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Meme Stocks Explained & Analyzed with Bloomberg's Matt Levine

November 18, 2024 / 29:51

This episode discusses behavioral and social investing, featuring Matt Levine from Bloomberg. Key topics include meme stocks, the impact of social media on finance, and the dynamics between retail and institutional investors.

Itay Goldstein, a Professor of Finance at Wharton, interviews Matt Levine about the phenomenon of social investing, particularly in relation to meme stocks like GameStop and AMC. Levine suggests that the rise of social media has changed how stocks are valued, with retail investors gaining more influence.

Levine explains that while traditional finance models focused on cash flows, the recent trends show that social factors can drive stock prices significantly. He highlights the role of retail investors in coordinating around stocks, which challenges previous assumptions about their market impact.

The conversation also touches on the psychological triggers behind the meme stock phenomenon, particularly during the pandemic, and how this has led to significant capital raises for companies like AMC. Goldstein and Levine discuss the implications of this trend for financial markets and the potential for further episodes of social investing.

Finally, they consider the regulatory landscape and the challenges faced by regulators in managing the evolving dynamics of retail investing, especially in light of events like the Silicon Valley Bank run.

TLDR

Matt Levine discusses the rise of social investing and its implications for finance, focusing on meme stocks and retail investor influence.

Episode

29:51
00:00:06
Itay Goldstein: Hello, everyone. We are doing a miniseries of podcasts here at the Wharton School on the Future of Finance. And today
00:00:15
we are going to explore a new phenomenon, behavioral and social investing. Of course, behavioral investing is not a
00:00:24
new phenomenon. We have known about it and talked about it for a long time. The new element that has come into it more
00:00:31
recently, is social investing, how behavioral investing is assisted by social media and the desire of people to participate
00:00:42
in a social phenomenon, kind of like a cultural phenomenon. And we saw different episodes of this with meme stocks, starting
00:00:51
from GameStop and AMC and others. And we have the best guest to dive into all this. This is Matt Levine, who is a
00:01:03
columnist at Bloomberg and the author of the very famous "Money Stuff" newsletter. Hi, Matt.
00:01:11
Hi, thanks for having me. - It's great to have you. And I'm here, Itay Goldstein. I'm a
00:01:16
Professor of Finance at the Wharton School, and currently the Chair of the Finance Department, and I will conduct
00:01:22
this conversation with you, Matt. Looking forward to hearing from you. So in your May 13 issue of "Money Stuff", in which,
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by the way, you generously link to the Wharton MBA curriculum, you ask the audience, is this just how life is now? So I will
00:01:39
turn it over to you. Is this the case? Are we going to expect more of these Gamestop sagas, or is this just a unique
00:01:48
phenomenon? My gut is that it is more the former, that this is kind of the way life is now. I think that Gamestop was sort of a proof of
00:02:01
concept. But really ultimately, Bitcoin and crypto were a bigger proof of it. That something like social investing can work.
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I mean, sometimes the way I think of it is that for most of the history of financial markets, people thought of, like, the stock
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market as this sort of social gambling game, where you were trying to out-guess the other person. And then there was a—
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almost a brief blip of, like, scientific finance, where people thought, "Oh, stocks are worth the present value of their
00:02:32
future cash flows." And we've now kind of gone back to the old system where stocks are worth what you can get someone else to
00:02:39
pay for them. And people realized that you could harness social media technologies to collectively influence the
00:02:47
prices of stocks. And I think that that just kind of remains true. I don't think you'll see Gamestop again. Like, the real
00:02:57
insanity of that was kind of because it was the first time and because it was such a novelty. But the basic idea of,
00:03:05
like, memes can drive the prices of financial instruments seems pretty, like, well established in crypto by this point, to the
00:03:11
point that it's like, not even newsworthy. And it's, you know— it continues to reverberate through the stock market.
00:03:18
So this is very interesting. So basically, what you're saying is that our models of finance where the value of a stock is going to
00:03:24
be determined by the present value of future cash flows—you say this is a blip on the timeline of financial markets?
00:03:32
And people used to think about it in less scientific terms, and this is what we're going to see going forward?
00:03:40
You know, I'm probably exaggerating when I say that. I mean, I think that one thing that the Gamestop episode taught
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you is that, you know, there's good reason to think that the present value of future cash flows of an asset sets some sort
00:03:54
