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Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

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Re: Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get a margin call if your house or car is underwater. You can just keep making the payments until you own it.

> You don't get a margin call if your house or car is underwater. Except... You can! If you ever took a mortgage, take a very, very, very good look on the loan agreement. A surprising amount of banks simply put it as "bank reserves the right to recall the loan in full, at its sole discretion, at any moment"

[deleted]

Re: Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

#302
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems clear to me that you don't become a billionaire by leaving evidence of your ill acts. Certainly not when the spotlight of the entire country is on you. If you don't mind me asking, do you interface with these kind of people? I don't and I'm wondering if you have some kind of insight I'm missing.

> If you don't mind me asking, do you interface with these kind of people? Yes, I do, multiple people in fact (which I refuse to name drop). That’s why I replied to you the way I did in my other sibling comment. Him tweeting it means somebody told him, and likely he trusts that person. Billionaires are humans like anyone else, they sometimes trust the wrong people. They can also fall victim to “hearing what they want…

Thank you for sharing your experience in such a thorough manner. Makes sense to me, and I agree.

I was definitely assigning him some kind of value that he may or may not have based on his success. Thanks for pointing out this flaw in my train of thought.

Have a wonderful day!

Re: Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

#303
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really believe that the departments don't communicate? Once again, finding out that a lot of people see the world very differently than me. Why don't you think they communicate? It seems so clear to me that the departments work in cohort behind closed doors.

> Why don't you think they communicate? Probably because it’s the law that there’s barriers put in place, that’s why? Like some communication will inevitably happen, but there are compliance teams who’s job it is to ensure it’s at a minimum.

In my mind I was assuming that there is some communication between the two groups. Not at work, and definitely not where you can be overheard, but it just seems crazy to me that they don’t talk at all. But I’ve never been in a position to actually know, im just assuming.

Re: Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

#304
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not going to pop no matter what, that's not how the market works - and presumably most everybody cares how it happens. Most people aren't big on artificial market manipulation.

This whole kerfuffle is a blatant publically advertised mass market manipulation effort. The reddit posts are still visible. No one believed GME was worth over $40 a week ago, but now suddenly they pretend they honestly believe it's worth $300+? There's no book depth beyond the short squeeze. If Valve made a full buyout offer at $100/share, management wouldn't take it?

(This is just a structured analysis on what is going on, not financial advice). Alright boys and girls, sit down while I tell you what on earth is happening.

It's a once in a lifetime historical event.... It's insane. At least 1 hedge fund has gone bankrupt, thanks to a group of average joes on Reddit. By the end of the week, there will be a line of bankruptcies.

So let's start at the beginning:

First of all, stocks are pretty simple, when they go up in value, you make money, because it's worth more than you bought it for. Stock goes up- you make money. Stock goes down- you lose money. Short selling, is the opposite. Short selling makes money when the stock goes down in value. Short sellers borrow someone else's shares, and sell them, with the goal of buying them back later, and pocketing the difference as profit. So, Tim borrows Bob's shares in GME, and sell them for $10, he pays Bob $1 to do this, and promises to give all of Bob's shares back. Then, if the stock goes down to $5, Tim buys the shares back at a cheaper price. So Tim's profit is $10-$5-$1 = $4 profit. So that's where we start. A hedge fund tried to force down the price of Gamestop, and short the stock. It usually works fine. It's been done thousands of times, with no problems. So they shorted Gamestop (GME) from $20, to $10, to $4. Their greed kept compounding. They kept doing it again, and again, for months. Making billions of dollars, and almost bankrupting this company.

Enter Wallstreetbets. A trading/investing subreddit. Someone noted that these hedgefunds shorted 140% of all shares available. These hedgefunds were so damn greedy, they borrowed more shares than actually existed. That's how arrogant and dumb they were. They borrowed 140% of all the available shares. It was literally impossible for them to buy them all back. So someone on Wallstreetbets realized this, and told everyone. Now, the rule with short selling is that ALL those shares that they borrow, MUST be paid back. And so we reach our main story of how the hedgefund's greed ruined them.

