The trailer for one of the numerous movies telling the story of the GameStop short squeeze of 2021 that led to a group of hedge funds losing out on their infallible plan of shorting their stocks and therefore owing billions of dollars to the banks.
This is of course huge news for men who have posters of Leonardo diCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street on their ceilings. If these events escaped your notice, I wouldn't begrudge you, as it felt like this twisty-turny story grew and grew like an out of control vine, and eventually the United States government stepped into the ring to understand how this could have all happened.
Capitalism is the short answer. The long answer is that a group of hedge funds gloated online that they could short their GameStop stocks as their value dwindled as a result of the pandemic's effect on brick and mortar businesses. WallStreetBets, a subreddit that does precisely what it says on the tin, spotted this and bought up as much of GameStop's stock as was possible. The value surged, shooting down the hedge funds' intentions, and causing them to shell out millions and even billions to buy their stocks back to avoid bankruptcy.
Titled GameStop: Rise to the Players, I'll let the trailer do the rest of the talking:
The major problem with WallStreetBets' impact on the stock market is that no one is allowed to do that. Aside from Wall Street itself. "American workers have known for years the Wall Street system is broken - they've been paying the price," said Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown at the time. Alternatively, the Securities and Exchange Commission pledged to "act to protect retail investors when the facts demonstrate abusive or manipulative trading activity that is prohibited by the federal securities laws" and "protect investors and to identify and pursue potential wrongdoing."
Directed by Jonah Tulis, GameStop: Rise to the Players will premiere in theatres on January 28th. Netflix is also working on an adaptation of these events starring Noah Centineo and written by Mark Boal, and an adaptation of Ben Mezrich's book proposal The Antisocial Network is coming from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Featured Image Credit: Paramount Pictures, GoogleTopics: Real Life