Barstool Sports founder says he lost $700,000 in GameStop rally – Business Insider – Business Insider

• Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy said he lost $700,000 on “meme stocks” like GameStop.
• Portnoy tweeted that the CEO of the trading app Robinhood “stole it from me and should be in jail.”
• The stock market is reeling from a frenzy kicked off by a group of Redditors.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy said on Tuesday that he had lost about $700,000 on “meme stocks” like GameStop.

Portnoy tweeted that he had officially sold all the stocks he purchased. He admonished the trading platform Robinhood and its CEO, Vlad Tenev, for allowing users to buy the volatile stocks in the first place.

“Vlad and company stole it from me and should be in jail,” Portnoy tweeted.

—Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) February 2, 2021

Portnoy’s losses came on the heels of a stock-market frenzy drummed up by a group of people on Reddit who bought up stocks like GameStop, driving up the companies’ values. Many people used trading apps like Robinhood to join in on the rally. Robinhood saw a surge in new members and was forced to temporarily stop users from buying shares of GameStop, AMC, and others; it said it was complying with financial requirements.

Read more: Robinhood user launches class-action suit against the trading app hours after it blocked purchases of GameStop

The move angered many of the app’s users and lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Robinhood allowed the trading to resume but added limitations for 50 stocks, including GameStop — Robinhood said it would cap the number of GameStop shares that users could buy at 20.

Robinhood has raised more than $3 billion in emergency investments so far to compensate for the surge in trading on its platform. Tenev has defended the company’s initial decision to halt the trading of certain stocks and said Robinhood was not struggling with liquidity issues.

Read more: GameStop has surged more than 600% in the past week. 3 experts break down where the stock could go from here as Reddit’s army of traders take profits and search for their next targets.

And Tenev told Tesla CEO Elon Musk in an interview on Sunday that Robinhood was forced to restrict trading for users because the surge prompted the National Securities Clearing Corporation to ask for a $3 billion deposit.