- Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy said he lost $ 700,000 on ‘meme shares’ like GameStop.
- Portnoy tweeted that the CEO of the trading app Robinhood “stole it from me and should be put in jail.”
- Portnoy’s tweet comes as the stock market continues a frenzy kicked off by a group of Redditors.
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Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy said he lost about $ 700,000 on ‘meme shares’ like GameStop.
Portnoy tweeted on Tuesday that he was officially selling all the shares he bought and reprimanded the trading platform Robinhood and its CEO, Vlad Tenev, for allowing users to buy on the volatile shares in the first place.
“Vlad and the company stole it from me and have to go to jail,” Portnoy tweeted.
—Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) 2 February 2021
Portnoy’s losses come on the heels of a stock market frenzy by a group of people on Reddit who jointly bought shares, such as GameStop, which increased the shares of the companies in the process. Many people have traded apps like Robinhood to participate in the rally. As a result, Robinhood saw a surge of new members and users had to be forced to buy shares of GameStop, AMC and others to meet ‘financial requirements’.
Read more: Robinhood user initiates class action lawsuit against trading program hours after blocking GameStop purchase
Many of the app’s users, as well as lawmakers like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Robinhood have allowed trading to resume for stocks like GameStop. However, it added restrictions on the trading of 50 shares, including GameStop. Robinhood is currently limiting the number of GameStop shares users can buy at 20.
Robinhood has so far raised more than $ 3 billion in emergency investments to compensate for the boom in trading on its platform. Tenev defended the company’s decision to suspend trading of certain shares initially, saying Robinhood does not struggle with liquidity issues.
Read more: GameStop has risen more than 600% in the past week. Three experts are breaking up where the stock could go from here, as Reddit’s army of traders make profits and look for their next targets.
And Tenev, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a Sunday interview that Robinhood was forced to restrict trade for users because the increase in use required the National Securities Clearing Corporation to make a $ 3 billion deposit to ask after the shares in question have started to increase.