How GameStop Traders Are Handling Their Sudden Windfall
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What triggered the GameStop rally and who is reporting on it?
Here's your money briefing for Monday, February 1st. I'm Charlie Turner for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for J.R. Whalen. Shares of the video game retailer GameStop are on a wild ride. Plenty of observers are predicting a sudden end, but until then, some traders are pocketing their winnings while they can.
I think especially watching how the market movements affected their individual portfolios was kind of a crash course for a lot of people in how this stuff works.
Coming up, we'll talk about the traders fueling the rally, what their strategies are, and what they're doing with their earnings. Our personal finance columnist, Julia Carpenter, will walk us through it after the break.
Traders who've bought shares of GameStop have made out quite well, so far. The video game retailer stock soared more than 1,600% last month. In our last episode, we discussed how a lot of observers are calling it a bubble that'll eventually pop. which means there is always the risk of holding onto the stock for too long and losing everything.
Who are the retail traders driving the GameStop surge and how are they trading?
Our personal finance reporter, Julia Carpenter, has been talking with the traders that are fueling the rally to get a sense of what they're thinking and what they plan to do with their earnings. And she joins me now. Julia, thanks for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
Julia, you talk to quite a few people who've made a lot of money from GameStop's rally. What can you tell us about them? These aren't full-time traders for the most part.
Most of the people I talk to are doing this on apps like Robinhood or using brokerages without commission, app-based brokerages. So definitely not full-time traders, usually individual investors, a lot of the people we've seen fueling this new wave of retail investing.
Are they taking any of their cues from these online forums that have fueled the rallies, such as WallStreetBets and Discord?
Are traders following WallStreetBets and Discord — and how does that influence decisions?
Absolutely. I can tell you right now, every single person I talk to mentioned either one of those or both. And I think especially with Wall Street bets, we're seeing a lot of people encouraged to get into trading for the first time ever.
Have traders felt pressure from these online forums to act in a certain way?
If you look at Wall Street Bets, if you spend a lot of time on it, there's definitely a lot of encouragement to not sell, that these individual investors have a duty to play as a collective, that they have a duty to stay. But also if you read stories about people who work on Wall Street, people who are full-time traders, they have received threats. They've received online harassment. And so there's kind of some intimidation happening on both sides. One, encouraging people to stay in. Others, encouraging people to kind of stay out.
Can you talk about how some of them buy, sell or hold their shares? What's the strategy here?
I talk to a variety of investors who have strategies kind of all over the place. Some people are investing for the first time because of this.
What strategies are novice investors using: sell, hold, or double down?
So they've opened accounts to take advantage of what they're seeing online described as kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity. Other people are holding because they're intentionally trying to make a political statement or some sort of ideological expression about hedge funds and Wall Street. Other people are just looking to kind of get in low, sell high, you know, make the most money that they can with this kind of short experience that we're seeing.
What about reinvesting? Did you speak with any traders who've taken that approach?
We did. I spoke with one person who kind of panicked at the beginning of the week when he saw how quickly this was escalating. So he sold his shares, then got back into the market with other gains and then was using that specifically to kind of go all in on GameStop. I spoke with someone else who said, I'm going to take my wins from this and then turn around and invest in a more diversified portfolio, kind of taking advantage of what was happening with the market with GameStop, AMC, Nokia, these other companies. very hot stocks and then kind of using it to shore up a longer term position.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What triggered the GameStop rally and who is reporting on it?
0:05–1:12
2
Who are the retail traders driving the GameStop surge and how are they trading?
1:12–1:58
3
Are traders following WallStreetBets and Discord — and how does that influence decisions?
1:58–3:07
4
What strategies are novice investors using: sell, hold, or double down?
3:07–5:05
5
How are traders choosing to reinvest or diversify their GameStop gains?
5:05–5:27
6
What are people doing with their windfall — paying debt, tuition, or holding out for more?
5:27–5:48
Speakers
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