Business, Financial & Legal - Page 66

Robinhood has been in the headlines for literally all the wrong reasons, with people beyond pissed off that the trading app halted GameStop trade restrictions -- leading into a class action lawsuit, and now the Robinhood app being review bombed on the Google Play Store.

Users have bombarded the Robinhood app with one-star reviews, forcing the app down into averaging at the lowest rating on the Google Play Store. Users are rightfully angry, as they've seen their ability to buy shares of stocks that are skyrocketing completely banned from use, so over 100,000+ negative reviews for the app isn't a surprise.

There's much more to all of this story below:

We knew it wasn't going to end well with trading app Robinhood over the $GME (GameStop) shares and $AMC (AMC Theaters) shares skyrocketing because of Reddit -- and a Mr. Robot / Fsociety-fueled stick-it-to-the-man-AND-the-system r/WallStreetBets and millions of normal people around the world like you and I.

Well, now Robinhood has been slapped with a class action lawsuit claims that Robinhood "purposefully, willfully, and knowingly removing the stock 'GME' [GameStop] from its trading platform in the midst of an unprecedented stock rise thereby deprived retail investors of the ability to invest in the open-market and manipulating the open-market".

Get this, with the new limits that Robinhood has introduced -- its users will not be able to buy new stocks of companies such as GameStop, AMC, and BlackBerry -- the very stocks that WSB is pumping right now. You will be able to close out existing trades, but you won't be buying any $GME, $AMC, or $BB in Robinhood right now.

The huge financial drama surrounding the US markets right now with Reddit and its fully viral r/WallStreetBets pushing GameStop and AMC shares through the roof. Well, Robinhood is stopping retail investors from getting in on the wave, and even selling their shares automatically.

Robinhood users began noticing their $GME shares being sold without warning, with Robinhood alerting users that due to "recently volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only. However, due to unreasonable risk involved in brokering your position, we have closed your 4,500 shares of GME for an average price of $118.93 on January 28th, 2021 at 11:24 AM".

The notice from Robinhood continues: "Your trade confirmation will be available in your order history on Robinhood in one trading day".

The U.S. Senate will soon weigh in on the eye-opening (and wallet-draining) stock situation booming the market right now.

Individual day traders on the u/wallstreetbets Reddit forum are taking on Wall Street. The upstart sees thousands of traders clash with billion-dollar brokerage and investment firms in a bid to help equalize the market, and short-sellers in particular are being punished. The result of this clash has skyrocketed GameStop stock by more than 600% in a week's time, and AMC stock briefly surged 300% to over $19 today before mellowing out at $9.77.

This bruhaha has caused lots of controversy. Major traders like Robinhood temporarily restricted buying and selling of these volatile stocks. This move was believed to help give brokerage firms time to cover their short positions--or to basically stabilize and freeze trading to give the billion-dollar firms time to buy back their stocks and cover their short bets (here's a primer on what short sales are).

I'm sure by now you've heard all about the GameStop share price insanity fueled by Reddit and the r/WallStreetBets subreddit -- if not, I've got some links for you below. If so, things just went up another notch.

The r/WallStreetBets subreddit has had its moderators overloaded since the subreddit exploded in popularity, so much so that it has even seen the official Discord server for r/WallStreetBets being banned for "hate speech". Reddit temporarily turned the lights off to r/WallStreetBets for around an hour not too long ago, making it private -- but now r/WallStreetBets is back.

A post on r/WallStreetBets explains: "The situation here is delicate. Obviously, with the deletion of discord due to ToS violations, the moderators here are dealing with an existential threat to our community. While in the past, automated moderation using bots has been effective for dealing with human users violating the WSB sub ToS, I think a has been reached where the quantity AND quality of posts, primarily by bot accounts, has likely overwhelmed our moderator resources".

Discord has shut down the /r/WallStreetBets server, with World's #1 esports and gaming consultant, insider and competitive gaming leader Rod Breslau tweeting:

Discord said that the /r/WallStreetBets server was shut down for "hate speech, glorifying violence, and spreading misinformation" according to a Discord spokesperson to Breslau. The spokesperson added: "To be clear, we did not ban this server due to financial fraud related to GameStop or other stocks".

The company said in full: "The server has been on our Trust & Safety team's radar for some time due to occasional content that violates our Community Guidelines, including hate speech, glorifying violence, and spreading misinformation. Over the past few months, we have issued multiple warnings to the server admin".

AMD had a phenomenal 2020 with the unleashing of the next-gen Zen 3 and RDNA 2 architectures for the PC in Ryzen 5000 series CPUs and Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs -- but that wasn't all.

The company powered the next-gen Sony PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S consoles with semi-custom designs made by AMD, packed servers and supercomputers with Zen-powered EPYC processors, and so much more. It should come as no surprise that AMD has posted a new all-time high revenue for FY 2020.