of like floor under the price of the asset, because if it goes to zero, then someone can go buy it and extract the cash flows
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themselves. But I think people sort of developed this, like, rational system, where they assumed that the present value
00:04:11
of the cash flows was also a cap on the value of the asset. And, like, that's just— there's no real reason for that. And if, you
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know, a lot of retail investors want to bid up a thing for years at a time, then I think what you learned in Gamestop was
00:04:25
that there's not really a clear corrective mechanism, right? It's not like short sellers can come in and force the price down
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to a rational level. And, I don't know. That's like the— that, to me, is the lesson. Like, there's— that there's not a corrective
00:04:37
mechanism in the short or medium term for just a meme-driven price. Right. And it's very interesting that you draw the parallel to
00:04:47
Bitcoin and crypto assets. Because, you know, when we talk about Bitcoin in the classroom, we say that there is really no
00:04:55
clear way to price them. So there is really no way to tell what is the right price for Bitcoin. So you think basically
00:05:03
that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are maybe the central phenomenon, and Gamestop was
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maybe one other example of that? I kind of think that, yeah. I kind of think that, like,
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GameStop being a stock that moved, like a coordinated social movement for a few months was really interesting. And, like,
00:05:28
sort of brought it to— closer to the financial mainstream. But that's also true in a less silly but more important way of
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Bitcoin, right? I mean, like, you know, when you talk about, like, how you value Bitcoin, it is, like— any, any— any sort of
00:05:45
legitimate— any real effort to value it is going to be based on its social adoption, right? If people buy it, then it's worth a
00:05:51
lot of money, and if no one believes in it, then it's not worth a lot of money. And that is the sort of core of what
00:05:58
happened in GameStop, right? Where, like, GameStop was also a company. But like, the sort of real meme-driven stuff was— was
00:06:04
about just, like, the— its popularity in the— in the— in a social investing universe.
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I think that Bitcoin is the clearer illustration of how strange this is, and how, like, enduring it is,
00:06:21
right? I mean, Bitcoin has— has had a five-figure valuation for years now. Its— its social adoption is enough to drive the
00:06:29
value in a way that it wasn't really for the— for the long term, for GameStop.
00:06:34
Yeah. So, you know, when we talk about it as economists, we would think about it as kind of a coordination problem, where if
00:06:42
everyone thinks it's valuable, it will be valuable. If no one thinks it's valuable, it will not be valuable, and then it can
00:06:48
kind of end up anywhere in terms of price. And you're right, we— And Bitcoin is sort of like, self consciously that, right? It's
00:06:56
like, it's meant to be a currency, right? So it's like, sort of everyone understands that it's a coordination
00:06:59
problem, whereas there's no reason for Gamestop to work that way. It just did for a while.
00:07:04
Right. Yeah, exactly. And this is, I think, where the deviation is. That with GameStop, there is a way to price it that is not
00:07:12
based on coordination. With Bitcoin, there isn't. But the fact that this migrated into Gamestop and AMC was really the
00:07:18
new thing, and maybe the very interesting element here. So, you know, diving a bit deeper into that, what do you think are the sort
00:07:28
of psychological and social triggers that were behind the AMC and Gamestop saga? How would you characterize them?
00:07:38
I do think that there is— there is a cultural moment that is somewhat pandemic-driven, right? I mean, people were— a lot of
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people were stuck at home. They had a lot fewer entertainment options. They were sort of turning to the internet for
00:07:55
entertainment because, you know, sporting events and television shows were canceled, and, like, live events were canceled. And
00:08:01
so it was easier. You know, there's like, a lower bar for entertainment. So like, going to a message board and talking
00:08:08
about trading Gamestop options was relatively more entertaining than— than it would have been at any other time.
00:08:16
And it was just, like, a real— you know, it fed on itself in the sense that, like,
00:08:25
people were having fun trading GameStop. Gamestop went up. This got attention. Gamestop went up more, and then it became like a
00:08:32
truly insane event where people were making, you know, 10,000% returns in a couple of days. And so that attracted a lot of
00:08:39
people, right? It was a combination of, like, people were making a lot of money very quickly, and also they were just
00:08:44
very evidently having a lot of fun doing it. That attracted a lot of people. So, like, one thing that happened in Gamestop
00:08:49
is that the stock went up a lot. But another thing that happened is that the number of users of the Wall Street Bets message
00:08:54
