“HOLD THE LINE, DO NOT SELL” is now trending on Twitter as retail investors accuse Wall Street of market manipulation

As Reddit traders continue to wage battle against Wall Street, individual investors are calling on one another to ‘hold the line’ and avoid selling any of the heavily shorted stocks that were restricted on Robinhood Thursday morning. The calls came as free-trading app Robinhood halts trading of GameStop stock on its platform.

The hashtag “HOLD THE LINE, DO NOT SELL”  is now trending on Twitter as retail investors say the free-market is now under attack. One Twitter user said:

“This is a legitimate battle right now. People typing “HOLD THE LINE!” and “DO NOT SELL!” as Wall Street is doing everything in their power to stop the revolution. This is just remarkable to witness.”

This is a legitimate battle right now. People typing "HOLD THE LINE!" and "DO NOT SELL!" as Wall Street is doing everything in their power to stop the revolution. This is just remarkable to witness.

— Andrew Kimmel (@andrewkimmel) January 28, 2021

According to a Thursday announcement from Robinhood, the fintech startup says that millions of its customers will no longer be able to buy Gamestop stock on the free-trading app, thereby blocking 2.8 million members of the WallStreetBets forum on Reddit. Robinhood also said it aims to do the same for AMC, Nokia, BlackBerry, Naked Brands, and a few other stocks

In making the move, Robinhood emailed customers warning of “the current volatile market conditions.” The notice stated, “It’s as important as ever to be an informed investor,” and included links to its investment resources.

Robinhood is not alone. The London-based trading firm Trading 212 informed users of its platform Thursday that it was halting deals in GameStop and AMC, another stock featured on r/WallStreetBets, “as highly unusual volumes have led to an unprecedented market environment.”

In a tweet this morning, Trading 212 said it had temporarily stopped onboarding new clients due to “unprecedented demand.”

Due to the unprecedented demand, we have temporarily stopped onboarding new clients. Once we process the existing queue, we will be open for new registrations.

— Trading 212 (@Trading212) January 28, 2021

Amateur investors are taking to Twitter to vent their anger. As one Twitter user put it …”The free market is only free until rich people lose money.” Another person said: “Let people buy $GME $AMC They know the risks. This is bullshit market manipulation.”

Let people buy $GME $AMC They know the risks. This is bullshit market manipulation

— Mark Best (@Mark1624) January 28, 2021

Below is a screenshot of the trending hashtag.