The Chamber’s Financial Services Committee will hold a virtual hearing on February 18 as part of its investigation into the effort coordinated by the Reddit stock trading community to raise the price of GameStop shares as a thumbs up for hedge fund managers.
The list of witnesses includes some of the key players involved in The GameStonks saga, including Robinhood co-CEO Vlad Tenev, Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman, Melvin Capital CEO Gabriel Plotkin and Keith Gill (aka Roaring Kitty), a Reddit user and YouTuber who helped trigger the buying frenzy, per a press release on Friday from the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters. Additional witnesses may be named, according to the press release.
Last month, small investors in the WallStreetBets subreddit teamed up to partially buy GameStop shares to screw up hedge funds that made significant bets against the besieged game retailer. Their plan worked and the value of the GameStop stock worked flown by at least 500% while short sellers like Melvin he bled billions in estimated losses. Conformable New York Times, Gill played a central role in launching the campaign through frequent tweeting and making videos about his investment in GameStop shares. At one point, his an initial investment of $ 53,000 in 2019 worth about $ 48 million.
Gill and his fellow Reddit users gathered on Robinhood’s free online trading platform to buy GameStop shares before turning their attention to other WallStreetBets-favored sales companies. Robinhood looked down more processes and allegations of manipulating the stock market after it suddenly blocked users from buying so-called “YOLO shares” during the height of the stock market-fueled stock market frenzy.
In January, Waters said the hearing in Parliament will “examine recent work on GameStop (GME) and other affected actions, focusing on short selling, online trading platforms, gamification and their systemic impact on our capital markets and retail investors ”.
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The Senate Committee on Banks has he also announced plans to hold a hearing “on the current state of the stock market” following the GameStonks saga. You can hear the House live on its website starting at 12 pm ET on February 18.