It has certainly been an interesting few weeks heading into 2021 with some big changes announced and expected throughout the year – announcements by entertainment giants in streaming could see the larger cinema and theatre industry experience its own struggles as titles previously set to release directly cinema will now have to compete with video on demand, the successes found in other online entertainment spaces as esports has taken off alongside a supportive betting market with growing players to bet with as you can at cs-go betting, and that’s just within a few months of the year but it has all been a steady build up and expected to come.
Something more immediate has bene the crusade emerging against Wall Street, as a growing community on the popular site Reddit, on the subreddit wallstreetbets have in some way declared war against wall street, and a particular hedge fund. Short-selling has been something used within wall street for a long time, and so when this community decided to fight back by rising a stock price, it caused a lot of change to happen, none more than the platforms that many use to trade who for many believed were operating on neutral ground, or even at times in their own interests, as platforms that promoted open trading.
During this attempt to, what can only be described on both sides as manipulate the stocks, Robinhood amongst many of the other big trading apps started to restrict buy orders on certain stocks, notably those stocks that were being actively used to work against wall street. As expected, this caused an immediate outcry from not only the users, but all those monitoring the situation and it had shown a clear conflict of interest, and when it had later been announced that the parent company, Citadel, was directly supporting these hedge funds, things got much worse as many class action lawsuits started to appear.
Although there has been some change and these trading platforms are now starting to allow buys once again, although in limited quantities, and others made statements publicly addressing why the change was made and how it was regarding stock availability rather than protection, but the immediate action to cancel buy orders and prevent future buys will have a longer reaching impact even with this understand, and the many trading apps that had been used as a tool to cause the uncertainty, may be one of the bigger casualties of this whole event as the users abandon them and instead move against them for the actions throughout the past week.
