it was a pleasure to have james and brian on with me the whole morning. i appreciate your insight on gamestop. it's a crazy story ended that does it for us, but i know "varney & co." will pick up the ball with the gamestop story. take it away, stu. stuart: good morning. it's a battle on many fronts. individuals investors versus hedge fund, brokerages restricting trade. is it right or wrong cracks and at the center gamestop and robin hood. gamestop and some of the other, i will call them short squeeze stocks or casino stocks, they are going straight back up again this morning. gamestop dropped like a stone yesterday when robin hood shut buyers out of the market. that restriction has been listed on gamestop this up huge. robin hood itself is in

trouble. "new york times" a says it's looking for a billion dollars worth of extra capital. okay. i think they will get it. i think they haven't already. here's the debate, should robin hood restrict trading? many investors are mad as hell and some are filing lawsuits. facebook has taken down the popular robin hood stock trader site and seems to me that's censorship. should politicians intervene? maxine waters wants hearings, far left congressman once a stock trading packs, let it-- never let a good crisis go to waste. there's also the question of contagion, that is spreading volatility to the rest of the market, spreading the unease. here's the state of play with a half-hour to go before the opening bell. the dow jones will be lower, s&p down about 16 and the nasdaq up about 68 points.

that will change as we get closer to the opening bell. remember this, earnings reports are coming in a strong. the economy is growing, the pandemic caseload is coming down, but gamestop, robin hood in this online army continues to dominate wall street. elon musk puts out a tweet about bitcoin and up it goes. the current price is $38600 and it's up 18%. things are moving faster. you will see the latest movements throughout the show. we will cover the debate about treating mr. chen's, censorship and the new role of the organize individual investor. david portnoy, mad as hell at robin hood and he's on the show and so is dennis godman who raised at the red about this on this show wednesday. "varney & co." is about to begin. ♪♪

stuart: let's get right at it. show me gamestop. absolutely soaring right now. robin hood eased back on treaty restrictions that right now it's up nearly 100%. susan, take me through it. susan: so excited, that's the right song for this friday. we have gamestop of-- of over 100% the premarket, blackberry, amc and express, the stocks and options were halted by robin hood yesterday and interactive brokerages liquidy options in those favorite short squeeze, hari or marjorie requirements as well sparking bipartisan outrage on social media and washington dc. it even briefly bridged

the part of said all lines when you see ted cruz agree with aoc. rare, but it did not last long. did robin hood restrictions hurt the average joe and help that billionaires? when you restrict trading as they did yesterday you bring down demand and price comes down which also plays-- allows hedge funds to cover their money losing short positions at a cheaper price. i think this week harold a new era when it comes to stock market leadership, a generational shift, so soul media trading apps and is something we have not seen in 20 years to see younger investors come into the market and are interested in trading. stuart: definitely a brand-new factor in the market which just raised its head fake time this week. susan: yeah, but do you think the big guys actually lost out in what eight hours of a trade? stuart: no-- some-- well some

loss timing we could point to hedge funds that really lost their shirts it needed extra capital, that there are some big players who jumped into this and made a lot of money out of it as stocks went up. it's not right to say the big guys lost their shirts. that's not true. some did, but a law did not and a lot make the money. we will continue the debate all day long. it's very important, but robin hood is right in the middle of the firestorm. they needed new capital and i think they have got it. how did they get it, lauren? lauren: reported billion dollars , so not only does robin hood have to pay their customers, they also have to pay their clearinghouse who demanded more collateral to complete the lease transactions. you can argue forever, did robin hood face a liquidity crisis or not, but it really doesn't matter. it obviously took action

to shore up its a balance sheet so customers could still make these popular trades and they can reinstate them. it's interesting because robin hood is looking to ipos this year and the "new york times" is reporting that they will pay back those who went to them the money inequity tied to the central ipo, so robin hood did not want a bloodbath for its customers or its image as it wants to become a publicly traded company. stuart: okay. we will get more on that later. let's bring in jonathan hoenig, market guy this friday morning. everything is down except bitcoin in that got help from elon musk. can you tell me where is a safe haven at this moment? >> well, the safest haven is cash, certainly not sexy like bitcoin or heavily shorted stock, but i think it's not a terrible thing to have

cash. it's a sign of the times, this type of ridiculous speculation didn't happen in 2001, didn't happen in 2009 after the global financial crisis. in this type of behavior of penny stock up 200%, this type of behavior happens at the top, not at the bottom so now i think is the time to take a page financially speaking from warren buffett and be fearful when others are greedy. i see a lot of liquidity risk when the market falls, everything falls, maybe not bitcoin, but everything falls. not sexy, but i think now is the time to have cash on hand considering the moves we see in the market on the ups and downs. stuart: should trading be restricted? should it have been restricted by robin hood and others because it could happen again, i mean, if things get out of hand they could do it all over again. >> the real restrictions

have been put in place by government, not robin hood, stuart. these are very volatile stocks and follow a certain percentage of government comes in and shuts down trading making them more volatile. why would someone come in and buy a stock that's going to be shut down 20% down when it's only down 15 or 16%? robin hood and a lot of broker jews restricted because they're clearing firms demand they put up more money. that's not new. we've always seen that in the futures market when trading is more volatile. ultimately, what people will find his day trading penny stocks is a difficult way to make money there's nothing new. we saw this in the late 1990s when online message boards were started so everything old is new again in the market and i think people will find this quick buck mentality at jumping in at 830 and jumping out at 935 is a difficult way to make

money. every generation learns it over and over again. stuart: yes, every generation has to learn the lesson of history. thank you. a different angle, different approach to this story, we are going to knoxville, tennessee, will cain is at a diner and has been talking to people about this all morning. whites are they saying in that diner about the robin hood story? >> i am fascinated by this story. i think it exposes so much about the american system, about the elite that has one set of rules for themselves and everyone else abides by some other set of rules. i have been talking to diners. what is your story? this is rick and he has a robin hood account. you said it wasn't too active in the beginning but you have been maintaining. >> i used it a couple of years ago and followed the local story so i'm looking at it. >> how do you feel about

robin hood today after you seen what has taken place? >> it should be open to everyone. putting restrictions is not the way it should be >> are you going to keep your robin hood account when that for now. >> i have been traveling in a have not heard your take, but i'm no financial expert, but i look at hedge funds that had been trading on emotion, momentum and divorcing fundamentals for years and then the little guys plays by the same rules and shuts down robin hood and shutdowns america's trade that doesn't mean it makes the stock movements of gamestop them-- right the last couple of days but, how it's different from what hedge funds have been doing for years? same as the "new york post" setting down the hunter biden story, it's the same as companies like this restaurant here getting shut down while gavin newsom goes to french laundry and has a fancy meal. tell me how the elites get to do one thing and the little man, traders,

kids trying to go to school, or journalist that one institution has to play by one set of rules that is different? stuart: not going to answer now, but we will follow precisely that discussion on the way through the show. what happens to the little guy? what i'm afraid of is the little guys left holding the back at the end of the day and loses his or her shirt. thank you for joining us getting back to futures. we will open up in 18 minutes and we are looking to the downside with the dow jones up 200, nasdaq 70 and s&p 16. the barstool guy, david portnoy mad as hell at robin hood. watch this. >> i think there has to be an investigation. i think people have to go to jail, whether it happens i don't know, but i've never been more convinced about market manipulation and the people, the hedge funds controlling the game down today.

stuart: david portnoy joins us at the top of the 11:00 o'clock hour this morning. more censorship, facebook shuts down a popular robin hood traders group claiming the group violated policies. is that censorship? is this a free speech issue we are dealing with now? we will cover it for you back after this. ♪♪

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them were lifted. keep looking at them because they are up. breaking news on citrin research. susan: e-mail andrew left a friend of the program, he has been talking about his short positions and we know he had a four time gamestop and this is a case of the reddit page killing the shorts literally. he just posted a video on youtube making it official saying they will discontinue shortselling research to focus on the long opportunities. you know andrew left and they made their name going short on a lot of companies including his infamous battle with them the pharmaceutical company a few years ago and effective as a much money and maybe some bragging rights as well this week that it looks like the social media reddit trading brigade seems to have literally killed the short. stuart: yep, looks like it.

moving on, facebook shut down robin hood's stock trading group. the creator of the groups that he was given no warning before was taken down or take us through the story. susan: the power of social media. the gamestop phenomenon was sparked by the reddit wall street account. accusers yes, they are colluding to buy stocks what they call pump and dump. facebook taking down the popular trading group called robin hood stock traders saying they violated community standards took the group's founder said there was no adult content on the page and they were trying to separate out retail investors and retell traders from the institutional professionals, but also notes facebook took on the same page january 7. the page was reinstated after appealed by the group, but it's not the first time and facebook said is not related to this week's gamestop frenzy.

