The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 300.19 points while the S&P 500 climbed 0.98% and the Nasdaq Composite increased 0.50% as U.S. markets rebounded on Thursday. Brokerage firms took steps to restrict an influx of transactions on heavily shorted stocks, after the stock trading app Robinhood restricted trades involving GameStop, AMC, Blackberry, and Nokia.
All four stocks plummeted Thursday; they were popular on Reddit r/WallStreetBets, where users banded together to drive up prices of such stocks despite traditional hedge funds that had shorted them. AMC fell 56.63%, GameStop dropped 44.29%, Blackberry fell 41.63% and Nokia slipped 28.4%.
Robinhood said it restricted trading in the stocks “in light of recent volatility” and also updated its instructional tools to help people “educate themselves, including how to make sense of a volatile market.”