board went— went from like, you know, under a million to like, 8 million people in a couple of days. And that just,
00:09:02
you know— it was a— in a time where people were starved for entertainment and starved for, like, social interaction. That
00:09:09
was a very fun place to be socializing. And like, the coin of socializing there was you buying and holding GameStop.
00:09:16
Right. So this is all sort of pandemic era driven, as you say. But then when you saw this coming back in May of this year,
00:09:23
what were you thinking? One thing I was thinking is, this can't work as well again, just
00:09:29
for, like, entertainment reasons, right? It's just not as fun the second time. And it wasn't, right? I mean, like,
00:09:36
people were interested in it. And, you know, what happened is that— that Keith Gil, the sort of like "influencer" who was the main
00:09:44
driving force behind the first Gamestop rally— I'm not sure that's true. He was the mascot of the first Gamestop rally. He
00:09:52
came back to Twitter to sort of tweet inscrutable things, and to sort of try to get the band back together. And people were
00:10:02
interested, and the stock shot up, and Gamestop was able to do an at-the-market stock offering. But it was never— it
00:10:10
didn't have anything like either the financial or the cultural impact that it had the previous time, right? I mean, it just— the
00:10:16
stock did not go up that much. And it got attention in, like, the financial press. But it was, you know— the sort of original
00:10:23
Gamestop rally was, you know— it was on <i>Good Morning</i> <i>America</i>. It was, like, the biggest news story in the world. Keith
00:10:29
Gill coming back was like a financial niche news story. Right. So, you know, when we analyze financial markets, we tend to
00:10:39
think about retail investors and institutional investors. And the usual thinking is that institutional investors are
00:10:47
going to be more sophisticated. They are the experts. They have time, they have money to do the research, and at the end of the
00:10:54
day, they will know how to pick the stocks. And then the retail investors, those who are maybe more naive, they don't have the
00:11:03
financial resources to make the right investment. At the end of the day, they might be taken advantage of. This was not
00:11:10
exactly how things played out in these episodes. So, did these episodes lead you to reconsider the way you're thinking about
00:11:19
institutional versus retail investors? I think that it suggests that retail investors have more power
00:11:31
than you would have expected, right? It— like, I have read for years, people saying— you know, on Reddit or whatever— people
00:11:40
talking about gamma squeezes, right? Like saying, if we all buy call options, then that will force the price of the stock up,
00:11:47
and dealers will have to hedge their call options by buying more stock, and then the stock will keep going up, and the
00:11:52
dealers will have to buy more to keep hedging, and the stock will sort of spiral up infinitely. And I would read that and say,
00:11:59
okay, like, there's no, you know, perpetual motion machine. But also, like, how big of an impact on a big liquid stock,
00:12:07
can retail call option buying have? And the answer is, like, much more than I expected, right? It's just that you think
00:12:16
of, like, retail investors as being, like, dispersed and kind of random, right? Because they're— they're— you know,
00:12:22
traditionally, don't have access to a lot of information. But they're also just, like, individuals with small accounts.
00:12:27
And one thing that you learned in the Gamestop saga is that retail investors can kind of coordinate around one thing,
00:12:34
where they're all buying the same call options at the same company at the same time. And then the stock really does go
00:12:39
up. And the stuff about gamma screws is— that sort of like looks like an urban legend— turns out to be kind of true
00:12:44
some of the time. So I think that has been an interesting shift where retail investors, like, just have the power to
00:12:54
move markets in a way that nobody really expected. And you see that in, like, institutional investors being much more
00:13:00
cautious about short selling. And particularly, like, you know, vocal activist short selling, because they worry that if they
00:13:07
go after a company, they short a company, some— you know, some retail investors on a message board will say, you know, "Let's
00:13:13
go after that hedge fund." And like, it turns out that if they all do that, then, like, it can have a material effect on the
00:13:19
hedge fund. You know, your question— you talk about, like, you know, retail investors being less sophisticated and having
00:13:27
less access to information. I don't know that, like, the retail investors, like, in the long run, look particularly smart from the
00:13:36
Gamestop episode, right? It's not like Gamestop is killing it in their business.
00:13:43
I think there's like, interesting effects where, like, GameStop and AMC were able to raise so
00:13:46
much money and sort of, like, get some runway from their retail involvement. And like, that has interestingly shifted
00:13:52
the dynamics of the underlying businesses. But, like, ultimately, I don't know. Like— like, you know, the hedge funds
00:13:57
who were shorting GameStop— I don't know. The hedge funds shorting Gamestop at, like, $14 maybe they were wrong. But the hedge funds
00:14:02