you have to decide who you want to believe in this case. stuart: i find that ridiculous. the founder of that wall street trading group said facebook said it violated adult such as content. what on earth does that have to do with it? susan: they said there wasn't any adult content on it, but we talked about this esther did what the implications are of this and what oversight might come down the pipeline and could then be shutting down some of these infamous social media pages we know tried-- drive trading volume. stuart: if they do that, it's called censorship in my opinion. okay, but seems to me they are censoring a whole body of opinions, entire system of discussion. i want to bring in vivek ramaswamy who specializes in the content of censorship. to me, looks like

facebook is a censoring the free speech of stock traders. what say you? >> will, first they center users on twitter and facebook for talking about political matters and then they censored apps like parler. i wondered what they would censoring next year will you eventually censored e-mails and i messages, i was wrong it turned out they were coming after discussions about stock trade and the most interesting part of the story is what i call vote-- woke whitewashing, is actually normally because of hate speech. of course it wasn't hate speech it was the volatile stock trading. seine facebook was based on adult sexual content, it had nothing to do with it, the story of the day, the prompt was trading these the stocks and that really reveals a scary new moment we

are entering, where not only is political content centered but any content can be censored if you say the magic words of hate speech, adult exploitation, that's really the heart of this. stuart: the problem is, what are we going to do about this? here you have free and open discussion about stock trading, wall street stock trading, shut down for but was reading-- reasons. what happens in the future? they can do it again, they can just stop free speech. what can we do about this? >> like i said, mark my words they are coming next or e-mail, next or text messages and i think we are on: is it-- collision course. what can we do about it? i disagree with one comment made earlier which was that these companies are private companies and can do whatever they want. normally that's the case when private companies are behaving as private companies, but in this case these are private

companies protected by section 230 given a particular form of a legal shield which is as they can't be sued even when they take down users and at the same time you seek government through the back door encouraging companies to do the kinds of things they are doing and i bet if you look at government correspondence they were asking reddit and facebook to look at the situation so that, nation of the government ^-caret plus the government provided stick with the threats and coating to carry at this censorship makes the state action in the disguise of private enterprise and when it's state action cloaked as private enterprise actually a first amendment is at play so i think the judicial system can be a place where we rectify this by bringing first amendment claims in court. stuart: vivek ramaswamy, thank you for joining us. we have a very important opening of the market coming up. we will look at the short squeeze stocks because they will be

moving up at the opening bell and i mean big time meanwhile, the rest of the market is heading down. that's not a huge selloff, but we are down. i see a lot of red ink write there . there is a deserted times square on a very cold late january day in new york city. we will be right back. ♪♪

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stuart: gamestop is fully up this morning with the rest of the margaret on the downs died. here is david bahnsen as we get ready to open the market. at the end of the day, do you think it's the little guy who gets hurt >> well, i do, stuart, but i think the little guy will deserve to be hurt and what, i mean, will sound terribly unsympathetic is that the little guy will be a victim of his own actions, not a victim of anyone else's actions. there is a desire now to make free money and i understand, who wouldn't like free money? because free money doesn't exist some people will have to find that out the hard way and i think all the things that took place with the shorts and excessive euphoria by going short more than the amount of shares that existed would set up the big squeeze

allowing people on the other side to go squeeze them and make the money they have made and the little guys coming into it believing there's free money. these are lessons disconnected from reality and people have to find out sometimes by actually touching the stove that you can get burnt. stuart: you know there will be-- politicians will get involved. there will be hearings in congress and there will be calls to regulate shortselling. i think the politicians are zeroing in on that. should we regulate shortselling at all? >> we already do regulate it with margin limits. there's all kinds of regulation, but i went to go back to the financial crisis. remember september, 2008, and at the time i was the managing director at morgan stanley and all those stocks were shorted like crazy and there were absolutely hedge funds taking advantage of the situation, shorting the stocks trying to make money. then me figured in their wisdom as politicians

but the band shortselling on financials. the financials really tanked than because people could not put a hedge on and started shorting the deck and going to europe to do different things. you can't regulate this. financial markets have to be allowed to work and sometimes things go too far one way or the other, but further regulation on shortselling denied market transparency and makes price discovery harder. it doesn't work and it's totally un-american. stuart: i have 30 seconds for you. can you tell me if this short squeeze or whatever you want to call it, will he bleed out to the rest of the market? >> no, we will have little spurts of irrationality and some trade anomalies, but this event in and of itself is not systemic as there are very expensive things in the stock market took these are isolated to these events. it's a newsworthy event, but not an economically

contagious events. david bahnsen, thank you for joining us. as always, we will see you center we open the market in 10 seconds and that will be a big deal today. you will see some red poor overall averages and a lot of big-time green for the shortselling squeeze stocks. we are off and running. the dow jones opening on the downside as expected , off about 200 points in the early going. vast majority of the dow 30 down. s&p 500 also on the downside. .5.56% denied a huge selloff, but down. nasdaq composite of the story a big tech, which will be down, but nasdaq overall not that bad. down .4%. lets look at big tech, all down, but not a major selloff. facebook is moving up despite my claim they

are censoring the chat rooms about wall street on their site. it's slipped to the down side to big tech is slightly lower. let's could to the short stocks. on the upside-- look at gamestop up $200, 105%. all over the board there , the shorted stocks, the squeeze-- not squeeze, the short squeeze stocks are all in the upside. susan, lauren, let's get into this. does the reddit army represent a pivotal moment for wall street, a new factor that will influence the investing world? susan: absolutely. on was looking at the volume and the effect of hundred million volume contracts out there, options trading at a record wednesday showing there's a lot of participation isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you want to make sure people are betting on the right fundamentals and a doing the right thing with

their money that they can afford to lose in the market. reading a note today that says what happened this week is not systemic and made it does not mean we are in an equity bubble. stuart: lauren, what you have to say? lauren: i fear that it may be too strong of a word though that with-- what could come out of this is some sort of decentralized digital financial system where you have a lot of these young traders saying we taught you something, establishment. we taught you something, wall street and we were right on bitcoin, we were right on tesla and we were right to that you are sorting too much it's almost like exactly what's happening with the censorship of big tech, the criticism of big tech, but the differences people's money is on the line. people are fed up and they are saying so with their dollars. stuart: is the arrival of the cell phone, the chat room,

social media and some money. that always helps. we will keep on the shorted stocks on the left-hand side of your screen, literally seconds ago at gamestop up $200 a share. susan: we have developments with fcc. they came out with a statement. they are talking about manipulative trading activity saying market participants should be careful to avoid what they call illegal middle if if you-- manipulative trading activity in that respect to the reddit page, this collusion of online traders. also they are sane in terms of robin hood they does specifically say robin hood, but they will closely be reviewing actions taken by regulated entities that may disadvantage investors or inhibit their ability to trace certain securities. social media was up in arms over politicians say robin hood restricted trade in these particular favorite short squeeze

plays, means hedge funds, the big guys can get out at a cheaper price of not curse the average joe and takes away their money. stuart: the moment you reported that, susan, the fcc saying be careful about illegal manipulative activity, the moment that was released by you, gamestop was halted and it's halted as of now so this is a very significant development. let's watch the fallout as we go through this. give it a couple seconds for the market to digest this and in the meantime i would-- i went to get to bitcoin because you are looking at a real surge there. is it just elon musk that's pushing it up or has bitcoin suddenly become a safe haven? susan: good question and i have been asking if you want to own bitcoin or gamestop in this type of environment, that bitcoin is surging up 50%. we were below 30000 because money was coming out another assets like bitcoin to buy up some of these gamestop

express, blackberry names, but it's the power of elon musk and if you look at his twitter profile, he added it last night saying it was inevitable sane eventually people would flock back to bitcoin and also if we are talking a looks like robin hood, you may be able to now have a limited trade of blackberry, gamestop and express, but no caps oh trading, actually it's restricted this morning on robin hood, coin base also investigating an outage problem so there could be money rotating back into the crypto if you cannot trade gamestop, express where people think you can make easy fast money. stuart: fairpoint. the repercussions of what the fcc said, the fcc warning about volatility, worrying about the extreme volatility, that's just a sinking into the markets. i'm intrigued the dow industrials have fallen more. i would have thought

that if you are warning about extreme volatility in the shorted stocks or the short cover stocks, i would've thought that it was maybe better news for the overall market, but so far it's not have any. susan: i'm talking about volumes and where investors are placing their bets and whether or not it may be systemic or on the verge of something a bit more nefarious like an equity-- stock equity bubble, but if you look at the market moves and price action this week a lot of money has come out of the fast big tech, so big five as we call them, apple, amazon, microsoft, facebook and google had fantastic quarters but still got sold down a notch or the money is out of, talking a trillion dollar stocks with a lot of money that has chased to these names over the past year, so is it necessarily systemic when you take money that you have made a lot of it go elsewhere cracks, i mean, you could see gamestop at the elevated levels and in risky stuart: yeah, never thought of

that it's halted, though. halted at 354 after the fcc announces, has not yet resumed trading and i guess the market is digesting it. the dow jones continues to fall off 378. let me go back to these volatile stocks. american airlines, have we got to add that to the short squeeze list, lauren? lauren: yeah because they are the most shorted airline and their wings have not been clipped. they were a big yesterday and they are up a bit today. we talk about fundamentals in the fundamentals here is an annual loss of about $9 billion, but it's mentioned on reddit and now you have the retail traders coming in big. you know american airlines has problems, but that's not the point. in speaking about the fcc, what is the job of the fcc? to protect investors and lookout for fraud.

is what we are seeing by the social media traders a pump and dump scheme? is it fraudulent or just capitalism at work, so there are so many more questions than answers right now and when we look at these big hedge funds, many of them whether it's, even the ones that aren't necessarily exposed to the handle of stocks, it's the contagion, it's spreading. many are down double digits this year and it still january because of what's going on in the reddit stock. stuart: by the way, amc and express both halted, i believe. quick question, susan. is it a pump and dump operation or is the little guy operating a sophisticated strategy to i was actually impressed by finding market dislocation because that's what highly paid financial professionals are to do and in this reddit page

wall street bets they found a weakness and a lopsided trade that they bet into. we were talking about losses from these hedge funds and you can imagine hedge funds yes, when they lose money but that money has to go somewhere and why not into the accounts of some of these retail investors that have made money on the gamestop of the world and expresses. there are more people that bet on the stocks, i was surprised by my conversations with average folks. people recognize opportunity, they saw something that was shall we say popular and easy, so why not jump in? stuart: fairpoint. meanwhile the dow jones continues to go down. gamestop reopened and has gone up more, look at that, now it's up 112 % higher. we have to take a commercial break and make some money somehow or another. we will have more on this market, this extraordinary market after this.

