- Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy said he lost $ 700,000 in “meme actions” like GameStop.
- Portnoy tweeted that the CEO of trading app Robinhood “stole from me and should be in prison”.
- Portnoy’s tweet comes as the stock market continues to stagger from a frenzy started by a group of Redditors.
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Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy said he lost about $ 700,000 in “meme actions” like GameStop.
Portnoy tweeted on Tuesday that he officially sold all the shares he bought and warned the trading platform Robinhood and its CEO, Vlad Tenev, for allowing users to buy volatile shares in the first place.
“Vlad and company stole from me and should be in prison,” tweeted Portnoy.
—Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) February 2, 2021
Portnoy’s losses come in the wake of a stock market frenzy driven by a group of people on Reddit who collectively bought shares, like GameStop, raising the value of companies’ shares in the process. Many people started exchanging apps like Robinhood to participate in the rally. As a result, Robinhood saw a sudden increase in new members and was forced to stop users from buying shares in GameStop, AMC and others to meet “financial requirements”.
Read More: Robinhood user initiates a class action lawsuit against the trading app hours after he blocked GameStop purchases
The move has angered many users of the app, as well as lawmakers like Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Robinhood has allowed resumption of negotiations with actions like GameStop. However, he added limitations on trading 50 shares, including GameStop – Robinhood is currently limiting the number of GameStop shares that users can buy at 20.
Robinhood has raised more than $ 3 billion in emergency investments so far to offset the increase in trade on his platform. Tenev defended the company’s decision to initially stop trading in certain shares and said Robinhood is not struggling with liquidity problems.
Read More: GameStop grew more than 600% last week. 3 experts analyze where stocks can go from here, as Reddit’s army of traders make profits and look for their next targets.
And Tenev told Tesla CEO Elon Musk in an interview on Sunday that Robinhood was forced to restrict trading to users because the increased usage led National Securities Clearing Corporation to ask for a $ 3 billion deposit after the shares in question started to rise.