Live data from Hacker News

Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

sec.gov

121–130 of 906 posts

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#121
A Moment in the Life of an HN Genius:

1. Reads a technical document outside their domain.

2. Feels dumb because they don't have a grasp on any of the concepts.

3. Too busy to use the very internet which some of them probably helped build to magically render learning materials to the screen in front of them at zero marginal cost.

4. Sees the word "manipulation"

5. Substitutes the laymen's definition of "manipulation"

6. Builds a fantasy World of Wall Street from first principles around that definition

7. Argues their fantasy first-principles Wall Street against other participants' fantasy first-principles Wall Street

8. Everyone leaves sync'd on the fantasy of feeling smarter than when they arrived.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#122
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be? It's an open, publicly-documented market manipulation event. How can there be any question about it? You might decide that this kind of manipulation is OK due to it's stated goals, but that doesn't make it not manipulation.

>Could be? It's an open, publicly-documented market manipulation event. Strange question, what's the bar for market manipulation? For example if a company took out debt to buy their own stock in order to drive up the price would that count?

Stock buy back is perfectly fine and its authorization is usually announced in a press release. Hiding that you are taking new debt to do just about anything would be illegal.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#123
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applying this logic, perhaps we can get "professional" stock ... manipulators off the TV. CNBC can go away entirely. Marketing speak would be replaced with value charts. Ban all forums that discuss specific stock values. Then prevent people from buying stocks in groups. Mutual funds, ETFs, etc... all of these abstractions on abstractions, we can throw them away. The more abstractions we throw away, the closer we get…

Absolutely. I mean, what's different now in comparison to Ackman shorting hotels then going on CNBC and saying hotels are going to burn financially? Except for the fact it's one rich guy compared to thousands (maybe millions?) of not so rich folks.

Well.. I think the difference is that if there are literally millions of people immediately acting in a certain fashion (suddenly buying up a specific stock) in a coordinate fashion- that has a very different effect than a small number of large investors taking a bet.

I'm not defending the bullshit that is CNBC and 'professional stock pickers' and crap, but it ends up to be a very different thing. Not saying better or worse, but certainly different.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#124
post #85
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is one take, certainly. But the problem is once you say that this is a market manipulation event you run into other issues. Is going on CNBC and talking about the strength of a company that you invested in market manipulation? Before this blew up you certainly had more reach. Is posting "research" or holding a conference call and telling people a company is garbage while you have the company shorted market mani…

If wallstreetbets was a hedge fund and they bought all of GME to cause a short squeeze then that is market manipulation - this has been settled [0]. [0] - https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2013-159 Edit: litigated to settled

well, the case reached a settlement so i would not say it was litigated in the sense of establishing case law or legal precedent.

it's interesting- it reads as though harbinger bought bonds and demanded delivery. can you imagine it! asking to take possession of the thing you just bought is painted as manipulation!!!

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#125
post #11

What are the odds of a flash crash in the next week as a result of this activity? The system of banks and market makers and clearing houses is a always way more coupled than the the owners let on... history shows they don't know how to risk manage these sorts of situations.

From a distance, this is all a storm in a teacup. It's a small handful of stocks, and every single one in S&P500 is waaaay bigger, in terms of trading volumes and market cap. Anything can happen, but in finance terms, this is tiny so far.

It's not because of this stock. The question is quite reasonable because some funds were overexposed into it, and the funds are much larger.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#126
this has to do greed of wall street and I have no remorse for hedge funds failing. karma is a bitch ain't it. but it should be illegal to disable chatrooms for reasons when before they were allowed so wall street could profit from it. we no longer live in a free market most of it is controlled.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#127
post #75

There’s a long history of similar occurrences that follow along a common line: whatever appears to support individual investors will be the path taken by politicians and regulatory bodies. Right now it appears that the public wants to be able to trade on their terms because there is this narrative that the little guy is finally sticking it to the big bad hedge funds. In reality there is probably very little truth to…

The FOMO is palpable. There's a hurried rush of small investors hoping to turn their meagre savings into a big win, backed by the anxiety that if they don't try then they'll forever regret missing their one and only chance at a comfortable life. This sort of event would be less likely if America's wealth disparity weren't so grotesquely skewed.

It boggles the mind people think hedge funds can't profit off a mad rush like this...

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#128
post #11

What are the odds of a flash crash in the next week as a result of this activity? The system of banks and market makers and clearing houses is a always way more coupled than the the owners let on... history shows they don't know how to risk manage these sorts of situations.

The clearinghouses and brokers likely won't let it happen. They'll step in and stop buying again if that's what it takes.

But if they are stopped from doing that, then it certainly could happen. I think the odds are greater then most might give it credit.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#129
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are free to purchase stock how they want to. If those people collect together and discuss potentially profitable strategies for trading who is to stop them? Do you think its possible youve fallen ill to the rhetoric that this is bad purely because the rich people didn't get their way?

I have a general, all-purpose opposition to financial trading that’s about exploiting weird market structure tricks to screw people over rather than expressing beliefs about the value of the underlying things being traded. Institutional traders too often get away with doing that kind of thing, and I’m hardly losing sleep over the particular targets of this campaign, but we can’t let the takeaway here be “it’s fine as…

The issue with that argument is that it's really not “it’s fine as long as retail investors get to play too," it's “it’s fine until retail investors get to play too”

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#130

There's been some speculation that what WSB are doing could be market manipulation or otherwise illegal. The fact that this statement only mention retail investors in the context of protecting them makes me suspect that the SEC's not going for it.

Third paragraph:

> In addition, we will act to protect retail investors when the facts demonstrate abusive or manipulative trading activity that is prohibited by the federal securities laws. Market participants should be careful to avoid such activity.

"Market participants" here is referring to retail traders. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you're the little guy, you're exempt from the law. It's like how the capitol rioters were sure they were on the side of America but the FBI (and half of America) sees things very differently.

A lot of government regulation is about protecting the little guy from other slightly more unscrupulous little guys. "The public" is not a monolithic entity - folks can and do screw each other over even when purporting to be part of the same mass movement.

Post reply on HN