Realizing that these hedgefunds shorted GME by a ridiculous amount, these Redditors (a bunch of regular Joes like you and me), bought every share they could get their hands on. Driving the price up as much as possible. Why? Because these hedgefunds eventually (within a few months) HAD to buy all those shares back, at whatever price they could get them. They didn't have a choice. So if they borrow a million shares, and sold them for $10. They made $10 million in immediate profit. But eventually, they HAD TO buy those million shares back. They didn't have a choice. That was the deal they made when they borrowed the shares. So these Redditors bought the shares, driving the price up, forcing these hedgefunds to buy back at crazy prices. Yeah, the hedgefund sold and made $10 million, but now they had to spend $147.98 million getting those same shares back. A HUGE FUCKING LOSS of $137.98 million.

So eventually, the due date for when these hedgefunds need to return the borrowed shares comes closer. And what do they do? They double down. They short MORE. Because they're sure that they can manipulate the stock enough to get it to crash, thereby saving themselves. Fast Forward a few days, every attempt to crash the stock fails. Oh it works temporarily, but not enough for them to save themselves. Everyone knows what they're trying to do, so people keep buying the stock. And with every additional bit of media attention, more and more people are buying the stock, destroying the greedy hedgefund in the process. Eventually Melvin Capital- a multi billion dollar hedge fund, needs a bailout, because it has lost so much money shorting GME. They borrowed billions off another hedgefund. That was yesterday. The stock price was $76.

Today, the stock ended up at $147.98 for every share. Up from $4. These hedgefunds are STILL shorting the stock, at 130% of available shares. That's how fucking greedy these guys are. All those millions of shares STILL have to be paid back. And that's where our story picks up. Hedgefunds are crying on CNBC, on CNN, on FoxNews. On literally every every platform they can get their hands on. They want the government to stop trading. They want this reddit forum investigated and banned. They're screaming ''market manipulation'', when in reality these hedgefunds were the ones manipulating the stock, but they got caught, and are now trying to take their ball and go home.

Now, if you haven't realized it yet: With a normal investment, when buying stocks normally, the maximum you can lose is your original investment. When short selling, your losses are theoretically infinite. Because you HAVE to buy back at whatever price is available. So while these hedgefunds are on every news channel, every investing segment screaming about Reddit and Wallstreetbets, they inevitably draw attention to themselves, and what's going on.

Enter the ''whales''- individual investors who can make a splash and impact the stock. Millionaires and billionaires that have a bone to pick with hedgefunds and short sellers. Elon Musk famously despises short sellers, because they tried to cripple Tesla so often. With a single tweet, Elon sent the share price skyrocketing from $147.98 to $230. And along with Elon Musk, a huge number of wealthy ''whales'' have started to jump in. Buying up HUGE amounts of stock, at crazy prices. But these investors don't care. They don't care how expensive they buy the stock for. Because they KNOW these hedgefunds MUST buy the shares back. For many of them, they don't actually care if they lose money. They just want to watch these hedgefunds burn.

So what happens next? No one actually knows. The hedgefund Melvin Capital is definitely bankrupt. They've already gotten one bailout. They probably won't get a second. As time goes on, and as hedgefunds fight to buy back as many shares as possible (driving up the prices more on each other), their bill will eventually be due, and they will have to return the borrowed shares. More will likely be bankrupt. But it's not guaranteed. Does this mean you should buy GME? I'm not gonna answer this question, because you obviously shouldn't be listening to strangers on the internet when it comes to your money.

There's a lot of upside to buying GME, but there's also a crazy amount of downside. Tomorrow the share could go back to $4 and you could lose everything. These shares are obscenely overvalued, and the only reason they keep going up is that people are gambling that the hedgefunds will buy them for a higher price (they likely will, but up until what point?).

It's a game of chicken.

When the game ends, the house of cards will crumble, and people will lose millions. This is not financial advice. This is just me trying to explain what the hell is going on right now. We're witnessing a once in a lifetime event that will undoubtedly change the markets, and how hedgefunds and other big businesses operate.

The only thing I can recommend is that you grab a beer, and keep an eye on GME and enjoy the fireworks.

Re: Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

#305
post #132

Obviously, margin calls are legitimate. But Robin Hood obviously played an important role in the price direction that led to the margin calls. I honestly don't know how anyone could trust RH as a neutral party after this.

Most of the brokers where not allowing margin for buying GME since last week and Robinhood is one of them.

