Dumb Money (2023)

The real events that formed the basis of Mezrich's book took place in early 2021. Then a group of lay investors and Internet trolls from the WallStreetBets association (all of whom were users of Reddit - a site that combines the functionality of a social network and a forum where you can post links and discuss any topic) staged a financial revolution. on Wall Street, the launch of a massive trading chain of computer game stocks, game consoles and game accessories GameStop. This happened after some hedge funds announced that the company's shares would soon lose even more of their price.

However, professional investors watched with horror the opposite effect: if in January 2021, GameStop shares were trading at a price of 15-20 dollars a piece, then as a result of an "attack" by Reddit users, their quotes were raised at 440 dollars. As a result, since December 2020, the computer game company's market value has increased by 1,700 percent overnight, "boosting" the price of GameStop by ten billion dollars. This led to the collapse of several investment funds and the complete destruction of Melvin Capital, one of the largest hedge funds on Wall Street, which never recovered from its losses.