Day traders in India are preparing for the GameStop Corp tour. that conquered the stock markets.
The video game retailer was among the five most traded names last week in Stockal, a platform for Indian retail investors to trade US stocks. GameStop accounted for about 15% of all negotiations on the platform, Sitashwa Srivastava, co-founder and co-executive director said in an interview.
“We didn’t expect Indians to be on Reddit, reading about GameStop,” said Srivastava. Unlike many of their option-heavy WallStreetBets counterparts, Indian traders are not allowed to take on leverage when trading foreign stocks, he said. “All of this is dealt in cash.”
GameStop exploded on the trading screens with shares rising more than 1,700% this year. Powered by conversations from marketers on forums and “Gamestonk !!” from Elon Musk tweet, professionals are taken by surprise and squeezed short positions in large hedge funds.
READ: Michael Burry calls GameStop Rally ‘Unnatural, Insane’ (3)
As in other markets, with more Indians staying at home since the pandemic’s arrival, many migrated to stock exchanges at home and abroad, leading to an increase in retail investments. According to Stockal, his favorites in the United States are Tesla Inc. and Apple Inc., with vaccine maker Covid-19 Moderna Inc. and Chinese electric vehicle company Nio Inc. climbing up the ranking in recent months.
In Winvesta, another platform aimed at individual Indian investors, exposure to FAANG shares in client portfolios fell to an average of 13%, from 18% in October, said CEO Swastik Nigam.
READ: Faang Stocks Slide on Regulatory Concerns, Reflation Angst (3)
In China, GameStop and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. were the most traded names in the U.S. on Wednesday in a trading app by Futu Holdings Ltd., based in Shenzhen, serving individual investors in Mainland China and Hong Kong.
‘Real Skin’
Dipe Chatterjee, a Mumbai marketing consultant, says he bought GameStop and Tesla in recent months, earning a 150% return on his $ 1,000 investment in the game retailer earlier this week before quickly posting profits.
“It is a game with real skin,” he said.
Previous Reddit WallStreetBets Forum he hung up briefly amid a wave of new participants. The site has accumulated more than 3 million members as day traders connected companies led by GameStop.
– With the help of Nupur Acharya and Moxy Ying
(Add comments from the CEO of Winvesta in the sixth paragraph.)