Nuggies: šGameStop Special Editionš
Thursday, January 28th, 2020
Welcome toĀ the thirty-fourth edition ofĀ Nuggies, an email newsletter that aggregates articles and commentary on business, economics, startups, and more, in bite-sized nuggets sent right to your email weekly. Created by and for college students.
This week, weāre focusing on the recent volatility around WallStreetBets and GameStop. Itās a modern David v. Goliath and we are highlighting some of the best commentary around the community of three million degenerates.
Our quote of the week comes from famed economist John Maynard Keynes, ātheĀ markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solventā.
This Weekās Articles:
The Market is a MEME, Rebel Markets
Rebel markets does a great job of explaining the timeline of what happened from the original Citron Research short report to the ensuing short and gamma squeezes. It also offers a plain English explanation for a lot of the more complicated financial concepts.
Read it here
GameStop Is Just a Game, Matt Levine
Bloomberg opinion columnist Matt Levine is widely regarded as one of the most insightful voices on Wall Street. In this column, he speculates on the legality of WallStreetBets pumping markets as well as the legal framework the SEC may use.
Read it here
Bankrupt Blockbuster Joins Reddit-Inspired Retail Rally, Bloomberg
Thatās right: inspired by GameStopās miraculous rally, Blockbuster, along with other poor preforming stocks such as BlackBerry and AMC, has been on the run up. Driven by a desire to squeeze short sellers (who have bet against these stocks en large), retail traders, many members of the Reddit community WallStBets, have bid up the stock prices on these sort of stocks which have had huge short interest.
Read it here
How WallStreetBets Pushed GameStop Shares to the Moon, Bloomberg
This article is a longer form, more detailed and extensive look at what caused the GameStop rally, which in turn fueled rallies in other stocks with high short interest. It does a great job at breaking down and highlighting the culture of WallStreetBets, the community that is responsible for the run-up, and tells the story of how it all came together, and why GameStop.
Read it here
This Weekās Tweets:
This Weekās Wildcard (an extra, interesting nugget):
Check out these (real) returns from a WallStreetBets memberās GameStop trades:
This Weekās Question:
Is the rally in GameStop stock the bubble itself, or is it the pin that bursts the bubble?
What are we listening to this week?:
This week, weāre wishing a happy birthday to J. Cole by listening to the double-platinum-with-no-features magnum opus that is 2014 Forrest Hills Drives.
Thank you for reading!Ā NuggiesĀ is created by Thomas Pero and Spencer Koehl, two undergraduate students at the University of Notre Dame.
If this was forwarded to you, please subscribe here:
If you have any comments, feedback, or suggestions, please feel free to reach out to us atĀ tpero@nd.eduĀ andĀ skoehl@nd.edu, or on twitter, @tpero_ and @spencerkoehl
While this is a labor of love, if you would like to support our efforts please share this with friends and on social media.Ā