Gensler on the possibility of another January market blowup

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Cheung sits with Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler about the possibility of another January of meme stocks and market volatility.

Video transcript

BRIAN CHEUNG: Chair Gensler, do you think that we're going to see more episodes like what we saw in late January? What was interesting was, it's not quite to that extent but social media was driving massive volatility into it's SPAC last week that was tied to former President Trump, in addition to some other adjacent penny stocks. Do you think that this is something we should just expect to see every now and then?

GARY GENSLER: Look, the retail public is more engaged in the market today than 10 and 20 years ago. And as retail working families investing directly in the market for their future, can be a good thing. That could be good to save for retirement and the inevitable bumps along the road. We at the SEC still need to look at and protect the public against any bad actors. And so that's our role, the retail being part of the mix and a growing part of the mix can be good, as long as there's a real cop on the beat looking at the rules in place.