You probably wouldn’t expect GameStop’s recent frenzied wave (GME) – Request report stock to have any impact on the New York Mets baseball team.
But Mets fans are worried because owner Steve Cohen’s Point72 hedge fund has invested in Melvin Capital, a hedge fund with a huge short position in GameStop. A source told The New York Times that Cohen’s hedge fund is down 15% this year.
That’s not a very big step, of course, given the magnitude of GameStop’s staggering surge – its stock has surged over 650% in the last month – and the size of Cohen’s wealth. He is worth $ 14.6 billion on Thursday, according to Forbes.
Citadel and Point72 are injecting $ 2.75 billion into Melvin to keep the company afloat, with $ 750 million coming from Point72. Melvin managed $ 1 billion of his money for that, sources told The Times.
Mets fans asked Cohen, giving their views on whether the Melvin debacle would affect the Mets.
As a fan put it, “Does this Gamestop company affect Mets payroll? I mean that’s the main story in all of this.”
Cohen’s response: “Why would one have anything to do with the other.”
Fan response: “Because both companies have the same sugar daddy!”
As for GameStop, the video game retailer’s stock continued to whiplash, tumble, rise, and then sink again on Thursday after trading platforms such as Robinhood restricted trades in the stock.
AMC Entertainment (AMC) – Request report and Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) – Request report – two other stocks with a strong short position – fell sharply on Thursday.
The activity was largely driven by the Reddit-based chat room WallStreetBets.