Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Donald Trump Jr. shared a rare moment of agreement after the trading app Robinhood decided to restrict trading in GameStop shares.
“When @AOC and @DonaldJTrumpJr are on the same side you know you f–ked up @RobinhoodApp,” said Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy on Twitter.
When @AOC and @DonaldJTrumpJr are on the same side you know you fucked up @RobinhoodApp pic.twitter.com/y15FBqrUu9
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
Portnoy shared a screenshot of both Trump Jr. and Ocasio-Cortez decrying the decision by Robinhood to restrict trading in GameStop shares.
“It took less than a day for big tech, big government and the corporate media to spring into action and begin colluding to protect their hedge fund buddies on Wall Street,” Trump Jr. said. “This is what a rigged system looks like, folks!”
“Gotta admit it’s really something to see Wall Streeters with a long history of treating our economy as a casino complain about a message board of posters also treating the market as a casino,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Sen. Ted Cruz also signaled his approval for another tweet from Ocasio-Cortez criticizing Robinhood.
Fully agree. 👇 https://t.co/rW38zfLYGh
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 28, 2021
Shares in the video game retail have soared over 400% this week and 1,750% this year after amateur investors, mostly tied to a Reddit forum, encouraged users to buy shares of the stock in an attempt to cause chaos for Wall Street hedge fund managers who had heavily shorted GameStop.
The resulting surge in GameStop’s price sent hedge fund managers into a frenzy to cover their shorted positions, in some cases resulting in possibly billions in losses for the funds.
Robinhood, a popular free trading app, responded to the chaos by restricting trading on GameStop and other popular shorted stocks, such as AMC Entertainment, Blackberry, and Koss. Investors using the app are now only able to sell their current positions in such stocks, not open new ones. The brokerage also raised margin requirements for some securities.
“We continuously monitor the markets and make changes where necessary. In light of recent volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AMC, $BB, $BBBY, $EXPR, $GME, $KOSS, $NAKD and $NOK. We also raised margin requirements for certain securities,” Robinhood said in a statement.
Robinhood did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