short in Gamestop at, you know, $80 seem right, but they also got blown up. And I don't think that, like, this is a story of
00:14:12
retail investors being better analysts of companies than professional investors. But I do think it's a story of, like,
00:14:20
retail investors coordinating in a way that is much more impactful on the market than anyone really thought.
00:14:27
Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, it's not that they did the underlying analysis, but it is that when they come together,
00:14:34
they managed to move markets in a way that puts institutional investors in a bind, in a way that they didn't really expect.
00:14:41
So I think in that sense, it's a little more subtle than the traditional story we had about retail versus institutions.
00:14:49
Yeah. You know, I read a lot about, like, market structure and about, you know, like— like like, high frequency trading
00:14:58
firms, market making to retail traders. And like, everyone's model there is that retail traders are— I'm sorry, I shouldn't
00:15:03
say everyone's model. The popular perception is that retail traders are sort of random noise traders, where,
00:15:09
like, they'll buy a stock or sell a stock, but there's no, overarching coordination among retail traders. And so you
00:15:15
can, like, make a lot of money market making to retail traders, because, like, they are, like, you know, buying at the— at the—
00:15:23
at the offer and selling at the bid, and not— not like, predictive of prices. And you see in— like, I don't really know
00:15:32
how market makers did in this. I think they did very well for the most part. But like, you see in this that retail trades are,
00:15:37
like, much more predictive than people would have thought, right? Like that they are— that there is a— like, a
00:15:43
directionality to retail trades, where, like, if one retail trader— like, sometimes, if one retail trader buys a stock, that
00:15:49
is a sign the stock is going to keep going up, because a lot of other retail traders are going to buy it. And that's just like
00:15:54
an interesting shift where, you know, like, a retail trader is not an atomized individual buying stock, sort of like
00:16:02
independent of all other retail traders. There is, like, this ability for retail traders to coordinate.
00:16:08
Right. So you mentioned the fact that AMC and Gamestop were able to raise capital out of this increase in stock price. And at
00:16:17
the end of the day, you know, for example, in the case of AMC, this led them to avoid bankruptcy, which I think was a
00:16:27
real concern at that point. And I think this raises a very interesting question. Because at the end of the day, if this just
00:16:34
stays in the financial market, some people make money, some people lose money, you know, you can say it's okay. People go to the
00:16:40
financial market at their own risk, and they should be prepared to lose money. But when this kind of spills over to the
00:16:46
real economy in the way that it did here, because you have a firm that is able to raise more capital and stay in business,
00:16:52
even though maybe shouldn't have, then I think this raises deeper questions. Are you worried about that? That firms
00:16:59
are using this phenomenon? I sort of put myself in the shoes of the CFOs, and think, well,
00:17:05
how could you not, right? I mean, how could you not try to raise money here? I also think that, you know, it's an interesting— I
00:17:13
mentioned earlier the idea that there's no mechanism to cap the price of a company at its, like, cash flows, right? Like, there's
00:17:23
no mechanism for, if retail investors all want to buy a stock, there's no mechanism to prevent the price from going to,
00:17:29
you know, as high as they want. But of course, there is, which is, the company can sell the stock, right? And you see a
00:17:34
little bit of that in some of the meme stock episodes, where, like, if the price gets too high, the company is going to
00:17:40
hit the bid, and then the price will come down to a more reasonable level. In part because, like, there'll be more
00:17:47
supply. But also, in part because, like, it sort of deflates the social phenomenon. If, like, if everyone's like,
00:17:54
"Oh, we're buying and holding," and then the company's like, "We're a
00:17:56
seller at this price." It's like, sort of bad for the meme. But, you know, I think it's probably bad if financial markets are
00:18:08
allocating capital on retail wins. So it's not that bad, right? Like, there— there are other like, forms of gambling
00:18:15
and— and— that are probably, you know, equally expensive. And you— like, there's something interesting about AMC, right?
00:18:23
Because, like, on the one hand, their business was struggling, and they got a lifeline from meme stock investors. On the
00:18:31
other hand, like, those meme stock investors were not driven by, like, pure irrationality. They were driven by, like, nostalgia
00:18:37
for movie theaters, right? And their business was struggling, in part, like— there were other problems, but in part because
00:18:42
they were in a pandemic where they couldn't show movies, right? So the idea that, like, these retail investors, driven by
00:18:47
nostalgia, were sort of bridging them through a difficult business period— like— like, it doesn't seem that bad, right? It
00:18:53
seems like, in some ways, like— the retail investors, like, made a sort of, like, rational allocation of capital there.
00:19:02
