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The Battle of GameStop

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Re: The Battle of GameStop

#41

Post by oceanplexian »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #9
vga805 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the bull thesis has been laid out in detail for months and it's a good one, this is organic interest, Ryan Cohen and others coming over from Chewy was the most recent catalyst

People exist who in the past two days paid $150 for a share that most analysts think is worth about $14 — at a company with negative earnings for six of the last seven quarters, and minimal earnings growth over the past few years. I'm sure there was some bull case for the company, and it might have had a snowball's chance in hell around $14 or even $20/share. But at $60+ ? What on God's good earth is supposed to make…

The point of the post is that sentiment drives value, not the other way around. It’s a profound thesis and it makes the opinions of analysts irrelevant.

If enough people want GameStop to succeed then it will. Ironically it’s the same thesis that wealthy SV investors go by when they decide to invest in a startup. Except the word invest is usually misleading. Most of the time they’re just looking for a vehicle to inject capital and influence, and the people and product are interchangeable parts used to achieve a a profitable outcome.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#42

Post by willis936 »

rokobobo wrote: post #27
gruez wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a never-ending shit-show. At least some of us are getting rich in /r/wallstreetbets. This is sad because most of what you've said can be applied to lotteries as well, which historically has been criticized as being a "tax" on the poor. The end result is the same: people putting themselves in a worse place financially (on average), just so they can cope with their bleak existence.

Except, if a whole generation YOLOs hard enough, maybe the government will actually choose to bail them out for once.

A whole generation is not YOLOing. We’re just trying to keep a roof over our heads.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#43

Post by totalZero »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #9
vga805 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the bull thesis has been laid out in detail for months and it's a good one, this is organic interest, Ryan Cohen and others coming over from Chewy was the most recent catalyst

People exist who in the past two days paid $150 for a share that most analysts think is worth about $14 — at a company with negative earnings for six of the last seven quarters, and minimal earnings growth over the past few years. I'm sure there was some bull case for the company, and it might have had a snowball's chance in hell around $14 or even $20/share. But at $60+ ? What on God's good earth is supposed to make…

> most analysts

Counterpoint:

"Most analysts" are hum-drum Wall Street hacks who cover dozens of companies and don't really have a clue about how the lion's share of them are run. I remember a few years back there was one analyst who kept talking about how NAND keeps getting cheaper and that's hurting memory suppliers...but the analyst's metrics didn't normalize for advancements in NAND speed nor the maturing of capital investments, so the analyst was basically looking at totally expected price declines over time and interpreting it as for some kind of static commodity while claiming it as a bear thesis.

A few of them are really clever and knowledgeable. The rest are chumps.

It's extremely difficult to judge GME based on regular metrics because their long-term outlook is a function of strategy and their short-term survival is a function of COVID. Sure, the company sells stuff that you can buy online, and sure, they sell it at malls and other places where nobody goes these days, but its stock was over-shorted and this was going to happen sooner or later anyway.

Maybe my numbers are off, so correct me if I'm wrong....At today's closing price, GME, which has $6B/yr revenue, is worth a sixth of BBY, which has 43B/yr revenue.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#45

Post by cortesoft »

xiphias2 wrote: post #26
vga805 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the bull thesis has been laid out in detail for months and it's a good one, this is organic interest, Ryan Cohen and others coming over from Chewy was the most recent catalyst

It works at the start, but the problem is that the people who want to sell their positions need to dump it on the losers and just keep pumping the price and making late comers lose lots of money. The reality of wealth building is that short term it’s always 0 sum game, long term it’s a way to get rich.

Well sort of... in this case, there are a ridiculous amount of short sellers... more than 100% of all the shares have been sold short.

That means that there is in some ways infinite demand... every single share currently owned HAS to be bought by a short seller at some point, in order to return it to the borrowed actual owner... so as long as all the current owners hold fast, they can sell their shares for as high as they can go.

It doesn't even matter if the company itself is worthless, the demand is there.

