2/23 (Tue) GameStop Mania (Host: Lewis Lu is on the air!)

[Lewis Lu]

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for inviting me to be the host this time. I highly appreciate it that I could be the host through online and this is a good try. Hopefully everyone can enjoy it.

This time we will be discussing GameStop Mania, a war between retail investors and hedge fund managers.
The following links are the news about the GameStop Mania:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8rwmS4Y17c
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/market ... y-n1256527
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/28/tech ... index.html

Let's discuss this event in two sessions. The first session is about the background knowledge and the second session will focus on the controversial issues relating to this event.

Questions for Discussion:

Session I: Background Knowledge

Q1: What is "GameStop Mania"? What happened?

Q2: What is "short squeezing" ? How does it work?

Q3: Retail investors and hedge fund managers are different players in stock market. How do they make money?

Session II: Controversial Issues

Q1: Reddit plays a key role in this event, do you think this type of open forum should be regulated? Why or why not?

Q2: Do you think Robinhood, a commission-free stock trading & investing app, should be sanctioned by the Department of Justice (DOJ)? Why or why not?

Q3: Finally, if you were the commissioner of the DOJ, how would you mitigate the conflicts between the retail investors and the hedge fund managers?


Agenda:
6:45 ~ 7:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
7:00 ~ 7:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
7:10 ~ 7:50pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
7:50 ~ 8:10pm Summarization (20 mins)
8:10 ~ 8:15pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
8:15 ~ 8:55pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
9:00 ~ 9:20pm Summarization (20 mins)
9:20 ~ 9:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements

Meeting Date: As shown on the Subject Line
Meeting Time: 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Meeting Venue: 丹堤咖啡 Dante Coffee (Minimum Order $80)
Address: 台北市濟南路三段25號[MAP]-捷運忠孝新生站3號出口步行3分鐘

Important Notes:
1. We advise participants to print out the discussion questions and bring them to the meeting for reference. As for the supporting articles, feel free to print them out, as well, according to your preference.
2. We suggest that participants read the articles and think about the questions in advance.
3. Newcomers should prepare a two-to-three minute self-introduction in English to deliver when called upon by the host before the start of the discussion. The host may also ask you to give brief feedback about the meeting at the conclusion of the meeting.
4. We conduct the entire meeting in English. All participants should have at least moderate English-conversation skills and be able to articulate your ideas for each discussion question.
5. We welcome newcomers and other guests to attend the meetings and join the discussion freely for three times. After that, we hope you will consider becoming a YoYo English Club member. We charge a NT$1000 lifetime membership fee.

[Iris Wu]

Just to pin this post to the top of the page!
It's an interesting Wall Street saga. We will chat more later.

[Iris Wu]

We all love “Robin Hood” stories. It feels so exciting and heroic to rob the rich and feed the poor.
Our impression of Wall Street, a culture that breeds greed, especially groups like hedge fund managers/investors, who leverage the money power and adopt any means to make a profit and avert the falls, sometimes turning the failure to banks or other institutions. You wish there were a magic wand to cancel their power.

It feels good to see the “normal people” muster the courage to fight against greedy giants “successfully”, even just in a short period of time!

When a group of Redditors worked together to drive up shares of GameStop, hedge funds were bleeding money. Now the big guys are crying for "regulatory intervention", but it definitely sounds more like wolves crying that "sheep are coming"!

[Luis Ko]

what i said about Gamestop event is based on the article from the link below,

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/busi ... 94936.html