I do think that you can look at some of these— there is, like, a real cynicism to some of the capital raising off of meme
00:19:14
stocks. But at the same time, like, you know, the most cynical looking of— well, I shouldn't say that. One very cynical
00:19:23
looking trade was when Hertz raised money from meme stock investors while it was in bankruptcy, which is just a
00:19:29
crazy thing to do. But also, like, it emerged from bankruptcy with equity value, and those meme stock investors made money.
00:19:35
Which is, again, like— it's a pandemic-driven thing where, like, the business crashed and then recovered, and the meme
00:19:40
stock investors sort of bridged them through the pandemic. There are other cases. I mean, Bed Bath and Beyond is a case where
00:19:47
they raised money from meme stock investors all the way to zero in a way that looks really cynical and looked really like a
00:19:53
transfer of money from retail investors to, essentially, bond holders. But I don't know how big of a misallocation of
00:20:04
capital it was, because they did go back to pretty short order. No, you're making good points here. I mean, I think it is
00:20:11
clear that this meme stock phenomenon can help firms go through a bad time. Whether this is good or bad, it's not— it's
00:20:21
not clear. It depends on whether the underlying stress was efficient or not. And yeah, certainly there was some
00:20:27
business proposition behind AMC staying alive. So in that sense, maybe— maybe the investors did them a favor.
00:20:35
If your model is that, like, the retail investors doing this are are just always, like, systematically less rational
00:20:42
than institutional investors who'd normally fund companies, then, yeah, this is bad. I think that model is like, you know,
00:20:50
largely correct, but it's not like— it's not like, so obviously correct, right? I mean, institutional investors
00:20:54
make mistakes too. Yes, absolutely. I would be the first one to agree with that. So if you are a regulator sitting and watching all this,
00:21:03
what are your main takeaways? What do you think should be done to make financial markets more orderly?
00:21:10
I'm sympathetic to the actual response of regulators, which was kind of that this is all fine. Embarrassing, but fine.
00:21:17
Like— like, when the Gamestop thing originally happened, there was a lot of interest in whether there was some sort of, like,
00:21:26
secret coordination pump and dump, where the people on Reddit touting Gamestop were like, secretly, you know, doing
00:21:36
something nefarious. And it doesn't ever look like that was true, right? It just looked like they liked the stock. There was
00:21:45
maybe an awkward amount of coordination, an awkward amount of cheerleading. But, like no one was lying, really. And that's
00:21:51
like, the main thing that the SEC is concerned about, is, like, people misrepresent— misrepresent things, or lying.
00:21:59
This strikes me as like, kind of an emergent phenomenon of retail traders, and one that, like, kind of can't be regulated away,
00:22:07
because it's like— you know, if people want to put their money on this thing, then— then they're allowed to. Now, you
00:22:14
see, like— you know, there's tinkering at the edges, right? I mean, the— like, one thing that came out of this was— was the
00:22:19
move to T+1 settlement, which is a really arcane response to the Gamestop saga. But like, you know, basically
00:22:28
the Gamestop, like, phenomenon led to increased credit risk of clearing, because everyone was buying the stock at, like, you
00:22:38
know— this incredibly volatile stock at, like, increasing prices. And so that led to, like, hiccups in the system of, like,
00:22:47
stock settlement, where, like, Robin Hood was getting giant margin calls from the clearing house. And so the— the SEC
00:22:52
subsequently moved to T+1 settlement to kind of like tamp that down. Another response you saw is that the SEC sort of
00:23:00
expressed very clear skepticism about companies raising capital off meme stock things, and they sort of demanded that companies
00:23:07
put a lot of, like, dire warnings in their prospectuses when they did these offerings. But of course, when you do a retail at-
00:23:16
the-market offering, zero of your investors read the prospectus. So it doesn't really matter. I don't know that
00:23:23
there's much that they can do. And I do think that, like, again, this was, like a thing that happened during the
00:23:28
pandemic as a sort of, like, entertainment substitute. And you look at what entertainment options are available to people
00:23:36
these days, like, it's a lot of gambling. And so, like, I'm not sure that, like, investing in Gamestop options is— is that
00:23:45
much different or that much worse than, you know, betting on sports. And so, like, the regulators are in a bit of a
00:23:52
bind. I think it's very embarrassing for the SEC to have this occur, because they would love for financial markets to
00:24:01
just look more orderly and rational and less like an insane entertainment product. But people are coming to the stock
00:24:10
market for a lot of reasons, and one of them is clearly entertainment. Right. Yeah, and I think they will have a problem
00:24:15
thinking about the stock market as a casino. They would like it to be a place where allocation of capital is being done, and I
00:24:23
think this is why they look at it, and are a little worried by that. I think that's right. But I also think, like— the SEC has such a bias and
