Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, blew his top after mobile brokerage app Robinhood completely halted all transactions of several securities they deemed “volatile.”
Several companies including Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, and others restricted trading on Thursday following an unprecedented spike in trading volume of shares of GameStop, AMC Entertainment, Bed Bath & Beyond, Nokia, and others.
Portnoy announced in a tweet, “I will burn @RobinhoodApp to the ground if they shut down free market trading.”
I will burn @RobinhoodApp to the ground if they shut down free market trading.
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
He also sent a tweet directly to Robinhood cofounders Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, saying he hopes Tenev goes “to jail.”
And it turns out @RobinhoodApp is the biggest frauds of them all. “Democratizing finance for all” except when we manipulate the market cause too many ordinary people are getting rich pic.twitter.com/Xcvs4CdEmr
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
So @RobinhoodApp is saying they are protecting their users from over leveraging and getting burned. But somehow it’s okay when hedgefunds literally do the same exact thing. Nobody had a problem then until the hedge funds lost. Now speculating is a huge issue. #frauds
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 28, 2021
During a press release Robinhood said it was “restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AAL, $AMC, $BB, $BBBY, $CTRM, $EXPR, $GME, $KOSS, $NAKD, $NOK, $SNDL, $TR, and $TRVG” and “raised margin requirements for certain securities.”
In light of current market volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AMC and $GME. Read more here.https://t.co/CdJMjGAeFH
— Robinhood (@RobinhoodApp) January 28, 2021
“Amid significant market volatility, it’s important as ever that we help customers stay informed,” said the new popular trading app.
One very angry Robinhood user filed a lawsuit against the app for “purposefully, willingly, and knowingly removing the stock GME from its trading platform in the midst of an unprecedented stock rise.”
Portnoy said in another tweet that Ameritrade’s restrictions were expected but pointed out that Robinhood’s “entire business model is to cater to the exact people they are now trying to f*ck with and scare into selling. They will never recover from this.”
The sports media founder took an interest in day trading this year and has successfully received some positive investment results. He would occasionally live-stream his daily trading sessions on Twitter to allow his followers to get a glimpse of not only his successes but also his failures as he trades positions worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