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stuart: here's another important story apart from gamestop. at johnson & johnson releasing phase three trial data for its vaccine. how effective is it, lauren? lauren: 66% in preventing moderate to severe disease 28 days after vaccination. that's less than the competition. it still raises hope that it can receive and will file for emergency use authority by the fda soon and as it still is only one doesn't easier to transport this is good. stock is down three and a half percent because 66% is less than pfizer and moderna, but look at -- well, we have a mixed bag here with mixed performance but the other vaccine makers are doing much better than that today because of the efficacy of their vaccine and i just remembered that the good old days not too long ago when the rollout of the vaccine and

development of the vaccine either helped or hurt the market. that's what it used it to track and now it's tracking social media ceiling that's right. it was a major story a couple of weeks ago and now it's taking a backseat to gamestop. stuart: take you, lauren. let's go back to the robin hood as it's the theme of that day. putting on the screen a tweet-- several tweets from economists. hedge funds with zero remorse, four-part financial institutions in 2008, no one helped the target company survived those attack, no one got rid of market to market accounting. why are we halting trading now? why are we protecting them? brain is with us now. robin hood had to stop trading because their clearinghouse couldn't complete the trades and

there was a problem here that they were swamped with traits and couldn't complete them and if you can't complete the trade it cascades all the way down the line and you have a crisis. what do you think? >> you are absolutely right about that, but let's go back to that tweet. we made a movie called "the big short" and it made a hero out of the sky and basically in his basement or garage while sifting through financial reports and then finding out that there was all this leverage and subprime loans on wall street, well in this case, today someone sifted through the reports and found out that 140% of gamestop stock was sold short and you, i mean, i don't know how that's possible, first of all. i guess you use options and leverage, who knows how you did it, but the bottom line is that

means someone is vulnerable. when i go to buy the stock and you have to deliver it to me, if you are short 140%, there is no stock to deliver and is so it wasn't the clearinghouse's problem. it was the hedge funds problem. they were too short, so the market was open. i want to buy the stock. you are in the market, you can give it to me because you shorted more than existed. it's your problem, not mine. so what i think is by halting trading on one side, they helped unwind this problem, but they hurt the investors on the other side and that, to me, is wrong. by the way back in the 70s were back in the 2008, 2009 period, that's not what we did. we bailed out, we gave $700 billion into the banking system. at the fed the botched up bonds we unwound

lehman and bear and made sure that the people that have actually shorted that sub-- in a sense it's the same kind of thing, but we are calling these reddit people heroes. we will make a movie out of them, big short squeeze, we should, but that's what i think is so wrong. it's like it always ends up that they win and the little guy loses. stuart: what do you make of the fcc announcing a few minutes ago that they are monitoring the situation, this volatility stock like gamestop and they are saying be careful of illegal manipulative activity, give me 20 seconds. >> yeah, first of all not going to tell anyone to buy these stocks appear i believe in investing your guy don't know if there is any illegality. i do know that people all the time, all the time try to move markets they do it with tweets, with white papers, they

do it with the blog reports, tv interviews, so it happens all the time and to call one way of doing it legal, i just think is wrong. >> let me say one quick thing, you have a lot of time on your hands, going to class online, you have extra money in your pocket, invest for the long run. that's it doesn't mean go by and trade a sock over and over and over. invest in good company's. gamestop shorts, i understand. gamestop is like blockbuster. stuart: you could say that's the old way of doing things, the millennial's are in the market now and they are doing things differently. brian, i'm sorry we are out of time. >> that's okay. it's tv. stuart: it is, i'm afraid. rush limbaugh says that gamestop soccer is another example of that elites having the upper hand. listen to this.

>> folks, it's not just political now, the elites are bent out of shape that a bunch of average ordinary users are-- figured out how to make themselves billionaires. stuart: he has a way of expressing himself. this is a big story, big implications, it's about your money and we are on it. we will stay on it. back after this. ♪♪ (money manager) because our way works great for us! (judith) but not for your clients. that's why we're a fiduciary, obligated to put clients first. (money manager) so, what do you provide? cookie cutter portfolios? (judith) nope, we tailor portfolios to our client's needs. (money manager) but you do sell investments that earn you high commissions, right? (judith) we don't have those. (money manager) so what's in it for you? (judith) our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments we're clearly different.

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to learn how to reverse insulin resistance and lose weight effectively, go online to golo.com. once again, that's golo.com. stuart: ceo is responding to the back seat is received about limiting star trek. susan: he went on cable news yesterday basically saying that problem was with robin hood and clearinghouses and the amount of money that to keep their to make sure they can clear those trades and that's why they restricted the 13 at short squeeze favorites including gamestop, express a blackberry. this morning they are put on notice by the fcc , they are closely reviewing the fcc reviewing actions taken by these regulated entities and that means robin hood that may disadvantage investors or inhibit their ability

to trade. yesterday social media, washington dc up in arms because when you limit these names that you can trade that means there is less demand and the price goes down and that means these billion-dollar hedge funds buyout and close their shorts at cheaper positions and who does that take muppet-- money from? the average guy. stuart: exactly sell and the politicians from both sides right and left are taking on robin hood. however the-- robin hood has a policy team as understand build with washington insiders, like who? lauren: i'm impressed by this firepower. dan gallagher chief legal officer at robin hood. he was the former fcc commissioner. lucas moscow it's robin hood's overseer. he's a former fcc chief of staff and then you have that stork a senior counsel for the senate banking committee and then you have tons of

lobbyists who are working at robin hood with government and regulatory backgrounds, but the bottom line is robin hood knows yes, we are marked disruptor and they are ready, they were ready for policy challenges. maybe they didn't expect when this big, but they are ready. i parallel this to what's happening with big tech, bipartisan criticism and outrage, but again now you have regular people's money on the line, so it's a somewhat different. may be one we see coming out of this is maybe free trading has a cost and it can't be free anymore. stuart: nothing is free. thank you. we have a big show right in front of us. dennis gartman is joining us, david portnoy, sandra smith, steve hilton all coming up on "varney & co." today. ♪♪

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♪ ♪ stuart: get up off of that thing. all right. 10:00 eastern, and here we go. let's get right at it. this market is still dominated by the army of retail investors going after the big hedge funds. this is not over. here's the latest.

gamestop, robinold lifts restrictions, and that stock went straight up along with many of the other so-called short squeeze stops. gamestop is up $117. it did limit the volatility of those stocks on your screen right now. by the way, gamestop, express and amc were all halted right after that sec announcement. gamestop and amc have now resumed trading. big hedge funds, some, are clearly in trouble. they may be selling other assets to raise cash to cover their losses. that means a spillover effect. it's called contagion. dow's down 200, nasdaq is up -- off 84 points. the issue? should robinhood have stopped

trading in gamestop, and will they do it again? politics, it's intruding here. i guess that was inevitable. there will almost certainly be congressional hearings on this. we're seeing rare agreement between aoc and senator ted cruz, how about that? both of them beating up on robinhood, and there are demands to regulate short selling plus a proposal to tax all stock trades. as i said earlier, never let a good crisis go to waste. however, new data on consumer sentiment. what have you got, lauren? lauren: it's a bit weaker. it came in, this is the final reading for the month of january, and it came in at 79. no impact on the markets. look, the first reading for january was impacted by the riots on capitol hill, right? and also the surge in coronavirus cases. but, essentially, unchanged. a small dip from that reading. one other point of note, the one-year inflation expectation

did rise a bit to 3%. so all this cheap money, if it boosts asset prices and the price of ore things, that is somewhat of a concern for consumers. stuart? stuart: no response on wall street, the dow is still down over or 200 points. [laughter] the roller coaster ride of gamestop, that continues today. we're a half hour into the trading session, right now it is up $112, $305 a share is your quote, up 57%. brian belski is with us. wait a minute, brian. i read your stuff. you're calling the gamestop saga a side show? really? >> well, good morning to you. thank for the intro. anytime that you're driving to the studio and listening to the contemporary hit radio station and the deejay is explaining to the listener what a short selling stock is, that's never really a good point. and so that worried me from a sentiment perspective, but this

is a side show. and from if a fundamental perspective, you know, listen, some of these stocks that have gone up were down for a reason from a longer term perspective. so i would tell people, listen, depend on your positive and your -- process and your discipline from your financial services or financial adviser professional. i've never been a big advocate of this day trading thing. yes, it's a free market, but if you're an investor, i always tell people be prepared to lose money. invest the money you're not prepared to lose. if you're not prepared to lose that money, you should not be investing. stuart: okay. let's move away from gamestop for just one second. big picture, you've always been bullish. consistently bullish. you've consistently said the overall market will keep going higher. right now i've got the s&p 500 around 3,760. where do you think it's going this year? >> we still think it's going to

4,200, we still think we're in a fundamental bull market. you have to go back and talk about the hedge funds. let's be very clear, okay? hedge funds have underperformed by 1500-2000 basis points the last ten years because of these types of trades that they put on. so if you're a fundamental investor and you're buying great companies, which we have the greatest companies in the world right here in the united states, and you're focusing on earnings and balance sheets and cash flow, you will continue to make money. stuart: okay. okay, hold on a second. supposing the processes for some of these big hedge funds continue. i mean, we're not out of the woods yet with this gamestop story. if it 13eu8s over to the -- spills over to the rest of the market, you've got continuing losses, they're going to be selling the big techs of this world because they need to raise cash to cover their losses. isn't that a big factor here? >> no, i don't believe in your contagion argument, i really don't because, remember, these hedge funds, they take a position and then they lever it

up. and they've been -- they've not been in the tech stocks. they've not been in the financial stocks. and they've really only been kind of trading around this momentum, and that's why they've massively underperformed, stu. i don't think it's a contagion, i think it's a sign that people need to stop playing call of duty and start going outside and fall out of trees and get out and live again. and that's all part of this return to normalcy in our society in 2021 and 2022. but listen, the fundamental concept of the united states stock market is not going to be taken down by a hedge fund or this silliness with respect to what's happening with gamestops and some of these other speculative trades. stuart: hope you're right, brian. brian belski, everyone. back with us again this morning. we appreciate you being here. thanks, brian. now talk politics for a second here. everybody from ted cruz to aoc scrutinizing robinhood. tammy bruce is with us this morning.

