What was the point of Dumb Money?
Dumb Money is a story about a trading strategy called short selling, and in particular, the risks that short selling entails. Essentially, a short seller speculates that the price of a particular asset, usually a stock, will decline in the future.
Dumb Money does not entirely shy away from showing those losses; along with Gill, the film follows a handful of fictionalized GameStop investors, including Jennifer, a nurse played by America Ferrara, who becomes obsessed with Gill and GameStop stock, buys in big, and ends up losing money after failing to sell at the ...
You can see our worry in the movie's title: “Dumb Money.” That's Wall Street parlance for unsophisticated individual investors who make mistakes that can be exploited.
Although most of the story is factually correct, not everything happened exactly as shown. For example, some of the people who followed Keith Gill's trade, such as the character Jenny, are mere representations of the type of people who participated in the GameStop mania.
“A massive payday” for Wall Street. Another misleading impression conveyed in Dumb Money is that small investors gave the whole of Wall Street a bloody nose. It's not true. In fact, many professional investors prospered handsomely from the GameStop episode.
In early 2021, ordinary retail investors mounted an assault against Wall Street hedge funds. Mobilizing on Reddit and relying on user-friendly trading apps like Robinhood, amateur investors sparked a short squeeze in the market for video game retailer GameStop's GME -2.4% stock.
Plotkin, Cohen, and Griffin are estimated to have similar or higher net worths despite losing money on GameStop. Tenev's $1 billion net worth drastically declined due to what happened to Robinhood after the movie. The majority of other retail investors featured in Dumb Money also managed to make a good deal of money.
In reality, Kim Campbell is a nurse at the Davis Center of Psychiatric Medicine living in Los Angeles. Kim's investment in GameStop rose to as much as roughly $50,000 whereas Jenny's financial gains in Dumb Money soared to upwards of $500,000.
Dumb Money does not have a post-credits scene, as the movie tells a complete story by the time the credits begin. Despite the lack of a post-credits scene, viewers should still honor the writers, actors, and crew members by sitting through the credits.
Keith Gill's exact net worth is unclear, but it likely varies in step with GameStop's stock price, assuming he still holds a large position in the video game retailer. While most assume he does, it is hard to say for sure, as he no longer posts video updates with screenshots of his portfolio holdings.
Is the nurse in Dumb Money real?
That includes Kim Campbell, a nurse based in Los Angeles, who is featured in Mezrich's book and is part of the inspiration for the nurse, Jenny, played by America Ferrera in Dumb Money, who ends the movie in slightly less debt than she started with.
In January 2021, a short squeeze of the stock of the American video game retailer GameStop and other securities took place, causing major financial consequences for certain hedge funds and large losses for short sellers.
The WallStreetBets investors in GameStop primarily expressed hostility to short selling, in which shares are borrowed and then sold in the expectation of repurchasing them later at a lower price. The shares are then returned to their lender.
The fate of retail investors is not so clear. According to the movie, Gill ended up making $34 million, while three of the others also ended up in the black. Only one lost money. But any investors who bought near the peak of the frenzy, or continued to buy the stock and held on, would have fared far worse.
As of 2022, Robinhood had 22.8 million funded accounts and 15.9 million monthly active users.
However, Dumb Money's terrible box office performance doesn't reflect that, as the film has made a mere $8 million worldwide as of this writing. That's a disaster for Sony, as the movie cost $30 million to produce. Nevertheless, the circ*mstances surrounding the movie's release prove Dumb Money didn't stand a chance.
Keith Gill Could Have Made $48 Million From GameStop Stocks
However, he did confirm that his all-time high value in GameStop was nearly $48 million. Keith posted screenshots of how much his GameStop investment was worth routinely on the WallStreetBets Reddit page.
However, the value of the stock continued to fluctuate wildly; he lost $15 million in one day, and when markets closed on January 29, The Wall Street Journal confirmed that his brokerage accounts held $33 million.
Buffett has said that most people will fare better by owning an S&P 500 index fund instead of betting on individual stocks. He said many of the novice investors who jumped into the market recently and drove up the value of video game retailer GameStop are essentially gambling.
Major Hedge Funds Affected: Among the hedge funds that faced significant losses due to their positions against GameStop: Melvin Capital: Experienced a 49% loss in its investments in the early months of 2021 and required a $3 billion bailout.
Who lost because of GameStop?
After seeing Melvin Capital lose billions from shorting GameStop, many hedge funds now monitor financial discussions on Reddit and other social media platforms to see what's bubbling.
In the book, Kim Campbell initially buys 100 shares at around $16 per stock and recounts her account rising from $5,000 to $50,000 before the stock price began to freefall. Jenny Campbell sees her fortune grow to as much as $500,000 before she starts losing money.
According to the film, he was worth $34 million at that time, although it's unclear whether he's held onto his GameStop shares or what his net worth is now. “He completely retreated from the public eye, so it's all speculation at this point,” Gillespie says.
America Ferrera's Jennifer Campbell is based on a real-life, single mother RN named Kim Campbell. In Mezrich's book, it's stated that Campbell saw her shares get as high as $50,000 before the freefall, before ending her tale on an ambiguous note about whether or not she'd actually sell.
As DFV's legend grew, more people on WSB got in on the action, pushing the GME price higher and higher. As of his latest update, DFV's E-Trade account is worth $22.8 million, $4.4 million of which is in cash he pulled out.
References
- https://screenrant.com/dumb-money-movie-box-office-flop-reasons/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Gill
- https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a45340952/dumb-money-true-story/
- https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a35339535/game-stop-stock-short-squeeze-explained/
- https://www.timeline.co/blog/what-the-movie-dumb-money-gets-wrong
- https://www.vox.com/money/2023/9/15/23873474/dumb-money-gamestop-stock-keith-gill-melvin-capital-review
- https://www.schneiderdowns.com/our-thoughts-on/dumb-money-an-honest-review-of-the-film
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze
- https://time.com/6312307/gamestop-meme-stocks-dumb-money/
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/09/29/dumb-money-movie-true-story-keith-gill-gamestop/70990720007/
- https://screenrant.com/dumb-money-keith-gill-net-worth-gamestop-stocks/
- https://m.imdb.com/news/ni64248158/
- https://screenrant.com/dumb-money-ending-explained/
- https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2c7zjzn0fxoi2mbw837cw/culture/the-enduring-lessons-of-dumb-money
- https://www.thestreet.com/investors/keith-gill-net-worth
- https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2021/gamestop-episode-what-happened-what-does-it-mean
- https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/not-as-easy-as-it-sounds-warren-buffett-s-warning-to-novice-investors-in-wake-of-gamestop-surge-20210503-p57o99.html
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-did-hedge-funds-lose-gamestop-toby-mathis-euymc
- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/01/opinion/dumb-money-movie-gamestop-stock.html
- https://www.businessinsider.com/dumb-money-cast-vs-real-life-photos-2023-9
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesbroughel/2023/10/19/gamestopped-how-a-meme-stock-controversy-led-the-sec-astray/
- https://reason.com/2023/09/22/dumb-money-misses-the-point-about-its-meme-stock-underdogs/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinhood_Markets
- https://screenrant.com/dumb-money-jenny-campbell-america-ferrera-character-inspiration/