In January 2021, the GameStop stock was the epicenter of the first case of predatory trading initiated by retail investors. We use brokerage accounts to study who participated in this GameStop frenzy and how they performed. We investigate the extent to which investors’ personal and trading characteristics differ from the general population of retail investors. GameStop traders had a history of investing in speculative instruments, including stocks with lottery-like features. They were also more likely to close their positions before the peak of the bubble. At the onset of the frenzy, numerous retail investors also shorted GameStop. Overall, our results indicate that the GameStop frenzy was not a pure digital protest against Wall Street but speculative trading by a group of retail investors, in line with their prior high-risk trading behavior.

The containment of COVID-19 critically hinges on individuals’ behavior. We investigate how individuals react to variations in COVID-19 reporting. Using a survey, we elicit individuals' perceived infection risk given various COVID-19 metrics (e.g., confirmed cases, reproduction rate, or case-fatality ratio). We proxy individuals' risk perception with their willingness to pay for the participation in everyday life and amusements events. We find that participants react to different COVID-19 metrics with varying sensitivity. We observe a saturation of sensitivity for several measures at critical limits used in the political discussion, making our results highly relevant for policy makers in their efforts to direct individuals to adhere to hygienic etiquette and social distancing guidelines.