AMD commands 23% of the discrete GPU market against NVIDIA, while record yearly revenues were posted of $9.76 billion, which is up 45% from 2019. AMD has an operating cash flow of $1.07 billion, which is up 117% year-over-year while Team Red also has record free cash flow of $777 million, which is up an astonishing 182% year-over-year.

It comes as a big -- and I guess not-so-big surprise -- that GameStop Corp ($GME) was the most traded equity on the planet today with over $20 billion in volume.

The news is coming directly from Senior ETF Analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, Eric Balchunas, who tweeted the news sand said it was "surreal". GameStop beat out giants like Tesla (just, with Tesla seeing $19.7 billion of trades today) while Apple trails behind with $13.4 billion.

Microsoft is behind even more with $10.9 billion, and Amazon with $9.5 billion. AMD is up there with $5.3 billion traded today, as is Facebook with $5.3 billion and Alphabet with $2.9 billion. GameStop is unstoppable right now.

With all of the madness happening over on the r/wallstreetbets subreddit on Reddit, the site is having issues. I thought it was just me when I was trying to get some more information for some stories, but then the issues got worse.

I was logged in, but the site was saying I wasn't logged in. Clearly I wasn't as I wasn't able to comment, and then I checked Twitter and voila -- Reddit is having issues. The official Reddit Status website states that there are "elevated error rates" and that they are "currently investigating the issue".

This is 8 minutes ago, at the time of writing -- I'll update when there's more news.

It's incredible, this GameStop stuff feels ripped right out of the story line of Mr Robot -- which I'm two episodes away from finishing. If you need to play catch up on WTF is happening -- read this.

But what is absolutely mind blowing about this all is that normal people are getting stinking rich from this entire thing, with Reddit poster u/DeepFuckingValue putting in $754,991 and making -- at least according to the last post -- a no-one-in-your-lineage-has-to-work-again $48 million.

See?!

So, here's the story -- some trolls on Reddit and more specifically r/wallstreetbets had a mission: destroy GameStop short sellers and to screw them in the assistance of retail investors.

The popular r/wallstreetbets subreddit was spun into motion, with the group described as "like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal" and oh boy, they went to town this time. The r/wallstreetbets posters have achieved something pretty insane, with GameStop stock hitting $2 in March 2020 and $17 by December 2020 -- at the time of writing it was at $147.98.

The subreddit was founded by Jaime Rogozinski but he stepped away from it in 2020, Rogozinski said that r/wallstreetbets treats stock trading like a video game. He said: "Level up with options trading ... Choose your own venture".

Micron is starting 2021 in a big way with the announcement that has volume shipment of its next-gen 1α (1-alpha) node DRAM products using the "world's most advanced DRAM process technology and offering major improvements in bit density, power and performance".

Scott DeBoer, executive vice president of technology and products at Micron said: "This 1α node achievement confirms Micron's excellence in DRAM and is a direct result of Micron's relentless commitment to cutting-edge design and technology. With a 40% improvement in memory density over our previous 1z DRAM node, this advancement will create a solid foundation for future product and memory innovation".

The company explained that it will use the 1α node throughout its DRAM product portfolio, which spans between mobile devices through to GPUs and right into autonomous cars and everything in between.

Cornelis Networks has just secured ex-AMD and Intel executive Nick Knupffer, who was the Head of Brand and Creative at AMD for just under 4 years and previously the Director of Worldwide Marketing Communications, Intel Datacenter Software Division at Intel -- among other positions within Intel, for nearly 13 years.

Who are Cornelis Networks? They're a provider of purpose-built interconnects focused on high-performance computing (HPC), high-performance data analytics (HPDA), and artificial intelligence (AI) and were spun out from Intel's Omni-Path Architecture Business. They'll be fighting against NVIDIA and their HPC efforts, especially in the wake of NVIDIA spending $6.9 billion acquiring networking giant Mellanox -- which is now called NVIDIA Networking.

What will Nick be doing at Cornelis Networks? Nick assumes the role of Vice President of Marketing at Cornelis Networks where he is responsible for all marketing and communications. Previously, Nick has held senior engineering, marketing and PR roles around the world and was most recently AMD's Head of Brand and Creative. Previously Nick was Global Director of Brand Strategy and Campaigns for AMD's Radeon Technologies Group and prior to that, held senior PR and marketing roles at TIBCO Software and the API management start-up Mashery, all following a 16 year stretch at Intel Corporation. Nick has extensive global experience, having worked in the UK, France, California, Hong Kong, and Oregon.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is going all-in on next-gen, with the company planning to spend $28 billion increasing the capacity of its plants -- amid the most demand for its technology ever.

