit-driven trading frenzy that roiled stock and commodity markets appeared to fizzle, at least for now.

The videogame retailer’s shares, whose wild gyrations have made or lost billions of dollars for hedge funds and other investors in recent weeks, closed down 60 per cent at $90. They are now worth less than a fifth of their high of $483 last week, reports Reuters. Continue reading “Article: GameStop shares halve”

01/29/202103/04/2021

Article: Billionaire Mets’ owner Steve Cohen and poster boy trader Dave Portnoy in fiery GameStop fight

Article - Media, Publications

Billionaire Mets’ owner Steve Cohen and poster boy trader Dave Portnoy in fiery GameStop fight

Sarah Sharples, 29 January 2021

An online stoush has erupted between the billionaire owner of baseball team The Mets and a day-trading poster boy surrounding the GameStop stock controversy. The war of words started when day trader Dave Portnoy blasted Steve Cohen, the hedge fund billionaire and Mets owner, about restrictions on trading apps including Robinhood, which are used by amateur investors.

GameStop, a brick-and-mortar video retailer, has seen its stock skyrockets after Reddit renegades set out to prevent Wall Street “fat cats” from making huge profits from it. Continue reading “Article: Billionaire Mets’ owner Steve Cohen and poster boy trader Dave Portnoy in fiery GameStop fight”

01/28/202103/04/2021

Article: Steve Cohen’s enormous GameStop losses are his own fault

Article - Media, Publications

Steve Cohen’s enormous GameStop losses are his own fault

DENNIS YOUNG, 28 January 2021

For Mets fans hoping for a hard reset under new owner Steve Cohen, one of the richest men ever to buy an American sports team, this offseason has been depressingly familiar.

The team hasn’t splurged on any major free agents or extended any of its own young talent. They had to fire the GM for being outed as a serial sexual harasser just a month after he was hired. And, most alarmingly for the Mets’ competitive fortunes, Cohen has quickly lost a ton of money on an ill-advised investment. Point72, the $19 billion hedge fund owned and operated by Steve Cohen, is down 15% this year, according to the New York Times. Continue reading “Article: Steve Cohen’s enormous GameStop losses are his own fault”