The day traders in India are getting ready for the GameStop Corp. ride that has taken stock markets by storm.
The video game retailer was among the top five most traded names in the past week Stockal, a platform for Indian private investors to trade US equities. GameStop accounted for about 15% of all transactions on the platform, Sitashwa Srivastava, co-founder and co-chief executive officer, said in an interview.
“We didn’t expect Indians to be on Reddit to read about GameStop,” Srivastava said. Unlike many of their options-heavy WallStreetBets counterparts, Indian traders should not use leverage when trading foreign stocks, he said. “These are all traded in cash.”
GameStop has exploded on trading screens with the stock up more than 1,700% this year. Fueled by merchant discussions on forums and Elon Musk’s “Gamestonk !!” tweet, it has surprised professionals and squeezed shorts at large hedge funds.
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As in other markets, with more Indians staying in since the pandemic hit, many have flocked to the stock markets at home and abroad, leading to an increase in retail investment. According to Stockal, their favorites in the US were Tesla Inc. and Apple Inc., where Covid-19 vaccine maker Moderna Inc. and the Chinese electric vehicle company Nio Inc. rose in the rankings in recent months.
Bee Winvesta, another platform targeting Indian individual investors, exposure to FAANG shares in client portfolios has fallen to an average of 13% from 18% in October, Chief Executive Officer Swastik Nigam said.
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In China, GameStop and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. Wednesday the most traded US names on a trading app from Shenzhen-based Futu Holdings Ltd., which serves individual investors in mainland China and Hong Kong.
‘Real skin’
Mumbai-based marketing consultant Dipe Chatterjee says he has bought GameStop and Tesla in recent months, earning 150% of his $ 1,000 investment in the games retailer earlier this week, before making a quick profit.
“It’s a game with real skin in it,” he said.
Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum earlier briefly took himself out amid a wave of new entrants. The site had amassed more than 3 million members when day traders shut down companies led by GameStop.
– With help from Nupur Acharya and Moxy Ying
(Adds comments from Winvesta’s CEO in sixth paragraph.)