Eat The Rich: The GameStop Saga is a Netflix documentary that examines the financial war that took place between Wall Street hedge fund managers and everyday retail investors.
This three-part docuseries outlines just what happened when Wall Street investors found themselves in a battle with a community of everyday investors after they attempted to short-sell stocks in the video game retailer, GameStop.
It introduces us to figures from either side of this David and Goliath story. Expect to hear from financial professionals and everyday retail investors as Eat the Rich tells the story of some of the people who made (and lost) huge sums of money throughout the GameStop saga.
If you were left wondering who was Roaring Kitty or Eat The Rich: The GameStop Saga has you wondering just how much Wall Street investors lost at the peak of the GameStop craze, read on to get all the answers.
Who was Roaring Kitty?
Financial influencer Roaring Kitty (also known as "Deep****ingValue" on Reddit) hosted live streams online. He was one of the very first users on the WallStreetBets subreddit who thought GameStop stock was a good buy. After a while, he stepped away from the public eye.
Wall Street Journal Market Reporter Julia-Ambra Verlaine, was involved in the hunt to find out his real identity. As she explains in the docuseries, she drove out to meet him for an interview. That evening, the Daily Mail put out a story revealing the trader's identity, so he finally agreed to speak to Verlaine for the Wall Street Journal.
Roaring Kitty was revealed to be Keith Gill, a man who was actually a licensed securities professional who was sued for fraud over his role in the GameStop saga. According to him, Keith's initial investment was worth just over $50,000, though by February 2021 his shares would have been worth around $35 million after the stock went down.
He held true to his belief that the stock was a genuine good bet, even though the market didn't agree with him. It was later reported that he had lost his financial broker license.
According to the Eat the Rich documentary, Keith did not respond to interview requests, and the class action lawsuit brought against him was dismissed.
How much did Wall Street lose on GameStop?
On February 2, Vox reported that short sellers who bet against GameStop lost nearly $13 billion on GameStop as of market close on February 1.
What was GameStop's highest stock price?
According to ABC News, GameStop stock prices reached a whopping $354.83 per share on January 27.
Why did Robinhood stop users from buying GameStop stock?
As we see in Eat the Rich, a critical point in the initial price drop for GameStop stock came when investment app Robinhood stopped users from purchasing shares in GameStop. In a blog post on January 28, 2021, the company cited "recent volatility" as the reason behind its decision.
The doc explains in more detail that Robinhood's position was that they were required to keep a substantial amount of money on hand to process everyone's trade requests. Although it looks like sales on the app take place near-instantly, it actually takes days for the payments to clear, meaning Robinhood fronts the money to customers until the trade is executed. Given so many people were interested in getting involved in the hype around GameStop stock and buying shares at higher and higher prices, Robinhood says it was running low on its deposit.
Their decision to restrict new purchases led a lot of users to start selling their shares, meaning that the share price started to drop.
The final episode of Eat the Rich states that the House Committee investigating the GameStop runup concluded that Robinhood had communicated with Citadel Securities in June 2022, though these conversations were not focused on turning off the buy button.
What is WallStreetBets?
Wall Street Bets is a Reddit thread dedicated to discussions about finance and security trading. It became infamous throughout the entire GameStop short squeeze and played a major part in influencing new investors to purchase shares in the company. At the time of writing, it has over 12.5 million subscribers.
Who produced Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga?
Eat the Rich was executive produced by Emmy and Oscar-winning filmmakers Dan Cogan and Liz Carbus (All In: The Fight For Democracy, Britney Vs Spears), with Theo Love (The Legend of Cocaine Island, Alabama Snake) serving as director.
The three-part series was also produced in association with The Wall Street Journal Studios.
Who is Jim Cramer?
Jim Cramer is an American TV personality and journalist. He runs the CNBC Investing Club and hosts CNBC's Mad Money which airs at 6 pm ET. Mad Money. According to his CNBC profile, Jim "believes there is always a bull market somewhere, and he wants to help you find it."
He's one of many financial professionals who appear in Eat the Rich, where his skepticism about GameStop's inflated stock price is played off against WallStreetBets investors' bullish strategies.
Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga is available to stream exclusively on Netflix.
