[Music]
all right tonight we continue to follow
the david versus goliath brawl
on wall street david was winning by the
way game stop surged again today
after trading was resumed following
freezes by
apps like robinhood and many others and
just breaking tonight the texas attorney
general ken paxton
has launched an investigation into those
companies that did suspend trading
now as we have explained a group of
retail
investors they banded together and they
bought gamestop
amc blackberry and others
then forcing major wall street hedge
funds
like to sell short heavily shorting
these stocks
which by the way historically can hurt
companies
to buy up shares and try and cover their
losses
in something called a short squeeze
ultimately costing them billions
now it's being framed by many as a
full-fledged populist uprising
against financial power centers it is
raising concerns about
dangerous pump and dump schemes like
that which was chronicled in the 2013
film the wolf of wall street joining us
now the man who inspired that movie
former stockbroker and author and
motivational speaker jordan belfort is
with us
jordan sell me this pen sell me that pen
um
my first question about you sean's first
first question how accurate was
i'm not a fan of dicaprio but how
accurate was it he's a good actor but
how
accurate was that portrayal of you was
that is that you was that you
it was very accurate i mean some of the
things that you know were changed were
you know the timeline of things but for
the most part it was was very accurate
sean
it's scary to say let me ask you this we
do know these hedge funds
most people think the stock market is
you buy a stock
you hope the price is going to go up and
you watch your portfolio grow okay
shorting is a part of of the system it's
actually a little part of the check and
balances but
it can have a negative effect of hurting
companies
in a pretty in pretty profound ways
these hedge funds
they're making billions i kind of i
really
like what this independent group
ameritrade robin hood people
they got together they said you know
what we're going to stick it to them
because
we know what the game is and we know how
invested they
they are in shorting these stocks and i
kind of like it
now robin hood comes in yesterday they
stopped you couldn't
buy you could sell off what you had
uh you think that there are crimes here
on whose part
and what do you think of the hedge fund
guys then crying to mommy and daddy
in other words the government to step in
and protect
their monopoly if you will
well i think it's laughable for the
hedge funds to cry foul
after they do this every single day on a
daily basis manipulate stocks
box out the small investor but let me be
clear on one thing here
you know shorting is a healthy part of
the normal stock market
but that's not what went on with
gamestop there are different types of
short sellers
that attack companies and get overly
short
ridiculously short and that's what
you're seeing happening so shorting is
necessary
because it checks the market but what
you saw here is
shorters who are like manipulating a
stock downward
to drive it out of business it happens
all the time
they're very devious how they do that
they plant articles they start
investigations
that's what happened here that's the
showing that needs to stop and in this
case the little guy which is
incredible to see was able to get enough
buying power
to overcome the shorts and reverse it
and create this
incredible short squeeze so people now
do need to go to jail i'll tell you this
who shut down this trading if it turns
out
that they shut down trading at the
behest of
funds saying you need to slow down the
buying the
the level of of criminality there but is
there a chance
i have a question about this is there a
chance
they stopped again you could sell off
what you had but you couldn't buy
is there a chance they did it because
you and i both know
this thing in all likelihood and i'm not
the expert it's probably going to go
crashing down i think you'd probably
agree with that they're going to come
back down to earth
probably sooner than later you agree
with that guaranteed guarantees okay
yeah it's a guarantee a certainty all
right so they're going to come down
did they maybe make the decision and i'm
possibly it could be for the reason you
state they colluded with the hedge funds
or
did they know that maybe people that
would buy in at this high number
400 300 were going to lose money and
they
maybe they could have just put a warning
warning this stock is likely going to
dive down
fast they could have done that instead
but do you think they might have done it
to protect people from buying in
at this high price i don't think that
was it i'll tell you what i think it was
a combination of number one i think they
were getting pressure
from the big funds to shut this down so
people could eliminate or at least
reduce losses
but another factor here is that robin
hood
did have and does still have massive
exposure because
when this thing does unravel very
often it's the brokerage firms and these
clearing brokers they get caught
holding the bag for all the unclaimed
losses
people lose more than they have in their
account and it could drive someone out
of business so
my first instinct when i heard it's like
okay i get it they
slowed down trading they should have
never suspended trade they should have
increased the margin would have been a
much smarter way to do that you could
have slowed things down
like that to stop trading altogether
that was a sign that there's something a
bit more
nefarious going on here so i believe now
that i looked at the whole thing
that they were under pressure to stop
trading on the
upside and i think by the way the shorts
are still
short so it's not over yet and that's
why they shut it down
because they could have just slowed down
the ma by increasing margin
less borrowing ability that would have
done the same thing i love what they did
everyone's accounts i love what the guys
did i really do i like the little guy
fighting back all right jordan thank you
appreciate it very much