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WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

thinkingthrough.substack.com

441–450 of 475 posts

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that a lesson? What consequences have they endured that will affect their future behavior? "Eyeballs" is not a lesson.

Losing billions of dollars in one of the biggest trading stories ever seems fairly consequential and will likely affect their future behaviour. That combined with the newfound knowledge that the type of trade they made can be picked up on and exploited is also likely to affect their future behaviour (i.e. don't do that again).

These are shame-based punishments, what happens if these people have no shame?

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#442
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he's arguing FOR stopping the trades. I think he's worried about the folks participating financial well being. We worry about that (people's retirement savings and so on) anytime we see market corrections, a given company go under, and etc... it's not an unusual concern.

That's elitism. Which is fine, it's a legitimate position, to believe that you have knowledge that others don't, and others should be protected from themselves. And the Law can step in to enforce this protection. You can apply that to stocks, "gambling", drugs, sex, porn, hate speech, misinformation, and everything else. And there are a number of countries that have that philosophy in legal form. I'm glad to have a c…

We have laws about scams and etc, is that elitism, or just that the population doesn't want scams?

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing big leveraged players to sell is fantastic for everyone else. There will be a lot of cheap stocks to pick up for everyone else.

Assuming that you are in cash or another asset class that isn't being sold off.

Or just that you have some kind of disposable income.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#444
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a murderous insurrection bent on overthrowing democracy about 3 weeks ago. I rather think tempers are high enough that you'd get a lot of affirmative answers right now.

1. It failed. 2. It was stupid. 3. It violated the principles of our society. That is the point I’m trying to demonstrate. Solutions come from within, not without.

You have it backwards, change cannot come from within. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#445
post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. The problem isn't that billions or billionaires exist at all. I see no issue with that. The problem is systems that resist merit. You make terrible investment decisions with the portfolio but it doesn't matter? (I think it will matter FWIW.)

In what way do you think it will matter? Can you be more specific?

He'll be regarded as the moron that shorted a stock 140%(!!!) and then got caught

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#446

I have watched this mess from afar and the tone of the conversation has changed from "Hey, here is an opportunity to make some money off a mistake some hedge funds are making" to "Smash the system". Exhibit A - this idiotic article. You cannot use the tools of the system to beat the system. Here is the thing about hedge funds - they hedge. They hedge in the morning, hedge in the afternoon, eat some hedge for dinner a…

> You cannot use the tools of the system to beat the system

I'm wondering if this is true. What would be some examples from history in which precisely this happened?

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#447
post #94
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently there's an early buyer of one of these stocks who made $40 million off of it; I last read they only sold $14 million of their position so far.

Yep, that buyer is https://twitter.com/theroaringkitty Here [0] he talks the first time about the GME stock; the video was uploaded on the 28th of July, 2020 and the stock was at $4.03 back then. Here [1] you can find his latest GME update; he's sitting on $50 Mio. right now, although it's quite volatile. Here [2] you can see a post from his Reddit account on November 2019 showing his GME calls. It's just crazy and f…

You just need a single person who's paying attention and understands these arguable flaws, pitfalls in the status quo system, they get rewarded by being able to get in early - and then they can educate a highly organized and motivated group of retail investors who are happy to rally - especially against a system that has fucked over the majority of people.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#448
post #243
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking people from buying a stock is not the same as blocking people from profiting off of a stock; nobody knows what the future valuation of the stock will be, so if you prevent people from buying, you may just as well be preventing them from losing money as from gaining. Keep in mind that this is very likely a zero-sum game. At some point the bubble will pop, and as many people as gained money on the way up will…

The bubble only needs to pop though if GME management screws it up. GME has now become a $25B hedge fund with a gaming focus. They absolutely have the ability to become long term successful given these black swans they just experienced. Now, I know *nothing* about their management, but they at least have been given a chance. Their's an Eminem song that they should be playing throughout their buildings right now. If I…

GME has now become a $25B hedge fund with a gaming focus.

I think you're confusing their market cap with their balance sheet. A $25B hedge fund has $25B in assets, but a $25B market cap does not mean that they have access to anywhere near that amount of capital.

Sure, maybe they could issue a dilutive follow-on offering and bring in some cash, but who knows where the stock price will be by the time they get through the paperwork on that. And they're currently losing about half a billion per year on about $6B in revenue, so I'm not sure that an extra billion or so in cash is going to fundamentally remake the company....

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#449
post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way do you think it will matter? Can you be more specific?

He'll be regarded as the moron that shorted a stock 140%(!!!) and then got caught

There doesn't seem to be any singular person in this case to assign such fault to; best I can tell the over-shorting was caused by multiple firms acting independently, and I'd guess that the orders were signed off on by multiple people at each firm (and I'm not inclined to suspect any collusion here; in a thunderstorm people sell umbrellas, and in a pandemic people short retail).

In the meantime, the billionaire owner of Citadel (the company that just made tons of money by front-running all these retail investor trades via their data harvesting contract with Robinhood) just used some of that freshly-acquired cash to buy a stake in Melvin (the company that those retail investors just tanked) for pennies on the dollar. The feel-good rage of WSB serves as a convenient smokescreen for the rich getting richer.

Re: WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I don't get either. I keep thinking of Danny DeVito's speech at the end "Other People's Money." "You know, at one time there must've been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I'll bet the last company around was the one that made the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw. Now how would you have liked to have been a stockholder in that company?" GameStop sells buggy whips. Why shouldn't people bet a…

Last I checked steam/etc doesn't allow one to resell their games. So they do provide a convenient service in that regard.

You can sell used games on craigslist, ebay, facebook marketplace, or any number of places... often for better prices than GameStop will give you.
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