TSMC said during a recent Q4 2020 earnings call that the company will see a 50% increase in capacity investments in 2021 compared to 2020. The demand for chips is at fever pitch -- AMD with countless products (Zen 3 + RDNA 2 + EPYC + Ryzen Threadripper) as well as the semi-custom designs for the Sony PS5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X/S products, new chips from Intel, chips for Apple, chips for Qualcomm, and chips for many of the world's largest tech companies.

Brian Bandsma, a portfolio manager at Vontobel Asset Management said: "Usually, historically, when you see TSMC's capital expenditure numbers, it's a good leading indicator of how they are seeing demand. They are very conservative about their capital expenditures number. They're not going to be overly aggressive".

Qualcomm has just acquired Nuvia for $1.4 billion, an acquisition that sees former engineers and chip experts from companies like Apple, moving into the warm arms of the Team Snapdragon.

Nuvia co-founders Gerard Williams, Manu Gulati, and John Bruno are joining Qualcomm through the acquisition, where Qualcomm will use its Nuvia chips "across Qualcomm Technologies' broad portfolio of products". Qualcomm has plans to use Nuvia technology inside of data centers, smartphones, laptops, vehicles, and more.

Qualcomm said in a statement: "5G is further accelerating the convergence of mobility and computing. The acquisition of Nuvia builds on Qualcomm Technologies' Snapdragon technology leadership, delivering step-function improvements in CPU performance and power efficiency to meet the demands of next-generation 5G computing".

Intel CEO Bob Swan joined the team 2 years ago now, but has just announced that he will be stepping down from his position on February 15, 2021.

The new CEO stepping up to the plate is the current CEO of VMWare and 30-year of Intel, Pat Gelsinger, who also helped design the original 80486 CPU. Intel Executive Chairman Omar Ishrak talks only praise of Gelsinger, saying he has a "distinguished track record of innovation, talent development and a deep knowledge of Intel". Ishrak adds that the Intel board is hoping the new CEO will use his expertise to hep the company through a "critical period of transformation" from a "CPU to a multi-architecture XPU company".

Gelsinger explained in a post on the Intel website: "I am thrilled and humbled to be returning to Intel as CEO. I was 18 years old when I joined Intel, fresh out of the Lincoln Technical Institute. Over the next 30 years of my tenure at Intel, I had the honor to be mentored at the feet of Grove, Noyce and Moore. Intel then helped me continue my education at Santa Clara University and Stanford University. The company also gave me the opportunity to work on the forefront of silicon innovation with the best and brightest talent in the industry".

GM is taking a very confident step into the future with a new modernized logo, changing up its 50+ year logo with underlined all-caps white letting on a blue square.

The new GM logo is a lowercase "gm" on a white background, insider of a square with newer, modernized rounded corners. Ooooh. There are three color variants -- ooooh again, with solid blue, solid black, and a blue gradient. You can see it above, while GM says the new logo evokes "the clean skies of a zero-emissions future" and the "energy" of its new Ultium battery tech.

Not only do we have a new GM logo, but the company has kick started the marketing campaign for its Ultium platform, with the company relaunching its website on January 11.

Parler CEO John Matze has confirmed that Amazon is shutting down all of their servers, which are connected to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and if it can't find a new host before then, Parler goes dark.

Apple has removed the Parler app from the Apple App Store, so too has Google from its Play Store -- and now Amazon removing Parler from AWS and being online at all. Amazon will pull their servers sometime today, unless Parler has a new host in the coming hours.

Why is Parler being wiped off of AWS? In an email received by BuzzFeed News, a member of Amazon Web Services Trust and Safety team told Parler "it violated its terms and services, adding that Amazon is unconvinced Parler will be able to effectively moderate its platform relying only on a team of volunteers".

President Trump was banned from Twitter yesterday, with Twitter banning him for 12 hours -- and Facebook quickly following, banning President Trump for 24 hours.

Faceobok imposed the new restrictions on Donald Trump for 24 hours citing "two policy violations", with Facebook saying in a statement: "We've assessed two policy violations against President Trump's Page which will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time".

An Instagram executive said that the Facebook ban would extend to President Trump and his Instagram account, since Facebook owns Instagram. In an earlier statement, Facebook said they were "appalled by the violence at the Capitol" and "treating these events as an emergency".

Breaking: It's happened... President Trump has been suspended off Twitter for the next 12 hours, after the social networking giant considered 3 of his latest tweets as an attempted coup.

One of President Trump's now-removed tweets, calling for Americans to "go home with love & in peace". If Trump deletes the tweets that triggered Twitter, then they will unlock his accounts. If those tweets are not deleted in the next 12 hours, then his account will "remain locked".

Twitter censored his video calling for peace and for Americans to go home, and leave the Capitol building in DC... not allowing comments, re-tweets or shares of his tweet. It was not long after that, when Twitter locked President Trump's account.