Press Releases

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga) had the following exchange Thursday with the witnesses at the House Financial Services Committee hearing entitled, “Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media, and Retail Investors Collide.”


Rep Loudermilk: “Mr. Tenev, can you remind us why Robinhood temporarily paused trading of GameStop and other stocks?”

Mr. Tenev: “Of course, thank you, Congressman. Robinhood paused trading temporarily, or I should say paused buying of about thirteen securities, on Thursday so that we could meet our regulatory deposit and collateral requirements.”

Rep. Loudermilk: “So what you’re saying is, you paused because you had to comply with regulations. Is that true?"

Mr. Tenev: “Correct.”

Rep. Loudermilk: “It’s ironic that the people who are criticizing brokerage firms because they paused trading, which they sometimes have to do to comply with regulations; these same folks are now saying we need to respond to this with more regulations. I would say, if people don’t like brokers occasionally having to pause trading, I’d suggest they look at the regulations that required it. At some point, we need to recognize that piling on more and more regulations only increases complexity, and it does not help investors.”

Rep. Loudermilk: “Ms. Schulp, despite the volatility and the frenzy of media, and social media activity, it seems to me like markets functioned as they are supposed to during this situation, and that markets are not broken; in fact, they are working well. Do you agree with that?"

Ms. Schulp: “I agree with that… the facts that I know now, it does appear to have worked the way it is supposed to. This is not a sign, to me, that the market is broken.”

Witnesses

Vlad Tenev, Chief Executive Officer, Robinhood Markets, Inc.

Kenneth C. Griffin, Chief Executive Officer, Citadel LLC

Gabriel Plotkin, Chief Executive Officer, Melvin Capital Management LP

Steve Huffman, Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Reddit

Keith Gill, Individual Investor

Jennifer Schulp, Director of Financial Regulation Studies, Cato Institute