A trading frenzy in shares of GameStop earlier this year should lead regulators to consider whether “game-like” brokerage apps are encouraging investors to trade too much, the Securities and Exchange Commission said on 18 October.

The highly anticipated SEC report attributed the episode primarily to a rapid increase in trading by individual investors, many of whom used social-media platforms like Reddit to swap ideas and strategies. The agency poured cold water on a number of alternative hypotheses for why the struggling video-game retailer's share price soared from less than $20 at the end of 2020 to an intraday high of $483 on 28 January.