what do you think? big picture here for a second, tammy. you see what's going on in the financial world. should the government be getting involved? what do do you say? >> in some ways, the government's already involved, and that's participant of the problem. -- part of the problem. you know, the heels on what this is falling which is allegations of rigging of certain systems in the country which everyone continues to rook at is this -- to look at is this the dynamic of where something was rigged, right? you've got regular people taking advantage of the system, and what the hedge funds and what the millionaires, billionaires have been able to do all along which is manipulate certain things and make a lot of money in the process, and suddenly these regular people -- with whom your previous guest tended to speak of with some derision -- i think they're doing more than, you know, playing civilization or call of duty. they're doing some day trading, and that is fair. that is part of the free market. and they saw something that could be for their advantage,

and then the sudden arely when the little guy -- suddenly when the little guy is taking advantage of it, everything stops. as you may know, there's a class action lawsuit filed against robinhood because of this. the attorney general's office in new york has said they're reviewing the situation because of the complaint. so this, it could become somewhat larger. dave portnoy of barstool, very well liked, huge reach in influence, is saying people should go to jail for stopping the ability to trade because they weren't the right kinds of people. so this comes again to this larger populist argument in the country about why is there a different set of rules for the normals and the billionaires and millionaires getting upset that the normals get to play this game? stuart: but you know that the politicians are never going to let a good crisis go to waste. we have far-left congressman ro khanna, he's calling, a, for an investigation of robinhood, but more importantly, he says you've

got to have a stock transaction tax. in other words, a tax on every stock trade. [laughter] tammy -- >> yeah, sure. stuart: they're going to come out of this with something for the far left. there will be hell to pay, there will be some action taken. not in favor of it, but it's going to happen, tammy. >> well, you know, we see it already, there seems to be some kind of conflict of interest with janet yellen and her involvement with some of the players in this dynamic, speaking fees, etc. so if the republicans do their job, as any opposition party should, they should stand up against that and not accept it as inevitable. there's even some whispering about wanting to tax unrealized gains which is insane. but, you know, this is what the democrats do. they go too far, they ruin the economy. and so you're correct, they'll try to do things that will be bad, but the republicans have enough power with a split senate

and in the house and for 2020 to put their foot down and say enough is enough. so do we within the normals environment is to be able to help the republicans do the right thing. and donald trump, clearly -- as we've seen over the last few days -- is not only not going anywhere, but he's, i believe, setting up an infrastructure with which to be a continuing player in everything. stuart: we're a bastion of normality on this program, tammy. thanks for joining us -- [laughter] see you again soon. back to gamestop, on the left-hand side of the screen, it's the up about $119 now, 61%. susan, it's a long, drawn-out story. take us through the latest. supersusan looks like gamestop shares are have restarted trade, up, by the way, after being down yesterday when robinhood, other interactive brokers limited the number of trades and the type of trades you could put on some of

these favorite short squeeze stocks, and that includes gamestop, amc entertainment, express and blackberry. those have been the favorites of the so-called reddit trading brigade. but i wondered about rob women hood in particular -- robinhood in particular. they said they were limiting trading in these names, gamestop in particular and blackberry and the like. we were talking about whether or not this was systemic and why you should be limiting trade in a free market, capitalist system that we live in. well, i think in the end when you think about it, i think the problem was with robinhood itself, because last night they had to raise emergency cash, a billion from their investors. they haven't been able to raise a billion over the past year, but when you're under the gun and you have these options trades that you really need to fund and also money to go to the clearinghouses in order to clear those trades, you saw the liquidity markets, and that also makes people wonder whether or not how sustainable are these

zero commission trades and these trading houses and what does that mean for their upcoming ipo anticipate thed later on this year. stuart: yeah, fair question. can you have absolutely free trading like this forever without implications or without costs? supersusan yeah. i just want to note that across the pond a u.k. commission free trading platform has now also disabled buy orders for u.s. stocks. i imagine that it must be this gamestop frenzy again. and you've seen that liquidity that the surge in volume with, you had 53 million options contracts clearing on wednesday. that is a record number. you saw that also with the long trades as well, and with that type of volume you need the money in order to back it up with the clearinghouses to have it in the bank. when you don't, and in this it's very clear with robinhood, that's a problem. stuart: yeah. that's when you've got to step in and limit the trades. because if you didn't limit the trades, you can't finish it, finalize the trades, and you've got a collapsing chain of trades

that just won't go through. that is a real financial crisis. what a story, susan. right in the middle of it. good stuff. all right, let's move on. we've got rush limbaugh. he says much like politics, the gamestop saga shows how the elites operate by a different set of rules. listen to this again. >> they're actually making it clear to anybody who has the ability to notice that you're not allowed to use the stock market the way they do. you're not allowed to profit. you're not allowed to make the kind of money they do. [laughter] stuart: all right. mike huckabee is here. he'll discuss that for us coming up shortly. barstool's dave portnoy. oh, man, is he taking aim at rob women hood -- robinhood, calling it one of the biggest frauds of all time. he will make his case. and dennis gartman, he says this is all far from over. he was one of the first to call about this, and he's on the show again today. straight ahead. ♪ it's the -- it's not over.

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well, the drama has caught the attention of washington bigtime. edward lawrence is in d.c. for us. we know that the sec has issued this warning about possible illegal, manipulative activity. what else are we hearing in d.c.? >> reporter: yeah, very interesting about this warning that the sec gave. if you read the language on this, they said this in that quote: in addition, we will protect the retail investors, if facts demonstrate that use of manipulative trading activity that is prohibited by federal securities laws happened, market participants should be careful to avoid such activity. so, again, you said washington's taken notice with this. maxine waters, the chairperson of the house financial services committee, says there will be a hearing around this market volatility with gamestop and other stocks that are shorted. she says in a statement this, quote: we must deal with the hedge funds whose unethical conduct led directly to the recent market volatility, and we must examine the market in

general and how it has manipulated by hedge funds and their financial partners to benefit themselves while others pay the price. for regulators, it's going to be very interesting to see how they thread the needle on this, stu. stuart: all right, edward, thanks very much. straight to the white house, jen psaki is answering a question now about gamestop. let's listen. >> -- but it's under their purview at this point in time, and i guess part of our education can be conveying to people that the sec is the regulatory body that would oversee this and speak to fit further. go ahead. >> thanks, jen. on capitol security -- [inaudible] on capitol hill -- fencing around the capitol. i was wondering if the white house or president biden himself has any thoughts -- stuart: the press conference continues. we will continue with the politics of this situation. jen psaki really saying, look, all they're doing is monitoring the situation.

other authorities are checking it out. i guess the sec. former governor of arkansas mike huckabee with us now. all right. big picture, what should the political response of the authorities be to the gamestop situation? >> oh, let's just hope they keep monitoring it, they don't get in there and mess it all up. the truth is the market has a great way of fixing some things that need to be fixed. when government gets involved, they usually booger it all up. what i think is amazing is there are some people who are just as smart as the hedge fund operators who have basically carried out a sting on them. if you remember the old paul newman, robert redford movie, "the sting," this could be sort of an updated version. it's once again a reminder that people get fed up when the big boys run over the little guys and keep doing it to the point that they're always going to land on their feet, and other people are getting crushed. and i just think that this is a

great comeuppance to some of the people who thought that they were just smarter than everybody else, smartest guys in the room, and this time they may have gotten burned. stu, you just mentioned this. a lot of americans are really tired of seeing these crises that come up. for example, back in 2008 and all the bailout money which i thought was ridiculous and stupid, and i was against it then. and the reason why was all the people who got us in trouble, they got the money, and the people who lost their homes, they got the shaft. and this is one of those examples where the people have risen up and said, enough. stuart: if at the end of the day, if the little guy, the individual investor who really gets hurt -- and that is possible in thissing saga -- if the little guy gets hurt, there will be hell to pay. the politicians will step in. and they're going to have a powerful voice. they're going to say, oh, those big hedge funds, look what they

did, and the little guy got creamed. help 'em out. you know it's coming. you know it. >> yeah. the sad thing is that they'll talk that way, but when it gets down to it, those big hedge fund guys, those are the political donors. the reason donald trump was so effective and the reason that they hated him then and continue to hate him today is because he was not obligated to them for his donations and for his being there. most of the political class in washington, democrats and republicans, are totally beholden to the donor class, and they're not beholden to the little guys. and when it gets down to it, they're going to make the decisions that are best for their donors, not best for the people who are sometimes kicked in the teeth by the folks at the top. simple reality. stuart: we might -- the situation at the moment, governor, is that the sec is issuing a warning, a warning about possible illegal, manipulative activity. that's a warning to, hey, watch out, knock it off a little bit, calm down.

we've got jen psaki at the white house saying we're monitoring the situation. you hope that it stays like that, don't you? and, actually, it might work. the sec's warning has cut down a little bit on the volatility, and the losses for the dow industrials have been pared to a mere 150 points. >> what i'm hoping doesn't happen is that the government will issue all these warnings and monitoring, and when it gets down to it, they don't do anything but take another step to protect their donors. that's the danger that we could potentially see. what i'm seeing now is this thing like a parent says, don't make me come up there. don't make me come up there. and the kid knows you're never going to come up there. you never do, you're not going to today, so i'm going to go ahead and keep doing what i'm doing. the real thing they need to be worried about is when the people of america get fed up with it. that's where the punishment or the penalty could happen. stuart: got it.

governor, what a situation. whoever thought that a couple of weeks ago you and i would be sitting here talking about the gamestop saga. here we are. [laughter] who would have thought. can't make it up. another cliche. hey, governor, thanks for joining us. we'll see you again real soon. got it. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: now, robinhood would like you to think it's the trading platform for everyday people. look at this, look at this ad. >> remember when greed was good? when you had to look the part, when you had to pay for a seat at the table. we set out to change it, the way the system works, to put the power in even's hands. everyone's hands. stuart: put the power in everyone's hands. yeah, oh, but it's in deep trouble with everyday retail investors for restricting their trading. we've got dennis gartman, he says platforms like robinhood

did the right thing by suspending trading on stocks. he makes his case after this. ♪ work, work, work, work ♪♪ (vo) businesses are always making choices. here's a choice you don't have to make: the largest 5g network... award-winning customer satisfaction... or insanely great value. now, with t-mobile for business, there's no compromise. network. support. value. choose. all. three.

