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WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

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Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#62
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a lot of young get-rich-quickers there. People who want to do things like borrow money to short stocks with.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6omry/an_o... I'm not so sure

Populist anger found a new weapon: money. Plus good old social media manipulation.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#63

As someone who is not very educated in finance, I'm curious how to interpret today's events. Is nasdaq/robinhood/everyone else transparently manipulating the market on behalf of hedge funds? Or are these standard mechanisms in place for preventing the stock market from swinging wildly out of control? I don't know if it's standard to completely block trading on one or more stocks.

If you buy stock with the purpose of pushing the price up so that other people will buy it, that’s market manipulation.

What WSB crowd is doing is market manipulation. That's illegal. WSB is doing everything openly and even celebrating it. Getting mad when openly breaking the law is not rational response. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/78i

Brokers like Robinhood are reacting because they want too keep SEC out of their asses and prevent SEC doing something even worse to their customers.

Stock Markets like nasdaq are reacting to volatility, like they usually do in abnormal situation.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#64

I have a lot of trouble with this frame. Yes, hedge funds are bad. Yes, it's hilarious watching those shorts get squeezed. No, WSB are not modern Sherwood bandits trading on Robinhood. They are also engaged in what is pretty clearly a criminal conspiracy to commit securities fraud (and yes , a deliberate attempt to trigger a short squeeze is securities fraud), and they're doing it on an open internet forum. This is n…

> yes, a deliberate attempt to trigger a short squeeze is securities fraud

Can you provide a source for that statement?

> Yes, it's probably going to be the "little guys" holding the bag at the end of this.

I agree 100%.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#65
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retail traders are literally locked out of buying new shares... they were a scapegoat the whole time. $GME is up 11% as of the writing of this post. Who is buying it? This is actually making me angry to watch. -edit- I had like one share - Robinhood just sold my shares without me ordering it. Dunno what happened there.

I just checked my TD Ameritrade account. I'm able to buy GME just fine (though I didn't hit the "confirm" button). I know RobinHood messed up here. But... they never had a good reputation to begin with. Its an open secret that RobinHood's entire setup is kind of crap.

I just bought NOK this morning on TD. I think it's just robinhood.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#66

I’m seeing so much news about this but don’t understand what’s happening. Can someone do a recap?

Institutional investors were betting that GameStop (GME)'s stock price would fall, redditors were betting that it would rise. So far the redditors are winning.

Early on, the bets had some basis in reality, but now it's become more of a speculation game.

Yesterday, two of the big institutional investors decided to fold, effectively loosing 100% of their investments. Edit: or, potentially more.

The same thing has started happening to a few other stocks.

I linked to the Bloomberg Money Stuff column a couple of other places, but I'll post the links here too for a more thorough (and humorous) overview:

Monday: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-01-25/money-...

Tuesday: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-26/will-w...

Yesterday: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-27/reddit...

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#67
This populist narrative that WSB and CNBC are promoting is pretty weak. This looks like forum manipulation with a layer of memes pasted on top. Citron and Melvin were set up as bad guys. Someone started this. It's definitely not organic.

That said, it has definitely worked. Any idea that retail investors can't move markets is now gone.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#68
post #58
post #9

People have had enough, it's not just WSB anymore. The community of retail investors in GME is far beyond WSB. It's people that are frustrated with the 1% getting bailed out time and time again and them not seeing a dime at their tax dollar expense.

So they're going to show Wall Street who's boss by gambling away their grocery money? (Some will make out but I suspect the vast majority will lose big--money at least some can't really afford to lose.) I have trouble conjuring up a lot of sympathy but that's almost certainly uncharitable as I'm sure there will be stories of serious individual loss.

Nobody is gambling money away. The sentiment is that they are knowingly _throwing_ it away to send a message.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#69
post #9

People have had enough, it's not just WSB anymore. The community of retail investors in GME is far beyond WSB. It's people that are frustrated with the 1% getting bailed out time and time again and them not seeing a dime at their tax dollar expense.

Occupy Wall Street was just 10 years ago. It was the longest demonstration in a lifetime. Nothing changed. How did nothing change? What message does this send?

Investing in stocks/crypto for average people with little to zero experience was not nearly as simple as today compared to 10 years ago.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#70
post #58
post #9

People have had enough, it's not just WSB anymore. The community of retail investors in GME is far beyond WSB. It's people that are frustrated with the 1% getting bailed out time and time again and them not seeing a dime at their tax dollar expense.

So they're going to show Wall Street who's boss by gambling away their grocery money? (Some will make out but I suspect the vast majority will lose big--money at least some can't really afford to lose.) I have trouble conjuring up a lot of sympathy but that's almost certainly uncharitable as I'm sure there will be stories of serious individual loss.

I have seen very little evidence of people investing money in the stock market that is not budgeted as “gambling” (ie disposable income). WSB embraces the idea that memetrading is gambling. This is not a surprise to anyone but a few outsiders.
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