Robin Hood is one of the most compelling literary figures in English legend — and one of the hardest to define. His very existence is in dispute, as well as the nature of his passion for redistributing wealth.
In most retellings, Robin Hood was stealing from the rich to give to the poor. But there are lengthy academic treatises that claim otherwise. In one version, he and his band of Merry Men were the medieval archetype of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, focused primarily on fun, mischief and evading legal authority in their Sherwood Forest commune.
In another tale, the group robbed anyone who ventured into their territory, irrespective of wealth. Because it was the rich who could afford carriage rides through the countryside, they were the typical victims.
Another narrative casts Robin Hood as the leader of a tax revolt, reclaiming the funds King John took from the peasantry through unjust taxes. Other stories add a political element, emphasizing his purported loyalty to King Richard, whom John usurped after the rightful monarch embarked on a crusade to the Holy Land.
The most unique take was offered up by John Paul Davis, author of the 2009 book, Robin Hood: Unknown Templar. His claim is that Robin Hood stole from the rich to lend to the poor. As the History News Network describes the book’s central thesis: “The outlaw of Sherwood Forest was in fact something of a loan shark, who operated a sophisticated lending scheme for those short of cash.”
Over the centuries, the myriad tales have enthralled millions. There are ballads that retell these stories, fairs that recreate them, and Hollywood versions that dramatize them. There are stage productions, Disney cartoons, nursery rhymes, historical monuments and even an English airport named after a man who likely never lived.
All of this attention is not because we believe he was a loan shark, a political activist or a common criminal. The one plot line that has ignited the imaginations and idealism of generations is the theme of a gallant Robin Hood righting wrongs by redistributing the nobility’s treasure to the desperate poor. This Robin Hood is true to what many modern journalists consider to be their own mission: “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.”
And so it is not surprising that a stock-trading app named Robinhood has attracted a far-flung group of Internet insurgents focused on punishing elite Wall Street investment firms. The pandemic was the genesis of the movement, a time when the boredom bred by lockdowns perfectly aligned with the fee-free equity trading popularized by Robinhood.
This guerilla force isn’t interested in being just like The Man, motorcading to a sleek office tower in New York City during the week and lounging in the Hamptons in the off-season. These investors have virtue on their side, and the plucky compulsion to change the rules of the game. The most effective arrow in their quiver is the meme stock, forlorn companies whose shares they often send soaring through the cascading effect of their purchases.
By 2021 the Financial Review was reporting: “Having demonstrated an ability to move markets, retail traders are now a community of market participants that savvy investors want to understand and plug in to their own trading models. The flows are now large enough to count. … Hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, banks and other market professionals are poring over this kind of data.”
In Canada, one savvy hedge fund manager was already deep into an analysis of the Robinhood army, and had begun harnessing its power. Moez Kassam, co-founder of Toronto-based Anson Funds, was routinely scanning Reddit and other social media platforms for clues to the traders’ next moves.
In a 2022 profile by Forbes, the magazine described Kassam and Anson Funds as remarkably adept at tapping into the collective power of these small retail investors. Ironically, Anson Funds is a hedge fund. As Forbes noted: “His methods fly in the face of the goal of many retail investors, which was to make hedge funds pay for shorting stocks.”
Forbes quoted a 2020 letter to Anson Funds investors in which Kassam observed: “Robinhood traders appear to exhibit both Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and herd mentality thinking. This situation leads to crowds of Robinhood traders, often in contact with one another via social media platforms, all piling into the same equities in such a way that materially impacts price and volume.”
With its user-friendly app and intuitive investing tools, Robinhood has prospered by appealing to Millennial and Gen Z sensibilities, he believes. “The platform is as easy to use as a video game and lets users invest in stocks with zero trading commissions, purchase fractions of shares, and start trading with as little as $100.”
As trading platforms focused on average investors continue to broaden access to markets, Kassam expects many exciting new chapters in the adventures of the Robinhood army. “Retail has embraced the most speculative corners of the equity markets and they’ve added leverage into the mix,” the Anson Funds co-founder told Forbes. “It’s quite the dynamic.”
