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Icahn’s Big Short & The FTX Colonic

News and notes on some of the most controversial storylines percolating through Wall Street this week: TradFi’s crypto victory lap and Carl Icahn’s battle with the apes.

Carl Icahn
Is Carl Icahn’s GameStop short the denouement of the meme stock phenomenon? Photo: Clint Spaulding/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
November 27, 2022

Well, apparently Carl Icahn has been celebrating the holiday season by going for the jugular and shorting GameStop into oblivion. According to Bloomberg, the longtime billionaire investor has been building a “large bet” against the video game retailer since early 2021, when the stock peaked in value. And he has the capital to play ball. After a year of cascading market corrections, one wonders, is this the denouement of the meme stonk phenomenon?