The anarchic traders of Reddit stunned stock-markets this week, boosting the share price of struggling retailer GameStop by some 400 per cent.
It’s the latest stunt from WallStreetBets – an infamous Reddit page for novice millennial traders (which was featured in The Spectator last February).
But who are the Redditors behind the great Wall Street coup? Here’s what we know:
RoaringKitty
The initial interest in GameStop has been credited to YouTuber and Redditor ‘RoaringKitty’ who has been plugging the stock as a value buy since September 2019, just after its shares slumped to an all-time low of $3.32.
Having purportedly made 50 per cent on his initial investment of $50,000, RoaringKitty made another video – in August 2020 – speculating that the stock could go as high as $50. Wall Street analysts, who continued to short the stock, evidently disagreed.
Of course, it was RoaringKitty who had the last laugh, posting a celebratory video in which he dipped chicken tenders (one of many forum in-jokes) in champagne.
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