Redditors who started by fighting short sellers over Gamestop have a new game to play.
The overnight game.
I got to see it for myself yesterday. I was tasked to write about Sundial Growers. They’re on the NASDAQ, ticker symbol SNDL. They’re a pot company, a small one.
At the start of January this was a penny stock, worth just 60 cents. Then the games started. Management took advantage, watering down the stock repeatedly to get rid of debt and raise cash. This only made the punters more desperate to get a piece. As of this week there are 1.5 billion shares outstanding.
But with a market cap of $2 billion, it’s not hard to move. If you play the overnight game.
After markets close, they’re still open. After-hours trading continues for hours and officially resumes in the morning. Even during those 10 hours, you can still place an order. So, orders got placed. When I was writing at around 7 AM yesterday, shares that had risen to $3 during the day were trading at $4.50.
I told readers to sell, but the game was already over by the time my article came out. By lunch the stock was trading below $2.50.
Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, was in on it. He bragged about his $50,000 profit online, buying, then selling in the overnight hours.
Assholes like Portnoy are going to run this game on their followers again-and-again until the suckers get wise. Those who get in with them will win, the ones who follow will be fleeced.
Reform is needed.
