{"id":31170,"date":"2021-01-28T18:15:41","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T02:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=31170"},"modified":"2021-01-28T18:15:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T02:15:41","slug":"robinhood-restricts-trading-of-companies-targeted-by-reddit-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=31170","title":{"rendered":"Robinhood restricts trading of companies targeted by Reddit users"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amatuer online traders fueled by online discussions on Reddit sent shares of Gamestop skyrocketing on Wednesday, setting off a series of critical reactions from Washington and a legal challenge for a popular stock trading app.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

GameStop, a video game retailer struggling to keep up with direct downloads even before the coronavirus pandemic, saw its share price jump to $347 per share on Wednesday. Overall, its share price has risen more than 1,800 percent in January.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more about the Gamestop havoc here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

By Thursday, the stock trading app Robinhood blocked users from buying or trading stocks popular on the Reddit subforum, including Gamestop, AMC and BlackBerry.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Under the new limits, users will be allowed to close out existing trades, but won\u2019t be able to acquire new shares.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe continuously monitor the markets and make changes where necessary,\u201d the day-trading app\u00a0wrote in a blog post<\/a>. \u201cIn light of recent volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more about Robinhood\u2019s decision here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Robinhood was hit with a class-action lawsuit almost immediately after restricting the trading of the stocks popular on the Reddit forum.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The suit<\/a>, filed in the Southern District of New York, claims that the day-trading app \u201cpurposefully, willfully, and knowingly removing the stock \u2018GME\u2019 [GameStop] from its trading platform in the midst of an unprecedented stock rise thereby deprived retail investors of the ability to invest in the open-market and manipulating the open-market.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more about the lawsuit here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Robinhood\u2019s decision also prompted swift backlash from Washington \u2014 drawing together a unified stance from an unlikely group of bipartisan lawmakers including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Incoming chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said a hearing would be held on the state of the stock market amid the concern on how trading platforms have responded to viral rallies in certain stocks.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more about the\u00a0bipartisan backlash<\/a>\u00a0and Brown\u2019s\u00a0call for a hearing<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amatuer online traders fueled by online...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31171,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31170\/revisions\/31171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}