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Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

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Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#531

Post by notapenny »

SirSavary wrote: post #287
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"…

Seems like you struck a nerve. I'm impressed by how many people are replying to this, quoting your points, and then talking about those points as if they were addressed directly at them. When did HN become overrun by narcissists?

Just because people are replying to your take, doesn't mean they are narcissists. Its possible to look at an argument and engage it without being triggered. People that disagree with you are not automatically x-ists. Though it sure is easier to believe they are, since that way you don't need to consider the alternative.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#532

Post by slfnflctd »

throwaway-571 wrote: post #444
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.

It's kind of depressing when you look at these crazy success stories of lottery winners. You realize even a small bet at the right time could be life-changing. Let's say instead of buying a Latte every working days at starbucks over the last five years you had invested it in tesla stocks. Or maybe for every starbucks latte you drank, you invested the same amount in ETF and in Tesla (pay 3 latte, drink one). Where wou…

Totally know what you mean. What I do is just assume I'm going to have to work until I die, and keep angling toward work I tolerate better. I try to invest wisely, maintain a few months of cash savings, etcetera, but don't think about it otherwise. Money is imaginary and anything could happen to it at any moment.

If once in a while I want to use some of my disposable income to spin a roulette wheel or buy GME, and can keep it under control, I see no problem. If I win, it's a nice surprise. But if I don't feel like playing, of course I won't win anything.

Despite having watched it since Monday or before, I don't think about what I could've won on GME this week any more than what I could've won at some dog track. I decided not to play, and that's that. My life continues on as normal.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#533

Post by lyjackal »

whatshisface wrote: post #394
sanderjd wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what oh-so-many people are missing: the gigantic volume in these stocks is no longer coming from the WSB YOLO bros who know they'll lose money but think that's worth it to stick it to hedge funds. That may well be who was getting into the stock on Monday and Tuesday. But now it is people who saw the story on Good Morning America, having never previously heard of WSB or Robinhood, who don't care about hedge fun…

That's quite plausible, but where could we look to see if that was true?

One point of evidence is the massive influx of members to /r/wallstreetbets

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#534

Post by leothecool »

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"…

Do you have any metrics to back this up?

Or is this your own fantasy you've built up...

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#535

Post by DanBC »

kgwgk wrote: post #317
DanBC wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you link to the papers that were available in March 2020 that showed that masks are effective? Use any definition of "mask" and "effective" you want, but preferably effective should include some concept of "prevents spread of respiratory disease". Covid is a serious illness. Far too many people have been told, and believe, that they can continue their normal day to day life so long as they put mask on. This is un…

Like this? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2662657/

Yes, exactly like that.

> We concluded that household use of face masks is associated with low adherence and is ineffective for controlling seasonal respiratory disease.

"Do masks work, if you use the right type of mask and wear it properly?" isn't particularly controversial (the answer is probably "yes") but it's a stupid question because we don't care about optimal use, we care about real world use. And in the real world people might improperly wear a mask and go outside when they're symptomatic.

We don't have much good quality evidence for that, but here's a study that showed people were prepared to do things like wear masks, but were less prepared to self-isolate or book a test if they had symptoms: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.15.20191957v...

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#536

Post by znpy »

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.

"That's just, like, your opinion man"

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#537

Post by mcguire »

Tenoke wrote: post #215
kodah wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I saw plenty of smart people ahead of institutions and real doctors on masks and to some extents other aspects of the pandemic. Yes, in general if you don't know much on a topic you'd on average do best if you listen to the experts but you can outperform that if you can identify the right kind of smart people with a good track record.

I saw plenty of smart people ahead of institutions and experts on hydroxychloroquine here on HN. They were wrong.

Smart people with a good track record are generally called "the experts".

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#538

Post by threedots »

adriancr wrote: post #402
robocat wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A hedge fund with 12 billion dollars shorting 140% of a stock I am fairly sure that one fund shorting 140% would have the SEC on your back (that would count as market manipulation). A comment somewhere mentioned that Melvin had shorted 14%. Does anyone have some facts here?

> A comment somewhere mentioned that Melvin had shorted 14%. How did they lose 3 billion at 65$ with just 14%? I call bullshit on that :)

I mean you can just do the maths, no? They probably had a few hundred million position (maybe larger) with an entry cost under <10$. There may be some puts in there too which will have been a total loss.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#539

Post by legolas2412 »

whatshisface wrote: post #411
dleslie wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dogecoin is ... Just _why_? There's no limit on the number of coins. Mining is designed to be forever-easy. The coin is _designed_ for rapid deflation. Why are people treating it as anything other than the joke it was intended to be?

I really have no idea, but your question suggests its own answer: fiat currencies are also designed for eternal inflation (I think you swapped inflation with deflation) and many people consider that a boon.

The problem is the word inflation vs deflation.

When too much fiat is printed, it decreases its value and is called inflation.

But when assets lose value, it is called deflation.

So, do you call cryptocurrency a fiat currency or a speculative asset? Because falling value will happen, it will be just termed inflation or deflation.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#540

Post by aaroninsf »

oasisbob wrote: post #496
tompccs wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, it's more the condescending attitude that rubs me up the wrong way. And if the words regulators use mean to them different things than they mean to everyone else (the people whom the regulations are ostensibly supposed to protect), that's probably interesting in itself! If you are charged with 'theft' under a law that defines 'theft' in a very different way to how you or your peers would define it, that'…

Theft is a pretty good example, actually. In many US states, the legal definition of "assault" is much different than the battery most people picture. Robbery is not larceny. Burglary is not larceny. Your peers probably don't know what robbery actually is.

This is spot on accurate,

Yet my next thought was in the "forest vs trees" direction which as far as I can tell as someone with homemade popcorn watching both this thread, and the "meme stock" story (saw that phrase last night),

I will suggest that as in the case of the peers' ignorance of specific legal definitions,

it's the thought or thrust that is usually being grappled with, and the dimension of argument is usually not e.g. about the specific crimes some person might be guilty of or not, but rather the fact of their wrongdoing. Where "wrong" is not a legal concept full stop.

So too in the case of the GME thing, if not this thread; I suspect that there is a lot of implicit meta-argumentation going on,

and that some of what I see in this thread appears to be missing (or more likely, dis-missing) that, to engage in "tree" level quibbling.

(All said, I do agree words and their meaning matter; and that when we want to use them informally, because specificity in some domain is not germane to our argument, we would do well to be explicit about that...)

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