Retail traders on Reddit cornered Wall Street's short sellers in 2021
Hedge funds had bet heavily that GameStop's stock would keep falling. Traders on Reddit's r/WallStreetBets bought shares and call options instead, driving the price up over 1,600% in weeks and forcing short sellers to buy back stock to limit losses, pushing the price even higher. Melvin Capital, one of the funds caught short, needed a $2.75 billion rescue within days.