In an unprecedented move, today a large number of brokers has committed what many consider to be blatant and transparent market manipulation and defrauding of their own clients. The list includes Robinhood, Interactive Brokers (IBKR), Merrill Lynch, Webull, Tastyworks, Trading 212, and ETrade among others.
They did so by going through with a coordinated effort and simultaneously forbidding their clients from buying a handful of stocks, most notably GME and AMC. Thus, they took millions of buyers away from the market, creating an environment in which only selling is an option. When virually all investors can only sell a security, and buying is removed from the equation, as everyone would assume, the stock drops.
The move came a day after numerous large and powerful hedge funds (some of which it has to be noted, own and control large portions of some of the affected brokers, or have other business relationships with them) were exposed as having already lost billions on shorting the stocks in question. As such, the motivation of such a decidedly lopsided halt is on its face highly suspicious, unprecedented, and has cost the affected brokers' retail clients billions of dollars collectively. It is being reported that lawsuits are already about to be filed due to this event, against both the offendors and as an effort to prevent these practices from occuring in the future, with members of both major US parties and numeroud high-profile investors speaking out about the manipulative act that occured today.
However, there is still no word on most of the brokers' future plans on lifting the "one-way halt" or keeping it in place.
They did so by going through with a coordinated effort and simultaneously forbidding their clients from buying a handful of stocks, most notably GME and AMC. Thus, they took millions of buyers away from the market, creating an environment in which only selling is an option. When virually all investors can only sell a security, and buying is removed from the equation, as everyone would assume, the stock drops.
The move came a day after numerous large and powerful hedge funds (some of which it has to be noted, own and control large portions of some of the affected brokers, or have other business relationships with them) were exposed as having already lost billions on shorting the stocks in question. As such, the motivation of such a decidedly lopsided halt is on its face highly suspicious, unprecedented, and has cost the affected brokers' retail clients billions of dollars collectively. It is being reported that lawsuits are already about to be filed due to this event, against both the offendors and as an effort to prevent these practices from occuring in the future, with members of both major US parties and numeroud high-profile investors speaking out about the manipulative act that occured today.
However, there is still no word on most of the brokers' future plans on lifting the "one-way halt" or keeping it in place.