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♪ stuart: still seeing some red ink on the markets, but nowhere near as bad as it was. we're down 170 on the dow. got that. dennis gartman back with us as of right now. dennis, welcome back to the perhaps. it's good to see you. if you've been -- >> good to be seen. stuart: -- watching the show earlier today, you would know that everybody else saying robinhood did the wrong thing when they restricted trading. you, i believe, are saying they did the right thing. make your case, please. >> well, let's first understand that what they did was suspend trading for a few moments. they stopped you from increasing positions in, in the heavily shorted stocks. when you sign up with another brokerage firm, you read the maul print, they have the right to increase margins, they have the right at their own cession to suspend if -- discretion to suspend trading. everybody took a deep breath, the market is still functioning properly. they didn't stop you permanently

from trading, it was simply a breath to be taken, and i think that's exactly the right thing to do. in the futures markets, they have limits. just to give everybody a chance to meet their margin requirements at the clearing firms. if they don't meet their margin requirements at the clearing firms, the brokerage firm itself can be in a bankrupt position very quickly causing you a problem, delaying your position to be able to be liquidate for a long period of time as they go through legal constricts. i think they did the right thing just to make everybody sit down, take a deep breath, halt trading for a few moments, and it's reopened. gamestop is trading again very aggressively again today. they didn't suspend trading permanently, it was just a breath take, and i think they did exactly the right thing to make sure the clearing firms made their clearing requirements on short positions, only long positions, on positions in options whether they were calls or puts. they did the right thing. no, i'm not a believer that the

big boys did something untoward or illegal, and i hesitate to use the term manipulation. stuart: okay. going forward, is this over? look, i mean, we've got some volatility in these shorted stocks. it's still going on -- >> no, it's not over. [inaudible conversations] stuart: -- hedge funds get into trouble. >> well, there's going to be some hedge funds that have been in trouble, there's going to be a handful of hedge funds that will have to declare bankruptcy, i'm certain. and what i find amazing and stunning, to be quite honest, looking at the data on how much people, how much shares -- how many shares are short in gamestop at this point, it's increased, not decreased. which means that people are adding to losing positions. they're going to have even greater amounts of trouble. is this over? this is not over. and the problem will be as you start to see, as you've intimated several dimes during the day and i think you're exactly right, as these other

heavily shorted stocks go higher, as margin calls on those sides get extended, it puts pressure on the rest of the market. that's my big fear, that you're going to get contagion, as you've called it, in the other parts of the market. look at the dow, it was down 350 at one point this morning. i think you're doing damage to the broad market, and therein lies the real problem. stuart: okay. real fast, dennis, at the end of the day does the little guy get left hadding the bag with deep -- holding the bag with deep losses? >> if stock prices continue to decline in broad terms, the little guy who has been along for a long period of time will probably lose some money. in this instance with gamestop, the real losers are the big guys, no question about that. the small people, the public has done a reasonably great job, in fact, a spectacular job, on exploiting an area of the market that the big guys had cornered, for lack of a better term, and it's the big guys that are going to be losing money. the small guys are not going to

be losing money in gamestop at all. stuart: all right. dennis, thank you. very much for being with us and sharing your opinion with us. we appreciate it. i'm sure we'll be seeing you again soon. thank you, sir. now, let's get back to susan coming in the here, please, because you've got more on citron -- susan: well, you were just talking with dennis gartman about the casualties of big guys, and you can argue that citron research and andrew left, he's been on the program, famed short seller, hard to do, there aren't that many of them around for a reason. but from now on given that his high profile short on gamestop didn't work out and he said he actually faced some personal threats to him and his family, he's getting out of the business of short selling, no longer publishing his short positions. in fact, he's just going to do research on positions that he recommends investors go long on. now, we know that andrew left made a name in short selling just a few years ago, he was

battling bill ackman in that rivalry on the pharmaceuticals, but it make you think of the big guys. now changing their business model and focusing going long, but what about steve cohen, the new mets owner, .72. he and ken griffin of citadel pumped in $3 billion into melvin capital. and it was interesting how the big guys were being gone after. they were the targets yesterday on social media. we can bring up this exchange between dave portnoy, your guest in the 11, and steve cohen. it's rare the see and hear from steve cohen on twitter, but he felt he needed to fight back saying, hey, dave, what's your beef with me, i'm just trying to make a living. just like you. others on social media were hammering the billionaires yesterday of after robinhood restricted trade in those 13 favorite short squeeze plays because at the end of it -- and this is an argument i'm sure will go on -- that it's the big guy, the actually trades and the hedge funds that benefited.

if you can't buy into stocks, that price goes down, and you can get out of your shorts at a cheaper price, and that hurts the little guys, helps the big ones. stuart: interesting though the, dennis gartman just said the short position in gamestop is now going up. susan: yeah, i just checked it. it was 128% on the float. still more than, more than the actual stock available to trade. now i guess the sec should step in and say is that something we need to look at instead of just unusual or illegal trading activity, making references to reddit -- stuart: i mean, look, if the retail investor keeps piling into gamestop and pushes the price up, all those people who are currently betting it goes down, they lose their shirts all over again. so you've got more losses coming. supersusan well, if you want to take a look at the mental through and -- mentality and philosophy behind it.

gamestop yesterday morning, do you think to yourself, well, how long does it last? surely, the stock has to go down. why not put in the short position. if you can buy into these put options for a few dollars? the. stuart: sure. if you can, yeah. that would be a rational strategy. it would. susan: yeah. stuart: there's no question about it. i'm not saying it's the irrational all. susan: but that's the short squeeze. it's a circle, right? it feeds itself. stuart: yes, exactly. let's have a look at janet yellen. there may be a connection, she has a connection to the hedge funds involved in the gamestop story. spell it out for us, lauren. lauren: yeah. so she received $810,000 from citadel for past speaking gigs, and citadel infused melvin capital management with billions when they got hammered for their gamestop shorts. of so this raises the question should janet yellen, as treasury secretary, recuse herself from advising the biden administration on what to do

about gamestop? listen. >> separate from the gamestop issue, the secretary of treasury is one of the world-renowned experts on markets, on the economy. it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone she was paid to give her perspective and advice before she came into office. [inaudible] lauren: yeah. so she's -- they're still talking about this. i do want to point out that in just a few minutes janet yellen will be in an economic briefing for president biden and vice president harris, and we're monitoring if janet yellen says something -- stuart: here we go. >> -- getting the american people back to work. go ahead. >> hundreds of white house staffers now have been vaccinated for the coronavirus. [inaudible] who would be covered by that, and also more broadly, because of that -- stuart: now, jen psaki has moved

on to another subject here. she had been dealing with the gamestop situation on wall street. producer, just tell me because you could not hear it, is she saying -- >> a couple weeks ago about -- stuart: okay. >> -- including members of the cabinet -- stuart: okay. jen psaki was asked if president biden would address the gamestop situation directly are, she did not have a direct answer to that question. they're just monitoring the situation. i don't think president biden wants anything to do with the gamestop situation, quite frankly. he'll keep it at arm's length if he possibly can. all right, moving on. protesters around the country, they're real mad at robinhood. watch this. >> can't buy the stock anymore, you can only sell it, and it kind of makes people scared about -- [inaudible] >> whoo! stuart: yeah, it's a firestorm of protests when they stopped

trading, stopped you able to buy gamestop. lots more reaction coming up, plus barstool's dave portnoy. he says robin and some hedge funds -- hedge funders should be in prison. lock 'em up, he says. he'll be with us next hour. ♪ ♪ you're the cutest jailbird i ever did see ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪

stuart: update on the markets, we're don 212 on the dow industrials, down 84 on the nasdaq. over at the white house, spokesperson jen psaki has feeled three -- fielded three, maybe four questions about gamestop. she did not answer directly about what the government would do about it, if anything. she simply said government agencies are monitoring the situation, the sec is looking at it.

and we did, indeed, get a warning from the sec earlier today. they're worried about -- be careful, they say, of illegal, manipulative activity. that calmed down the volatility in the casino stocks just a little bit. but we've got more news on this. what's going on at charles schwab? limiting some trading options, susan? susan: it looks like charles schwab has clarified their position in terms of what they're doing in restricting some of these options trades. remember, td ameritrade, owned by charles schwab, started this off before robinhood put in restrictions on those 13 favorite short squeeze plays, but now clarifying that ameritrade and schwab have not halted -- or have halted buying or selling on any stocks, they have not. they said this is very particular to specific options, not the basic type. you can still buy and sell the basic options, but they have now increased their margin requirements which a lot of other online brokerage firms

have done including interactive brokers yesterday. and the restrictions they have put in place meaning you cannot sell naked call options, and that's to mitigate an unlimited risk situation. so, again, this comes back to liquidity and clearing and the money that you need in the bank in order to settle these options trades and naked call options. i mean, you put a few dollars to go long on something, that could blow up into, you know, a lot more exponentially than just the actual money you put in. does that make sense? stuart: yes, it does. i mean, the brokerage places are making moves to protect their own interests. because they want to make sure that trades can be completed, and they've got the money to complete them. susan: right. stuart: i think that's where we are at the moment. susan: yeah. stuart: look, there is clearly a push for real regulation to protect the average investor. that's a very strong push coming in there from washington. with us now, mark decam by, a

market guy of this moment. all right, mark, do you want to see any kind of regulation, or do to you completely oppose it? where are you coming from? >> well, i don't share a specific opinion, but i know that there's a lot of concerns not so much about individual investors, but really the integrity of the market. that's the main concern, i think, whether it's -- [inaudible] a situation like this can have a domino effect and ripple through the markets and really take it down. stuart: well,, look, you've got -- it's not regulation, but you've got a form of restriction already with some of these places saying you can't trade the, you can't buy gamestop, and then that restriction's been lifted. but now you've got some restrictions on some. options at some brokerage places because they've got to make sure that they've got the money to complete the trades. so we're getting some restrictions if not regulation, but we're getting some

restrictions. do you approve of that? >> well, i neither approve nor disapprove, but i think it is sound management by some of these companies to think about, you know, the risk of going out of business. it's the, again, we can have knock-on effects, and the brokerages that provide these services to individual investors need to be -- you know, ability to withstand losses. there are clearinghouses that work as intermediaries between these transactions, and if one brokerage goes down, it can ripple throughout the whole system. and that can have a real seismic effect on the markets. that's where we need regulation to come in. perhaps not restrict people's ability to, you know, bet on stocks as you referred to it earlier as a casino.

