New York Mets owner Steve Cohen deactivated his Twitter account on Friday night after saying his family received personal threats amid the ongoing showdown between an army of independent retail investors and Wall Street over struggling video game retailer GameStop.
“I really enjoyed going back and forth with Mets fans on Twitter, which unfortunately this week was overtaken by misinformation unrelated to the Mets that led to our family receiving personal threats,” Cohen said on Saturday. a statement. So I’m taking a break for now. We have other ways to listen to your suggestions and remain committed to them.
“I love our team, this community and our fans, who are the best at baseball. The bottom line is that this week’s events in no way affect our resources and drive to put a champion team on the pitch. “
Bob Nightengale
(@BNightengale)NEW #Mets owner Steve Cohen on Twitter account deactivation after family received threats pic.twitter.com/YFdG6ddav8
Day traders, mobilized on a Reddit forum, have poured all the money they can find into the stock of a struggling video game retailer called GameStop and a few other downed companies. Their purchases have driven the stock prices of those companies up unimaginably – and, not coincidentally, caused enormous losses to the hedge funds of the super rich, who had placed bets that the stocks would fall.
Their strategy is of course fraught with risks. The prices of the stock they bought are now multiples above any level justified by earnings, earnings or future outlook. The danger is that the files can collapse at any time.
Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management got involved when it invested in Melvin Capital Management, a hedge fund that had bet heavily on GameStop and caught the ire of the day traders. Melvin is run by Cohen’s former protégé Gabe Plotkin.
GameStop shares skyrocketed from below $ 20 earlier this month to close around $ 325 on Friday. In the past three weeks, they have made an astonishing 1,600% gain.
Cohen, who bought the Mets for a record $ 2.42 billion in October, had amassed nearly 200,000 followers on Twitter for his surprisingly irreverent interactions with fans, where he took suggestions on how to lead the team and crafted bizarre trading suggestions.
On Tuesday, the 64-year-old billionaire responded to the controversy by tweeting, “Rough audience on Twitter tonight. Hey stock jockeys, keep bringing it. “
On Thursday, Cohen got into conversation with Dave Portnoy after the founder of Barstool Sports criticized the Mets owner in the wake of restrictions placed on trading apps, such as Robinhood, that hurt the day traders behind the balloon ride. of GameStop’s stock price by prohibiting them from buying the stock while allowing sell orders.
“I had nothing to do with what happened today… Chile [sic] out, ”Cohen replied in a tweet to Portnoy.
After Portnoy’s supporters began to criticize Cohen, the owner of Mets deactivated his account.