Is The GameStop Trade Really A Political Rebellion?

Joe Weisenthal (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:17)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:19)

Tracy, I can't tell whether I feel bad for you that you're in Hong Kong and missing out on US trading hours these days, or whether I'm really jealous of you that you're in Hong Kong and missing out on US trading hours these days.

Tracy Alloway (0:34)

Feel bad for me. I feel bad for me. I would love to be in New York during the most dramatic moments of some of the recent US market action that we've seen.

Joe Weisenthal (0:44)

Yeah, no, I do feel bad for you. I mean, it is really fun. I've definitely never before had a whole Bloomberg monitor just devoted to the real-time price of GameStop.

So that's pretty cool. On the other hand, you are missing out blessedly on just some truly awful takes about all this. And every cable news channel and pundit and everything is like pontificating about what all this means. And I'm not, I don't feel bad that you're missing that.

Tracy Alloway (1:14)

Okay, so it's true. I haven't seen a lot of what the US television channels are saying. I will say though, I'm on Twitter basically at night time in the US. And so I get a lot of cranks and crazies around, the hours of like midnight to 4 a.m. So I do see some of the conspiracy theory stuff.

I get enough of that. Yeah, exactly. But I get the sense that I'm missing something in the whole GameStop commentary that has been annoying you.

Joe Weisenthal (1:48)

Yes.

So I mean, look, I love this story and I don't really want it to end anytime soon. Let's get that out. And I've learned, I've already like learned a bunch, just like over the last week about how the markets work. Like it's been very educational, but I do think there is this proclivity of everyone who has an agenda to find a way to like work it in. And you have like Donald Trump Jr. talking about it and Ted Cruz and AOC and Dave Portnoy and the Winklevoss brothers and like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Stoller and like literally anyone who has an opinion on anything, the GameStop trade bolsters their view.

Tracy Alloway (2:30)

So I totally agree with that agenda point. There's something for everyone in the GameStop story, whether it's true or not. But I do think the fact that it's this sort of Rorschach test for a bunch of people talking about it, like I think that is part of the GameStop phenomenon. And so I think you have to talk about it and you have to recognize its importance.

Joe Weisenthal (2:56)

Yeah. And a big question too is like, is there something like political? Like, is there a big class warfare element of this?

And like, obviously the answer is kind of yes. And people like on the Wall Street Bets love the idea that they're like sticking it to the bankers. On the other hand, you know, you have these people like, this is finally the mission of Occupy Wall Street has now been fulfilled. And like my eyes just roll out the side of my head when I see stuff like that. So we're gonna try to figure out like, what does this mean? Is there a political message? Is this Occupy Wall Street 2.0?

Or is this just something fun? Is it just a trade? Like, what does this all mean?

Tracy Alloway (3:35)

All right, this is gonna be an interesting episode. Let's do it. And we should note we have not one, but two guests because it's such a polarizing topic, I suppose.

Joe Weisenthal (3:47)

Yeah, we're gonna have a debate, although I'm worried that our guests are going to be too friendly and that it's just gonna be me and you fighting against each other. That's okay. But I'm very excited about our two guests today.

Two of our absolute favorite people here, two of the sharpest people who understand markets and market structure and finance and even politics. Very excited.

We're gonna be speaking with George Pearkes. He is a macro strategist at Bespoke Investment Group and Jill Carlson. She is a partner at Slow Ventures and does a lot, we've talked to her in the past about Bitcoin and blockchain stuff and money. And they've both written, I guess you could say, takes of the last week. George has a great piece up on Business Insider that you should check out and Jill has a great piece on CoinDesk that you should check out. And so we're gonna hopefully get the full range of perspective here. So George and Jill, thank you very much for joining us.