Over the last week, financial media has exhaustively covered GameStop’s wild ride from roughly $77 on January 25th to $70 where it trades as I type roundtripping a move as high $483 per share in between. As we all know, a social media fueled trading frenzy sent the share price surging in the most extreme short squeeze I have personally ever witnessed. But all that juice looks to have been squeezed by now.
Over the past few days, I have been captivated by this violent market whipsaw, with shares moving 100 percent to 200 percent day in and day out. Many have portrayed this story as a band of merry men going after the big bad hedge funds of Sherwood Forest. It’s a classic David versus Goliath story, and everyone loves rooting for the underdog, particularly when it’s against the fat cats of Wall Street.
Why men are more likely to invest in Tesla MarketWatch 1/16/2021
Your answer may depend on your gender.
A new
academic study has found that male investors are more inclined to pursue momentum strategies, while female investors tend to be more contrarian. The study was conducted by Charles Jones of Columbia Business School, Donghui Shi of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Xiaoyan Zhang and Xinran Zhang of Tsinghua University.
The authors reached this conclusion upon being given access to a “comprehensive, account-level database from the Shanghai Stock Exchange with all trading and holdings over the period from 2016 to 2019.”
By “momentum,” the researchers have in mind strategies that buy winners and sell losers. In other words, momentum investors buy stocks that have performed well in the recent past like Tesla in hopes that their good fortune will continue.