The stock market fiasco centered around GameStop continues to twist and turn.
In the latest leg of the saga, a number of apps used by the general public to trade stock in public companies have blocked the ability to buy some shares, preventing smaller-scale investors like the folks at r/WallStreetBets from continuing to buy up GameStop stock and fuel losses for stock market short sellers that bet on declining share value.
News broke earlier this morning that Robinhood was no longer allowing its users to pick up shares of many companies targeted by Reddit’s WallStreetBets group this week, including GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry, and Nokia, though selling features remain uninterrupted.
The action has had a noticeable impact on GameStop’s share prices for WallStreetBets faves. While still up significantly from where the price started the year, GameStop currently sits around $225 a share, down 35.25 percent from its $265 open and down sharply from its value the day before.
According to Gizmodo, Robinhood is now also facing a class action lawsuit from its users over the sudden restrictions which the suit alleges are a violation of its customer agreement.
In a blog post, Robinhood says that the decision was made out of of a desire to help its users “navigate this uncertainty” and that it “fundamentally [believes] that everyone should have access to financial markets” seemingly despite its own restrictions on what Robinhood users can trade.
“We continuously monitor the markets and make changes where necessary,” reads a portion of that blog. “In light of recent volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only.”
GameStop’s share price has soared over this last week, though the surge has little to do with the health or operations of the actual company itself. Rather the surge is the result of efforts from groups like WallStreetBets that drove an increase in GameStop’s stock value and put short sellers betting against the company’s success on the line for billions in the process. (More on that here.)
The ride has so far caught the attention of the White House and the SEC, with politicians like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (and, to a lesser degree, Senator Ted Cruz) joining in on the discourse today with their own condemnations of Robinhood’s restrictions.