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Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

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Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

#791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a guess, but I imagine the hedge funds that own shares of these platforms are pulling some strings. That's a bit conspiratorial, but is it really that unbelievable?

It’s not unbelievable, but it does sound like a breach of fiduciary duties to side with investors against your clients. Is what RH doing legal for a brokerage?

> Is what RH doing legal for a brokerage?

At this point, nobody cares - Reddit found a repeatable distributed exploit that cannot be patched, and the financial system's self-preservation instinct kicked in.

Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

#792
Naked short selling through unlimited "Puts" is totally LEGAL for these hedge-funds, but when people caught them pants down they are using every ILLEGAL move to cover their asses and losses.

These are the corrupt and insane people who should be punished not the people who sussed out their bullshit!

What Robinhood and other platforms are doing is market manipulation which is illegal.

The legal and reasonable thing would be to allow trading these stocks with additional "e-signs" letting the individual know that there are additional risks here.

That would actually help the retail investor.

But these brokers and buddies are happy to help their hedge fund buddies!!

Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

#793
Incredible shenanigans. Government needs to lower the boom.

Very much an example of how only "certain people" are allowed to win in our society and the system will intervene to ensure that established wealth retains its preferred status.

Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

#794

I called out Robinhood months ago in this old thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24188407 basically its a shitty company that sells your orders so hedgefunds (citadel etc.) can then buy the same stocks at a lower price[1] and you always end up paying more, they were fined 65M for doing this see here[1]. A total scam and hopefully congress and the SEC come down hard on this company. [1] - https://modernconse…

All retail brokerages sell order flow to the wholesale brokerages, it is part of the market structure.

Rule 606 disclosures enumerate each brokerage's arrangement: eg. https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHS%20SEC%2... from https://robinhood.com/us/en/about/legal/

Fidelity: https://clearingcustody.fidelity.com/app/literature/item/990... from https://clearingcustody.fidelity.com/app/item/RD_13569_21696...

Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

#795
A now-old song has the lyrics "everybody knows that the dice are loaded" and, outside of "doing it for the lulz," part of this exercise is to expose the collusion as a kind of carnival. Watch Big Tech scramble to the aid of Big Money! Witness the flimsiest of excuses being generated in the hopes that one will stick! See with your own eyes the scramble to protect the usual suspects!

And what is pretty amazing is that some folks think that if they just stamp out this one, they can go back to (big) business as usual: money made by a select few, and the small fry can hope that some crumbs might trickle down to them, if only by accident. My bet is that this is going to happen again -- perhaps not exactly the same way, but it will be another nasty demonstration of the self-protection that has managed to be the sign of the entrenched.

Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

#796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just invest in Bitcoin now, it is going to do the same thing in a few months. And it can’t be censored like this. I admire the gme crowd’s efforts but they are so misguided. Investing in zombie companies we actually hate is pointless. Yes you might bankrupt a hedge fund or two but the system will continue. Bitcoin was created for the disruption to the corrupt financial system that they are seeking.

It may displace the billionaires who run banks, hedge funds, etc... and replace them with billionaires who own huge mining farms. Bitcoin doesn't solve any of our problems. It just shuffles around who's in power.

Bitcoin solves a lot of the biggest problems.

Fractional lending isn't possible because you can't make bitcoin out of nothing then charge interest on the nothing you lended.

Inflation is out of government control and no longer works as an unofficial tax. Related, money can't be printed at-will.

Large banks and corporations can't outright prevent transactions from happening.

The money can have value as a universal reserve currency without any specific political ties.

Removing big banks from the equation takes their hands at least partway off the politicians.

Seems like at least a decent upgrade to me.

Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

#797

Can someone help me understand Robinhood's POV? This just seems so outrageous that there must be some sane rationale that I'm not seeing. Why do Robinhood, Reddit, Discord, etc feel like they have to respond to this? Whether the investments being made are responsible or not, it doesn't seem like it should be their place to intervene. If the hedge funds over-shorted GME and WSB recognized that and traded against that…

> Can someone help me understand Robinhood's POV? Robinhood is a margin-lending options-trading broker. If a customer falls down on a trade, it is ultimately liable. If a retail customer loses money and makes a FINRA complaint that Robinhood induced them to buy through its gameified interface, it is liable. Risk and compliance likely made this call. Also, Robinhood makes its revenue from market makers. They are the c…

> Robinhood is a margin-lending options-trading broker. If a customer falls down on a trade, it is ultimately liable. If a retail customer loses money and makes a FINRA complaint that Robinhood induced them to buy through its gameified interface, it is liable. Risk and compliance likely made this call.

This is a very tenuous argument. By law, options customers in the US have to receive an information packet and accept an Options Agreement, wherein it's clear that they could lose 100% of their premium outlay (or more). Options trading is approved based on levels; not every account can buy options, and not every options account can sell naked options.

If we are assuming good faith from RH, maybe they are trying to prevent margin-call suicides. But I don't assume good faith from RH.

Not to mention that they turned off all opening trades -- not just large trades, margin trades, or options trades.

Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

#798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this was Robinhood's choice. Robinhood doesn't actually execute any trades. They sell user's trade orders to Citadel, a trade executor. Citadel then buys the shares on the market, and sells them to Robinhood for a slight markup. It's how Robinhood offers trades for $0 fees. You pay pennies more per share, but don't have to spend $5 per trade. Citadel, and other trade executors, are refusing to buy share…

I'm just not really sure I understand the narratives being thrown around right now, and I'd like to think I understand the economy somewhat Melvin Capital closed out their short position yesterday with a large loss - and Citadel helped cover that loss. As far as I know, Citadel and Melvin Capital no longer are holding any short positions in Gamestop. So what do they have to gain, by your narrative, from suppressing t…

If Melvin Capital got out, then why was the stock still 140% shorted after that announcement? I thought that 11% of the shorted stock was from Melvin Capital, it doesn't make sense that there was no significant change in that figure.

I am not trying to conspire, genuinely curious.

Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

#799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this was Robinhood's choice. Robinhood doesn't actually execute any trades. They sell user's trade orders to Citadel, a trade executor. Citadel then buys the shares on the market, and sells them to Robinhood for a slight markup. It's how Robinhood offers trades for $0 fees. You pay pennies more per share, but don't have to spend $5 per trade. Citadel, and other trade executors, are refusing to buy share…

I'm just not really sure I understand the narratives being thrown around right now, and I'd like to think I understand the economy somewhat Melvin Capital closed out their short position yesterday with a large loss - and Citadel helped cover that loss. As far as I know, Citadel and Melvin Capital no longer are holding any short positions in Gamestop. So what do they have to gain, by your narrative, from suppressing t…

Yesterday, there was a 140% short position on Gamestop.

Today, there is still a 122% short position on Gamestop. There are still many funds hedged against GME. Melvin might have had one of the larger positions, but there are many more funds with this position. Source: https://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=GME

As you say, they would make money by running the orders, regardless if GME goes up or down. So - why would they stop? It is most likely that Citadel is still exposed to other funds holding short positions in GME.

Re: Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop

#800

Sure. Robinhood got a call from someone very powerful in their circle, politely asking them to stop the amateur plebes from interfering with their professional market manipulation. We are taking about people commanding titanic amounts of capital and (indirect) regulatory power. Robinhood then had the choice, do we make enemies out of these people or do we just screw, er, I mean protect, our customers? Unburdened by a…

Only a small fraction of RH's customers bought into the fantasy they are fighting some kind of revolution against hedge funds (or that 'the smoking man' paid them a visit in the night...). The vast majority don't care about any of these stocks. Also, by making trading so easy RH has a responsibility to protect amateur investors from making terrible financial decisions. If you really want to buy game stop stock or wha…

>The vast majority don't care about any of these stocks.

Are you crazy? Robinhood just sent a message to retail investors (it's entire customerbase) that they are going to crush you at any given time. By using Robinhood your are exposing yourself to extreme risk of losing your investments no matter what stock you trade.

>Also, by making trading so easy RH has a responsibility to protect amateur investors from making terrible financial decisions.

WSB is about making terrible financial decisions as a sport. That's the entire point.

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