‘This is the way’: the Reddit traders who took on Wall Street’s elite
Millions of ordinary people have plunged into markets over the past year, many without any formal training, adding fuel to a rally and gatecrashing a community that for nearly two decades has been dominated by big asset managers, pension funds and hedge funds.
Eric Platt, Colby Smith, Madison Darbyshire, Alice Kantor and Robin Wigglesworth
New York/London/Oslo | Michael Frawley had already been dabbling in financial derivatives for a few months when he joined a raucous, profane trade-tipping internet forum last year. Reddit’s WallStreetBets would prove the gateway into the 25-year-old Ohio engineer’s wildest ever bet.
GameStop is a struggling bricks-and-mortar video game retailer in a world that is rapidly moving online. The stock had been languishing for six years, and many hedge funds were betting on a terminal decline.
