Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility • Hacker News Board

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#541

Post by acover » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

ordinaryradical wrote: post #446

acover wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t know how you can argue this in good faith I'm not an expert and am rather dumb. What do you think the differences are? Differences: * One hedge fund versus a multitude of investors * Owning all the securities vs only a portion The similarities are: * Intentionally buying all the stock to cause a short squeeze * Explicitly recalling borrowed shares to cause a short squeeze To be clear, I'm not arguing that w…

A short squeeze in and of itself is not illegal. The squeezers were not prosecuted in 2008 when they held onto VW even though it briefly became the most valuable stock in the world. Seeing an opportunity to advantage oneself of a bad short position is just trading, nothing fancier than that. The Falcone case is much more complicated because it was a single person buying the entirety of the market. Much weirder mechan…

Note that the comment I replied to introduced the idea of treating wallstreetbets as a single hedge fund.

> if WallStreetBets was incorporated into a hedge fund and took a huge long position is that market manipulation?

So your main point of contention with me for bringing up unrelated information was already brought up.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#542

Post by colechristensen » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

tompccs wrote: post #212

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"…

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…

It's not about staying in your lane, it's about being more aware of your ignorance. What you notice, over and over, is the people talking the loudest about most things have very little real idea about whatever they're talking about. The truth is almost always more boring than the most attention-grabbing theory, this bias found all over for the non-expert with the big opinion needs to stop.

People with the stock industry conspiracy theories are doing the exact same thing as voter fraud people. That is, people with almost no information are forming theories about a secret cabal of the powerful keeping them down.

The reality which is becoming obvious is that trades were at several brokerages were halted because of capital requirements for brokerage firms. The capital requirements for some of these meme stocks changed, the stocks were very broadly held at these brokerages, and they simply didn't have the capital on hand where it needed to be to cover the requirements. That's (1) a lot more boring, and (2) a lot more complicated than a conspiracy about market fixing, so it doesn't get attention outside of people who actually know.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#543

Post by rossdavidh » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

Is it my imagination, or did this SEC statement not actually, you know, actually say anything, except "we're the SEC, and we're going to do the thing that it's our job to do"?

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#544

Post by adriancr » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #519

adriancr wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware everyone else except retail was allowed to buy right? You are aware hedge funds did just that after doing wash sales to trigger stop losses. It was funny at one point bid ask spread was 120-5000

Yes that's what I'm saying. The same narrative ("wtf, they are allowed to short but I'm not") arises in my scenario.

your scenario means everyone is disallowed from shorting. Equal measure to market condition. You see it being different from disallowing just retail buying?

Oh and that already exists when there are no shares to borrow. (in theory as they can naked short)

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#545

Post by mcguire » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

tacitusarc wrote: post #367

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 absolutely agree with the main thrust of your comment, but I want to point out that in unprecedented times specifically, the odds that a smart non-expert is more correct than an expert are substantially higher than in normal times.

... but still not particularly high.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#546

Post by glitchc » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #503

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…

Engineers, in particular, have a reputation for being experts on everything.

perceived :D

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#547

Post by bart_spoon » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #395

TeMPOraL wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "narcissists", I say I'm tired of seeing people shutting down anyone who uses their brain to try and comprehend the facts - and god forbid they know some math and are capable of formal reasoning. This approach is just teaching people to repeat memes after pundits and not use their brain - instead of teaching them to work on better reasoning skills, and applying these skills to the problems they face, while ac…

I totally agree that merit of arguments should be earned by the argument, but on HN there's an awful lot of bad arguments posited in terms of "I think it probably works THIS way based on how I imagined up the entire industry in my head" that then go on to try to make a "hoho those stupid industry insiders, they didn't see solution X" point on said completely imaginary model. IE, not very rigorous models being used ov…

> "I think it probably works THIS way based on how I imagined up the entire industry in my head"

That's how every opinion anyone's ever had works. Everyone has a mental model, which they use to understand the world. If you have a problem with the specifics, address them. Otherwise, you are simply appealing to authority.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#548

Post by dleslie » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

xapata wrote: post #358

dleslie wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Irrational, but understandable.

It can be rational to hate those who actively seek to harm you. Emotion isn't necessarily irrational, so long as the reasons for emotion are well-founded.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#549

Post by esoterica » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

tompccs wrote: post #212

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"…

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…

Haha, of course you're The Type of Guy who worships Wolfram.

You know he's a total crank right.

Re: Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility

#550

Post by jsmith45 » Fri, Jan 29, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #146

OscarCunningham wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were the short-sellers I'd be a bit aggrieved at the SEC not going after WSB here. People keep saying that the hedge funds 'knew what they were getting into', and are therefore fair game. But they could well have thought that they were protected by this regulation. It's unlucky for them that they got squeezed by loveable retail investors rather than another hedge fund that the SEC would have no qualms about pros…

The shorters should form a class action and sue wall street bets, I'm sure a 5 dollar check in 3 years and a year of free stonk advice will cover it right?

Wall street bets is not an organization, and does not really even have a defined membership, and I've never heard of a court case with a class as a defendant. But I suppose that would be a really amusing circus show. Class of shorters vs class of buyers.