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Social media influence on the stock market
Jordan Bowen reports
TAMPA, Fla. - The S.E.C. and Congress are asking questions about the Game Stop frenzy that has all eyes on Wall Street. Congressional and U.S. Senate committees on financial industry oversight now plan to have hearings on the matter.
Come Monday morning trading will be back open on Wall Street. It comes after a volatile week that all started on the online forum Reddit where a group of retail investors bet big on the company and got others to do the same by buying stocks to raise the price. They did so because major hedge fund firms were betting game stop stock would drop also known as shorting.
"The is a really pivotal event. This event has revealed how important social media is. It's sort of the democratizing of information," former S.E.C. branch chief Lisa Braganca said.
By Friday, Game stop stock's price closed at $325 per share. That's compared to the roughly $40 per share it was selling at a few weeks ago.
Braganca says it shows just how much of have impact social media can have on the stock market.
"This could not have happened if we didn't have the internet and if we didn't have a bunch of people who are hanging out in the same place on this Reddit board talking about these issues and comfortable enough that they are listening to each other," Branganca said.
The buying frenzy forced Robinhood--a popular stock trading app among millennials--to restrict investors from buying stocks of companies, including, Game Stop and AMC Entertainment citing the market was too volatile. The move drew criticism from lawmakers on both sides.
Braganca says what's happened could lead to bigger changes in the future, but as far as what those changes could be is still hard to say.
"This is one of those seminal moments where everybody should take a breath and step back and think about how we got here, before we act," Braganca said.