© Reuters. ARCHIVE PHOTO: A GameStop store is depicted in New York
(Reuters) – The YouTube streamer known as Roaring Kitty, who helped spark interest in GameStop Corp (NYSE :), will testify before a U.S. House panel on Thursday alongside leading hedge fund managers.
The Chamber’s Financial Services Committee is examining how a flurry of retail negotiations has pushed GameStop and other stocks to extreme highs, squeezing hedge funds like Melvin Capital, which have bet against it.
The list of witnesses was announced on Friday by representative Maxine Waters (NYSE 🙂 and includes Keith Gill, who also serves for Roaring Kitty, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin, Melvin CEO Gabriel Plotkin and Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.
The virtual audience, entitled “Jogo Parado? Who wins and loses when short sellers, social media and retail investors collide “, will take place on Thursday at 12 noon ET (1700 GMT), according to the press release and will be broadcast live on https: // financialservices.house.gov/ Waters, a Democrat, is chairman of the House’s Financial Services Committee.
“We are working with the House Financial Services Committee and we plan to testify,” said Huffman of Reddit in a statement. A spokesman for Melvin confirmed that Plotkin plans to testify.
Representatives of Citadel and Robinhood did not respond to requests for comment. Gill could not be reached for comment.
Robinhood, Reddit, Melvin and Citadel have been at the center of the GameStop saga, which saw retailers promoting GameStop on the Reddit WallStreetBets forum. Robinhood has emerged as a popular place to trade stocks, but has been criticized for temporarily restricting trading in hot stocks.
The increase in GameStop resulted in massive losses for Melvin, after the hedge fund bet that the retailer’s stock price would plummet. Citadel’s hedge funds, along with founder Griffin and partners in the company, invested $ 2 billion in Melvin.
Democrats and Republicans are united in their outrage over Robinhood’s decision to suspend the so-called “meme stock” deal on January 28. Tenev said the company had to impose the restrictions after the wild stock trade spawned a $ 3 billion margin call in Robinhood’s clearinghouse, affecting the company’s balance sheet.
Massachusetts securities regulators also issued a subpoena seeking Gill’s testimony.
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