OK, I’ll admit it. Until last week I had not heard of Gamestop – the company or the stock.
Of course, I have now heard of Gamestop and more including Reddit, wallstreetbets, Webull and Keith Gill (Keith Gill was called the “Original O.G.” by one trader*). And as a financial professional I am knowledgeable about what short-selling is and how “the shorts”, as they call traders who sell short stocks and other securities, can get “squeezed”. Gamestop brought shorts, short-selling and short squeezes to an entirely new level.
As Brett Danko, the founder of my firm, recently described it, “the Gamestop incident of last week transcended the world of stock trading… both for major institutional traders and individual traders”. Keith Gill and the individuals trading off chat board messages transcended stock trading similar to how Michael Jordan transcended the sport of basketball and even Muhamad Ali transcended the sport of boxing. These people and events became larger than real life – for a time.
