Dumb Money(2023)

Plot Summary

• Keith Gill (Paul Dano ) is a middle-class man working as a financial analyst at Mass Mutual in Brockton, Massachusetts. During his spare time, he regularly frequents the stock market SubReddit r/WallStreetBets, posting his opinions on it via YouTube live streams under the name Roaring Kitty. He struggles to provide for his family, and his YouTube work is constantly mocked by his brother Kevin (Pete Davidson) as nerdy garbage. Keith lives with his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley). Kevin is a no-good delivery man and frequently uses Keith's car to make deliveries.In July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Keith notices that video game retailer GameStop's stock is falling and sinks his life savings into buying stock in it, regularly live streaming updates with his viewers. GameStop (GME) stock price is $3.85. Keith believes GameStop is undervalued and sells $50,000 of his other stocks to double down on GameStop. Keith argues that 25% of gamer still buy discs from GameStop. 40% of gamer buy used games from the store. Keith has many regular viewers (in total 412) who listen to his videos on YouTube and take his advice seriously. As the viewers start buying the stock, price of GameStop reaches $10.Despite Kevin and several peers claiming this is a waste of time, by January 2021, activity on r/WallStreetBets reveals that several hedge fund investment firms, including Melvin Capital Management and its founder Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen), have been short selling stock in the chain on the assumption it would close, causing a mass increase in GameStop's overall stock price. Gabe had been short selling GameStop since 2014, as he believes that the company has no future in the Digital age and has had 6 CEOs in 2 years. Upon news that retail traders are trying to prop up GameStop he further shorts 600,000 shares of GameStop. The online forums come alive with a war cry to come together and win a battle against Wall Street on GameStop. The stock reaches $20 in price.Gabe had convinced other hedge fund managers such as Ken Griffin to participate in the short sell together. GameStop had managed to stay open during Covid by classifying itself as essential services and made a loss of $ 632 million in the previous year. Gabe tells Ken that this is sure shot deal, as the stock is being propped up by Retail traders or "Dumb Money"This is when online stock buyers, including struggling nurse Jennifer (America Ferrera), GameStop retail employee Marcos (Anthony Ramos), and lesbian college couple Riri (Myha'La Herrold) and Harmony (Talia Ryder), start aggressively buying stock based on Keith's advice. These retail investors place their orders through a stock platform called Robinhood.This causes Plotkin and other investment CEOs to lose hundreds of millions within the same time-frame and Keith to be heralded as a financial guru. GameStop stock price reaches $65. Keith makes $11 million in notional profit. Keith decides not to sell, prompting his followers not to sell either. The stock reaches a $123 and Gabe panics as he has lost $ 6.8 billion on his short positions that he needs to now cover. Gabe has to get Ken and Steve Cohen (Vincent D'Onofrio) from Point72 to invest in Melvin to keep it afloat.At this point there are 8 million retail stockholders of GameStop, and they all hold their stock as Keith decided to hold even after being up $23 million. Stock surges to $350/share and attracts attention of even the White House. It is the rich people vs the poor people and the poor people are winning for a change. Keith is up $47 million. Things take a turn when r/WallStreetBets is temporarily shut down for "inflammatory and vulgar content", causing a mass surge of panic selling in GameStop's stock in an attempt to beat a perceived price drop. Keith is told by MassMutual to either resign or he will be fired.The commission-free stock trading website Robinhood (founded by Baiju Bhatt (Rushi Kota) & Vlad Tenev (Sebastian Stan)) is unable to adequately pay the money for the sales, which amounted to $3 Billion. Co-chairman Vlad Tenev (Sebastian Stan), at the behest of Citadel LLC owner Ken Griffin (Nick Offerman), halts all buying of GameStop's stock (by graying out the buy option) in an attempt to drive down the price. Even though Robinhood's customers are retail traders, but Robinhood routes all their trades through Citadel, who offers them a tiny discount on every trade, which adds up. So, even though Robinhood was supposed to be an independent platform, in reality it was funded by Citadel.The play ultimately works (as the stock price drops from $483 to $140), but the subsequent negative backlash results in an investigation by the United States House Committee on Financial Services, with Tenev, Griffin, Plotkin, and Keith all being subpoenaed, the former three for their roles in the fiasco and the latter on suspicion of using the situation to trick the public into making himself rich. The interrogation takes place on Feb 18th, 2021. As the investors struggle to defend their actions, Keith adamantly denies any wrongdoing, stating he was only doing what anyone with a passing awareness of investment banking would do in that situation.Meanwhile the Robinhood platform and WallStreetBets platforms are back up and all retail traders find that Keith held his position in GameStop and start buying stock again.In the aftermath, post text shows how several of the individuals were affected: Plotkin was forced to shut down Melvin Capital because of the net losses the incident caused; Robinhood was the target of several lawsuits following the fiasco and wound up starting in the stock market significantly lower than it was prior; Harmony was able to use the money she obtained to pay off her family's debt issues and continues her relationship with Riri; Marcos sold half of his GameStop stock and quit his position in the company; Jennifer remains in debt but has retained her shareholding;Keith retired from YouTube in late April to get out of the public eye and sold part of his stocks to get Kevin an expensive car as a way to stop his nagging about how he will not loan him his car for his food deliveries. No charges were filed against anyone by the SEC. Now, 85% of the hedge funds scour the internet to see where the retail traders are putting their money. Wall Street never ignored Dumb Money again.

Storyline

• It is the ultimate David vs. Goliath tale, based on the insane true story of everyday people who flipped the script on Wall Street and got rich by turning GameStop (the video-game store) into the world's hottest company. In the middle of everything is regular guy Keith Gill (Paul Dano), who starts it all by sinking his life savings into the stock and posting about it. When his social posts start blowing up, so does his life, and so do the lives of everyone following him. As a stock tip becomes a movement, everyone gets rich--until the billionaires fight back, and both sides find their worlds turned upside-down. — Columbia Pictures