New York Times: Rewriting Wall Street’s Rulebook. “S.E.C.s Gary Gensler is expected to preview new market rules about a year after shares of GameStop and others shot up in ‘meme stock’ trading frenzy.”
New York Times: How Civil War History Explains Memestocks. “Over the past century and a half, finance in the United States has been characterized by an ebb and flow of who feels Wall Street is for them, who feels (or is) excluded. Understanding how we got where we are now is one way to demystify the Reddit-based investing revolution, which is powered by a conspiracy theory along with a deep resentment of the way real power and wealth seem so out of reach for most people these days.”
New York Times: Buy GameStop, Fight Injustice. Just Don’t Sell.. “The beliefs underpinning last year’s meme stock phenomenon are stronger than ever. For a large number of individual investors, the stock market has become the battleground on which they join forces to right perceived wrongs and fight the powerful. So much so that when the stock market seesawed this past week, many small investors were undeterred. Falling prices were another opportunity to buy more shares of their favorite companies.”
Business Insider: As the pandemic raged, at least 75 lawmakers bought and sold stock in companies that make COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and tests. “Dozens of Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill have invested in companies that have a direct stake in the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an Insider analysis of federal financial records.”
CNBC: Rand Paul’s wife bought shares in Covid treatment maker Gilead in early days of virus, the couple’s only individual stock purchase in years. “Republican Sen. Rand Paul and his wife had not bought or sold stock in an individual company in at least 10 years when Kelley Paul purchased shares of the drug company Gilead Sciences in early 2020. The purchase came early in the novel coronavirus’ initial wave through the United States — and one day after the first U.S. clinical trial began for Gilead’s remdesivir as a treatment for Covid-19, according to records reviewed by CNBC.”
Washington Post: Rand Paul discloses 16 months late that his wife bought stock in company behind covid treatment. “Sen. Rand Paul revealed Wednesday that his wife bought stock in Gilead Sciences — which makes an antiviral drug used to treat covid-19 — on Feb. 26, 2020, before the threat from the coronavirus was fully understood by the public and before it was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The disclosure, in a filing with the Senate, came 16 months after the 45-day reporting deadline set forth in the Stock Act, which is designed to combat insider trading.”
Markets Insider: Want to win big like Nancy Pelosi’s husband? A new website tracks what politicians and their families are trading. “Legislators have to report what securities they buy and sell, thanks to the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act – known as the STOCK Act. German company 2iQ’s Capitol Trades service, launched Monday, has brought together all of those filings in an enormous, free database that lets users see what politicians are trading and filter by asset class.”
Reuters: U.S. SEC sues California trader for alleged social media fraud scheme. “The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday it has charged a California-based trader for an alleged fraud scheme in which he spread false information about a defunct company on Twitter.”
Reuters: Bots hyped up GameStop on major social media platforms, analysis finds. “Bots on major social media platforms have been hyping up GameStop Corp and other ‘meme’ stocks, according to an analysis by Massachusetts-based cyber security company PiiQ Media, suggesting organized economic or foreign actors may have played a role in the Reddit-driven trading frenzy.”
Reuters: U.S. SEC suspends trading in 15 securities due to ‘questionable’ social media activity. “The U.S. securities regulator on Friday suspended trading in the securities of 15 companies because of ‘questionable trading and social media activity,’ the latest in a string of temporary trading halts amid volatile trading in so-called ‘meme stocks.’”
Bloomberg: A Battle for Control of WallStreetBets May Have Broken Out. “A fight appears to be brewing on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, and it’s not over which stock is the next GameStop Corp. Just weeks after the site was used to galvanize an epic short squeeze in shares of the video-game retailer, forcing the real Wall Street to reckon with the power of a united front of traders, signs of dissent are cropping up around the 8.5 million-member stock message board.”
The Verge: Senate to hold hearing on the stock market after Reddit GameStop squeeze. “Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the incoming chair of the Senate Banking Committee, announced Thursday that he plans to hold a hearing on the ‘current state of the stock market’ in the wake of unprecedented volatility around GameStop, AMC, and other stocks.”
CNET: AMC, GameStop stock are on a Reddit-fueled roller coaster. Why, and what happens next. “Over the past few months, a bunch of Reddit users have worked to push up the value of shares for video game retailer GameStop, despite Wall Street investors betting the company will fail. In the process, they sent the stock up more than 14,300% (you read that right), with some wild fluctuations. Then they started spreading their strategy to struggling movie chain AMC, too. In their wake, these online market players have upended Wall Street, creating a drama filled with memes, app trading disasters and weird internet lingo as big-time investors have lost billions of dollars.”
Salon: David Perdue bought Pfizer stock — a week before company said it would develop a vaccine. “Sen. David Perdue, one of two multimillionaire Georgia Republicans facing tight runoff elections in January, drew scrutiny this spring for stock transactions made in the weeks ahead of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., while he was receiving privileged briefings on the impending pandemic.”
Eyes on the Ties: Five Ways to Research Your University’s Fossil Fuel (and Other) Investments. “For student organizers building fossil fuel divestment campaigns on their campuses, a first step is finding out what exactly your university is invested in. This information is sometimes hard to discover – indeed, many university investments are undisclosed and shrouded in mystery. But the good news is that you can usually dig up findings on university investments – including those made directly by universities and by private university-affiliated organizations that invest endowments – by using just a few research tactics.”
