(Reuters) – The YouTube streamer known as Roaring Kitty, who helped drive an increase in interest in GameStop Corp, will testify in front of a House panel on Thursday with the best hedge fund managers.
The House Financial Services Committee is investigating how an apparent flood of retail trade drove GameStop and other stocks to extreme highs, pushing hedge funds like Melvin Capital who bet against it.
The list of witnesses was announced Friday by Congresswoman Maxine Waters and includes Keith Gill, who is also represented by Roaring Kitty, Vladhood’s CEO of Robinhood, Kenneth Griffin, CEO of Citadel, Melvin’s CEO, Gabriel Plotkin, and Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO, has been announced.
The virtual trial, titled “Game Stopped? Whoever wins and loses when short sellers, social media and retail investors clash will, according to the press release, take place on February 18 at 1200 ET (1700 GMT). Here the livestream is presented here. Waters, a Democrat, is chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services.
“We are working with the House Financial Services Committee and plan to testify,” Reddit’s Huffman said in an email. Representatives of Melvin, Citadel and Robinhood did not respond to requests for comment. Gill could not be reached for comment.
Robinhood, Reddit, Melvin and Citadel were at the center of the GameStop saga, in which retailers promoted GameStop on the RedStit forum WallStreetBets. Robinhood has emerged as a popular place to trade stocks, but has been criticized for temporarily restricting trading in the hot stocks.
The boom in GameStop led to huge losses for Melvin, after the hedge fund bet the retailer’s share price would tumble. Citadel’s hedge funds, along with founder Griffin and regular partners, have poured $ 2 billion into Melvin.
Democrats and Republicans are united in their outrage over Robinhood’s decision to halt trading in the so-called “meme shares” on January 28. Tenev said the company had to impose the restrictions after wild trading in the stock resulted in a $ 3 billion margin call through Robinhood’s clearing house, which strained the company’s balance sheet.
Security regulators in Massachusetts also issued a subpoena requesting Gill’s testimony.
Reporting by Michelle Price and Megan Davies, additional reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss and John McCrank; Edited by Sonya Hepinstall and Daniel Wallis