WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by TameAntelope » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #70

ghaff wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then you have not been paying attention to WSB for very long. It's full of degenerate gamblers, so many loss porn posts come from people saying, "How will I pay my rent this month?"

Most of the time, WSB is a community to commiserate about losses and lie about gains.

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

#182

Post by fireeyed » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

kasey_junk wrote: post #116

fireeyed wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think the honchos at Robinhood got the call from the man last night ? Its a coordinated ban of serfs from buying up AMC GME BB. Its got too hot for them.

No I don’t. I think the market makers/internalizers who are normally on the other side of retail trades want no part of the irrationality around these symbols so they pulled their orders. There is no one on the other side of the book so Robinhood can’t execute. It’s standard market dynamics that anyone whose traded before understands. That a bunch of new retail traders are about to learn an expensive lesson on execut…

I am not a WS insider. I just checked $GME its up 6% as the serfs moved on to other trading platforms. Obviously someone is on the otherside of the trade no ?

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

#183

Post by fairity » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

I'm really confused why the general public is enraged at the brokerages' decision to stop new buy orders for GME.

It's very clear that retail is going to lose their shirts in the end of all of this. By blocking new buy orders, the brokerage is effectively protecting its naive clientele.

This isn't some government conspiracy. This is a firm trying its best to operate in the best interest of its clients.

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

#184

Post by function_seven » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #162

function_seven wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. They should be forced to provide the service they promised. It’s not my fault their business model is failing for a particular ticker on a particular day. If they can’t, then some advance notice is needed. Making this decision instantly without giving customers time to move their holdings elsewhere is not okay. That being said, I’m surprised people are still using them for day trading. They don’t have a great tr…

> They should be forced to provide the service they promised Read the TOS. This was never promised.

Yeah, TOS's are famous for being one-sided and permitting all sorts of bad behavior. And for not matching the marketing promises of the product they're attached to.

They may be legally entitled to do what they've done. That doesn't make it right.

My comment is an "ought" comment, more than an "is" comment. Regulation should moot TOS's that allow this kind of rug-pulling.

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

#185

Post by codetrotter » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

kjakm wrote: post #71

jsjsbdkj wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WSB has basically recreated a "boiler room", which is an ages old scam where a small group of insiders would encourage people to buy stock, drive them value up, and then the insiders dump the stock. The key insight here is that for every person selling the stock and making millions, somoene has to be buying. There's a narrative about short squeezes forcing a small number of hedge funds to buy stock, but in practice m…

This all reminds me of the crypto ICO's a few years back. Build a tonne of hype around something, get a vast number of people who don't really know what they're doing to put in their money, and then the big investors get out, tanking the price for everyone else. In all the talk of conspiracy around this I'm surprised nobody is discussing the possibility that larger investors are likely manipulating/hyping the WSB com…

Exactly this. I went over to r/WSB earlier today to see what the fuzz was all about, and all of the posts there remind me exactly of the content that was being posted in cryptocurrency subreddits a few years ago. Posts about having bought high and intending to hold. To me when I see this I think, how many of these posts are people that are trying to hype up others to put money in, so that the people that are hyping the others can get out. And I think the answer is a lot. And the rest of them are people caught up in the hype. But the hype cannot last, it never does.

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

#186

Post by bilekas » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

bidirectional wrote: post #19

Once again, this insistence on viewing 'Wall Street' as a monolothic entity. The largest asset management firm on Earth holds over 9 million Gamestop stock, none of the big banks that received bailouts in 08 are affected by this, 99.9% of hedge funds are not affected by this, high frequency traders are probably making a bundle. Institutional money was long Gamestop before this story entered the public consciousness.…

What is worrying, is that a lot of people are going to be left holding the bag.. And I dont see this retail trading squeeze not hurting some regular retail investors..

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

#187

Post by risyachka » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

52-6F-62 wrote: post #138

totalZero wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but Gabe Plotkin is the uber-wallstreeter. All the rich-but-average Chosen Ones who get internships because of mommy and daddy look at what guys like him accomplish and think, "someday that too can be mine." This is like that scene in 300 where Leonidas makes Xerxes bleed. The point isn't that Wall Street has fallen. It's that, for once, Wall Street is fallible.

I can't see how that's the case. They aren't going to suffer for this, let alone personally. Even if the fund tanks, they can set up a new one, probably with sympathetic money or just cruise off into the sunset with their millions.

Loosing billions still hurts a lot I would guess.

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

#188

Post by nightski » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #123

kev_da_dev wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is disabling purchases and broker-wide outages not bolstering hedge funds? It's government intervention no matter how you look at it. Just because it's not a direct capital infusion does not make it any less bad

How is disabling purchases and broker-wide outages not bolstering hedge funds? There are hedge funds on both sides of this bet. So this intervention is both helping and harming "hedge funds" in equal measure depending on what side they have taken.

Buying vs. Selling Short do not carry equal amounts of risk. They are not balanced sides of the equation.

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

#189

Post by 52-6F-62 » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

function_seven wrote: post #92

dcolkitt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robinhood is a free service. The customers don’t pay anything. If the order internalizers decide to stop paying them for their order flow, then they have to route to the exchanges. which charge fees. Trading is still ongoing at the exchanges. It’s just the free platforms, where it’s shut down. If someone wanted guaranteed access to the exchange, then they shouldn’t have used a free broker. Are you saying that Robinho…

Yes. They should be forced to provide the service they promised. It’s not my fault their business model is failing for a particular ticker on a particular day. If they can’t, then some advance notice is needed. Making this decision instantly without giving customers time to move their holdings elsewhere is not okay. That being said, I’m surprised people are still using them for day trading. They don’t have a great tr…

If you put the wrong oil in your car because you got it for free, and your engine failed then whose fault is it? If it's the wrong grade then it's the wrong oil, even if it says it's "high performance*".

I'm a casual investor at best. I have some investments as savings through the bank, and use WealthSimple Trade here in Canada. It charges fees. It hasn't gone down. I still wouldn't trust it for any volatile action as they alert me well in advance that they have a delay of about 15 minutes. I don't expect anything more from that. I also wouldn't buy anything with the intention of time-critical sells there. If I cared more, I'd seek using a higher-performing platform. (Also worth noting, they never pinched any buys or sells during this fiasco. What's the old adage: "you get what you pay for". I don't see how this situation is any different)

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

#190

Post by llampx » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

fileeditview wrote: post #98

leetcrew wrote: post #54

> With their heads in cloud nine, hedge funds tried to kill GameStop ($GME). They tried to squeeze it so much that it would suffocate and die. They didn't care about the people who will be out of jobs, unable to pay their bills, or even survive. Blinded by greed, all they care about was money. this is a bit much. shorting != trying to kill a business. it can certainly depress the stock price, but so can closing a lon…

Does not seem far fetched. Killing the business means maximum profit for the shorters. Having a short interest of about 140% is also a good indicator that they would have loved to see GME bankrupt. In the end a short means a future buy and 140% of shares bought in the future means the price will go up eventually..

If the share price goes to 0 because of bankruptcy, shares don't have to be bought back/returned. That was the outcome Melvin Capital was going for.