Short selling and the GameStop saga

Short selling and the GameStop saga

How investors profit when a stock falls, why the practice is so controversial, and how a crowd of retail traders turned short sellers' own bets against them in the GameStop frenzy.

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Show notes

Short sellers face infinite financial risk because stock prices have no theoretical upper limit.

GameStop short interest reached one hundred forty percent of its public float through circular lending chains.

Melvin Capital lost fifty-three percent of its value in one month due to the short squeeze.

Retail traders used call options to trigger a gamma squeeze that forced market makers to buy shares.

The Securities and Exchange Commission identified individual investor sentiment as the primary driver of price spikes.

Market settlement cycles were shortened to T-plus-one to reduce future liquidity risks for retail brokerages.

In this episode
  1. 01Intro1 min
  2. 02The Mechanics of Betting on Failure3 min
  3. 03The Setup: GameStop and the 140 Percent Problem2 min
  4. 04The Squeeze and the Gamma Trap3 min
  5. 05The Aftermath and Market Integrity3 min
  6. 06Outro1 min
Sources
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