It has also had its fair share of controversies.
ESPN Cancels
In late 2017, ESPN canceled a show hosted by some Barstool personalities following social-media complaints that the website was insulting to women. It has a daily feature with photos of a scantily clad woman called Smokeshow and in the past rated the attractiveness of female teachers who were charged with having sex with their students. The company recently reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board to delete tweets in which Portnoy threatened to fire people who talked to union activists.
Portnoy’s livestream Davey Day Trader Global, or DDTG, gets hundreds of thousands of viewers on Twitter alone. In the videos, Portnoy mostly half-yells into a microphone as he goes through his portfolio. Sometimes he diverts into stream-of-consciousness asides.
“I bought these sunglasses today,” Portnoy said in one video, putting on a pair of reflective aviator sunglasses. “Are these d****bag sunglasses? I think these may be d****bag sunglasses.”
DDTG isn’t that different from other Barstool blogs and shows like the raunchy podcast Call Her Daddy. The live streams are interspersed on Portnoy’s timeline with videos of his longer-running show Barstool Pizza Reviews.
Scott Nazareth, a 29-year-old day trader from Toronto, said he’s a fan of Portnoy’s videos and believes older investors such as Buffett are missing opportunities in technology and airline stocks.
“I kind of make fun of some of these investors,” Nazareth said of Buffett. “They just have a hard time understanding the new normal, the new business models.”
With tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of people watching, there’s some concern that people will take Portnoy’s advice to heart. But Portnoy said he’s made it clear to his viewers not to invest money they can’t afford to lose.
“I’m not babysitting our readers,” said Portnoy. “People got to be responsible.”
His plugs appear to have had some effect, though. On Wednesday, Portnoy mentioned penny-stock InspireMD, a company that makes products for vascular procedures. The stock had already seen elevated volume since June 2, when the firm announced it would offer an additional 22 million shares. Still, volume surged to an all-time high of 52 million shares after Portnoy’s exhortations.