In 2021, retail investors bet big on so-called “meme stocks,” with the goal of making money and upending power dynamics on Wall Street. The odds are still stacked in favor of professional investors.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Meme stocks are getting the Hollywood treatment. The new movie “Dumb Money” is about the GameStop craze in 2021 when amateur traders banded together on the social media site Reddit to give professional investors a run for their money. As NPR’s David Gura reports, the meme stock phenomenon lives on.
DAVID GURA, BYLINE: It’s a remarkable David and Goliath story that played out in the middle of the pandemic.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “DUMB MONEY”)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: When Wall Street rigged the system…
SETH ROGEN: (As Gabe Plotkin) Stupidest people on earth.
VINCENT D’ONOFRIO: (As Steve Cohen) Dumb money, man.
ROGEN: (As Gabe Plotkin) Happy to take it.
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: …These ordinary people risked it all.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) GameStop?
GURA: Two and a half years ago, the video game retailer GameStop was floundering, and hedge funds were betting it would continue to flounder when members of this finance-focused Reddit community called r/wallstreetbets decided to do something about it. They piled into GameStop stock. They drove up its price, and that made it very painful for those professional investors who wagered it would tank. Sean Kumar says he considers that frenzied period a defining moment in his life.
SEAN KUMAR: It was a very stressful but a very exciting time.
GURA: It was also a unique time which led many pundits to suggest the GameStop craze would be a one-off. People were stuck at home during a global pandemic with time on their hands. Kumar was a college student waiting for his final semester to start online. He’d followed the r/wallstreetbets message board since high school, and the uptick in chatter about GameStop caught his attention. He bought video games there when he…
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