the market is essentially that, but at the same time what you really want is a guardrail against those sorts9 of activities -- sorts of activities on other areas of the market or seeping to other areas of the market that really have nothing to do with speculation about gamestop the or amc. stuart: yeah. yeah, fair point. stop the ripple effect. you've got to stop that because you'll have a real crisis if you don't. mark, thank you for joining us this morning at a very opportune moment. appreciate it, sir. robinhood likes to paint itself as the platform for therd investor. we're going to show you this again. roll tape. >> remember when greed was good? when you had to look the part? when you had to pay for a seat at the table? we've set out to change, it, the way the system works, to put the power in everyone's hands. stuart: i'll say it again, to put the power in everyone's hands, but it's in deep trouble now for restricting trades for

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>> addressinging it publicly, do y? >> talking about it with his economic team. >> well, the focus of the meeting is about the recovery plan, about the status of the economic recovery, about, obviously, the data that we saw yesterday. i'm sure they'll cover a range of topics during that meeting, but that's not the focus. >> [inaudible] >> i know it's a big story but, you know, obviously our focus and our big story is getting the american people back to work. stuart: jen psaki there did not want to answer questions about gamestop. she simply said the government is -- government agencies like the sec are monitoring the situation. meanwhile, protesters gathering all around the country. they really have it out for robinhood. they're really not happy. tell me more about this, lauren. lauren lauren this is a movement, it is a moment in history. they're small protests and they're peaceful, but they were coast to coast from robinhood's california headquarters, to the new york stock exchange to the

securities and exchange commission in d.c. after robinhood put restrictions on about a dozen stocks yesterday. so let's hear why they're so mad. >> i mean, you know, it's kind of ironic that they're helping the big guys. apparently, a lot of these brokerages -- not brokerages, hedge funds, they have a big stake in robinhood, and they get to tell them what to do. that's not right. finish -- we're angry. lauren: they feel betrayed by robinhood and its ad, power to the people. remember this ad? >> remember when greed was good? when you had to look the part? when you had to pay for a seat at the table? we set out to change it, the way the system works, to put the power in everyone's hands.

to make it feel, see, sound and look just like you. we all invest every day in ourselves, our community, our future. we are all investors. lauren: well, that's their mission. this might seem hypocritical for a lot of people, but in the end, robinhood is an app, it is big tech, it's a free service. you're the user, you're not the customer, and now those users feel like they've been betrayed. stuart: yeah. but gamestop is going straight the up as we speak. all right, lauren, barstool's dave portnoy if fired up about gamestop, fired up about robinhood. he joins me for an extended interview. barstool dave is next. ♪ why don't you just meet me in the middle? ♪ i'm losing my mind just a little ♪♪

>> it's the sign of the times. others are greedy. i see a lot of liquidity. when the market falls, everything falls. >> this is a side show and if you're not prepared to lose that money and investing, you should not be investing. >> how the elites do one thing, the traders, the small businesses, or the journalists as one outline post institution have to play by a certain set of rules. >> any content can be censored. >> further regulation on short selling, no market transparency

and makes price discovery harder to do. it doesn't work and it's totally un-american. ♪ ♪ ♪ stuart: all right, everybody. here we go. it is 11:00 o'clock on the button here on the east coast. it is friday january the 29th. first order of business. look at the big picture markets. we are down, not a huge selloff. down, what 50 for the nasdaq. now look at what we are calling short squeeze stocks. they are going straight up especially gamestop, now up 75%. that's volatility. bed, bath&beyond. look at them go. here is barstool's dave portnoy. dave you call robinhood the biggest fraud of them all.

put them in prison, you say. make your case, go ahead. >> well, they intentionally cratered a bunch of stocks, a lot of the ones that you mentioned by not letting people buy, only selling it. there was only one outcome. they basically stole money from their own clients. they knew that was going to happen to help hedge funds basically cover. is there proof of that? if they do investigation right, i'm sure there will be. it's one to say that you're worried and you freeze the market and you can't buy or sell and the people liquidate, fine. but to crater a stock at the expense of your customers, that's criminal in my mind. flat-out criminal. stuart: okay, let me put the other side of the argument because there's another side, i think. if robinhood had not restricted trading, they didn't have enough money for the clearing houses to complete the trades, if you failed on a trade, you've got a cascade of failings all the way

down the line. that's a financial crisis. i put it to you, that robinhood had to do what it did when it did it and by doing that they were representing their own best interest and to some degree the best interest of their own investors. >> so brad went on cnbc and asked if there were liquidity issues and he said no. >> stuart: at the time putting restrictions on? >> did you put restrictions and change the rules because robinhood had liquidity issue and he said no. stuart: he says what you're saying, vlad says what you're saying is just a conspiracy theory. >> well, how many criminals and

crooks have raised their hand and said, we committed a crime and did something. in the history of crimes, none, until they get caught. what is it? his answer was he was basically protecting his own clients not because of liquidity issues. that's full of crap. stuart: yeah. okay. let's move on. tell me more about your feud with steve cohen. >> if you look at what happened, capital bailed out by steve cohen and old buddies, traders, they work together. steve cohen has a history of insider trading, one of the great insider trading scandals in the history of the stock market. 2-year suspension and suddenly he's right in the middle, his buddies with what went on yesterday. again, i don't have the proof. he unequivocally denied that he had any involvement on what happened yesterday. i would weigher, if you forced it out and if you had subpoenas,

phone conversations, i think you would find out he was involved. again, it's not making giant leaps of logic here. i'm looking at facts that anybody rationally can look at them come up with any other conclusion. generally where there's smoke there's fire and this was a 5-alarm blaze. stuart: okay. at the moment the people going short on gamestop is actually going up. short positions are expanding on gamestop and at the same time the stock price is going up. that implies we've got another short squeeze coming just around the corner, is that the way you see it? >> i mean, i guess. listen, i'd short the stock too if i knew i was wrong, they were going to press the stop money and give me my money back, what do you have to lose? stuart: what are you going to do about it now? are you joining the lawsuit against robinhood?

>> i haven't thought about it. i still have -- well, i think robinhood. that's part of the issue here. i will give some credit, i don't think he's stupid enough to just create pause button and basically create chaos that he has. in his entire message, in his entire company, robinhood steal from the rich and give to the poor, they did the opposite. he had to know this was coming. i think he knows class action lawsuit, whatever, that he was going to basically tank this company that he built on the exact opposite messaging of what he did yesterday and they're willing to face the class action lawsuit. they are willing to pay fines just like steve cohen paid a billion dollar fine when he got in trouble. it was either pay fines or lose your billion dollar hedge funds and robinhood duped the ipo. they knew this was coming. nobody is that stupid to be like, i'm going to basically spit in the face of my entire client base and they'll be okay

with it. stuart: now, big picture for a second. what we are seeing here emergence of a brand-new class of investor, trader i should say and that's millennials with a smartphone and access to social networks. you're right in the middle of this. are you leading this millennial charge into wall street? >> no, i'm not leading it. i've been doing it for a while. the wall street bets and read it. i've been saying it since march. adapt or die. the old guard, that's their fault. listen, there's always market conditions that affect the stock market. if the old guard don't want to accept the internet, reddit, wall street bet, myself, they will continue to lose and maybe in some cases cheat but this is something -- when people invested in gamestop and amc and nokia, they did it because they took into account what was happening socially on the platforms and the momentum and

you can say whatever you want. i keep hearing the only thing that should matter is fundamentals. you can scream that until you're blue in the face, public opinion -- elon musk, celebrity ceo that has influence, these are all things that should affect investment decision and it's unfair to say, well, the reddit guys and the wall street guys, we can't let them do that. it's a new way. the internet is new and shaping the future of how wall street works. stuart: is it manipulative at all, hundreds of thousands, day traders, guys with cell phones and access to the internet, if they all get together, if they collude and gang up on a particular stock or a particular company, is that -- is that unethical? is it wrong? is it manipulative? because that's what's happened. >> definitely manipulates the stock price. i feel like that's a fair discussion if you want to

implement rules in the future and everybody understands the rules. i don't think it is, and i think it's one of those questions that the traditional guys have been doing forever. you're telling me that analysts don't manipulate stock prices and drive ups and down to create buying opportunities and selling opportunities. is this -- i'm not saying what the new guys are doing is gate. let's not pretend the old guys build yachts and mansions, of course, they are. they don't like the other guy do it. if you want to change the rules, fine do that but you can't do that overnight without selling anybody. stuart: okay, are you involved with this? are you treating any of the stocks? >> of course, come on, i don't miss a 50-year storm. i jump in on amc, nokia. i got it after, 2 days after. the first day i went in i got murdered. i came in today because they are coming. i believe in the power of the internet. i believe in the power of popular opinion and all that. so i believe that they will

continue to rise the wave. i didn't know that you could just do what they did which is say, you can only sell and not buy. obviously i didn't see that coming, but, yeah, i jumped in on it. stuart: how are you doing at this moment, how are you doing? >> so yesterday by the end of it i probably had lost about 700,000 on all the stocks and i'm probably down 200,000 right now because of the clawback. stuart: are you going to get out? >> no. no. not yet. yesterday i said if it tanked i was willing to -- i put in 2 million. i was willing to lose it and put it on a poster board in my office for motivation to bring robinhood to its knees. hate inspires me and when i think i've been wrong along with other traders, that's good motivation. cheap price tag to motivate me for the next decade. stuart: i expect you to be banned from facebook if hate motivates you, dave.

