The heavy hitters in traditional finance have been concerned about the recent stock market action fueled by Redditors and a colossal number of retail investors. This week a Goldman Sachs executive warned that if these short squeezes continue it could “snowball through the market.” Moreover, Interactive Brokers founder Thomas Peterffy made similar comments this week saying these types of systemic risk can “take down the entire system, theoretically.”
Wallstreetbets Trend Could ‘Snowball Through the Market’
2021 has been an interesting year so far and this week a Reddit forum called r/wallstreetbets sparked a whole new hot topic. Four days ago, news.Bitcoin.com reported on the stock market fiasco that started with short squeezing Gamestop (GME) shares. But GME shares were not the only stocks that felt the push as the wallstreetbets (WSB) trend started leaking into a number of other types of shares.
For instance, stocks from the Russell 3000 Index (RUA) were targeted including tickers like NOK, GOGO, AMCX, and FIZZ. The social media craze even leaked into the cryptocurrency world pushing up coins like dogecoin and XRP as well. Estimates assume that short-sellers have lost “$70.87 billion from their short positions,” according to statistics from the financial data analytics firm Ortex.
An analysis from Zerohedge discloses that Melvin Capital lost a whopping $7 billion during the month of 2021. “Melvin Capital lost 53% in January, as Gabe Plotkin (a former SAC Portfolio Manager), lost over $5.3 billion in one
