WHAT STOCK SURGE???All Calm at Stores, Except in Cleveland!!!
1/29/2021 1:00 AM PT
GameStop's wild stock market ride is all the rage in the investment world, but to employees at the brick-and-mortar stores ... it's had little impact on their workday, unless they happen to work in Cleveland.
TMZ reached out to GameStop locations in 20 major U.S. cities to see if they've seen an increase in customers due to the frenzy caused by the WallStreetBets group on Reddit.
Sixteen stores -- including those in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, Nashville, Portland, Phoenix, Seattle, San Fran and San Diego -- said it was status quo as far as customers.
One thing hedge fund managers, and even WallStreetBets founder Jaime Rogozinski, agree on is GameStop's future isn't bright. Hell, 3 stores -- in Miami, Philly and NYC -- told us biz has been slower than usual. Miami had a whopping 8 customers Thursday.
However, Cleveland is the exception, where they say sales are up 100% compared to last week. We're told several customers at that branch credited the stock surge story for inspiring them to visit and support GameStop ... so it doesn't go under.
On the flip side ... the manager of a Minneapolis location tells us he got an angry call from someone upset they couldn't trade GameStop shares on Robinhood.
As we've reported ... the stock-buying frenzy of GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry and a handful of other companies resulted in Robinhood shutting down trading for them, which pissed off retail investors who believe the move only benefits hedge funds.
Robinhood's decision has already led to it getting sued, and has fueled the debate of what is acceptable, responsible and fair in the Wall Street world ... and even the 'Wolf' has weighed in on it.