1. If you turn on CNBC, you'll hear a narrative that reckless retail investors from Reddit are destabilizing the stock market by driving up prices for GameStop and other stocks.

This is BS.

Follow along if interested.

2. Market instability was created by hedge funds and other "sophisticated" investors that SHORTED MORE GAMESTOP STOCK THAN WAS EVEN AVAILABLE FOR SALE

Retail investors are exploiting instability created by the hedge funds

They didn't start the fire

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec
3. The primary "victim" of the retail investors, hedge fund mogul Gabe Plotkin, worked SAC until 2013.

What happened in 2013? SAC pleaded guilty to insider trading and paid a $1.3 billion fine.

Plotkin then left to start his own firm.

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec
4. Plotkin made massive returns by doing a lot more shorting than most hedge funds & no one complained

But this week he was bailed out by his old boss, SAC founder Steve Cohen, and another hedge fund mogul, Citadel's Ken Griffin to the tune of $2.75B

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec
5. Cohen & Griffin now own a significant piece of Plotkin's firm. So they have an interest in Plotkin navigating out of his current predicament. They also may have exposure themselves.

This is where things get interesting.

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec
6. We now see retail trading platforms -- including TD Ameritrade, Schwab, and Robinhood -- RESTRICTING TRADES OF GAMESTOP AND OTHER STOCK.

Why are they doing this?

They say its to protect their customers.

But is that really what's going on?

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec
7. Restricting trading on these stocks will make it easier for Plotkin (and his new investor Griffin) and others to get out of this jam

Griffin is pays these platforms tens of millions of dollars for the right to handle their "order flow"

Let me explain

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec
8. When retail investors want to make a trade, these platforms let Griffin fulfill it.

"Citadel Securities accounts for 40 of every 100 shares traded by individual investors in the US, making it the number one retail market maker"

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec
9. So Griffin is both a major business partner with these platforms AND potentially will benefit from their current actions restricting the trading of this stock.

This warrants further investigation.

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec
10. Griffin, who recently purchased the most expensive home in America, is only in business because of government bailouts.

In 2008 he had massive exposure to AIG and relied on Morgan Stanley for lending. He survived only because they got bailouts

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec
11. It's a free market until the hedge fund moguls start losing money. Then SOMEONE NEEDS TO DO SOMETHING.

For updates on this story and more accountability journalism, sign up for the newsletter.

https://t.co/TfpCItdVSo
12. Here is Robinhood acting in a way that benefits Griffin its other business partners.

We need to explore why they are doing this.

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec

https://t.co/ISlZfsXKQ8
13. I'm just a journalist so don't take it from me. Here is a financial expert making the same point.

https://t.co/26pyBtj4ec

https://t.co/LQhcsM8yxS

More from Judd Legum

1. BREAKING

3 major corporations say they'll stop donating to members of Congress who tried to overturn the election

BlueCross BlueShield (@BCBSAssociation)

Marriott (@MarriottIntl)

@CommerceBank

Follow along for more on these 3 plus 141 other

@MarriottIntl @CommerceBank 2. In the last 3 cycles, the BlueCross BlueShield PAC has donated 959K to GOP candidates and 359K to Dem candidates.

Now, BCBS's CEO says it will "suspend contributions to those lawmakers who voted to undermine our democracy"

https://t.co/r4Z4TjJUCe


@MarriottIntl @CommerceBank 3. @CommerceBank's PAC favors Republicans over Democrats by a 6 to 1 margin. The bank now says it has "suspended all support for officials who have impeded the peaceful transfer of power"

@MarriottIntl released a similar statement to Popular Information.

https://t.co/r4Z4TjJUCe


4. @tesszeeks and I contacted 144 corporations that donated this cycle to Senators who objected to the Electoral College vote

We asked if their support would continue

We got a lot of other responses + a lot of corporations who, so far, are ignoring

5. More details coming in this thread. But if you value this kind of work, please subscribe to our newsletter, Popular Information.

It's free to sign up.

The newsletter, not this Twitter account, is what makes this work possible.
1. BREAKING

3 major corporations say they'll suspend donations to the Republican Attorneys General Association, which helped drive participation in last Wed's events

@Facebook

@Lyft

@DoorDash

Follow along for more on these 3 plus 60 other

@lyft @DoorDash 2. University of Phoenix (@UOPX) is taking things a step further.

The for-profit university, which donated $50,400 to RAGA last year, is demanding its money back

"We have asked RAGA to return our contribution to us as soon as

3. @Lyft tells
https://t.co/Gl6evXRDcZ that it "not be renewing our membership in RAGA for 2021"

@Facebook says it was "surprised and appalled" by the RAGA's conduct

4. @DoorDash says that "Any individual or organization that encouraged or facilitated this horrific behavior must be held accountable."

All this is a wakeup call for the Republican Attorneys General Association, which has accepted NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS INVOLVEMENT

5. More details coming in this thread. But if you value this kind of work, please subscribe to our newsletter, Popular Information.

It's free to sign up.

The newsletter, not this Twitter account, is what makes this work

More from Business

A solo media founder like Rogan or Mr Beast can make as much money as a strong tech founder, with significantly less managerial stress.

Tech created this ecosystem but there’s a historical cultural bias in tech towards media as unprofitable. That changed a long time ago.

Many more angels that invest in people will invest in media founders. Many traditional media people will *become* media founders.

But not necessarily big companies. Just solo individuals or small groups doing content, like Notch doing Minecraft. Because media scales like code.

Increasingly feeling like “keeping the team size as small as possible, even to one person” is the unarticulated key to making media profitable.

Substack and all the creator tools are just the start of this ecosystem.


The process of converting social influencers into media founders (a trend that has been going on for 10+ years at this point) will be increasingly streamlined.

V1 is link-in-bio, Substack, and sponcon.

V2 likely involves more angels & tokenization a la @tryrollhq. What else?

Why lack of awareness? Influencer monetization numbers are not as public as tech numbers.

There isn’t a TechCrunch & CrunchBase for media founders, chronicling the valuations of influencers.

But that’d be quite valuable. If you are interested in doing this, please DM with demo.

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So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.


The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.

This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.

The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."

This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.