Who invests in GameStop, the Wall Street stock shock?

For some, it was the desire to make money. For others, it was fear of missing out, anger over elite or idle curiosity about what was possible in a world where it is increasingly difficult to tell internet jokes from real life.

United by these diverse motives, a legion of individual investors – along with a mighty Wall Street whale – made GameStop, a money-losing retailer for video games, the hottest stock in centuries. After rising more than 1,000% since the beginning of the year, its shares rose 68% to $ 325 on Friday, leaving the company with more than $ 22 billion on paper.

The strong rise of GameStop was extremely costly for the hedge funds that cut its stock short, betting that a brick-and-mortar chain would never recover from the one-two-series COVID-19 restrictions and a long-term shift to – trade. It was a historic windfall for those who saw an opportunity in the short term to squeeze the hedge funds, force them to buy shares at increased prices, and use online forums like RedStit’s WallStreetBets to coordinate their coordinates and each other to encourage.

What the success of their effort personally or for the financial system means, whether it was a one-time trick or the start of something bigger, whether the money was cherry on the cake or a lifeline – it all depends on which one they ask for you.

For Ryan Zamo, an entrepreneur from Pasadena, buying GameStop had something to do with money he did not need in the first place.

Zamo (31) owns two companies, an organic skin care business and a television and digital production business. He has been trading stocks for five years and uses a Robinhood account for what he calls his YOLO (you only live once) bets. “Do not open an account unless you have money to lose,” he says.

Zamo reads about investing in GameStop via the WallStreetBets Reddit forum. His initial investment of about $ 40,000 is now worth about $ 80,000, he said. A $ 1,000 stake in BlackBerry, whose shares also rose due to related activities, is now worth about $ 18,000. He plans to reinvest the profits in shares.

He is scolded by accusations that people like him are engaging in illegal market manipulation or out to keep it to anyone.

“We have no mission to burn down Wall Street,” he said.

Whoever the ‘us’ is, that does not include John Motter.

“My goal is not to get rich on this, my goal is to bankrupt these billionaires,” said Motter, 33, who has never bought a share in his life before taking a larger sum of money. than he received from the federal government. coronavirus “voice” check and throw it in GameStop this week. “I would buy magic beans on the street from a stranger if he said they had the potential to ruin a billionaire’s life.”

After buying the shares, Motter, a community organizer in Los Angeles who is currently unemployed, dressed in a jacket and tie, poured a little dish and filmed a video to joke to TikTok that he was a capitalist would be.

He took his inspiration from the WallStreetBets forum, which he calls a ‘phenomenal’ example of mass organization. He plans to ‘keep the line’ and refuses to sell his shares until next week, even if it means losing everything. “I do not believe in making money, so I do not feel comfortable getting rich from it,” he said. “A lot of people are really angry, and no one is forgotten in 2008.”

For Christopher Wehkamp, ​​the chance to put the hurt on Wall Street titans was part of the appeal.

“Even beyond the profit motive, there was definitely a motive to give many of the billionaires something that came to them – I loved the idea,” said Wehkamp, ​​41, a Dallas voice actor. “As someone who went through the 2008 crash and the 2020 pandemic, it looks like it’s been a long time coming.”

Wehkamp got GameStop on Twitter and visited WallStreetBets on Reddit to find out more. He called it ‘three-digit investment’, which is now worth ‘four digits’.

“I definitely like it,” said Wehkamp, ​​who usually invests in more conservative assets, such as mutual funds. “I do not really know if I will make any money from this, but I like the idea of ​​bankrupting some hedge funds – it would be fantastic.”

Initial investor Sriram Krishnan, an adviser to the meditation software industry Calm, was also interested in GameStop after watching it take over its Twitter timeline. He feels the attraction “to be part of the spirit of the times” and buys a small amount of GameStop shares on Tuesday for $ 90.

Krishnan, 36, who lives in San Francisco, quickly downloaded the shares and told himself “this is not what I do.” He sells for $ 85 commented on Twitter that he is probably the “only person in [the] world that lost money on GME. ”

Then the former Tinder and Spotify employee had a second set of thoughts. When he saw it rise again, he invested the same amount at $ 120. He now also sold the bulk of the share, but stuck to a portion for emotional reasons.

“I hold on to being in solidarity with others,” he said. “It’s something I do not usually do – public market investments – but it feels good to invest in something with hundreds of thousands of other people.”

“The information asymmetry on which hedge funds and other institutional investors relied is no longer the case,” he added. “Retail investors can move markets.”

Ricky, an investor in cryptocurrency and real estate in the northeastern United States, sees the GameStop saga in similar terms. On the advice of his lawyer, he asked that his real name be withheld.

He was active on the WallStreetBets forum five months ago and bought GameStop shares because he believed it was undervalued and that he saw an opportunity to take advantage of hedge funds stacked on the short bets. “We were hoping for a push, but I don’t think any of us expected it to take off like that,” he said. “It really became a snowball and a movement. All week I ride my stationary bike with my laptop attached because the adrenaline is so intense that I have to burn it to stop it from shaking. ”

Ricky, who is in his mid – 20s, sold a number of his GameStop assets last week, which were “enough to no longer have to work this year.” But he retains a long position, even though he knows that an accident is inevitable. “Honestly, it’s a fraternity now. And I trust the brotherhood. Also, BlackRock just bought a massive position this week. ”

Among those hoping that GameStop has still not found its top is Issac Mooring II. A college soccer coach in Houston, Mooring, bought a portion of the company’s stock last year when Madden NFL 21, a video game over which his four sons were fired, came out in August but was sold shortly thereafter. “I regret it 1,000%,” he said.

He tried to buy back on Thursday, but could not, because Robinhood froze the trade, and eventually managed to take up some shares. “I hope to catch a wave where it grows, and if I see it lose traction, I will sell,” he said. “I’m a family man, and I have a personal interest in doing as much as possible to build my family’s future.”

For Julie Fredrickson, a founder and investor in Boulder, Colo., GameStop is a symbol not of the David-and-Goliath struggle of people against big money, but of the way technology is changing the pace of change. unpredictable acceleration. manners. She and her husband, Alex Miller, bought one share on Wednesday, when it cost $ 327 ‘just for fun’, after following the drama about it on Twitter and Reddit.

At the end of trading on Friday, they were $ 2 less on their investment. But the same market forces were friendlier with another bet they placed a few days earlier, with a rise in the VIX, an index of market volatility.

“We bought it last Friday, with the expectation that it will increase over the next 30 to 45 days due to possible interruptions from the more viral COVID strains that are coming,” she said. “We did not expect it to increase the number of rescue trolls this week. But [it] was such a good show that we finally sold the position to make a profit of 40%. ”

Even financial professionals can not say where GameStop’s wild ride will end. But to predict that more chaos is going on on the internet? Lately, it’s been a bet that never seems to happen.

Times staff writers Jeff Bercovici and Andrea Chang contributed to this report.