CLEVELAND — It's a war between retail investors and hedge fund investors: Amovement where inexperienced investors hope to take on Wall Street. Their goal is to cause hedge fund investors to lose billions of dollars.
"A bunch of regular people got together and decided, 'Hey, it's our turn,'" said Eric Wall, a Cleveland man who owns stock in GameStop.
Those regular people are everyday online investors who were upset that investment companies placed bets that shares at GameStop would fall.
"They have a social platform called Reddit. And Reddit is a discussion forum on any topic you want and there happens to be one on stocks, and it's called wallstreetbets. So, he began a forum with all these people all with the same interest and said, 'Hey, let's start buying some of these nostalgic stocks like GameStop, Build-a-Bear, AMC, Blackberry and hedge against the hedge fund guys,'" said Kathleen Richards, one of the board of directors for Better Investing of Northeast Ohio.
That Reddit forum took a life of its own turning into a movement of sorts.
"The movement right now is kind of to, really, it's a second Occupy Wall Street is the way I'm looking at it. It's the way to strike back at these people who seemingly have no mercy for people like me who grew up dirt poor," said Wall.
On social media, "Do Not Sell", "Eat the Rich", and "GameStop" are all trending in support of the movement. Retail investors, and supporters in general, are urging GameStop stock owners to hold on to their shares and not let Wall Street scare them into selling. Eric Wall supports the movement buying shares when they were still around $35 and he said he's not selling his anytime soon.
"Now, it's just to make a statement. It's to tell these people that they don't run the world. That they don't get to do this without consequence. We are hitting them where it obviously hurts them the most: Their wallets," said Wall.
But what does this mean for Wall Street? Stock apps like Robinhood and AmeriTrade are no longer letting customers buy shares of GameStop.
"It's called the Security and Exchange Commission. The SEC. They're the top cops in the government to protect us as investors. Well, they're closely monitoring this situation to look for this high volatility and potential manipulation. They've never had this before. It's a brand new phenomenon. Meanwhile Robinhood stopped the purchase of stock for GameStop today and I understand TD AmeriTrade did. They on their own did (and) said we kind of need to pull the plug, and we have the pull the plug kind of symbols that happen when whenever the market gets out of control. They just kind of shut down Wall Street," said Richards.
Throughout the day, price of shares for GameStop have fluctuated. At one point, it was nearly $450 per share. On the same day, it fell to $240.
"What goes up must come down. It's not going to stay up forever," said Richards.