00:24:33
mission in favor of retail investors. And that includes letting retail investors do what they want, right? I mean, like,
00:24:38
if your goal is efficient allocation of capital, you might be sort of skeptical of a lot of retail investor decision making, right?
00:24:48
You might be like, "Everyone's got to put everything into index fund, and only professionals can trade stocks." But that's, like,
00:24:54
not the American way. And— and I think that there is a bias towards letting retail investors do what they want, even if the
00:25:01
SEC is sure it's bad for them. I also think that, like— I talked about Hertz. The SEC stopped the Hertz equity offering, and that
00:25:10
offering, like, turned out to be a good idea for the people who were buying it, right? I mean, like, the stock— in the sense that
00:25:15
the stock went up, right? So the SEC, like, doesn't always know what is irrational for retail investors.
00:25:21
Yeah. So, you know, to close our conversation, I want to ask you more broadly where else do you think we are going to see
00:25:30
episodes like this? And I want to bring up something that is related, but also different in many ways. And this is the
00:25:36
Silicon Valley Bank that, you know, had the biggest bank run in history, and it was also driven by social media. Of
00:25:45
course, you know, this is not the stock market. It's a bank, people pulling out deposits. But at the end of the day, there
00:25:51
were some similarities because of the contagion that happens through social media. So do you see some connection? Where do
00:25:59
you think we are going to see more action along these lines? Yeah. I mean, SVB— I think SVB is interesting because, like,
00:26:11
SVB collapsed because of a bank run. And the people doing that bank run were largely, like, very sophisticated, well
00:26:18
connected, you know, sort of VCs and tech startups who are like, you know, largely the depositors there. And people talk about it
00:26:26
being a social-media-driven bank run. But I think a lot of, like, my gut sense is that a lot of what happened there was not
00:26:33
happening on, like Twitter, but on, you know, private text messages or just like, phone calls between VCs, right? So
00:26:40
it's not exactly social-media- driven. It's like, a fast, tech- intermediated sort of traditional rumor mill. The
00:26:47
interesting bank run, from a social media perspective, was like— Credit Suisse, before it collapsed— like, not the day
00:26:56
before it collapsed, but in the months leading up to its collapse, there were a lot of like, you know, Redditors trying
00:27:03
to take down Credit Suisse. And I do think that, like, the possibility of coordinating a bank run on social media is
00:27:12
interesting. It is, as you say, like, the inverse of the— of the of the, you know, meme stock phenomenon. Where, you know, if—
00:27:19
if people on social media can get together to drive a stock up, they can get together to drive it down. And
00:27:27
in general, you know, as I said at the beginning, like, the— you know, cash flows are a floor on a stock price, right? And like,
00:27:33
you can't really come together to drive the stock price of, like, Tesla to zero. But you kind of can with a bank, because
00:27:40
banks are so like, perception- dependent. And if you have a bank run, then, like, the bank really can go to zero. So I do
00:27:46
think that, like, the possibility of using social media to coordinate a run on a bank is like, you know,
00:27:51
something that occurred to people after GameStop. And something that, like, kind of sort of tentatively played out a
00:27:57
little bit in Credit Suisse, although I think ultimately it was not, like, the causal problem with Credit Suisse.
00:28:04
In terms of more generally, like, where does this go in the long term? I mean, I
00:28:08
think that— the two things I'd point to are, again, crypto is just like— people have developed a better understanding of the
00:28:18
social dynamics of investing. And like, that's going to get— just keep being reused in crypto. And then the other thing I'd point
00:28:24
to is Donald Trump's SPAC, right? Which is— you know, GameStop is a real company. Like, you know, like, you could
00:28:33
have a range of opinions on how much money Gamestop will make selling video games in ten years, right? Donald Trump's, you know,
00:28:42
Trump Media Technology Group is like a real, like, teeny nub of a company, right? It's got a social media site that doesn't
00:28:49
seem to bring in very much revenue. It talks a big game about, like, getting into streaming video and other
00:28:54
things, but it's like, not clear what they're doing. And on its very, very small revenue and sort of, like, minor, like
00:29:02
small, negative net income, it has, like, a multibillion dollar valuation. And it's just very clear that the people
00:29:07
buying it are not buying it because they're, like, doing financial analysis, but because they are trying to get behind
00:29:12
Donald Trump in some way. And I think that, like— I don't think he'll be the last person to make use of this phenomenon, right?
00:29:23
And I do think that, like Gamestop kind of proved out the possibility here. And then Trump Media Group capitalized on it.
00:29:31
Okay, lots to think about. Thank you very much, Matt, it was a pleasure talking to you about all these issues, and I think we
00:29:38
should all stay tuned to see what's next. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you.

