The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets • Hacker News Board

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#111

Post by jdhn » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

curiousllama wrote: post #30

WSB is hilarious. It’s also such a place of sadness. Taking credit card advances to YOLO into short-dated OTM call options is drug-addict level desperation. People joke about YOLOing their inheritance - and I suspect there’s some reality to it. Their parents’ entire life’s wealth can’t dig them out of whatever hole their in. The CNBC guys freaking out is incredible. Their Cramer feud is gold. But... this trend is dif…

Earlier today someone claimed to put their parents life savings into BlackBerry. As WSBers say, that's truly a diamond hand move.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#112

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #108

toomuchtodo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, education, healthcare, and housing raced away from wages. I'm not here to argue a failed economic system in this thread, but the motivation behind wsb's nihilism is exceptionally clear. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-... (A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression) https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-r…

Housing is a tough one; houses on average cost the same amount on an inflation adjusted basis per square foot as they did in the 1970s. However, houses are on average twice as big as they were back then, and contain far fewer occupants on average, too. In 1970 the average household was 3.14 people, today it's 2.5 people. [edit] There's a lot of reasons for the increase in the actual price of accommodation. They're la…

[deleted]

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#113

Post by notJim » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

"Most of these people are in hopeless debt with no clear path out anyway"

I really really think this misreads who is trading on WSB, especially who are making big trades. There was a thread the other day of someone maxing out his credit cards to buy GME, and the comments were full of people calling him an idiot (albeit a lucky one), and imploring others not to do the same. If you read the comments on any big YOLO post, you'll see people pressing the person about their job or their portfolio, and you'll find out they're already very wealthy, or working in a highly paid job. Or they started small and have made a number of good bets that ratcheted them up.

I think instead what has happened is that nihilistic language has become the currency of authenticity. It's honestly not that cool to be an option trader or Wall Street guy, but by using this nihilistic language, you get some of that back. There is interesting analysis to be done about that, though I think it honestly leads back to some of the same conclusions found in this article, but at a different level.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#114

Post by Scoundreller » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

dahdum wrote: post #97

davidw wrote: post #8

I don't know anything about WSB, but how does: > It’s a bunch of autistic losers that live in their mom’s basement who are gambling what little money they have to try and become rich to live lifestyles of hedonism square with "These people were involved in very meaningfully moving a stock price around" ?

Collectively I doubt WSB posters alone moved GME to any large degree, but the media attention, feuds, and popular memes allowed them to punch well above their weight. Attracting attention about GME, a stock with more shares sold short than exist, gave a much larger pool of players a rallying cry to drive a short squeeze.

What I wonder is how many other shorters in heavily shorted stocks just closed their positions.

Any “risk of short-squeeze model” just imploded in the last 96h.

Any “guaranteed profit” short positions just exited imo.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#115

Post by throwaway2a02 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

abrowne2 wrote: post #53

supernova87a wrote: post #33

It just doesn't add up to me. If you take Gamestop (GME) today's hot item, it's trading 170M shares back and forth, at say, $70. That's $11B sloshing back and forth. You're telling me 10,000 (if even?) guys sitting at home doing retail trading have $1M each in positions driving this? 100,000 people with $100,000 each, during the day? I think it's quant and algorithmic trading. I would love to hear from an expert thou…

Member of WSB here, no expert The narrative of GME has been building for weeks before any news coverage happened. This isn't the first stock to blow up from WSB, but there are a few others in past weeks (none that have reached GME levels) such as BB, PLTR, and previously ABNB (whatever new stock that has IPO'd). There are a handful of users that have $1M positions (some smaller ones, like a user that reported $250k i…

> but these social communities are having an impact

What that means is that people controlling those communities (including mods) have an immense advantage.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#116

Post by some_furry » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

jsonne wrote: post #58

some_furry wrote: post #18

> It’s a bunch of autistic losers Gross. How has this not been flagkilled for ableism yet?

"I also don't agree with the Wallstreetbets culture. I'm just trying to explain it."

