This week, international news was full of a story in which a group of independent investors collaborated via the web-based chat forum Reddit to go up against Wall Street hedge funds and win, specifically by buying options and shares in GameStop, a stock that the hedge funds had sold short.

Though the event was swiftly politicized into a David and Goliath story, perhaps the more interesting suggestion is that the markets might be faced with a new type of player, a co-ordinated mass of small investors not necessarily motivated only by profit.

In this emergency episode I speak to Sylvain Forté of SESAMm, an alternative data company that has been automatically monitoring forums like Reddit for many years, and which might provide assistance to traditional investors in understanding and coping with this new market influence. 

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