https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/01/bare-knuckle-brawl-over-gamestop-pits-americas-elites-vs-deplorables/
Only someone living under a rock hasn’t heard about the GameStop stock market shorting scandal. While the mechanics of the stock market battle are interesting, they’re nothing new. What’s new is this: The battle this time is being waged by Deplorable America vs. Elite America. And Elite America isn’t at all happy about it.
It’s well known that the stock market isn’t controlled by small investors, but by massive financial institutions. Recent data show that mutual funds, pension funds, hedge funds, Wall Street investment banks, public pensions and the like control more than 80% of all shares traded. They are always the elephant in the room.
The little guys with trading portfolios of less than $100,000 or so, often operating online at lightning speed on no-commission trading sites – such as Robinhood – have a small piece of all the trading. They win only by exploiting cracks in a system dominated by big firms.
Which makes it all the more amazing that they were able to take out a major hedge fund with a short position in GameStop, a troubled chain of computer gaming stores that still has a big following on Reddit.
First, in case you don’t know what “shorting” a stock is, it’s basically borrowing a number of shares of a given stock to sell at the current price. The borrower sells the shares, then promises to pay back the lender the same number of shares at a later date.