Article: Melvin Capital Is Facing Nine Lawsuits Related to the GameStop Frenzy

Article - Media, Publications

Melvin Capital Is Facing Nine Lawsuits Related to the GameStop Frenzy

Michelle Celarier, Institutional Investor, 22 March 2021

Gabriel Plotkin’s Melvin Capital, the hedge fund at the center of the GameStop trading frenzy in January, is a defendant in nine lawsuits by retail investors alleging a conspiracy to limit trading that caused them to lose money.

The hedge fund revealed the existence of the lawsuits in its annual ADV filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Melvin was famously short GameStop and lost more than 50 percent during January following a short squeeze orchestrated by a Reddit forum called WallStreetBets, whose members included retail investors in GameStop. As the stock soared, various online brokerages catering to those investors, including Robinhood, restricted buying shares of GameStop, among other stocks heavily shorted by Melvin.

Article: Biggest Players In The Short-Selling Game Are Getting A Pass

Article - Media, Publications

Biggest Players In The Short-Selling Game Are Getting A Pass

ERIK SCHATZKER, BRANDON KOCHKODIN, 10 March 2021

It’s in the air again, on Reddit, in Congress, in the C-suite: Hedge funds that get rich off short-selling are the enemy. The odd thing is, the biggest players in the game are getting a pass.

Those would be the asset managers, pension plans and sovereign wealth funds that provide the vast majority of securities used to take bearish positions. Without the likes of BlackRock Inc. and State Street Corp., the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the Kuwait Investment Authority filling such an elemental role, investors such as Gabe Plotkin, whose Melvin Capital Management became a piñata for day traders in the GameStop Corp. saga, wouldn’t have shares to sell short.

“Anytime we short a stock, we locate a borrow,” Plotkin said Feb. 18 at the House Financial Services Committee hearing on the GameStop short squeeze.

“Anytime we short a stock, we locate a borrow,” Plotkin said Feb. 18 at the House Financial Services Committee hearing on the GameStop short squeeze.

There’s plenty to choose from. As of mid-2020, some $24 trillion of stocks and bonds were available for such borrowing, with $1.2 trillion in shares—equal to a third of all hedge-fund assets—actually out on loan, according to the International Securities Lending Association.

It’s a situation that on the surface defies logic. Given the popular belief that short sellers create unjustified losses in some stocks, why would shareholders want to supply the ammunition for attacks against their investments? The explanation is fairly straight forward: By loaning out securities for a small fee plus interest, they can generate extra income that boosts returns. That’s key in an industry where fund managers are paid to beat benchmarks and especially valuable in a world of low yields.

The trade-off is simple: For investors with large, diversified portfolios, a single stock plummeting under the weight of a short-selling campaign has little impact over the long run. And in the nearer term, the greater the number of aggregate bets against a stock—the so-called short interest—the higher the fee a lender can charge.

Read Full Article

Article: Hedge fund manager Plotkin’s GameStop short, dissected

Article - Media, Publications

Hedge fund manager Plotkin’s GameStop short, dissected

Hedge fund manager Gabriel Plotkin first bet against the future of GameStop Corp in 2014 when it traded around US$40. But after a harrowing experience with short sellers in recent weeks, he’s wary about holding big short positions again.

BOSTON: Hedge fund manager Gabriel Plotkin first bet against the future of GameStop Corp in 2014 when it traded around US$40. But after a harrowing experience with short sellers in recent weeks, he’s wary about holding big short positions again.

Read Full Article

Article: Watch Live: GameStop Hearing On Market Manipulation

Article - Media, Publications

Watch Live: GameStop Hearing On Market Manipulation

Jonathan Ponciano,  18 February 2021

A Congressional hearing into the GameStop mania that triggered the largest weekly selloff since late October is underway, with some of the key players in the saga—billionaire Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin, Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev, Reddit Cofounder Steve Huffman and the 34-year-old securities broker behind the Roaring Kitty online persona—all set to testify.

Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-Mo.) kicked off the hearing by asking Tenev whether he misled investors on January 28 when he denied that Robinhood had a liquidity problem despite raising more than $3 billion in the following days to meet reserve requirements from the Securities & Exchange Commission. Continue reading “Article: Watch Live: GameStop Hearing On Market Manipulation”

Article: Here’s what to expect at the congressional hearings on GameStop and Robinhood

Article - Media

Here’s what to expect at the congressional hearings on GameStop and Robinhood

Scum sucking sack of shit lawmakers will seek to make headlines, not legislation — and all the witnesses are probably RICO eligible!

Chris Matthews, MarketWatch, 16 February 2021

Executives at Robinhood, market maker Citadel Securities, hedge fund Melvin Capital, social media firm Reddit, and Keith Gill, an independent investor who found fame and riches with his early purchases of GameStop Inc. GME, -5.52% shares, will all testify at the hearing, scheduled for noon on Thursday. Here’s what to expect:

Read full article.

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.

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.

Read Full Article

THE DOLLAR HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE : DO YOUR ASSETS?