How Retail Investors Used Social Media To Take Over Wall Street

When Everyone Started TradingAround 2020 something wild happened A bunch of things came together at once says Gregory Blotnick free trading apps stimulus money burning holes in people39s pockets everyone stuck at home with nothing to do and social media turning stock picking into the new fantasy footballSuddenly your neighbor was day trading your cousin was explaining cryptocurrency at family dinner and everyone seemed to know what a quotYOLOquot trade wasThe real gamechanger Apps like Robinhood made trading completely free No more 10 fees every time you wanted to buy a stock You could literally buy a piece of Apple with your coffee money Other big names like Fidelity and ETRADE had to follow suit or get left behindNow the big money guys are scrambling to keep upThe GameStop MadnessThe moment came that changed everything GameStopIn early 2021 a group of Reddit users basically said quotYou know what We39re tired of these Wall Street hedge funds betting against companies and making money when they failquot So they decided to do something about itThey all started buying GameStop stock GME and wouldn39t sell The price shot from 20 to over 300 in weeks The hedge funds that were betting against GameStop They lost billionsIt wasn39t just GameStop either AMC Theaters got the same treatment Even Dogecoin a cryptocurrency that literally started as a joke hit a 90 billion value because regular people decided it was their thing The financial world was left in shambles trying to make sense of it allWhere People Get Their Stock Tips NowHere39s what39s really interesting people aren39t getting their investment advice from traditional sources anymore Forget financial newspapers or bank advisors Now it39s YouTube channels where college kids break down why Tesla might go up or down TikTok videos explaining stock options in under a minute Discord groups where thousands of people share trade ideas 247 X threads that move stock prices when they go viralThe crazy part Sometimes these random internet sources are more accurate than expensive Wall Street researchWall Street Had to AdaptThe big financial firms initially called retail investors quotdumb moneyquot Well they39re not laughing anymore Now they39re hiring people specifically to monitor social media and figure out what regular investors are thinkingSome hedge funds literally have employees whose job is to scroll through social mediaamp160looking for the next big thing They39re building computer programs to track what stocks people are talking about online The same people who used to mock day traders are now trying to copy themWhat This Really MeansHere39s the thing regular people now make up about 2025 of all daily stock trading That39s huge When that much trading is driven by what people are saying on social media rather than boring financial reports the whole market acts differentlyStocks can move 20 on an unsourced tweet It39s wilder more unpredictable and honestly more fun to watchThis isn39t going away An entire generation has grown up with free trading and getting their financial news from social media They39re not going back to the old way of doing thingsWhat39s NextThe government is still trying to figure out how to handle all this Do you regulate what people can say about stocks on social media How do you protect people from making bad decisions without ruining the party Is it safe for a new investor to put all their money into a 0DTE option which expires the same day they buy it and can result in a 100 loss of capital Nobody really knows yetMeanwhile the financial industry is scrambling to keep up We39re seeing more apps designed for regular people better educational content and products specifically made for the social media generationThe Bottom LineThe old world where Wall Street professionals made all the decisions and everyone else just went along with it That39s over The new world is messier more chaotic and way more democraticSure the big money is still in the game but now they39re sharing the playground with millions of regular people trading from their phones while watching Netflix And honestly the regular people are doing pretty well for themselvesWhether this makes the market better or worse depends on who you askamp160Personally from everything I39ve seen over the years it39s hard to say But one thing39s for sure investing used to be boring and now it definitely isn39tPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

How Retail Investors Used Social Media To Take Over Wall Street

Author

Publish date

Channel

Gregory Blotnick

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

More Videos:

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

How Retail Investors Used Social Media To Take Over Wall Street

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Gregory Blotnick

TAGS:

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

The payment was successful

Cookies