>> listen, certain platforms and hate in the sense of i'm going to make sure that i get a revenge one way or the other, metaphorically speaking and financially speaking but not like -- oh, who knows? stuart, who knows, you can get banned for anything at any time. this interview could get me banned. who knows, it's a crazy world. stuart: you're not going to get banned from me and that's a fact. portnoy, mr. dave, you're the man of the hour, hope to see you again real soon. got you. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: see you later. sure thing. i want to bring in former trader and she is a former trader. she's currently fox anchor and that is sandra smith who joins us right now. sandra, you were listening, i'm sure you -- sandra: every word of it. stuart: he's really going after robinhood saying they changed the rules in the middle of the night and it's not fair and they

should go to prison. give us your take on this. sandra: his viewpoint and opinion are very important but robinhood is the regulated entity here. they have an obligation to follow the rules and the regulations and enforce them. we can't leave that out of the conversation, stuart. and that was left out of that conversation. and you need to separate yourself from a trader, a sophisticated, professional trader that goes through education, licensing, testing to know the risks that they are taking on compared to a day trader that's putting up in some cases zero money and making these trades on margin. they are taking on great risk in many cases. i think it's unfortunate for somebody like david portnoy who is worth a lot of money to suggest the average couple, perhaps the school teacher, a general manager at the local grocery store can take on the same risk in the stock market that he can. and i think we have to live by

the rules and when you sign up to trade on that platform, stuart, you need to read the rules. i did this morning. i printed off the 36-page consent form that i would have to sign and agree to if i was going to trade through that platform, stuart. look what i found in the very tinny small print on page 6, stuart. i understand robinhood may at any time in its sole discretion and without prior notice to me, prohibit or restrict my ability to trade securities. you need to know that going into this, stuart. i'm all for the little guy. i'm all for the investor in america, prosperity, being able to save your money and the money that you are -- you are willing to risk, if you want to sit down and day trade, that's your prerogative to do so. you have to understand that that company that you're trading with, they have an obligation to not only help you remain solvent but their customers as well.

i told you i was going to have a mouthful. stuart: sandra, that was a very articulate expression of the other side of the argument. portnoy is saying this and you're saying that. on the whole story.ot to take in stuart: there is. yes, there is. i'm glad you read the fine print. stuart: just for you, stuart. stuart: see you again soon. out of time. more varney after this.

cell phone repair. did you know liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? just get a quote at libertymutual.com. really? i'll check that out. oh yeah. i think i might get a quote. not again! aah, come on rice. do your thing. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ >> well, steve, i know the sec issued a new statement this morning or just before i came out here and i certainly point to that. they are closely monitoring the situation. i know it's a big story, but,

you know, obviously our focus and big story is to get the american people back to work. stuart: now, that was white house press secretary jen psaki, she was responding to the gamestop story and reports that secretary treasury janet yellen received over $800,000 from hedge fund tied to gamestop controversy. interesting story. former acting national intelligence director ric grenell tweeted this, drain the swamp and ric joins us now. ric, that was a good tweet. when yellen go all of this money was from another hedge fund from short squeeze. does that disqualify her from looking at the market and looking at gamestop? >> for sure. there's no question about that. i have to say i loved the

interview with dave portnoy and with sandra. i think this is a great argument to have, but, you know, stuart, i think what most people want to know is what the rules are and make sure they are enforced and -- and enforced the same across the board. we cannot have government agencies that pick and choose when they enforce and for who just simply because somebody is powerful. that's a huge problem. and i think that goes for every bureaucracy whether it's the housing authority, whether it's national intelligence and now what we see is when it comes to markets. we just want to know the rules and make sure they are articulated and enforced equally across the board. stuart: it's just fascinating to see this army largely of millennials hooked in by a phone

and social networks, ganging up and coordinating and attack on various stocks and, indeed, the hedge fund guys in particular. it's the people versus the elites. do you see it like that in stock terms? >> look, i don't think i would go so far to say it's just millennials doing this. i think that seems to be the washington-new york kind of attitude of just these young kids who don't know what they're doing attacking the system. some of that may be true but i don't think we can go so far to say that. i think that there is some young people at the hedge funds that are making a lot of money too and they got lucky because they went to an ivy league school and they had some connections. to me i view this as very much an insider game versus the outsider. why can't some people who don't have the normal access to the market participate in the market? this seems to be the government trying to take care of their friends who are active and known

to them. they are powerful people and somehow they don't like having the outsiders having access to their inside game. there are a lot of problems with trading and i think that we have government like the trump administration who tried to take kind of a hands-off approach and to say let the market work itself out. now what we are seeing as a test of the biden administration. are they going to get active and protect the wall street insiders or even the big institutional investors who are known to them and say, you know what, this is an open system and let everybody participate even if you don't know what you're doing? there's no rule that says that you absolutely have to know what you're doing in the market. stuart: but that will step in if the little guy gets holding the

bag and the little guy loses his or her share. at that point there's a political dimension to this. they will step in, would you agree with that? >> i think the political dimension for the biden administration is much more about exactly the way that you frame it. it's that they are going to be looking for main street versus wall street. i think when you look at all of the dark money that went to joe biden. there's a whole bunch of institutional, big money that went to joe biden and don't miss the fact that those individuals are absolutely talking and pushing their agenda now on officials within the biden administration. and i think janet yellen had some explaining to do. stuart: ric, we appreciate your expertise. thanks for being on the show. don't be a stranger. ric grenell, thank you, sir. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: with a market like this

when you have the dow down 350 and you have the casino stocks, there has to be big movers and lauren has got the list, lauren. lauren: and they're moving to the upside, the vaccine makers, take a look at novax, posted data on a trial last night. 89% efficacy in the uk. i want to show you novaxx because it's surging, up 64%, the second to last from the bottom. it could be its highest close since 2015. so we will continue to track that one. but you can see good news for all of these companies. on the flip side, there is biotech that's down, johnson & johnson, the reason one shot vaccine is 66% effective. it's less than the competition. j&j is one of the worst performers on the dow jones. there are winners on the dow 30 and they are the tech companies, intel, sales force but also mcdonalds and boeing, stuart.

stuart: okay. okay. producer, please can you just leave up that big-tech screen that we had a moment ago with all the red ink on it? here is what i think may be happening right now. you see the big techs are way down especially facebook, microsoft is down and apple is down over 3%. i think this is what's happening. we've got another short squeeze developing in gamestop, for example, short position is expanding, the stock is going up. that implies a squeeze on the short sellers. the short sellers have to cover their losses and i think they are going to the big techs, taking money out of there and putting that money to cover their losses. that might be what we are doing and what we are seeing at the moment on the marketplace. robinhood is facing lawsuits, we know that, after halting trades of gamestop and amc, they are accused of rigging the market. we will cover that after this.

♪

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stuart: susan, i want to -- i want you to come into this because of what i just said moments ago. my theory, the shorts -- look, we've got an expanding short position in gamestop. i think there's going to be a short squeeze again there and i can see that the overall market is going further south especially big techs. my theory is that big tech is being sold to raise cash to go towards the losses being made on short squeeze on gamestop, what do you think? susan: just in case on a friday, heading into the weekend where you can't trade in and out of stocks. this is the price action in a nervous environment and we also saw the volatility fear gauge going up 42% as well. highest 2-year spike on wednesday. in terms of the actual dollar amount that could be coming out of the big tech stocks, really the stock market as a whole because of the gamestop short losses, s3 which tracks data has

not come up and put a number to it, dollar figure. they are saying year to date losses for gamestop is at $19.75 billion. that's significant and in terms of short interest, we are still looking at 11.2 billion on gamestop at this point. and it is a third most shorted stock in value behind tesla and apple. now, you have to put that into perspective because tesla and apple are huge companies compared to gamestop. gamestop is tinny compared to 2 trillion of apple. it's close to 100% level, virtually all stock out there is being shorted according to f3 partners but relative to what we saw heading into the robinhood trading halls, restrictions in those options trades, looks like short positioning in gamestop is down 8% over the past week. still pretty high. i would say probably 100% of the float up there according to some of the data but money has to

come out of somewhere especially to make up for the losses when it comes to those big hedge funds that are trying to cover their shorts. 19.75 billion has been lost so far this year. stuart: and gamestop is holding onto its very strong gain, up 73% right now. $142 higher, 335 the price. let's move onto bitcoin. i know it's up and i know what's driving up the price and so do you, susan. why don't you tell our viewers? susan: elon musk. take a look at twitter page. he really knows how to move the market adding bitcoin to twitter profile there tweeting that in retrospect it was inevitable, meaning that, i guess, people buy back into bitcoin. also we had bitcoin spike it, i will put it in dollars $5,000 last night when you had elon musk adding bitcoin to profile. trading above 37,000 this morning. and by the way, you can also -- you are restricted now on

robinhood so you are less limited when it comes to those 13 favor short squeeze plays like gamestop, blackberry, express and restrictive when it comes to crypto trading. so that might be also -- might be playing into the market and what bitcoin is trading at. shopfy, we are down. power of movement on twitter with musk's millions of followers and said he liked shopfy because spacex uses them stuart: it's amazing what elon musk can do. extraordinary stuff. meanwhile the market -- >> susan: but he knows how to kill the shorts. he's beaten the battle. he's been dogged by them for a long time. he's a great contractor this week. stuart: yeah he hates the short and really goes after them. i think that's exactly what he's doing right now. meanwhile, left-hand side of the screen, dow is down 430. facebook is down nearly 3% and i want some more commentary on

this because facebook has stopped and thrown out an online stock trading chat room right in the middle of this frenzy of trading. facebook kicked them off. they very were popular chat trading -- stock trading chat room and now they are off. to me that is a form of censorship. it's certainly a restriction of what i can see on facebook. i want to bring steve hilton into this, resident expert on facebook and censorship and to me this really does raise the censorship issue, what say you? steve: that's exactly right, stuart. we are seeing over politics. we are now seeing it over this. and what it all adds up to is a complete reversal of what these tech founders said when they started these companies. remember all the high-minded rhetoric a few years ago.

