- The House Committee on Financial Services called the virtual hearing on recent market volatility.
- The hearing will include CEOs from Robinhood, Citadel, Melvin Capital Management, and Reddit.
- Keith Gill, an armature investor also known as u/DeepFuckingValue and Roaring Kitty, is also due to testify.
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
Chief executives from Robinhood, Citadel, Melvin Capital Management, and Reddit are expected to testify before Congress on Thursday about the market volatility unleashed last month when retail investors banded together to drive up the share price of GameStop, “squeezing” hedge funds who had been betting against the stock.
The virtual hearing, titled “Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media, and Retail Investors Collide,” will be hosted by the Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, Maxine Waters.
Here is how you can watch the congressional hearing:
The hearing is set to be live-streamed starting on Thursday at 12 p.m. ET on C-Span and the House Committee on Financial Services’ YouTube Channel.
The hearing will include the CEO of Robinhood, Vlad Tenev, the CEO of Citadel, Kenneth C. Griffin, the CEO of Melvin Capital, Gabriel Plotkin, and the CEO and co-founder of Reddit Steve Huffman.
Keith Gill, an amateur investor who goes by u/DeepFuckingValue on Reddit and the name Roaring Kitty on YouTube, is also expected to testify. Gill is a leading figure in the Reddit forum Wall Street Bets, which clashed with short-sellers.
In January, members of r/WallStreetBets rallied together to buy shares in GameStop, a struggling electronics retailer. The effort sent the company's stock price soaring. Several hedge funds lost major capital when they had to close out their short positions. Melvin Capital, one of the biggest short sellers of GameStop, lost about 53% of its assets in January.
All members and witnesses will participate remotely without being physically present in the hearing room, according to a press release by the House Committee on Financial Services.
The purpose of the congressional hearing is to examine the recent activity around GameStop stock and others impacted, short-selling, online trading platforms, and gamification and their impact on capital markets and retail investors, according to Waters.