GameStop

ASX finishes at record high, The Reject Shop downgrades, energy leads the week The ASX200 (ASX: XJO) broke 7,300 points for the first time, ultimately finishing up 0.5% on Friday and 1.6% for the week; three consecutive records. On Friday it was 4X4 parts supplier ARB Corporation Limited (ASX: ARB) and Origin Energy (ASX: ORG) leading the way, jumping 6.3% and…

Goldman Sachs this week released its latest crossover report, which seeks to identify the “most loved” and “unloved” stocks in the US. The report reviews the quarterly reports of some 507 US mutual (or “managed”) funds, representing US$2.7 trillion ($3.4 trillion) in assets under management, and compares these to the reports of 820 hedge funds,…

There has been a lot written about the GameStop saga in the last few weeks. I want to discuss the medium-term market impacts rather than moralising about who is right and wrong. While I doubt it marks the top of the current market, there are some concerning signs. Quick background  The wallstreetbets forum on Reddit spawned several short…

Last week, Beijing based short-selling activist firm J Capital launched a scathing report on Australian aerial imagery technology firm (and small cap darling) Nearmap (ASX: NEA), in the hope that it would trigger a sell-off so that it could profit handsomely from short positions in the company. The report titled “Afraid to Admit Failure” attacked…

“Am I worried about asset prices rising too quickly? At the moment, I don’t see anything that’s unsustainable”. That was RBA Governor Philip Lowe earlier this month, responding to a Parliamentary Committee’s intense questioning. The questions came after the RBA decided to double the QE (quantitative easing) program that just 18 months ago it suggested…

Unless you have well and truly been hiding under a rock for the past fortnight, you are likely getting sick of hearing about the whole GameStop debacle unfolding in the US, between some millennial Reddit users and just about the whole of Wall St. Since the story broke the GameStop (NYSE: GME) share price, which…

The Reddit / GameStop / AMC story dominated headlines and social media this week, sparking a renewed interest in both hedge funds and short selling. This bred an ‘us versus them’ mentality between well-organised ‘retail’ investors and the wealthy ‘hedge funds,’ and many people are referring to the practice of short-selling as ‘market manipulation’. In…

Following on from our article “2021’s David vs Goliath battle,” the Reddit WallStreetBets army appears to be losing steam. Last week, they appeared to target Dogecoin, Silver, and now onto Bitcoin. Following the short-squeezing pump-and-dump of GameStop, it appears the army have moved into the crypto market, which is far less regulated than the stock…

ASX rallies on the back of QE pump priming, healthcare falls, Tabcorp (ASX:TAH) confirms bid The ASX200 (ASX:XJO) continued its strong start to the week, finishing 1.5% higher after news that the Reserve Bank of Australia would be keeping rates on hold. Every sector barring healthcare finished higher, with IT once again leading the way with low rates used…

This week Wall Street witnessed a real-life David vs Goliath story that played out like a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster movie. Wall Street hedge fund managers were caught off-guard by an army of amateur traders who congregated together via the online forum Reddit to play out a classic ‘short squeeze/pump and dump’ scheme to…