What Did the Stock Market Do Today? 3 Big Stories to Catch Up On.

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Wall Street must be ready for the weekend! After a rough week of trading that saw significant negative-to-positive reversals and a second Reddit stocks rally, everyone needs a bit of a breather. But before you sign off, what did the stock market do today? Here are the top three stories moving the market.

Street sign for Wall Street pictured in front of several American flags representing american stocks

Source: Shutterstock

To start, we saw a bit of a shake-up in the top tickers on Friday. This morning, big names were moving after their turns at the quarterly earnings confessional. Throughout the day, leaders Airbnb (NASDAQ:ABNB) and Nikola (NASDAQ:NKLA) gave way to Fisker (NYSE:FSR) and Ocugen (NASDAQ:OCGN). It turns out that the EV startup is shooting higher on reservation growth, while the biotech is climbing after a Covid-19 vaccine deal with Brazil.

But what else did the stock market do today? For everything else you need to know, dive into these three top stories.

What Did the Stock Market Do Today? Focus on Robinhood.

Robinhood was back in the spotlight this week thanks to a second rally in Reddit names like GameStop (NYSE:GME) and AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC). This time, however, the trading platform promised it would stay out of the way and let traders do their thing. It seems that after a Congressional hearing and a ton of bad press from the likes of Elon Musk and Dave Portnoy, Robinhood has learned a lesson.

However, the GameStop saga is not the only weight on Robinhood.

All the way back in March 2020, the company found itself under fire for platform outages, options activity and reports of unauthorized actors taking over user accounts. Nearly a year later, it seems like the big boy regulators are ready to reach a settlement.

Today, Peter Rudegeair wrote for the Wall Street Journal that Robinhood is in talks to settle investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). According to Rudegeair, ongoing probes could cost Robinhood more than $26.6 million in losses.

So what should investors make of all this? Just a few weeks ago, it seemed that Robinhood had given itself a death sentence. But the reality is that the trading platform remains popular, especially among the retail investors that brought it to prominence. That does not mean that the path forward for the company will be easy. Ahead of a potential 2021 IPO, it has to deal with class-action lawsuits about the GameStop restrictions, a wrongful death suit and these probes stemming from March 2020.

So What About GME Stock?

Speaking of GameStop, what is up with GME stock?

As InvestorPlace Markets Analyst Tom Yeung wrote today, GameStop is in a rough spot. Its brick-and-mortar video game stores are still suffering, and the company continues to lay off its regional management. This comes after years of focusing on payouts for shareholders instead of turning its old-school business around. However, as we saw this week with the resignation of CFO Jim Bell and the resulting rally, there is still hope for GameStop.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Chewy (NYSE:CHWY) founder Ryan Cohen has been rooting for a GameStop turnaround. After acquiring a 13% stake in GameStop, he got himself and two of his friends seats on the board. Now, he is talking big about how GameStop can go from brick-and-mortar to Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) rival.

How can he do that? Yeung says that Cohen has a good head on his shoulders, but he needs the help of r/WallStreetBets. If the retail investors who took GME stock to $500 can keep act like activist investors, pressure the board and actually buy and hold stock, they could make a difference.

Do you want to do your part to send GameStop to the moon? Here is how you can fuel the rocket ship.

I Would Really Like a Digital Cat

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a big theme that continues to emerge on Wall Street. NFTs are a digital asset, similar in many ways to cryptocurrencies, that represent some sort of tangible or intangible property. You could have an NFT that is an artwork, a virtual sneaker, a trading card or even a digital cat that you can breed. And in recent months, NFTs have gone from the sidelines of the investing world right into the mainstream.

There are many reasons for this. Cryptocurrencies are now wildly popular, making early investors in Bitcoin (CCC:BTC) and altcoins a ton of money. We are also at a time when blockchain technologies continue to advance, and when more investors than ever are interested in decentralized finance (DeFi). And as Felix Salmon wrote for Axios, we have near-zero interest rates and a societal fear of missing out on the next big thing.

So, now we have NFTs, and everyone from Logan Paul to Mark Cuban is talking about the digital assets. You can read our latest roundup here, and take a look at how this emerging theme intersects with the world of art and high-class auction houses.

On the date of publication, Sarah Smith did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. 

Sarah Smith is a Web Content Producer with InvestorPlace.com.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2021/02/what-did-the-stock-market-do-today-3-stories-nfts-gme-stock-ocgn-fsr-abnb/.

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