While many believed Robinhood’s claim of democratizing financial trading for ordinary people, the GameStop scandal had unmasked the fintech’s real motives.
After the GameStop trading scandal blew up, Robinhood suspended buying of GameStop and other stocks endorsed by the radical group of Redditors looking to beat Wall Street short sellers in their own playing field. However, if there’s one group that got hurt, they are mostly the “little guys” who put their faith in the Robinhood investing app. It turned out that Robinhood was not pro-populist at all and has no intention of disrupting the Wall Street’s financial capitalism.
Currently Robinhood is now the subject of a class-action lawsuit and another criminal case filed by the parents of a young college student who committed suicide. Related text messages revealed that Robinhood was pressing to collect a huge sum of money from the student as a result of bad investments.
Moreover, Robinhood will likely face congressional hearings as House and Senate committees are being asked by progressive lawmakers to investigate the GameStop trading fiasco and the Robinhood app.
Is Robinhood Truly Pro Populist?
Prior to the GameStop trading scandal, the Securities and Exchange Commission had accused Robinhood for bad trading practices. It turned out that the Robinhood app earns by selling the trading data of Robinhood users, whilst marketing their services as “commission-free” In effect hower, Robinhood earns commissions from the firms who follow the investment activities of Robinhood’s “little guys,” and use the info when making decisions on whether to buy or trade stocks.
The SEC’s investigation exposed Robinhood’s projection of being a pro-people investment application as contrary to its marketing slogan of “democratizing finance.”
How Robinhood’s Users Contributed to the GameStop Trading Expose
The GameStop trading expose’ unraveled the unethical short-selling practice of hedge fund managers, while the °the little guys° still ended up with worthless shares of stocks. As many participated in the GameStop buying frenzy, short sellers were in a frenzy when its price started rallying, which did not bode weel in the execution of their short selling strategy.
However, as it became known that GameStop is just a games retailer that has been floundering amidst a retail business that is fast becoming obsolete, the more savvy investors started selling their GameStop shares before the bubble bursted. As a result, the price surge that went as high as $483 per share in January 27, 2021 is as of this writing, is now down to $60.00 per share.
This denotes that the playing field remains open to the short sellers, who will most likely buy the GameStop stock investment of the little guys of Robinhood once the price drop hits rock bottom.