Offtopic but epic GameStop short squeeze is truly fucking epic. Can’t wait to see how it pans out.

One of my kids was talking about it last week. He explained that he had got some stock tips on Reddit, I told him it sounded like a pump and dump scheme and he should stay well away. He didn't listen to me. Got in at 40 and out at 150 last night...

Apparently there are still a lot of shorts so it could go even higher again tonight. I think it will all end in tears for the bulls eventually but sounds like a lot of fun.

An XXL hedge fund called Melvin Capital took a giant short position and is now scrambling to stay afloat, having lost a couple of billion dollars. Kind of funny to think a bunch of reddit lollers were the cause.

The GameStop lols just continued today. Good roundup of the situation here for those interested.

It's amazing stuff. I've been following it for a while now. Kinda sad I don't have the means to be a part of it. Looks incredible.

Reached beyond $200 after hours today after Elon Musk tweeted.

Melvin is going down, as there's more shorted than what is in circulation.

A lot of retail investors are going to get rich.

long story short: Melvin and other hedge funds borrow the stock, sell it, then wait for the price to drop to buy it back then return the stock to the owner. If the price goes up during that time, they're forced to buy it back for more than what they sold it for. Which is happening in the billions.

OMG that's beautiful.

edit: I guess that's why the crypto markets are so sluggish today, all the disposable cash in the world is going to GME right now.

reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6c5tg/just_read_a_new_york_times_article_saying_the_sec/

~90k upvotes in 2 hours.

Just saw on Fin Twit:

"GameStop just stopped the game."

What more proof does one need that value investing is beyond dead (and therefore shorting stocks is also a losing strategy).

Hertz
Blockbuster
Kodak
Gamestop

Companies that are literally liquidating are pumping. And finally they are talking about it on mainstream news. Even Biden press conference made a comment that they have their eye on it.

At first I was amused, then fascinated, and I am preparing for sadness. This is a virtual Tianenmen Square or Arab Spring except instead of Chinese kids angry at the government or Muslim kids angry at the job market it's /r/wallstreetbets retards angry at the stock market. And the system's not going to let them win, and they're going to be crushed.

Yes, this. They MIGHT crush one hedge fund on the way (expect bail-outs...) and the WSB trolls that blink just before then will make a tonne, but I expect quite a few people's retirement funds to vaporise by end of Friday when the hedge fund options come due for repayment.

Yeah - looking at my offshore vs kiwi splits, I might have to hedge into cash funds for a bit, otherwise the gains I made post Covid to recover from the drop will all be for nought.

Short selling has always annoyed me, and I find it hard to believe that its legal.

/r/wallstreetbets has gone private.

The genie's out the bottle tho. Now there's arms race. A lot of people who are unhappy how the rich minority leverage these systems against everyone else.

When those with the power to change it are the ones benefiting from the way things are, nothing will change.

Wait - isn't this the premise for Trading Places - where it was Pork Bellies and Orange Juice rather than Gamestop and AMC?

Back already. I guess they were just having a regroup.

More Fin Twitter gems:
and more:

Reading WSB the past couple of days... a lot of the posters who say they're holding aren't doing it for the lulz, they're young people burning with anger that the system is stacked against them and they're desperate to make someone old and rich pay.

It's pretty hard to have any sympathy for hedge funds like Melvin that engage in predatory short-selling to basically just flatten struggling companies like GameStop (with 40K+ employees) for massive profit.

what a day.

and the narrative machine is in full swing:
-WaPo comparing WSB redditors to "Trump supporters"
-Mashable defend Discord channel pulled because "hate speech"
-CNBC spent all day crying that WSB people couldn't possibly be as sophisticated as hedge fund analysts. oh and think of the poor retail investors who are going to get hurt!

who can believe their bullshit?

It's like the narrative arc of a slave rebellion/Spartacus/Hunger Games/casino story. You're cheering for them, but you know that at some point in Act 3 a sad mentor figure is going to give the "you had a good run, but you didn't seriously think they were going to let you win, did you? the system is the system and it was built for them, not for you" speech.

CNN

Shorting stocks and driving businesses into bankruptcy is perfectly normal nothing to see here and did we mention that Reddit is the home of the most ardent Trump supporters

fuck em.

2011: Occupy Wall Street
2021: Liquidate Wall Street

The shit could really hit the fan if WSB realises they can collectively move certain commodity prices more easily than these stocks.

They have a taste for blood so anything can happen so long as a billion dollar hedge fund gets hurt. A lot of the WSB stories are from growing up during 2008 GFC and watching bankers get bailed out while the country got fucked. It's personal.

example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetb...c_boomers_and/

Is it worth splitting the WSB/$GME to a separate thread rather than a tech thread?

incredible.

Robinhood app put a trading halt in place. Now CNBC will have to spin this as "Looking out for the little guys." And will have to address how Robinhood sells order books to Wall Street so they can frontrun retail.

They may as well make it illegal for plebs to trade, and illegal to communicate on the internet.

Citadel is a hedge fund that owns Melvin. It's Melvin that is losing a lot of wealth in these moves.

Guess who owns the Robinhood app?

Citadel has rigged the game from the start. Checkmate, retail traders.

"If the service is free, you are the product."

Jeez I'm tempted to buy a share of GME just as a gesture of solidarity.

https://americancompass.org/the-comm...ionally-dying/

Class action lawsuit against Robinhood now.

/r/wallstreetbets draining the swamp!

yep

That was an awesome read, cheers Jonas

Sums up the psyche of WSB quite well doesn't it

It links with crypto in many ways, but yes, deserves it's own thread. Lots of mentions of Bitcoin and Silver.

Bankless Podcast on the events thusfar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYi5pvNMW8s

Crazy info coming in that Robinhood has sold trader's positions on their behalf! Heads need to roll.

Given that I heard Citadel own Robinhood, this is less than surprising.