White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to a question about volatile stock market trading and fears of a bubble by reminding reporters: “We have the first female treasury secretary.”
The gender-inspired non-sequitur came after she was asked about a massive spike in trading for GameStop (GME, +121.31%), AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC, +236.27%) and others.
“Is the White House concerned about the stock market activity we’re seeing around GameStop and now some other stocks as well?” a reporter asked. “Have there been any conversations with the SEC about how to proceed?”
“Well, I’m also happy to repeat that we have the first female treasury secretary and a team that’s surrounding her and often questions about markets,” Ms. Psaki replied. “We’ll send [you] to them. But our team is, of course, our economic team, including Secretary [Janet] Yellen and others, are monitoring the situation.”
This week’s developments prompted TD Ameritrade to restrict trading for GameStop on Wednesday and has spooked parts of Wall Street.
Market Watch noted a similar trend among companies such as Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY +33.53%) and Express Inc. (EXPR +247.68%).
The White House’s economic team, including Treasury Sec. Yellen, is monitoring the Reddit-stock market drama that sent GameStop, AMC, and Blockbuster prices soaring pic.twitter.com/64CG6BlWAM
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) January 27, 2021
“In the interest of mitigating risk for our company and clients, we have put in place several restrictions on some transactions in $GME, $AMC and other securities,” a spokeswoman for TD Ameritrade told the website. “We made these decisions out of an abundance of caution amid unprecedented market conditions and other factors.”
William Galvin, the secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, also told Barrons on Tuesday that he’s “concerned” at what he’s witnessing.
“It suggests that there is something systemically wrong with the options trading on this stock,” he said in an exclusive statement.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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