10 things before the opening bell

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10 things before the opening bell
Investors have to brace for more market volatility thanks to the new Omicron variant.Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

Happy end-of-year! To cap off 2021, we're bringing you a special edition of 10 Things Before the Opening Bell, featuring some of our most compelling markets and investing stories of the year — as selected by Markets Insider editors.

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We'll be back with a regular edition on Monday. Until then, wishing you a safe and happy New Year. See you in 2022.

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1. When Reddit day traders took on the hedge-fund giants, it ushered in a new era for markets. Redditors disrupted Wall Street by sparking short squeezes at the expense of large institutional investors. As the meme stock pandemonium showed, retail traders have proven themselves capable of mounting some successful "value capture" against Wall Street.

2. In September, when Evergrande's debt crisis jolted the market, reporter Matthew Fox explained exactly what happened. Investors worried over China's second-largest property developer because of its mammoth financial burden of more than $300 billion. Fox broke down the details of the monumental debt, and why it sent shockwaves through the market.

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3. This year we met college student Hai Dinho, who mined shiba inu coin for free from his spare laptop. He told Insider's Laila Maidan that the mining software from the website UnMineable has helped him collect over 12,000 SHIB a day. He detailed his strategy here.

4. Meme mania pushed Gen Z into the stock market, and they've been learning investing fundamentals from social media. Natasha Dailey wrote about how Gen Z'ers turn to TikTok and Instagram for investing advice even before family and friends. Here's what Fidelity's vice president of young investors had to say about the trend.

5. Insider tracked down the 11 crypto masterminds at Wall Street firms like JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley who have been helping clients understand the mania. The experts told Insider reporters how they got involved with crypto — and explained how they're helping investors successfully invest in it.

6. Metaverse property sales boomed in the latter part of the year, and it has turned into a potentially $1 trillion market. As Carla Mozée reported in November, investors have been betting big on the digital future of real estate, staking out virtual plots of land like never before. Here are three sales that had eye-popping price tags.

7. A real-estate expert who's written multiple books on investing strategy and owns a mortgage company broke down home-buying in 2021. In November, he explained what the market fundamentals were signaling and how consumers should react — and he shared how he was positioning his own portfolio.

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8. During the GameStop saga, Reddit traders used the social media platform to upend the stock market and make money in the process. Retail investors boosted GameStop shares in defiance of hedge funds and against all investing norms. Reporter Ben Winck explained how WallStreetBets traders used viral posts to build momentum for stock trades.

9. In June, Insider's Natasha Dailey investigated how AMC CEO Adam Aron embraced the company's meme status. Aron's willingness to reach out to the army of retail investors helped send its stock to unfathomable heights. Here's how the 67-year-old became a legend for the meme-stock generation.

10. In May, legendary investor Jeremy Grantham compared the modern tales of frenzy and market mania to the dot-com bubble. The man who made prescient calls about the 2000 and 2008 crashes explained that the current landscape was eerily reminiscent of the dot-com era. Grantham explained the indicators that pointed to what could be "the biggest loss of perceived value from assets that we have ever seen."


Compiled by Phil Rosen. Feedback? Email prosen@insider.com or tweet @philrosenn.

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