The very popular Barstool Sports President Dave Portnoy went off on an epic rant directed at Robinhood for restricting trading for volatile stocks like GameStop, accusing them of causing its share prices to tank. He prefaced his videotaped rant by saying, “Okay…emergency press conference,” adding, “Maybe be the craziest one I’ve ever done.”
MSN – Robinhood and other brokerage platforms, including TD Ameritrade and Interactive Brokers on Tuesday and Wednesday, restricted trading in shares of volatile stocks including GameStop, AMC Entertainment, Bed Bath & Beyond, BlackBerry, and others, following an unexpected surge in volatility following some web postings on the popular Reddit message board WallStreetBets.
Portnoy blasted Robinhood for changing the rules “overnight without telling anybody.” However, the Robinhood user agreement, which is required for everyone to sign before trading on the app, states that the company may at any time and without prior notice “prohibit or restrict” a user’s ability to trade.
“But what is going on on Wall Street?” he asked. “The way that they have absolutely cheated, stolen, robbed everyday people who have invested with Robinhood and other E-trade accounts and all this stuff, by saying, ‘Hey, hedge funds are getting smoked—billionaires are getting smoked—so, we’re no longer going to let you trade on certain stocks.'” Portnoy explained what it really means when Robinhood and others prevent consumers from “fairly” buying certain stocks, accusing them of crashing the certain stocks to protect all of their “hedge fund billionaire friends, so they can get out, and not get killed.”
It is one of the most remarkable, illegal shocking robberies in the history—in plain sight—no closed-door meetings—just right in your face—putting a gun in your mouth and saying, ‘Give us all your money!'”
That is what Robinhood crooks—jail! The Citadel, Ken Griffin—jail! Steve Cohen, the Mets owner—jail! are doing!
A furious Portnoy explained that volatility is ok when hedge funds risk their investors’ livelihoods—but when the everyday investor wants to put their money at risk, “they can’t do it,” he said, adding, “we’ve got to protect you!”
“They don’t want you to win because they want to save their yachts, their mansions, and everything else they have,” Portnoy explained. “It’s okay for them to risk money and make money,” he said, adding that it’s simply not okay for the everyday person to make money. “The only people who are smart enough—who are allowed to risk more than they have are the hedge funds and the billionaires,” the Barstool Sports president said.
“There needs to be a class-action suit against all of them, Portnoy told his massive following on Twitter, saying everyone needs to be playing under the same set of rules!” as he accused all of the players involved in stopping the trading of certain stocks, as a way to prevent hedge funds from financial harm, of committing crimes, saying “They should all be in jail!”
*Language warning*
Watch:
Emergency Press Conference – Everybody On Wall Street Who Had A Hand In Today’s Crime Needs To Go To Prison pic.twitter.com/aKr8aPbB3Z
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
Reddit Trading posed a similar question on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/reddittrading/status/1355144227475349506?s=20
MSN – Portnoy said the coordination by people on social media sites like Reddit “definitely manipulated the stock price,” but also noted professional traders have “been doing the same thing for years.”
“They basically stole money from their own clients,” Portnoy said on FOX Business’ “Varney and Co.,” adding that intentionally cratering the stock at the expense of customers is “flat out criminal.”
Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev defended the pause of some trading in the volatile names in a tweet, stating those “requirements exist to protect investors and the markets.” The company on Thursday began allowing ”limited buys” of the previously restricted securities.
