Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

jeromysonne.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 277 posts

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#81

Post by virmundi »

I love WSB. Up 200% on GME, 240% NIO, 60% on Carnival Cruise. They have decent insight when you learn their lingo. They also admit this is gambling.

Current GME argument. A short squeeze will come around April. Long term the guy that fixed Chewy is going to take over. It will become a good company again. However between those two sentences is a gap where the stock will go back down to 5-10. Current theory: ride the fucker to 300-500 like VW when it was short squeezed. Get out while there are still bag holders. Get back in later.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#82

Post by nostromo »

vorpalhex wrote: post #36

This post is a great tutorial in why we shouldn't derive meaning from expressed language. Imagine if you sat in a room of software engineers and tried to make conclusions about their life views based on their jargon: "I think what they're saying is you just need to form a single value store and react to it, dividing life into small composable micro components that are DRY. We can really comprehend how this minimalism…

This comment reads like a "they're really playing 4-dimensional chess" moment.

There are definitely some smart people on wsb, but I very much doubt the use of silly language (like, say, calling bears "gay bears") is anything other than users being intentionally ridiculous and funny.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#83

Post by Bakary »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #19

Boy, I'm only a fraction of the way through this article. What a fantastic piece. Nietzsche is a frightening author, but I think what he writes is the logical conclusion of what we've done by championing existentialism. "The end doesn't matter, the true meaning is the friends we make along the way." WSB is taking that and running with it.

Even before existentialism was formulated people behaved in such a way. They always have. What we think of as modern day absurdity or boldness is nothing new

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#84

Post by baq »

supernova87a wrote: post #75
michael1999 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

market makers who write the options but want to hedge the risk by taking a related position in the market itself. they don't want risk, they just want the premium, so they don't care about the price of the underlying most of the time. what they do is continuously adjust the position as the price changes and time to expiration gets shorter. you can imagine the amount needed to hedge gets very nonlinear the closer to expiration and the closer to the money the option is, hence a single short time to expiry near the money contract can cause a lot of volume.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#85

Post by aynyc »

ookblah wrote: post #13

uh, there's way too much analysis here lol. at it's core it's a fun distraction and people are gamblers. it's no different than fantasy football or going to your local casino. there's a big subset there that is obviously cash strapped and desperate. there are also people there with 6-7 figure net worths that are just passing the time. the DD is actually "okay" once you cut thru the lingo and I'd be willing to bet mos…

Well, you can't really change the odds or outcome of fantasy footballs or casinos. But at WSB, with enough retards (WSB terms), they can change the outcome.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#86

Post by defen »

supernova87a wrote: post #75
michael1999 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Market makers delta hedging OTM calls and then unwinding them as the stock comes back down.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#87

Post by brodouevencode »

nostromo wrote: post #82
vorpalhex wrote: post #36

This post is a great tutorial in why we shouldn't derive meaning from expressed language. Imagine if you sat in a room of software engineers and tried to make conclusions about their life views based on their jargon: "I think what they're saying is you just need to form a single value store and react to it, dividing life into small composable micro components that are DRY. We can really comprehend how this minimalism…

This comment reads like a "they're really playing 4-dimensional chess" moment. There are definitely some smart people on wsb, but I very much doubt the use of silly language (like, say, calling bears "gay bears") is anything other than users being intentionally ridiculous and funny.

$420.69

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#88

Post by joezydeco »

somacore wrote: post #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.

I don't agree. The sentence before that one changes the context:

"The basic surface-level story of WSB is this."

The author is trying to explain that this is how the majority of the world sees the group, but the reality is different.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#89

Post by api »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #72
missedthecue wrote: post #67

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…

All three of those things are things that are hard to outsource. My suspicion for a long time has been that we've actually had massive inflation since roughly the year 2000, but it's been masked by the effect of outsourcing and automation reducing the price of pretty much all manufactured goods.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#90

Post by ody4242 »

michael1999 wrote: post #49
supernova87a wrote: post #33

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...

this is the good answer.
Post reply on HN