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Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

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Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#251

Post by dleslie »

ycombigator wrote: post #180
dleslie wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many just want to screw the hedge funds, finally it's their blood in the water.

Of course! Many are living hand-to-mouth in dismal conditions and unable to afford basic necessary expenses, while they see robber barons making a killing by putting thousands of already-poor people out of work.

Hating the hedge funds is rational, for many.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#252

Post by [deleted] »

kgwgk wrote: post #184
Dirlewanger wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>nobody blames the speculators The hedge funds are the speculators in this case. They're playing a dangerous game where you can short more stock than what actually exists. Why this is allowed? Who the fuck knows.

Shorting more stock than what actually exists is not really that different from shorting less stock than what actually exist. Imagine you short 50% of the outstanding shares. Now there are 50% more long positions than outstanding shares. It's not substantially different from having 100% or 150% more long positions than outstanding shares.

[deleted]

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#253

Post by sandworm101 »

jancsika wrote: post #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 [X] from first principles around that definition

That is most every online discussion these days. I would only add "first principals learned at highschool and/or undergrad". The real scientists/lawyers/doctors with deep backgrounds in fields, the ones who dare to talk online, stand out like sore thumbs.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#254

Post by dmurray »

kodah wrote: post #185
jancsika wrote: post #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"…

Personally, I think smart people just do this. When I got sick with COVID I cannot begin to describe the number of people who became doctors during this unprecedented time , only to send me outdated comments, articles, and speculation. All of these people thought they were smarter than the instruction I received from a real doctor, nurse practitioner, and the CDC. These were smart people, though, and mostly (but not…

To be fair, professional medical advice was especially low-quality in the early days of the pandemic. What was important was public health messaging, picking some lowest-common-denominator messages and having everyone repeat them. It wasn't hard to be better informed than that.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#255

Post by agumonkey »

dleslie wrote: post #116
dkrich wrote: 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.

I wonder what's the optimum sizing of FOMO. 1% ? 0.1 ? 2% ?

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#256

Post by jaywalk »

hogFeast wrote: post #158
ericmay wrote: 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…

You realise that all of this stuff has specific rules. There are specific rules about posting research, there are specific rules about media (newspapers and TV), there are specific rules about algorithms (I will answer your questions: no, no, no, no...the last question is...odd, if you know about sure-win algos then you must be very rich). And all of this stuff has happened before, it happened in 2000, lots of people…

I'm certainly no expert in the rules at play here, but I can't fathom how posting on a public forum and saying "let's all go buy $GME and screw these hedge fund guys!" would not be absolutely protected by the First Amendment. There's no fraud or anything like that, and you're not posting anything false or misleading about the company.

If a bunch of people feel like it's a good idea and want to join in, then it is what it is.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#257

Post by tompccs »

sailingparrot wrote: post #230
tompccs wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am so sick of this 'stay in your lane' attitude. Time and time again, experts have been shown to have consensus opinions which are wildly off from reality. You can almost set your watch to how often an outsider will analyse a situation from first principles and make money off the 'experts', especially in the stock market. You're welcome to your opinion but this appeal to authority is seriously wearing thin. Pretty…

> Time and time again, experts have been shown to have consensus opinions which are wildly off from reality No, it's just that it's not interesting when an expert is right about their domain expertise so we don't talk about it. The issue is people getting skewed by this and then inferring that it must mean, on average, that their outsider opinion is as valid as experts, but really, it's not.

Of course, an outsider can't simply declare something to be true by dint of being an outsider. You need to reason it. Or, in the market, bet on it, and you'll see who wins out. But experts should be held to the same standard.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#258

Post by hogFeast »

numair wrote: post #229
hogFeast wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dick Fuld has said that several times publicly, there are interviews with the FCIC where he said that there was a conspiracy against LEH, and almost every part of the meetings at the NY Fed are public knowledge...you have no behind the scenes knowledge (you sound like every person: I met X who did Y terrible thing, he isn't actually a bad guy, I am going to ignore all the public information about X and prioritise my…

I am not going to go too far into this but, I was in meetings with Dick and senior executives from the other banks. The “lol sorry bro” attitude wasn’t just Dick’s way of telling the story.

...I am not sure that I disputed that. What I said was: the reason why LEH didn't get bailed out was because the stock was worthless, and mgmt mismanaged that from day one (even towards the end, LEH was trying to sell its real estate at book...this isn't hard). And then Fuld went around telling everyone he should have got bailed out (btw, if you went into a meeting with other banks and started telling them they should give you money for nothing...do you think that wouuld have went down well?).

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#259

Post by ForHackernews »

TameAntelope wrote: post #206
Miner49er wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 this. The fact that buying was limited yesterday is evidence that the little guy is actually winning here. Trading was stopped to save the hedge funds, because if they go under or lose to…

I cannot stress this strongly enough -- the fact that buying was limited yesterday is not evidence that the little guy is actually winning. As has been explained in multiple other places, the limitations were as a result of Robinhood et. al. being unable to cover the risks involved in providing instant trading capabilities for a stock as volatile as the ones that got restricted. That has nothing to do with "the littl…

Some variation of "If you owe a bank thousands, you have a problem, but if you owe a bank millions, the bank has a problem" probably applies here.

If crazy retail investors can bankrupt Robinhood or other over-leveraged brokerage firms, that's also a win for the little guys.

I don't think many HN posters with their stable, extremely well-paid technology careers can truly empathize with the strain of aggressive nihilism on display at WSB.

"I'm only gambling with my future, so nothing to lose."

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#260

Post by [deleted] »

enraged_camel wrote: post #210
dagw wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big hedge funds are apparently losing money (billions!) A few hedge funds (of different sizes) are indeed losing billions. A few other hedge funds have taken the opposite side of this bet and are making money. The vast majority of hedge funds have no position in this stock and are completely unaffected. In addition a bunch of HFT shops and similar making a lot money off the volatility and order flow all this has…

I mean, some hedge funds are making money, sure. But the point is that, collectively , billions of wealth have so far been transferred from institutional investors to regular investors.

[deleted]
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