By Jasper Cox
29 Jan 2021
This week in Keeping Tabs: optimum bank capital ratios, and also that other story everyone's been talking about.
The financial industry has found itself in the rare position of being in the limelight without a major crash having occurred. It is quite a novelty.
Fixating on the trading of the so-called meme stocks, the most notable of which is US retailer GameStop, was a niche interest at the beginning of the week, but now everyone has joined in — including politicians — particularly after brokers including Robinhood restricted trading on Thursday.
Why has the episode fascinated so many people, and sparked conversions about purpose, fairness and manipulation in markets? A big reason is the political (with a small p) pose of many of those on the Reddit page r/wallstreetbets and elsewhere on social media celebrating the rise of the meme stocks. They portray this as a fight against not just short sellers and hedge funds, but Wall Street as a whole.