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

The Battle of GameStop

paranoidenough.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 583 posts

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#191

Post by esperent »

viraptor wrote: post #131
pmorici wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A typical lottery in the USA has odds of like 1 in 300 million. The fact alone that more than 100% of float was shorted put the odds of this happening way above any chance you have of winning the lottery. Suggesting that just because there was an aspect of chance involved that it is on par with a lottery is ridiculous.

With 1/300M you're likely thinking of a jackpot. Winning anything is much lower. Powerball is 1/38 for the lowest payout. And in the same way, there will be a lot of people around breakeven point in the GameStop lottery, some small winners and some people who are now set for life.

> Powerball is 1/38 for the lowest payout

I'm not familiar with the Powerball, but I'm guessing that's for a prize of somewhere around $5 for a ticket price of $2. Hardly relevant, is it?

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#192

Post by Kosirich »

Can someone extrapolate what happens (hopefully) in a half a year when we get to herd immunity and the economy opens fully when a lot of these people (I'm guessing) will decide to cash-in in their stocks in order to go to a nice vacation, get a new car ect. Can we expect some sort of economic recovery followed by hyperinflation?

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#193

Post by spoonjim »

Kosirich wrote: post #192

Can someone extrapolate what happens (hopefully) in a half a year when we get to herd immunity and the economy opens fully when a lot of these people (I'm guessing) will decide to cash-in in their stocks in order to go to a nice vacation, get a new car ect. Can we expect some sort of economic recovery followed by hyperinflation?

There are not enough people who have made lots of money through this to have a structural economic impact.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#194

Post by samjmck »

Spivak wrote: post #55
thepasswordis wrote: post #35

>We can remain retarded longer than they can remain solvent. There is a tremendous amount of spite involved here. They hate the boomers, and they hate the institutional wallstreet investors and hedgies. And why shouldn't they? These people play with our lives and get fantastically wealthy by gambling with our retirement accounts. I saw that some hedge fund got wiped out today by this. Sorry I won't be shedding any te…

> These people play with our lives and get fantastically wealthy by gambling with our retirement accounts. I’m actually kinda confused by this. Are we not rooting for them in some respect? As long as I make money too and my retirement account grows what do I care if they take some off the top? The returns I get are way better than I could get on my own.

> As long as I make money too and my retirement account grows what do I care if they take some off the top?

You should care because for long term investing, an actively managed fund is very likely to underperform the market. The vast majority of hedge fund managers aren't doing anything that you couldn't do yourself, i.e. pick a few stocks out of the S&P 500 and hope that they outperform the market.

> The returns I get are way better than I could get on my own.

Look into index based ETFs. They simply track an index so your performance is equal to the market's, so no handpicking stocks or gambling. They are traded like stocks, so you can probably buy them with your broker. The best part about them is that they have almost no fees - the most popular ETFs cost 0.10-0.20% per year.

If you're American and believe that the American stock market will continue to outperform the rest of the world, then an ETF like SPY (tracks the S&P 500) would be a good bet. If you'd like something more diversified, have a look at funds tracking indices like the MSCI World or FTSE All-World.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#195

Post by Wronnay »

ralusek wrote: post #4

It's market hot potato/ponzi scheme. You buy in to capitalize on growth, funded by increased interest in the meme, and try to cash out before the meme isn't funny anymore.

This. Currently its GME, next comes BB and before that it was SPY / TSLA...

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#196

Post by SifJar »

Spivak wrote: post #55
thepasswordis wrote: post #35

>We can remain retarded longer than they can remain solvent. There is a tremendous amount of spite involved here. They hate the boomers, and they hate the institutional wallstreet investors and hedgies. And why shouldn't they? These people play with our lives and get fantastically wealthy by gambling with our retirement accounts. I saw that some hedge fund got wiped out today by this. Sorry I won't be shedding any te…

> These people play with our lives and get fantastically wealthy by gambling with our retirement accounts. I’m actually kinda confused by this. Are we not rooting for them in some respect? As long as I make money too and my retirement account grows what do I care if they take some off the top? The returns I get are way better than I could get on my own.

And likewise - if they lose loads of money, isn't that a bunch of people's retirement accounts?

We're not just talking about some Wall Street traders losing some money (who can likely afford to), but regular people may suddenly be finding they can't afford to retire as soon as they had planned.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#197

Post by mpoteat »

jameshart wrote: post #137
shouldiquitamzn wrote: post #17

I’ve made millions on WSB options plays. I can finally quit my job and stop being a cubicle slave. The visceral reaction from the media on this is disgusting. Major hedge funds got caught on the wrong side of this, and have been making a huge stink about it. CNBC to the rescue, demonizing young middle class Reddit investors. This whole thing has opened my eyes to how even my FAANG compensation is peasant money, it’s…

You played a game, you played it well, and you won. Well done. But don't pretend that that means everyone can do it, because patently they can't: you won your bets, a bunch of other people lost theirs. No value that wouldn't otherwise have been created got made, you just shifted the balance of how the rewards are distributed in your favor, and away from someone else. As a system for distributing the benefits of econo…

Isn't modern human intelligence widely considered to be the result of evolutionarily optimizing complex iterated social games?

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#198

Post by doix »

jeffbee wrote: post #136
tempsy wrote: post #103

I can make $200k selling covered calls every month with a few million in capital. Options prices are crazy right now. It makes you think about how silly money is.

OK but this is not exactly risk-free. You are on the hook for the downside risk of whatever you own behind those calls. Selling covered calls comes with a lot of exposure.

What do you mean? If the call doesn't finish ITM, you collect premiums. If it does you're only missing on the upside. You don't make as much money as you could have, but either way you make a profit.

Or is that not how it works? I've never written my own options.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#200

Post by [deleted] »

mpoteat wrote: post #197
jameshart wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You played a game, you played it well, and you won. Well done. But don't pretend that that means everyone can do it, because patently they can't: you won your bets, a bunch of other people lost theirs. No value that wouldn't otherwise have been created got made, you just shifted the balance of how the rewards are distributed in your favor, and away from someone else. As a system for distributing the benefits of econo…

Isn't modern human intelligence widely considered to be the result of evolutionarily optimizing complex iterated social games?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN