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GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

reuters.com

61–70 of 73 posts

Re: GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

#61

On Reddit, especially /r/wsb, many people painted it to be a common folks vs. Wall Street hedge funds story. But I've always thought the reality was that it's a hedge funds vs. hedge funds story where plenty of big players made millions, if not billions last week, then shorted the stock at $3-400 and made millions more on the way down. The retail players were probably just caught between a group of 800lbs fighting go…

User engagement is exactly the metric you want if your true customer is a hedge fund that pays you commissions to front run retail traders.

Re: GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On robinhood, their only sin through this whole situation was poor communication. Several firms had to restrict trading of GME and several other stocks because of clearinghouse restrictions. Robinhood was the first to try to explain publicly why they had to do that, and they explained it absolutely horribly. With regards to treating investing like gambling, there's no real problem with that. There's definitely a mark…

I think it's fair to also expect a broker that courts high volume customers (which robinhood clearly did) should be capitalized to handle the volume.

That's fair, but singling out Robinhood while ignoring all the other companies affected like WeBull doesn't make sense.

Re: GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

#63

Oof. Having sat in those communities and seeing media narratives - from reuters as well as others - about "reddit attention shifting to silver" despite a lack of that actually happening to the degree claimed, this is disappointing to see promoted. Objective facts: sentiment has changed, prices have decreased, people have likely lost money. Its frustrating to see a narrative - and not as far as I know out of the SEC t…

> media narratives - from reuters as well as others - about "reddit attention shifting to silver"

That was amazing. It took a few weeks of WSB going on GME before the media noticed, and by that time I was sick of how everything on Reddit was about that. And then one morning all news outlets talk about silver and I had seen nothing of the sort on reddit.

This makes me worried the modern reputable media is just an echo chamber, always promoting the same stories with the same views and never investigating anything.

Re: GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

#64

On Reddit, especially /r/wsb, many people painted it to be a common folks vs. Wall Street hedge funds story. But I've always thought the reality was that it's a hedge funds vs. hedge funds story where plenty of big players made millions, if not billions last week, then shorted the stock at $3-400 and made millions more on the way down. The retail players were probably just caught between a group of 800lbs fighting go…

> Robinhood has always been extremely predatory at encouraging users to actively gamble with their investments No, r/wallstreetbets was encouraging users to actively gamble with their investments, Robinhood was just allowing its users to make their own decisions, like any investment app for grown ups should.

> Robinhood was just allowing its users to make their own decisions, like any investment app for grown ups should.

They blocked purchasers from buying.

Re: GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

#65

On Reddit, especially /r/wsb, many people painted it to be a common folks vs. Wall Street hedge funds story. But I've always thought the reality was that it's a hedge funds vs. hedge funds story where plenty of big players made millions, if not billions last week, then shorted the stock at $3-400 and made millions more on the way down. The retail players were probably just caught between a group of 800lbs fighting go…

The stockmarket itself is already gamification of fractional ownership of companies. Lots of people that are active on it don't realize that it is just like a casino where the house will always win and they are just there to supply warm bodies and funds. The amount of bullshit that I've heard newly minted 'day traders' spout is second to none. Lambs to the slaughter, and bragging about it all the way to the butchers…

That's not really it. The majority of participants in the stock market are passive investors.

Re: GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

#66
post #63

Oof. Having sat in those communities and seeing media narratives - from reuters as well as others - about "reddit attention shifting to silver" despite a lack of that actually happening to the degree claimed, this is disappointing to see promoted. Objective facts: sentiment has changed, prices have decreased, people have likely lost money. Its frustrating to see a narrative - and not as far as I know out of the SEC t…

> media narratives - from reuters as well as others - about "reddit attention shifting to silver" That was amazing. It took a few weeks of WSB going on GME before the media noticed, and by that time I was sick of how everything on Reddit was about that. And then one morning all news outlets talk about silver and I had seen nothing of the sort on reddit. This makes me worried the modern reputable media is just an echo…

The media are extremely vulnerable to being fed bullshit in the form of press releases and repeating stories of the form "source said X" without determining if X is actually true (which may be extremely difficult!)

Re: GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Robinhood has always been extremely predatory at encouraging users to actively gamble with their investments No, r/wallstreetbets was encouraging users to actively gamble with their investments, Robinhood was just allowing its users to make their own decisions, like any investment app for grown ups should.

> Robinhood was just allowing its users to make their own decisions, like any investment app for grown ups should. They blocked purchasers from buying.

Which makes OP's point about Robinhood encouraging people to gamble with their investments even less true.

Re: GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

#68
post #3

At this point I'm not sure if the WSB anticipated short squeeze is going to happen, or maybe it has happened already last week.

I find it hilarious that "short squeeze" is a concept that is supposedly well-defined and inevitable if certain market conditions are met, but at the same time so ill-defined that we cannot tell whether it has happened.

For whatever it's worth, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameStop_short_squeeze says it definitely happened, but at the same time it offers zero sources for its claim that "the rush to buy shares to cover those positions as the price rose caused it to rise even further".

Re: GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Robinhood was just allowing its users to make their own decisions, like any investment app for grown ups should. They blocked purchasers from buying.

Which makes OP's point about Robinhood encouraging people to gamble with their investments even less true.

That’s just them dropping the ball when people needed it to work.

But their predatory behavior have long existed before this GME debacle. Which other “investment apps for adults” show confetti animation after a trade? Or actively have UI that go “wanna make more money? Try trade on margin!”?

Re: GameStop, 'Reddit rally' stocks slide more, Yellen vows scrutiny

#70
post #12
post #3

At this point I'm not sure if the WSB anticipated short squeeze is going to happen, or maybe it has happened already last week.

It was never going to happen. Look at the volume of shares that have been trading. There has been ample opportunity to cover any shorts. The conditions to force a squeeze never existed. Furthermore, has anyone actually demonstrated Melvin actually shorted the stock? It would seem like they owned a few puts. Puts don't get squeezed, they just expire out of the money.

short positions do not have to be reported to SEC, so you just can't know. there's ample evidence that melvin's short positions have been closed at about the time GME rose to $150 the first time - a lot of other stocks enjoyed the same general upwards movement indicating somebody closing a diverse lot of shorts.
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