Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/309408 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Citation: 
[Journal:] Finance and Society [ISSN:] 2059-5999 [Volume:] 8 [Issue:] 1 [Year:] 2022 [Pages:] 67-77
Publisher: 
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Abstract: 
In this essay, I examine and discuss the relationship between the market and the masses in light of recent retail-driven surges in the stock prices of firms like GameStop and AMC. Using two historical snapshots, I draw out similarities and differences between the way the collective power and rationality (or lack thereof) of the masses was portrayed in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century market literature and in recent debates about retail investor inclusion and social media or social trading platform-driven market volatility. The main difference between the historical discourse and the present situation is that the new digital market-expanding technologies enable effective retail investor mobilization and thus, increase the retail swarms' market-moving powers, which were previously less agile and forceful. However, this eased and widened market access also transforms digital life into alternative data that is subjected to age-old strategies of market exploitation.
Subjects: 
Financial markets
retail investing
masses
GameStop
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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