they said, we are going to democratize information and give it to the people so they can do their own thing and they ended up doing the exact opposite. they ended uptaking power away from people and concentrating in their own hands and by the way in the process of doing that, they have shot down other means for people to express themselves in terms of local newspapers and so on. they crushed huge swaths of the media, now they are abusing it. stuart: what's the way out of this? steve: well, i think what's exciting, stuart, if i can use that word on -- on a day, week of such turmoil is the energy behind this revolt against the powerful elites. look at the way that information is coming to light that people didn't know before. for example, in relation to gamestop and robinhood, you had ric grenell earlier shining a

spotlight on the swampiness of it all, the donations that go to the hedge funds, janet yellen's role and there's another aspect to this that's coming to light that people need to pay attention to and i think if we publicize it, you might get changes. just look at who robinhood has on its books in terms of the people running it regulatory fed? business and government. robinhood, chief legal officer, former sec commissioner, former sec chief of staff, head of regulatory and government affairs. it's got people working for with senior council banking committee. house financial services committee, how can anyone have confidence that these companies, big businesses are properly regulated when the people regulating them know that as soon as they are out of their government job, they get a job with the very companies that they were supposed to regulate. that's all being exposed. so i think the more that we talk about this, the more likely we

are going to get positive change in the long run. stuart: does it end in tears for the little guy? steve: well, i think that they're playing the game now on the same basis that the rich and powerful have for a long time. and you know better than anyone, that if you do that, you can lose out. but they are doing it with their eyes open and they don't want to be old in a patronizing way, we will protect you from your own actions. they want to play, they want the freedom to do it. that's what america is all about. risk taking is part of this country. it's what made this country great and it's so patronizing for the elite to say, well, we are allowed to take risk but you little people, we will protect you. that's the paternalism that you get in socialist europe and not in america. stuart: well said. steve hilton, we are going to watch your show sunday night on fox news. thanks for being with us this morning. very important perspective right there. thank you, steve. then we have the so-called -- wait a minute.

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>> it's not making giant leaps of logic. i'm looking at facts that i don't know how any rational looking at them, generally, where there's smoke there's fire and there's a 5-alarm blaze. stuart: dave portnoy is on fire. let's bring in gatsby, gatsby it's an app, it's been described of robinhood of action trading and ceo the jeff meyers. i'm glad that you could come on the show because dave portnoy is having go at robinhood and maybe

a got at you as well and says you should be in prison, you want to answer that? >> yeah, stuart, thanks for having us. what's been happening will definitely be reflected upon for many years. i think it's going to be in the history books. i think there is some misinformation out there. what i saw was a huge pump of stocks that squeezed the hedge fund almost out of business and because it was hedge fund, the retail trader became the little man against the big corporation, rich versus poor war, i've heard it describe as the french revolutionary of financial industry and it's super interesting to watch. in terms of what robinhood did -- and i will touch on what we did as well, there's really not a right answer. every brokerage needs to mitigate their own risk, balance sheets, margin they have extended and they need to protect their traders. what we did as opposed to just blanket banning of a stock, we were more targeted but we still

put some restrictions on the meme stocks we call internally. you can sign up for gatsby and you can buy shares an you can buy options on, for example, gamestop but not the ones that are expiring today. that's our form of mitigating our risk on this unprecedented amount of volatility on these 5 or 6 names or as robinhood did a blanket ban across 5, 6, 7, 8 -- stuart: okay, so you are mitigating your own risk but you're not going as far as robinhood went. okay. are you seeing a lot of new entrance onto your app, new sign-ups, are you seeing that? >> yeah, yeah. so probably as of mondayish, although we saw higher volume, but as of monday my team of 9 people, i would say they haven't slept measure more than a couple of hours each night and

thousands of new sign-ups each day. to me it's exciting because it's the revolution -- i think this is the week where trading options have gone mainstream, trading generally has just hit the masses, and i think the dynamic that will bring to the market is awesome and good for the retail investor but we definitely -- >> stuart: lost audio. let me just jump in for a second. if you're getting thousands of sign-ups a day, can you -- your operation, can you handle that kind of volume because the volume really got to robinhood. that was part of the problem. they could not handle the volume. can you? >> yeah, they had unprecedented amounts of volume. other brokers went down. i think i saw e trade and others

having issues. maybe once we have 15 million accounts, we will have issues. it's hard to manage. i don't think robinhood was trying to censor the little man as some people have speculated. i think it truly is about -- we've had the same internal conversation. it's about mitigating risks when millions of people are opening sometimes on margin positions expiring so near term on a stock that's so volatile. you have to do something and, again, there's not a perfect answer. i don't know if our more targeted approach to restrictions is the right answer but every brokerage needs to make that decision for themselves. it's not an easy decision to make because no matter you do -- >> stuart: i have 30 seconds, but i want you to characterize the reddit army. is it here to stay? will we continue to get coordinated, organized movement of thousands of people operating through social networks?

here to stay, is it? >> i think it's a permanent change and it coincides with a flood of interest in stocks and options among a much younger generation of traders. i think it's here to stay. i think the meme economy, the meme stocks, the introducing brokers have an obligation to mitigate risks and make sure their traders are acting responsibly. stuart: jeff meyes ceo of gatsby, the robinhood of options trading. so glad that you can on the show. you're the man in the middle of it all. thank you very much, indeed, sir. thank you. okay. remember we were talking a lot about road blocks. i think that's the proper pronunciation. are they delaying their plans to go public. lauren, if so, why? lauren: okay, so their scrutiny from the sec, reuters is reporting that road blocks recognizing revenue when digital currencies are sold and they

want them to recognize revenue when they are used and updating that is apparently going to sak- take some time, so hence, what we were expecting last month could be delayed. i just want to talk about the valuation of road blocks, near $30 billion. compare that to grand theft auto, popular title for years and years. take 2 interactive is only valued at $23 billion. so potentially right out of the gate road blocks relative newcomer, it does have 36 million users, it's popular, i get it, but it would be valued at more than take two interactive. stuart: yeah, the valuation of various companies is going to shift because of what we are seeing in the market. i think valuations are kind of up in the air. lauren, all good stuff but don't go anywhere, folks, lauren or susan. friday feedback is next.

and there's a lot of the questions are about gamestop. we will be back. ♪ ♪ ♪

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stuart: all right. you see the sign there, friday feedback. here we go. let's bring in susan and lauren. sorry, ashley is away today but will make good with the three of us. this comes from brett thoson. elon musk was punished from manipulating stocks. where is the stock manipulation and investing? susan, i think you're better to take this one on, go ahead. susan: thanks, stu, elon musk in a tweet funding secure was impactful statement, did he gave anybody else a heads up before he threw it in the public, no. in reddit case you have traders colluding to make the trades. i think there's a difference if

you are an agent of the company itself. stuart: okay. next one comes to us from james instram, instead of casino stocks, my i suggest casino royale based on the spook flic. you know, susan, that's for you. susan: royale. we have to get past the casino characterization. there's intent and strategy and some say education behind it. instead of just throwing a chip on the board and hoping for dumb luck, i would say investors probably have some -- some other strategies at play here. stuart: i think so. intelligent strategies. lauren, what do you have to say? lauren: i think capitalism will prevail in the end when -- when all this settles and gamestop has to justify what 23 billion-dollar valuation. stuart: okay, short and sweet.

[laughter] stuart: let's move onto ken cook who writes this. i agree with your characterization of the stock market. but i don't think it's a new phenomena. been going on for many years. probably since 401ks were invented, do a side by side of a casino sports book and the new york stock exchange floor and tell me the difference? look, there really is a difference between -- i'm big on this. there's a difference between gambling and investing. you gamble and the risk is you lose it all. you invest and -- okay, you can lose half, you might lose 80% but you will not lose all and it's not on the roll of a dice. there's a huge differencement does anybody want to contradict me on this? susan: i think you could lose everything. we were just talking about this. this is a warning to investors. don't bet more than you can lose. stuart: okay. lauren. lauren: usually investors go

long, they are bullish, they think stocks are going to go up and normally, hopefully they usually do but this whole idea of short-selling, it's a little bit of trickery and, yes, some people will lose a lot of money. the hedge funds or the little guys. we will see in the end. stuart: out of time. more varney after this.

♪ stuart: for all of those in new york city, here's the news: you only have another couple of weeks to wait before you can eat inside, inside a restaurant out and away from the cold. governor cuomo will allow 25% capacity for indoor dining starting valentine's day, february the 14th. a great way to close the show. neil, it's yours. neil: i can't top that. all right, thank you very, very much. we'll see if that comes to pass, by the way. i'll believe it when i see it. all right, in the meantime, a believer in a lot of these shorted stocks, a lot of buying interest in gamestop when it was stopped and now back with a vengeance here and all the other stocks attached to it like express, nokia, even american airlines and on and on we go. there's a new cottage industry involving, folks, and it has to do with stocks that have been shorted, plain and simple. i spoke to a number of traders who tell me they keep a running roll, a running tab, if you will, of stocks that have better