Wisconsin Teen Got $50 Christmas Gift, 'Riding The Wave' Of GameStop Hype

It turns out, a $50 Christmas gift is stretching far beyond its worth.

Ben Patte is a junior at Shorewood High School in Milwaukee County who used his Christmas money to buy GameStop stock this week.

"I decided to buy in on the hype and I'm still riding the wave," he told WISN on Thursday (January 28). "As of yesterday when the stock closed at $340 some dollars, I was $600. Earlier today, I was at $1,000, but today something crazy happened and I'm only up like $300."

Hedge fund investors experienced big losses after betting that GameStop and other companies would tank, and those billion-dollar losses are “so satisfying,” Patte told WISN.

Patte isn’t the only one who opted to get in on the action.

Jayden Carr, a 10-year-old from San Antonio, got 10 GameStop shares for Kwanzaa from his mother in 2019. The shares were $6 each. This week, he sold them for nearly $3,200, and plans to use $1,000 of those earnings to keep investing.

Robinhood and Interactive Brokers restricted trading on GameStop and other stocks.

Robinhood said in a statement:

"We continuously monitor the markets and make changes where necessary. In light of recent volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AAL, $AMC, $BB, $BBBY, $CTRM, $EXPR, $GME, $KOSS, $NAKD, $NOK, $SNDL, $TR and $TRVG. We also raised margin requirements for certain securities.”

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