If you’re going to hold someone else’s opinion up for ridicule, perhaps you should first consider the matter a bit more. If you mean institutional names as in individuals like the much maligned Jim Cramer, if you look into it you’ll find that there are very specific rules in place regarding his own ability to hold positions in the companies he discusses. This influencer we’re talking about reached similar if not greater sway over his audience, all the while directly profiting from their misunderstandings and gullibility. He may have hoped that his viral screenshots would save him from legal consequences, but in the end they may instead work against him. Of course, he had no personal brand name to trade on when he started out, so those very screenshots were also his best way of getting anyone’s attention in the first place.

The ones who deserve ridicule here are the people who continued to amplify this pump and dump long after it was readily apparent that that’s what it was. They are still doing this, including sadly here at Hacker News.