1. GameStop: A Morality Play Or A Societal Clusterf*ck
A half-forgotten and unprofitable videogame retailer is bizarrely on the lips of the nation, because the GameStop story touches on economic and cultural forces that affect everyone, whether they own any stock or not.
A half-forgotten and unprofitable videogame retailer is bizarrely on the lips of the nation, because the GameStop story touches on economic and cultural forces that affect everyone, whether they own any stock or not.
2. In most Wall Street fights, the broader public doesn't have a rooting interest. This one — where a group of small traders won a multibillion-dollar bet against giant hedge funds — is different.
3. The core GameStop story is a simple morality tale. A scrappy and happy band of Wall Street outsiders, armed with little more than moxie and their stimulus checks, have not only made millions for themselves, but have also humbled big-name fund managers.
4. The Reddit slogan "putting the FU in fundamentals" is perfectly calibrated to enrage investors who purport to care about things like valuation and price discovery. There's nothing worse than losing a game to people who aren't even taking it seriously.
5. The conspiracy to bid up GameStop stock took place in broad daylight, enraging old-time traders with a tendency to go on unhinged Twitter rants about "market manipulation." (They never complained when Jim Cramer was doing it.)
6. There's a highly complex financial system underlying the GameStop rally, involving discount brokerages, payment for order flow, short sales, margin calls, delta hedging of call options, and much else.
7. Lots of people bear longstanding grudges against some or all of that system, and are taking this opportunity to shout loudly about how the GameStop story proves that they're right about... something. (Spoiler alert: 99% of the time, they are not.)
8. GameStop stock has risen in direct proportion to the number of people paying attention to it. It went viral in much the same way that a white-and-gold dress does.
9. The GameStop story was born on Reddit, cultured on YouTube, popularized on TikTok and Twitter. Like any internet joke, the longer it lasts, the funnier it becomes — and the more attractive it becomes to meme lords.
10. If you want to know what's really going on with GameStop, the place you need to be is Reddit's wallstreetbets channel, not CNBC. Both are cacophonous and confusing. On some level, they are competitors — and for now, Reddit is winning the relevance wars.
11. Now that Trump is no longer taking up a permanent position in news consumers' brains, other parts of the news cycle expand to fill the space available. Quite literally: CNBC expanded its programming by an extra hour, thanks to all the demand for GameStop-related content.
12. Whatever your interests, there's something in this story to nab your attention. Grab the popcorn, it's not over yet.
The End
The End
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