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GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

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Re: GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

#521

Post by oars »

cvhashim wrote: post #167
thepasswordis wrote: post #86

There's a mantra among these people of "I just wanted to play video games, why couldn't you leave me alone?" The culture of a lot of redditors and internet trolls in general seems to be that they feel like they are the eternal punching bag of society. They were the punching bag in high school, they didn't get into a good school (or go to college at all), and now they're the punching bag of society as "incels" or "whi…

The real punching bag in our country is probably poor, minority single mothers.

Sad but true.

Re: GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

#522

Post by notahacker »

dheera wrote: post #233
amalter wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard no! I want scams and shady schemes uncovered. What a disappointment that Herbalife wasn't brought down by the shorts. I'm struggling to even understand what a market with "no negativity" means. We want to evaluate firms with a critical eye. If they are mis-valued, that serves no one.

> We want to evaluate firms with a critical eye. If they are mis-valued, that serves no one. Hard disagree here. Sometimes mis-valuing firms serves a LOT of people. There are many firms who could create value if only they had more capital to work with. As an example, it's very possible that a company hard hit by COVID could recover if they got fresh capital and used it to explore new business models that are quaranti…

> You can't short sell most early stage startups. If you don't believe in them you just don't invest in them. It's that simple.

I'm not sure the world would have been a worse place for it to have been profitable to point out the failings of say, Theranos.

And the unlimited downside means that shorting startups that are merely unlikely to succeed wouldn't be worth the effort.

Shorting public companies that can survive COVID perfectly well by raising additional funds would be a terrible strategy too: their ability to raise funds won't really be dependent on their share price (they'll be raising debt funding instead) but every time they find a lender the share price will rebound.

Re: GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

#523

Post by hehehaha »

mancerayder wrote: post #513
hehehaha wrote: post #466

I am tired of this misguided narrative that pits retail and r/wsb vs big bad wolf Wall Street hedge funds. This is not David and Goliath. There are hedge funds with deep pockets on both sides. Retail traders do not run sophisticated algos to jam the price 15 minutes from the open because they want to neuter circuit breakers. C’mon guys...

> Retail traders do not run sophisticated algos to jam the price 15 minutes from the open because they want to neuter circuit breakers. How is that legal? > C’mon guys... In this particular instance, even if it is rare, it does certainly feel like a David and Goliath story?

It’s legal and to be completely honest was a pretty damn smart thing to do.

I don’t think it’s David and Goliath. I feel like it’s Goliath using millions of Davids to do his bidding. Retail is getting used.

Re: GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

#524

Post by admax88q »

SomewhatLikely wrote: post #422
admax88q wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "little guy" refers to the Reddit traders that are making a killing right now, with the expectation that eventually the stock price will crash again. The reddit traders are only making a killing if they're selling these inflated positions. At some point somebody will be left holding the bag, odds are it will be a bunch of people from wallstreetbets and other retail investors that are late to the party. There's…

The daily volume is higher than the total number of shares for the company. Lots of people are locking in their gains. Of course someone else is taking their place at an even higher cost basis.

Thats exactly my point, somebody will be left holding the bag. Holding GME worth 20-40 that they bought for 400-1000.

Re: GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

#525

Post by aphextron »

mancerayder wrote: post #513
hehehaha wrote: post #466

I am tired of this misguided narrative that pits retail and r/wsb vs big bad wolf Wall Street hedge funds. This is not David and Goliath. There are hedge funds with deep pockets on both sides. Retail traders do not run sophisticated algos to jam the price 15 minutes from the open because they want to neuter circuit breakers. C’mon guys...

> Retail traders do not run sophisticated algos to jam the price 15 minutes from the open because they want to neuter circuit breakers. How is that legal? > C’mon guys... In this particular instance, even if it is rare, it does certainly feel like a David and Goliath story?

>How is that legal?

It doesn't particularly matter. The SEC is not some omniscient all powerful entity. The rate of prosecution for financial crimes is shockingly low.

