by Pam Martens
Wall Street on Parade
Front groups with long-term histories of funding from billionaire Charles Koch and his related entities have taken a keen interest in Congressional hearings into the manipulative trading action in the shares of GameStop, a struggling brick-and-mortar video game retailer. The Cato Institute maneuvered a seat for itself at a House Financial Services Committee hearing on the matter in February and the Mercatus Center will have a seat at today’s Senate Banking Committee hearing.
Shares of GameStop soared from $18.84 on December 31 of last year to an intraday high of $483 on January 28 – an unprecedented run of 2,465 percent in four weeks. The stock price then quickly plunged and is now making a second comeback rally, closing yesterday up 41.21 percent at $194.50. Behind the scenes of this wild trading action has been a decidedly perverse trading model. (See GameStop Hearing Exposes a Sick Business Model Destined to Exacerbate Wealth Inequality in America.)