Melvin Capital is offering Reddit people something to cheer on on a Friday.
The hedge fund, which has gone so far as to exemplify the worst on Wall Street for a bunch of individual investors, recorded a 49% loss in the first quarter, according to a Bloomberg News report on Friday.
Melvin Capital has been at the center of a highly watched failure among professional investors and amateur traders who focus on social media forums like Reddit’s r / WallStreetBets.
The hedge fund, led by Gabe Plotkin, a former investment manager for hedge fund titan Steve Cohen, has borne the brunt of losses due to rising very short “meme” shares such as video game retailer GameStop GME,
and the AMC Entertainment Holdings AMC movie chain,
and it seems as if Melvin’s wounds have not healed, perhaps to Plotkin’s displeasure and to the delight of the army of amateur investors who are determined to keep them collectively from the pros.
“51% to finish!” posted an ar / WallStreetBets user in response to the losses reported by Melvin.
A Melvin Capital spokesman declined to comment on Bloomberg’s report to MarketWatch. However, a person familiar with Melvin’s performance confirmed the magnitude of the quarterly loss.
Reports of Plotkin’s deepening pain come after his fund fell 53% in January thanks to an unprecedented small squeeze designed by retailers who were targeted at the fund via social media such as Reddit and Discord and trading without commissions to drive shared values on GameStop and AMC.
Still, Plotkin managed to return 22% to investors in February, but Bloomberg reported that the fund fell 7% last month.
Melvin Capital was seen to have a massive short position at GameStop which helped catalyze the initial strategy of retailers. Some Redditors accuse hedge fund investors, such as Plotkin and Co., of enjoying the benefits of financial markets that some see as manipulated.
Melvin’s loss is being hailed by others as “the latest porn for losses,” on several topics, with “porn loss” representing the way Schadenfreude describes Reddit people.
Some Reddit users speculated, without evidence, about the possibility that Melvin was still trapped in the GameStop game. However, recent reports suggest it is unlikely.
A fund spokesman said Plotkin covered his short GameStop on Jan. 26, a day after the fund received a much-needed $ 3 billion infusion from Plotkin’s mentor, Steve Cohen of Point72, and his former boss. , Ken Griffin of Citadel.
Shares of GameStop closed up 7% on Friday and recorded a loss of more than 17%. However, the shares of the video game retailer have increased by more than 740% in the current year. In comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
has gained more than 10% so far in 2021, the S&P 500 SPX index,
has also earned almost as much, and bitcoin prices BTCUSD,
they have increased by more than 100% during the same period.
Still, the retail crew seemed happy to take the glow of the hedge fund investor’s anguish, thinking that investing in Melvin “seems like a great way to turn a million dollars into hundreds of thousands of dollars. dollars “.