That's incredible! Having worked in a bank, I can't even imagine what would make them do this. Certainly their risk if they just let the positions alone is lower than if they sold people out forcibly. I wonder if they got a call from the SEC saying "hey it would be a shame if someone were to recharacterize your business of offering fractional shares as new securities offerings without a prospectus (i.e. totally unrelated activity) but by the way, have you noticed the action in GameStop"?
Gamestop is the most commonly mention stock, but i am trading Gamestop, Nokia, AMC, American airlines. Each of these stocks and others were halted today to allow the Market Makers and hedge funds to do their thing. Just wait until tomorrow on option expiration day, the piper will have to be paid or cheat more. hundreds of thousands of option contracts, each representing 100 shares will have to be closed out at massive losses to the Market Maker and their hedge fund backers. That is what this is all about. Google “Gamma Squeeze.” they did it to themselves.