Investment managers on Wall Street are furious at what is being called the market's first populist uprising. Users of subreddit r/WallStreetBets are fighting back against the multi-billion dollar hedge funds by buying up GameStop stock after it was 'shorted' by hedge funds. The plan was for hedge funds to borrow shares of the company from other investors, quickly sell the shares at the current high price causing the price to fall, then buy them back at the lower price, they could return them to the original owners and pocket the difference as profit.

It didn't turn out that way. Users of the subreddit, many with modest trading accounts ranging from $500 to $2,500, realized that, if they all bought the shares as fast as the funds were dumping them, they could cause the price to go up, and turn the tables on the attack on GameStop and, temporarily, at least, make a profit from the rise in price of their newly purchased stock. This is called a "short squeeze" and it forced the hedge funds to buy GameStop stock to cover their contracts at higher price than they anticipated. The price spike (instead of drop) caught the attention of the larger market that led to an even greater buying spree, pushing the price into the stratosphere. One of the hedge funds, Melvin Capital Management, had to be bailed out for $2.75-billion in order to cover its contracts.

Stalwarts on Wall Street and in the financial media were upset by this action because, while they manipulate the market in this fashion all the time, they don't want other players to do the same. NASDAQ's Adena Friedman said that, in the future, trading on stocks would be halted if there was a match between "social media chatter" and "unusual" stock activity. A number of trading exchanges simply banned trades on GameStop. The Discord Internet server which hosts communications for subreddit r/WallStreetBets, was shut down supposedly for "hateful and discriminatory content". -GEG