One of the big themes of the Gamestop (GME) story was how barbarians at the gate were taking over staid Wall Street. The term is familiar and ironic; “barbarians at the gate” was how the hedge fund revolution of the late 20th century was referred to, when the funds took over old school brokers and corporate executives, transforming the financial landscape into what it is today.
The GME revolution, starting from Reddit, was the next stage in that revolution; according to some, very sophisticated novices on Reddit had as much information and prowess as the well paid hedge funders, and beat them at their own game. For others, the revolution was the result of sheer brute force, as many unsophisticated traders and gamblers bandied together and used their collective power to take down the hedge funds.
We now know that both narratives are untrue.
We know this because one of the stars of the story, and arguably the most successful throughout the GME drama, was Keith Gill, otherwise known as Roaring Kitty on YouTube and “Deepf***ingvalue” on Reddit. After the Wall Street Journal did a detailed biography on the man, we learned that Mr. Gill was neither a sophisticated novice nor an unsophisticated trader. In fact, Gill is a CFA charter holder who until recently worked for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance. With a resume not unlike many of the analysts who were on the opposite of the GME trade, Mr. Gill can’t be considered much a barbarian at the gate as much as a low-level employee who used his deep knowledge to make an aggressive personal bet for himself.
What the story teaches us isn’t that Wall Street is being revolutionized by outsiders, but rather that one insider chose to use a more democratized platform to pitch his call. Had Melvin Capital had a program where they took deep value pitches from outsiders, the story would have been very different indeed. If there is any lesson to learn from the GME drama, it isn’t that financial knowledge is valueless; rather, that it isn’t being valued enough, and it isn’t being channeled to where it can be leveraged the best.