SEC to ‘carefully overview’ actions of Robinhood and merry Redditors

The U.S. Securities and Change Fee (SEC) has promised to overview the latest occasions surrounding the GameStop (GME) pump and the next restrictions on inventory buying and selling enforced by Robinhood trade, the SEC’s appearing chair and commissioners said on Friday.

“The Fee will carefully overview actions taken by regulated entities that will drawback buyers or in any other case unduly inhibit their means to commerce sure securities,” mentioned the SEC, noting, “As all the time, the Fee will work to guard buyers, to keep up truthful, orderly, and environment friendly markets, and to facilitate capital formation.”

Shedding the “little man’s” belief

Whereas the SEC didn’t point out Robinhood, GameStop, or Reddit instantly, there’s hardly any doubt as to which particular “regulated entity” that “took actions that will drawback buyers” the regulator was referring to.

As CryptoSlate reported, Robinhood has just lately restricted GME buying and selling on its platform, limiting customers’ means to purchase the booming shares. This resolution infuriated each most people and politicians from each side of the aisle alike.

Absolutely agree. 👇 https://t.co/rW38zfLYGh

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 28, 2021

Moreover, finance specialists had been fast to level out that Robinhood’s greatest buyer, hedge fund Citadel, can be an investor in Melvin Capital—a Wall Avenue firm that reportedly suffered an enormous loss due to the pump of GME organized by Reddit group WallStreetBets.

Citadel is an investor in Melvin Capital, which bought run over by Wall Avenue Bets. Citadel can be Robinhood’s greatest buyer. 🤔

— Tyler Winklevoss (@tyler) January 28, 2021

On this gentle, Robinhood’s resolution might’ve simply been interpreted as an try to guard “large guys” in the marketplace by proscribing retail buyers. Notably, the trade has later additionally restricted crypto buying and selling as “meme coin” DOGE seemingly bought the identical remedy as GameStop’s inventory, surging by 800% in simply sooner or later.

A sturdy public dialogue

In keeping with the SEC’s assertion, the regulator is presently “carefully monitoring and evaluating the intense worth volatility of sure shares’ buying and selling costs over the previous a number of days.”

“Our core market infrastructure has confirmed resilient underneath the load of this week’s extraordinary buying and selling volumes. Nonetheless, excessive inventory worth volatility has the potential to show buyers to fast and extreme losses and undermine market confidence,” the SEC said, including, “The Fee will proceed our work on behalf of buyers and the markets.”

To that finish, the regulator additionally needs to provoke a “sturdy” public dialogue on the construction and operation of securities markets that may contain market individuals and buyers.

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