India’s day traders try the GameStop Corp. ride that takes the stock markets by storm.
The videogame retailer was among the five most traded names in the past week Stockal, a platform for Indian retail investors to trade US equities. GameStop accounted for about 15% of all operations on the platform, Sitashwa Srivastava, co-founder and co-CEO, said in an interview.
“We did not expect Indians to be on Reddit, and to read about GameStop,” Srivastava said. Unlike many of their WallstreetBets counterparts with options, Indian traders are not allowed to take leverage while trading foreign stocks. “It’s all about cash.”
GameStop has exploded on trading screens with a share of more than 1,700% this year. Driven by forum forums and Elon Musk’s “Gamestonk !!” tweet, it surprises professionals and printed shorts at large hedge funds.
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As in other markets, with more Indians living indoors since the pandemic, many flocked to the stock markets at home and abroad, leading to an increase in retail investment. According to Stockal, their favorites in the United States were Tesla Inc. and Apple Inc., with Covid-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna Inc. and the Chinese electric vehicle company Nio Inc. which has increased the rankings in recent months.
By Winvesta, another platform aimed at Indian investors, has reduced exposure to FAANG shares in client portfolios to an average of 13%, from 18% in October, Swastik Nigam said.
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In China, GameStop and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. most US traded names on Wednesday on a trading app from Futu Holdings Ltd. in Shenzhen, which serves individual investors in China and Hong Kong.
‘Real skin’
Dipe Chatterjee, a marketing consultant in Mumbai, has been buying GameStop and Tesla for the past few months, making a 150% return on his $ 1,000 investment in the game retailer earlier this week before making a quick profit.
“It’s a game with real skin in it,” he said.
Reddit’s WallStreetBets Forum Earlier briefly shut himself off amid an increase in new entrants. The site gathered more than 3 million members when day traders plugged companies led by GameStop.
– With the help of Nupur Acharya and Moxy Ying
(Add comments from Winvesta’s CEO in the sixth paragraph.)