I am concerned for myself here. I got 3.0xxx shares on Wed. 1/27 on Robinhood for 999 bucks. I'm pretty sure I began a transfer to Robinhood of $1,000 from my bank account BEFORE I bought them. Well, the shares were in my possession in a matter of seconds after but my $1,000 won't clear until Feb 2. I have NO idea if I bought on margin and if am subject to margin call/ holding liquidation etc. If anyone has any insight I would very much appreciate it!!!! Thanks-- An idiot

Re: Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

#306
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe that GameStop buyers think that the company is as doomed as the short-sellers did? The origin for this whole thing was a DD post that argued that it was a value stock that was over-shorted. And there were institutional investors and analysts like Michael Burry who also saw this happening.

I don't know if they thought it was doomed, but I highly doubt a single one of the buyers think it's worth $500+ a share. That's not why they're buying it. Unless there's some other scheme that I'm unaware of, I think Tesla buyers do think it's worth that much, though they may be wrong about that.

I doubt that a majority of Tesla buyers realistically think the company is worth as much as most of the rest of the auto industry. In both cases you have overvalued meme stocks, it's just with GameStop there's an ideological/activism motivation.

Re: Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

#307

There is a regulatory framework, enforced by the SEC, that prevents firms from collaborating on trades in attempts to manipulate stock prices. When an army of retail investors openly collaborate on messaging platforms to manipulate a stock's price, essentially a crowd-sourced "pump and dump," it falls under SEC enforcement. A retail investor can still be prosecuted for violating SEC regulations, such as using insider…

It's interesting because none of what you say is true. Hedge funds definitely collude and not behind closed doors, but also out in the open. Hedge funds announce their picks and go from hedge fund to hedge fund explaining the decisions they made and why they made the stock pick they did. Thousands of analysts in the stock market influence the stock price based on what they see as future investments to be made and are…

Read this. https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-ba...

If you happen to work in the industry, you've probably had to certify compliance with SEC regulations to stay employed.

Re: Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

#308

There is a regulatory framework, enforced by the SEC, that prevents firms from collaborating on trades in attempts to manipulate stock prices. When an army of retail investors openly collaborate on messaging platforms to manipulate a stock's price, essentially a crowd-sourced "pump and dump," it falls under SEC enforcement. A retail investor can still be prosecuted for violating SEC regulations, such as using insider…

How are users on wsb openly discussing GME any different than huge banks with analysts saying “we rate GME as a strong buy”? Also, look at some of these hedge funds and their leverage—-a $3B fund with 10x leverage is going to be able to “manipulate” a stock price with big orders in almost any way they choose, and they do it in secret! Now I don’t personally think GME is worth $300/share, but the people buying it thin…

The combination of unique trading features offered as part of Robinhood's business model combined with the social media and relatively inexperienced investors acting in concert is prone to unintended consequences for both the business as well as the investor. That was my main point. Here's a more comprehensive article on the subject. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/gamestop-now-called-a-pump-a....

Re: Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone not wanting to explain what is in 50 news articles to new commenters does not make them a conspiracy theorist, why should they do your google searches for you?

If someone is saying "This morning Robinhood conspired with Citadel to halt trading", that is a claim. If I ask for source on the claim and they say "It's in the logs, go see for yourself?", my, and most other people on this sites assumption is "This person has no evidence of this claim, or any evidence they do have is eminently debunkable". Handwaving the claim away as "It's obvious" when to most people, "no it isn'…

Maybe you shouldn't assume that? Sure sometimes there will be no evidence, but you should only come to that conclusion after you shake off the laziness and go look. Again, someone not wanting to tell you something that you can easily check out yourself does not make them a conspiracy theorist by default. I'm sure you are special enough in your mind that every poster you reply to should take time to type you a personalized response but that is not the case. However, I think you are special.

Re: Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf

#310
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone not wanting to explain what is in 50 news articles to new commenters does not make them a conspiracy theorist, why should they do your google searches for you? Yes, this is definitely one of the cookie-cutter responses. Dubious claims of "so many sources" but they are just super busy and can't be bothered to link to a single one.

Honestly, I'd say a lot of time there aren't any "legitimate sources" to prove the claims being made. That's a good chunk of the problem, because it seems that legitimate investigation and "linking" of said facts to prove the claims is next to impossible without serious government-level powers of acquiring evidence. So inference needs to be used, unfortunately. And once you start inferring without direct evidence, yo…

Excellent points, well said. If any claims that were not immediately supported by secret video were not at least thought about then no investigations would ever start. At this point the allegations are 50/50, either true or false, the onus is on our regulators/journalists/whistleblowers to investigate and find out if the claims are true.
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