The trolls of Wall Street How the outcasts and insurgents are hacking the markets

This incisive report from New York Times journalist Popper (Digital Gold) delves into the personalities behind the Reddit community WallStreetBets, which upended the financial world by kick-starting the 2021 GameStop stock market rally. Popper's account centers on finely observed profiles of Jaime Rogozinski, who founded the subreddit in 2012, and Jordan Zazzara, who joined as a moderator in 2016. Rogozinski is described as a finance professional from an affluent background who alienated himself from friends to hide his alcoholism and spent most nights posting on Reddit. By contrast, Zazzara came from more humble means, having dropped out of community college and struggling to hold down a steady job, but felt similarly isolated and primarily interacted with people online. Popper covers the financial mechanics of the GameStop rally and Zazzara's successful effort to oust Rogozinski from WallStreetBets amid escalating discontent regarding his use of the community for self-promotion, but the author's main focus is on the subreddit's odious culture. While other journalists have portrayed WallStreetBets as the David to Wall Street's Goliath, Popper depicts the subreddit as a refuge for young men starved of connection whose disaffection deteriorated during the Trump presidency into a wellspring of racism and misogyny. Vividly reported and remarkably evenhanded, this stands out as one of the more critical assessments of the GameStop rally. Agent: Pilar Queen, United Talent Agency. (June)

A sidelong though revealing look at the odd "laddish" subculture that has fueled private Wall Street trading for the last few years. Whereas Ben Mezrich's The Antisocial Network and Spencer Jakab's The Revolution That Wasn't were straightforward takes on the GameStop meltdown, former New York Times finance and technology reporter Popper, author of Digital Gold, is more interested in some of the subthemes behind the debacle. Though he pays attention to the bigger picture, he is especially good in his portraits of the little actors whose interactions turned disastrous--and even dangerous. At the center of the narrative is WallStreetBets, an online forum that "fed into a whole universe of lonely, often mistrustful young men." The community arose at a time when many young men decided that they were just aggrieved enough to become vocal Trump supporters, some diving headlong into QAnon and 4chan, most venting at some point or another about the unfair economic cards they'd been handed after the recession of 2008. In the process, Popper writes, WallStreetBets and its founders remade the small-investment landscape: Whereas $21 billion came onto the table through amateur traders in 2019, four years later, that figure was $118 billion. Much of the side-bet activity centered on cryptocurrency. However, as a survey conducted by Charles Schwab revealed, those young investors "started with the goal of notching short-term wins but were learning from their mistakes and focusing more on long-term investing," democratizing the market with fresh blood and money. Popper's account is densely detailed on both the financial and technical fronts--aspiring investors will learn some valuable information--but the author never loses focus on the people involved, however disaffected and conflicted. A look inside what one investing whiz kid called a Pandora's box--one that, Popper makes clear, won't soon be closed. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.