You can explain it without calling people "autistic losers".

Just "losers" is sufficient.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#117

Post by weird-eye-issue » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

jdhn wrote: post #111

curiousllama wrote: post #30

WSB is hilarious. It’s also such a place of sadness. Taking credit card advances to YOLO into short-dated OTM call options is drug-addict level desperation. People joke about YOLOing their inheritance - and I suspect there’s some reality to it. Their parents’ entire life’s wealth can’t dig them out of whatever hole their in. The CNBC guys freaking out is incredible. Their Cramer feud is gold. But... this trend is dif…

Earlier today someone claimed to put their parents life savings into BlackBerry. As WSBers say, that's truly a diamond hand move.

No, that's not the correct terminology

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#118

Post by abrowne2 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

throwaway2a02 wrote: post #115

abrowne2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Member of WSB here, no expert The narrative of GME has been building for weeks before any news coverage happened. This isn't the first stock to blow up from WSB, but there are a few others in past weeks (none that have reached GME levels) such as BB, PLTR, and previously ABNB (whatever new stock that has IPO'd). There are a handful of users that have $1M positions (some smaller ones, like a user that reported $250k i…

> but these social communities are having an impact What that means is that people controlling those communities (including mods) have an immense advantage.

Yes. The former creator of WSB, jartek, was removed from the subreddit because he masqueraded as 'WSBgod' an anon user with crazy gains, but it was fake. He also sold ad space in the about section for $1500.

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#119

Post by dcolkitt » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #72

missedthecue wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median bottom quintile of incomes is higher today in real terms than is was in the 1990s, and the median income is higher as well. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...

And yet, education, healthcare, and housing raced away from wages. I'm not here to argue a failed economic system in this thread, but the motivation behind wsb's nihilism is exceptionally clear. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-... (A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression) https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-r…

Education only makes up 2.3% of household expenditures and healthcare 8.2%.[1] You're cherry picking and ignoring strong deflationary pressures increasing the affordability of food (13% of expenditures), clothing (3%), transportation (17%), utilities (6.5%), entertainment (5%), and furniture and appliances (3.3%).

As for housing, the cost per square foot, adjusted for inflation, is only 12% higher than it was in 2000. (Moreover this doesn't account for the major improvements in new housing stock, such as fire safety, attached garages, swimming pools, high ceilings, central A/C, high-capacity electrical circuits, etc.) The median cost of housing has only gone up, because consumers have demanded substantially larger homes.

And this ignores the fact that mortgage rates are substantially lower than historical averages. Even accounting for our bigger, nicer homes, the percent of expenitures on shelter has barely budged from 18.7% in 2000 to 19.1% in 2019.

[1]https://www.bls.gov/cex/2019/combined/age.pdf [2]https://www.statista.com/statistics/682549/average-price-per... [3]https://www.bls.gov/cex/2005/standard/multiyr.pdf

Re: The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

#120

Post by notJim » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

aaahayatav wrote: post #46

curiousllama wrote: post #30

WSB is hilarious. It’s also such a place of sadness. Taking credit card advances to YOLO into short-dated OTM call options is drug-addict level desperation. People joke about YOLOing their inheritance - and I suspect there’s some reality to it. Their parents’ entire life’s wealth can’t dig them out of whatever hole their in. The CNBC guys freaking out is incredible. Their Cramer feud is gold. But... this trend is dif…

I highly suspect the reason for this is because there is less income security for the young generation in 2021 compared to 1999. In 1999, people under 40 were gambling large sums that, if lost, could be made back through x months of work. In 2021, people under 40 are gambling any random ad hoc payment they receive in the attempt of calling it a career. The reason? 10% of our country have great jobs, and the rest have…

I think you really have to look at fed policy and the stock market to understand this. We're in the midst of a barely-uncontrolled pandemic that has caused massive disruption and unemployment in particular sectors, and yet the stock market is hot as shit. I don't think it's irrational to look at that and conclude that it's better to get it while the getting is good.