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The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

jeromysonne.com

71–80 of 277 posts

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#71
"It’s a bunch of autistic losers that live in their mom’s basement who are gambling what little money they have to try and become rich to live lifestyles of hedonism."

Clearly written by someone who has never interacted with the community beyond reading the sidebar on reddit. Also explains why the rest of the article is mostly wrong.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly suspect the reason for this is because there is less income security for the young generation in 2021 compared to 1999. In 1999, people under 40 were gambling large sums that, if lost, could be made back through x months of work. In 2021, people under 40 are gambling any random ad hoc payment they receive in the attempt of calling it a career. The reason? 10% of our country have great jobs, and the rest have…

The median bottom quintile of incomes is higher today in real terms than is was in the 1990s, and the median income is higher as well. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...

And yet, education, healthcare, and housing raced away from wages.

I'm not here to argue a failed economic system in this thread, but the motivation behind wsb's nihilism is exceptionally clear.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-... (A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression)

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-reason-most... (66% of bankruptcies are tied to medical issues)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/great-affo... (The Great Affordability Crisis Breaking America)

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly suspect the reason for this is because there is less income security for the young generation in 2021 compared to 1999. In 1999, people under 40 were gambling large sums that, if lost, could be made back through x months of work. In 2021, people under 40 are gambling any random ad hoc payment they receive in the attempt of calling it a career. The reason? 10% of our country have great jobs, and the rest have…

The median bottom quintile of incomes is higher today in real terms than is was in the 1990s, and the median income is higher as well. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...

Is that measured on a monthly or yearly basis? Are those incomes reconciled with increases of cost of living?

You should compare workforce participation from 1999 and 2021, and you should compare savings rates by age bracket.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#74

It just doesn't add up to me. If you take Gamestop (GME) today's hot item, it's trading 170M shares back and forth, at say, $70. That's $11B sloshing back and forth. You're telling me 10,000 (if even?) guys sitting at home doing retail trading have $1M each in positions driving this? 100,000 people with $100,000 each, during the day? I think it's quant and algorithmic trading. I would love to hear from an expert thou…

I have been paying attention to r/wallstreetbets for the past few weeks - I don't have the source handy (it was on WallStreetBets), but there are reputable big name funds / companies who are long on GME. Other big name companies are short, of course, and the WSB community has picked a side in this battle.

So the idea that WallStreetBets is a significant player in all this is nonsense and actually might be propaganda flak coming from the "responsible" people in the media, etc - journalists in the financial sector love rumors and such things and it is a nice cover story as "fog" to hide the fact Wall Street is so manipulated by the big players.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#75

It just doesn't add up to me. If you take Gamestop (GME) today's hot item, it's trading 170M shares back and forth, at say, $70. That's $11B sloshing back and forth. You're telling me 10,000 (if even?) guys sitting at home doing retail trading have $1M each in positions driving this? 100,000 people with $100,000 each, during the day? I think it's quant and algorithmic trading. I would love to hear from an expert thou…

Options generate leverage. Potentially lots of leverage. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-25/the-ga...

But who's backing those options with the actual stock to the tune of $13B per day?

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#76

It just doesn't add up to me. If you take Gamestop (GME) today's hot item, it's trading 170M shares back and forth, at say, $70. That's $11B sloshing back and forth. You're telling me 10,000 (if even?) guys sitting at home doing retail trading have $1M each in positions driving this? 100,000 people with $100,000 each, during the day? I think it's quant and algorithmic trading. I would love to hear from an expert thou…

a bunch of dudes bought a bunch of contracts $50 or $500 or whatever cheap price a piece for 100 shares so far out of the money they'd be worth $6000 if price got there. market makers bought anywhere between 1 and 10 shares to hedge the risk of the price getting there.

turns out there were so many of them the market makers got the price in the money just by hedging via a chain reaction of sorts, called 'gamma squeeze'. see also https://www.swfinstitute.org/news/83341/what-is-a-gamma-sque...

you could say the market was broken for a couple hours this friday. funds not used to losing money (market makers like citadel) lost money. eyebrows were raised.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#77

Imagine a subreddit called "roulettebets". Someone posts: 36x gain!!!1 And then someone posts: I lost everything. Should that be a motivation to spend all your money playing roulette?

The guy that lost everything clearly didn't know what they were doing. I can recreate the 36x gain based on a deep dive analysis.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median bottom quintile of incomes is higher today in real terms than is was in the 1990s, and the median income is higher as well. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...

And yet, education, healthcare, and housing raced away from wages. I'm not here to argue a failed economic system in this thread, but the motivation behind wsb's nihilism is exceptionally clear. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-... (A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression) https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-r…

Agreed. I think it is lazy to look at the rise in real income and not look at the rise in real expenses and decline in stable, non-precarious employment.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#79
post #8

I don't know anything about WSB, but how does: > It’s a bunch of autistic losers that live in their mom’s basement who are gambling what little money they have to try and become rich to live lifestyles of hedonism square with "These people were involved in very meaningfully moving a stock price around" ?

It's the same paradox as 4chan /b/ and /pol/ influencing real-world events despite similar stereotypes about the userbase. And /r/wsb is, after all, if 4chan found a Bloomberg Terminal.

The biggest /b/tard I knew growing up now works at a bank and actually has had multiple large windfalls from bitcoin,TSLA stocks and Pokemon cards.
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