Breaking: Hedge fund replaces quant team with meme experts and TikTok influencers. Says it's 'adapting to market realities'.
In a move that has Wall Street suits collectively shitting their pants, Citadel Capital announced today that it's firing its entire quantitative analysis team and replacing them with a crack squad of meme lords and TikTok influencers.
"We've crunched the numbers, and it turns out that dank memes and viral dances are better predictors of market movements than any algorithm we've developed," said Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, sporting a fresh Supreme hoodie and Dogecoin chain. "We're not just thinking outside the box; we're yeeting the whole damn box into the sun."
The new "Quantitative Shitposting Division" includes such luminaries as @StonksOnly420, a Reddit mod known for his uncanny ability to lose money, and @CryptoThot9000, whose cleavage-heavy TA videos have a 69% accuracy rate in predicting short-term price movements.
"Our previous strategy of manipulating markets through complex financial instruments was just too 2008," Griffin explained. "Now, we'll manipulate markets the way God intended - through strategically deployed laser eye profile pics and 'Moon soon' tweets."
The firm's new approach was reportedly inspired by the GameStop saga, where Griffin realized that an army of barely literate Redditors armed with stimulus checks could outmaneuver his billion-dollar operation.
"If you can't beat 'em, hire their most unhinged members," he shrugged.
Citadel's first strategy under the new regime involves shorting every stock mentioned by Jim Cramer and going long on whatever cryptocurrency Elon Musk most recently tweeted about.
Wall Street analysts are divided on the move. "This is either the dumbest or most brilliant thing I've ever seen," said one JP Morgan executive, who asked to remain anonymous because he was "lowkey applying for a job as a Citadel meme curator."
Meanwhile, the SEC has announced plans to create a new "Vibeonomics" division to keep up with these market developments. Chairman Gary Gensler was quoted as saying, "We're still not sure if this is legal, but it's provocative. It gets the people going!"
As of press time, Citadel's new strategy has resulted in a 420% increase in returns and a 6969% increase in office Nerf gun battles.
In related news, the Harvard Business School has introduced a new course: "Advanced Shitposting for Finance Bros 101". The waiting list is already longer than the list of cryptocurrencies Ethereum has killed.
About the Author: Kobayashi Mememoto is an independent journalist with years of experience at the intersection of memes, crypto, and finance. Kobayashi's articles have been featured in several finance and crypto publications, with his main expertise being in memecoin trading. Mememoto's motto? "If you're not willing to lose it all on the next pump.fun jeet token, are you even investing?"