You are right about the zero sum in this case, though... it just might be the short sellers who are left holding the bag.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#46

Post by ffggvv »

phil_e_delphian wrote: post #36
ffggvv wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its okay they'll try to sell before it crashes and leave some other chump holding the bag. "taking on wall street"

this a profound (intentional?) misreading of how a short squeeze functions. the shorts are the ones who end up "holding the bag" in that they are contractually obligated to buy shares at current (higher) value in order to cover their position. hence the "taking on wall street" angle - institutional shorts are the chump, not the retail investors (and the institutions going long with them)

no it’s not. the squeeze is what makes the price rise, but once the wsb people start taking their profits, there will no longer be a shortage of shares and it’ll work in reverse, cascading down.

it doesn’t just magically stay high forever after the shorts are covered.

same cascading down effect can happen if gamestop simply issues new shares

even now there’s people on reddit who said they FOMOd in at 150 price point

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#47

Post by viraptor »

pmorici wrote: post #22
gruez wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a never-ending shit-show. At least some of us are getting rich in /r/wallstreetbets. This is sad because most of what you've said can be applied to lotteries as well, which historically has been criticized as being a "tax" on the poor. The end result is the same: people putting themselves in a worse place financially (on average), just so they can cope with their bleak existence.

I wouldn’t compare what happened with GME to the lottery at least not for the people who understood why they were doing what they were doing.

It's still a lottery. They didn't know if there would be enough real following or if most people were just trolling. Even if they estimated that well, they still had no idea where the peak was.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#48

Post by doggosphere »

trap_chateau wrote: post #11
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #2

They're not winning. They're just minting a different set of losers and pushing the drawing out by a couple weeks. And Reddit being Reddit you can never really be sure whether organic interest is pumping the stock or if they are being manipulated by an astroturfing campaign. If day trading weren't a conflict of interest for me I'd be looking into doing something like that (and consequently not blabbing about it on HN…

I think I'm convinced of manipulation. The memeing and the gameifying investment, calling each other retards (because you, user, you don't know _anything_) and the long obscure unfalsifiable ramblings about predictions or valuable investments hitting the top of the page, it all just seems a little fishy to me.

https://www.reddit.com/user/DeepFuckingValue/

A bit of luck, a bit of smarts. Build it and they will come?

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#49

Post by mediocre-one »

dvt wrote: post #6

> The same emotion that caused us to root for the thieves in Ocean’s 11 is what makes Wall Street Bets so enticing. Put frankly, Millennials are tired of getting fucked by the man. When you’re underemployed with $100,000 in student loan debt, your financial situation feels overwhelming. You really don’t want to take the advice of your parents or CNBC talking heads [5] to invest 10% of your salary for a 4% annual retu…

> It's a never-ending shit-show. At least some of us are getting rich in /r/wallstreetbets.

I wonder who will be the actual winners when these shorts end. In the meantime, let's enjoy the show.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#50

Post by EdwardDiego »

trap_chateau wrote: post #11
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #2

They're not winning. They're just minting a different set of losers and pushing the drawing out by a couple weeks. And Reddit being Reddit you can never really be sure whether organic interest is pumping the stock or if they are being manipulated by an astroturfing campaign. If day trading weren't a conflict of interest for me I'd be looking into doing something like that (and consequently not blabbing about it on HN…

I think I'm convinced of manipulation. The memeing and the gameifying investment, calling each other retards (because you, user, you don't know _anything_) and the long obscure unfalsifiable ramblings about predictions or valuable investments hitting the top of the page, it all just seems a little fishy to me.

/r/wsb has always struck me as being an offshoot of 4chan, with their self-labelling as autists and retards.

And 4Chan a) isn't dumb, but they like doing dumb shit and b) they love brigading. Pool's closed etc.

But what's interesting is how the institutional outrage is merely fuelling the brigading.

The institutional investors crying in the media only confirms WSB's beliefs that they've found a weak spot in the institutions, so they're going to stick it in harder.

I admire their attitude, but not enough to put my money in to what feels like an giant troll.

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