Impression: Meme shares soar on lousy news for Melvin Funds and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Griffin infused Plotkin with the hard cash at the peak of January’s 2021 quick squeeze on meme shares, a shift that Apes noticed as a single Wall Street extra fat cat bailing out one more.

The facts of that offer even more incensed retail individuals when they considered that Griffin is also the founder Citadel Securities, which is the biggest executor of retail trades on applications like Robinhood
HOOD,
-.87%
[which you might remember played a key role in shutting down the hectic short squeeze].

Griffin has denied any deeper ties with Robinhood or that he was bailing out Plotkin, but that didn’t end Apes from beating their chests on social media Thursday as they reacted to information that their version of Emperor Palpatine was clawing back $500 million from their version of Darth Vader.

And though Plotkin’s losses have been significant and general public, some even speculated that this was more about Citadel’s issues than Melvin’s.

“Citadel seems to be scared of incoming margin contact defaults,” mused well known retail investing influencer @BossBlunts1 on Twitter.

While there is scant proof of a liquidity concern at the $230 billion hedge fund, Griffin’s Citadel empire does appear to be to be obtaining a fewer-than-relaxed commence to 2022 with a collection of regulatory investigations into short-selling and block buying and selling coming to its doorway and one particular of its hedge fund executives even remaining named in one particular of the probes.

No matter if that has influenced the in some cases-pugnacious billionaire who has trolled his retail critics a handful of times in the previous couple months, it absolutely would make it tricky to simply call the latest investigations “a negative comedy joke” as he did with an SEC investigation into the January 2021 squeeze.

But the Griffin/Plotikin drama was just 1 aspect of a frantic day as retail also appeared to variable in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military services strikes on Ukraine as a further indication that they could reward from a major pullback on fairness marketplaces and a probably a delayed hike of desire premiums from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

“We know a huge sector downturn is a catalyst for the MOASS [mother of all short squeezes],” read through a write-up from user jdrukis on subreddit r/amcstock. “No ape would like this sort of an party to be at the value of serious lives. For us, looking at a little red in our portfolios is practically nothing new and it will go rapidly. For individuals who woke up this early morning to conflict, observing purple in the streets is heading to be a little something they can’t just depend on heading away.”

But the uncertainty designed by Putin’s military services action is a perceived reward to the Apes, who have indeed lengthy believed that market place shrinkage would dry up a deep pool of synthetic shorts that they contend have artificially delayed meme shares from “mooning.”

That idea appears to have been alluded to in a current tweet from GameStop chairman/activist investor/memelored supreme Ryan Cohen:

It also performs into the retail hope that much more market ache from Russia’s invasion —even devoid of Western sanctions on the all-crucial SWIFT payments system— will maintain Powell from his intense charge-raising plan in 2022, and retain the low-cost cash teach rolling for retail traders to hold HODLing their beloved names.

Even Goldman Sachs appeared to give some oxygen to that hope Thursday, pegging again its odds that the Fed raises 50 foundation details in March.

Regardless, Thursday was a very good day for meme shares even if was a terrible day for humanity, a truth that was mirrored in jdrukis’ summary to his Reddit publish.

“Ukraine, I’m sorry this is occurring. Hedgie, I’m not sorry about what’s heading to take place to your company design shortly,” they wrote. “Hold the line, we moon soon.”