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Episode Highlights

  • The Rise of Social Investing
    Exploring how social media influences behavioral investing, especially during the pandemic.
    “Gamestop was sort of a proof of concept.”
    @ 02m 01s
    November 18, 2024
  • The Cultural Impact of Meme Stocks
    How the pandemic created a unique environment for meme stocks like Gamestop and AMC.
    “People were starved for entertainment and social interaction.”
    @ 09m 06s
    November 18, 2024
  • Retail Investors' Unexpected Power
    Retail investors coordinated to influence stock prices in ways previously thought impossible.
    “Retail investors can kind of coordinate around one thing.”
    @ 12m 34s
    November 18, 2024
  • Emergent Retail Trading Phenomenon
    The rise of retail trading is reshaping financial markets, challenging traditional regulations.
    “This strikes me as like, kind of an emergent phenomenon of retail traders.”
    @ 22m 01s
    November 18, 2024
  • Gamestop vs. Sports Betting
    Investing in Gamestop options is compared to gambling, raising questions about market motivations.
    “Investing in Gamestop options is not much different than betting on sports.”
    @ 23m 40s
    November 18, 2024
  • SEC's Bias Towards Retail Investors
    The SEC's mission to protect retail investors may lead to unintended consequences.
    “The SEC has such a bias and mission in favor of retail investors.”
    @ 24m 33s
    November 18, 2024
  • Social Media and Bank Runs
    The potential for social media to coordinate bank runs presents new challenges for regulators.
    “The possibility of using social media to coordinate a run on a bank is interesting.”
    @ 27m 48s
    November 18, 2024
  • Looking Ahead
    The conversation concludes with a call to stay tuned for future developments in finance.
    “I think we should all stay tuned to see what's next.”
    @ 29m 38s
    November 18, 2024

Episode Quotes

  • Is this just how life is now?
    Meme Stocks Explained & Analyzed with Bloomberg's Matt Levine
  • Retail investors have more power than you would have expected.
    Meme Stocks Explained & Analyzed with Bloomberg's Matt Levine
  • There’s no mechanism to cap the price of a company at its cash flows.
    Meme Stocks Explained & Analyzed with Bloomberg's Matt Levine
  • This strikes me as like, kind of an emergent phenomenon of retail traders.
    Meme Stocks Explained & Analyzed with Bloomberg's Matt Levine
  • Investing in Gamestop options is not much different than betting on sports.
    Meme Stocks Explained & Analyzed with Bloomberg's Matt Levine
  • The possibility of using social media to coordinate a run on a bank is interesting.
    Meme Stocks Explained & Analyzed with Bloomberg's Matt Levine

Key Moments

  • Introduction to Social Investing00:06
  • Gamestop Phenomenon00:51
  • Cultural Impact of Pandemic07:44
  • Retail Investor Power11:31
  • Market Entertainment23:40
  • Regulatory Challenges24:33
  • Bank Run Dynamics27:48
  • Future Developments29:38

Tension Over Time

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