Critics view Robinhood restricting GameStop trades as ‘an absolute travesty’

Critics view Robinhood restricting GameStop trades as ‘an absolute travesty’

Major brokerages restricting trading in GameStop, AMC and other stocks in the wake of their meteoric rise over the past few days has caused critics to rail against what they call an example of a rigged financial system."Gotta admit it's really something to see Wall Streeters with a long history of treating our economy as a casino complain about a message board of posters also treating the market as a casino," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted Wednesday.Ocasio-Cortez is referring to the extraordinary story of GameStop trading that has played out on social media over the past few days. Fueled in part by a group of non-professional investors — called "retail" investors in the industry — on Reddit pushing shares higher and squeezing out hedge funds, the stock for the struggling video game retailer has surged dramatically.That hurt hedge funds that were shorting the stock and are now left watching their losses mount. Short selling is a strategy in which investors borrow shares of the stock at a certain price under the expectation that its market value will be worth less when it's time to actually pay for those borrowed shares. In other words, several hedge funds bet on the stock