Re: GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

#526

Post by mancerayder »

nightowl_games wrote: post #124
boringg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand what's happening here. There's only so much volume available as a result of the short positions. WSB et al are putting in money on a long hold. As a result that drives up the price. Yeah gamma's are in for sure making money. There are some people who have made multiple millions. One individual sitting at $31M currently on a $50k investment. Some retail will lose, but wall street instituti…

> For them to win this they need to keep putting more money into the fire which pulls in bigger and bigger fish. This isn't true. The institutions with Short Exposure are connected to the institutions who buy Robinhood data and perform high frequency trading on those orders. Citadel and Melvin can BUY GME themselves to mitigate the risks. It is likely that a substantial amount of GME is being held by the institutions…

> My message to the people here: /r/wallstreetbets is not a gameshark. You are still playing their game. You are still playing a rigged game and you are still losing.

I understand your sentiment but that's a pretty overbroad assessment. There are obviously non-pro traders people killing it, and a lot more than a blip, tons of people have bought and sold out of their positions, average schmoes. There will be a ton of bagholders and losers, and expired options "Loss Porn". But to say that EVERYONE is a loser in a rigged game is too bold a statement. Maybe, Most will be losers in the rigged game.

Re: GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

#527

Post by onetimeusename »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #20

> These points doubtless make me appear to be a complacent shill for the financial industry, talking down to the rubes. For the record, I’m still angry about the way workers were ripped off in Britain more than three decades ago, and about the way the little guy ended up bearing the brunt for the financial implosions of 2000 and 2008. But it looks horribly to me as though the same thing is going to happen again — and…

It looks like the short sellers made a mistake though. Short interest for Gamestop was 140% 12/31. Institutions did that.

It's just too much for institutions to get so arrogant and greedy that they think that's worth a return but on the other hand talk down to small retail investors.

Re: GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

#528

Post by kasey_junk »

reissbaker wrote: post #411
nightowl_games wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For them to win this they need to keep putting more money into the fire which pulls in bigger and bigger fish. This isn't true. The institutions with Short Exposure are connected to the institutions who buy Robinhood data and perform high frequency trading on those orders. Citadel and Melvin can BUY GME themselves to mitigate the risks. It is likely that a substantial amount of GME is being held by the institutions…

"Melvin and Citadel can BUY GME themselves to mitigate the risk." Melvin buying GME is not "mitigating," it's closing the short position. If you close your short position high, you got screwed and you lost money. They did close it recently... At a massive loss. "I firmly believe that the hedge funds that held GME short positions have bought into GME to mitigate their exposure. They likely bought in algorithmically us…

Citadel invested in Melvin this week on the cheap.

Citadel is the main internalizer for Robinhood.

I don’t think it changes much about your post but the connection between HFT and Melvin is public and directly financially relevant.

Re: GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

#529

Post by slg »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #20

> These points doubtless make me appear to be a complacent shill for the financial industry, talking down to the rubes. For the record, I’m still angry about the way workers were ripped off in Britain more than three decades ago, and about the way the little guy ended up bearing the brunt for the financial implosions of 2000 and 2008. But it looks horribly to me as though the same thing is going to happen again — and…

>b) The "little guy" refers to the Reddit traders that are making a killing right now, with the expectation that eventually the stock price will crash again.

The stock price is completely disconnected from the value of the company. Either this is a bubble that will eventually pop and every small player still holding it will be badly hurt or the bubble doesn't pop, it continually exposes an inherit flaw in our financial system, and who knows what type of drastic and wide-reaching ramifications there could be from that including marketwide collapses.

Re: GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine

#530

Post by oars »

0xffff2 wrote: post #447
kahrl wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short sellers illegally borrowed more stock that actually existed. They are the criminals here. Not the people discovering this and taking the criminals for everything they have.

It's entirely possible for short sellers to have legally borrowed more stock than is actually outstanding. There is no evidence that I've seen that they've done so illegally.

Can you explain how it's possible to borrow more stock than is outstanding?
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