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[Closed] Anyone watching the Gamestop/Reddit fandango?

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Thanks for the explanation superficial. Otherwise it seems like it would be all about spite, which wouldn't seem the smartest reason to make an investment! Not that I have any sympathy for hedge fund managers. The video above was helpful too.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 10:35 am
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😆 (for the new richest man in the world post)


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 10:35 am
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So what’s the endgame? Once they get bored and sell their overpriced stock? Jump on the next crazy bandwagon

I'd have thought the [partial] answer to that was obvious..

Bitcoin. Surely a significant proportion of the geeks' profit will go digital currency.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 10:54 am
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Bradley Cooper...its always Bradley Cooper


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 11:24 am
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Surely a significant proportion of the geeks’ profit will go digital currency.

What profit?

They've massively inflated the price of a low value asset mainly because they can. Once they start trying to realise that profit, the share price will crash back down to it's real value. A few who get out early might make a profit but the majority will find they have massively over paid for the stock and will make a loss. The only question is when this happens...


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 11:41 am
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Twice. Reminds me a bit of that weird Volkswagen thing a few years ago. 2008?

That was egregious, there was a false market created in the shares because of Porsche's massive off book interest in the shares. Many people cheered at the time because hedge funds "bad", but what Porsche did would have been against the rules in countries with more developed systems.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 11:44 am
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What trading platforms are you guys using?


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 11:46 am
 edd
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What profit?

They’ve massively inflated the price of a low value asset mainly because they can. Once they start trying to realise that profit, the share price will crash back down to it’s real value. A few who get out early might make a profit but the majority will find they have massively over paid for the stock and will make a loss. The only question is when this happens…

I just typed out something very similar to this...


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 11:51 am
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up over 20% in pre market,


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 11:52 am
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Skyrocketing again in pre-market trading. Are we tipping into the squeeze proper now?


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 11:54 am
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A few who get out early might make a profit but the majority will find they have massively over paid for the stock and will make a loss. The only question is when this happens…

About an hour after the vocal few who've pushed this dump their stock.

It's a variation on pump and dump using people's dislike of hedge funds and the market to drive up a worthless stock in place of false positive statements.

I'll eat my hat off half the people looking to have made a huge chunk on this aren't the very people 99% of small investors think they're betting against.

But maybe I'm too much a cynic.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 12:01 pm
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The people piling in now to push it higher are going to loose a lot of money! You can only suspend reality for so long; the market will correct it eventually.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 12:03 pm
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The people piling in now to push it higher are going to loose a lot of money!

It's possibly new investors, but the idea of the squeeze is you eventually force the Hedge Funders to pile in to sort their positions, and that sends it mental. Went from 450 to 500 while I was typing this.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 12:06 pm
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I'd have thought most of the small HFs have got out, the big ones can probably ride it out as they know it will eventually correct, just a matter of who folds first. The Redditers will loose interest eventually, it's a dull as dishwater stock so unlike, say Tesla, there is no possibility of an upside to this.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 12:07 pm
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the big ones can probably ride it out as they know it will eventually correct
I know sod all about this so very happy to be corrected... Reuters reporting that Melvin Capital (who I guess are pretty big players?) pulled out, with rumoured losses of 30% off their total value, which has got to add up to billions?


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 12:37 pm
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Which was the real goal right?

At this stage there seems to be several goals.
Genuine belief it was worth (a bit) more than it was and so buy shares which has a minor side affect of a tiny hit to some hedge funds.
Some is playing the short squeeze and hope the hedge funds fold first for profit.
Some short squeeze simply to try and hurt the hedge funds.
Some that the bubble is still rising so might as well make a few quid by jumping in and out.
Some that they have seen it on the news.
Some that they saw Musk tweet about it (last time he mentioned Signal chat app a completely unrelated company called signal something else saw a jump in their shares).
Some just as a hobby at the moment.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 1:05 pm
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But it does highlight how broken and corrupted the investments industry is as a whole. Unfortunately it’s still seen as a cornerstone of modern capitalism…

I understand the sentiment of that point but not what the formal accusation is.

Should short selling not be allowed or is it just hedge funds that shouldn't be allowed to do it?

It's long been argued that short-selling performs a necessary function by punishing the overvalued stocks.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 1:25 pm
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with rumoured losses of 30% off their total value, which has got to add up to billions?

Well, whoever owns the stocks right now is going to be almost totally wiped out if they remain long.

It's a very interesting phenomenon; a kind of crowd-sourced vulture fund able to take on the hedge funds by pressing into service Reddit hype and some financial instruments. Who has bought all the overvalued stock though? Hedge funds are out so that just leaves the redditors who arrived late as the marks, right?


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 1:30 pm
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It’s long been argued that short-selling performs a necessary function by punishing the overvalued stocks.

Absolutely the point of the market is to find the 'right' value of assets. That means things can go up in value and also down. Shorting a stock is a perfectly valid thing to do. If the shorter is wrong they loose money, if they are right they make money as the asset genuinely was over valued.

What the Redditors are doing is barking mad, but that's their perogative to spend their money as they see fit ie buying a massively over valued stock. The Hedge Funds knew the rules of the game, this was always a risk.

Shorting is also a benefit to trackers, it helps them keep the fees low as they earn money lending out stocks to people who wish to short them. A tracker has no choice it which stocks it owns, it justs buys in accordance with the proportion in the market its tracking eg FTSE 100 etc.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 1:49 pm
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Who has bought all the overvalued stock though? Hedge funds are out so that just leaves the redditors who arrived late as the marks, right?

The stocks probably come from a Tracker.

The Hedge fund loans the stock and sells it, having agreed to repay the Tracker in shares in the future.

The Hedge fund waits till one of three criteria have been met:
1. The stock has fallen and they can see a big profit
2. The stock has risen and they can't take the (theoretical*) losses
4. Their loan agreement is coming up to the end of its term

At which point they buy the same number of shares they originally loaned and sold and return them to the tracker.

The original owner gets a fee for the loan. The Shorter either makes a profit or loss depending on how the share price did.

* theoretical as they are not realised till they close their position


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 1:57 pm
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Should short selling not be allowed or is it just hedge funds that shouldn’t be allowed to do it?

I think the Hedge Funds argument is that they should be allowed to do it (and make massive amts of money) but “those other people” shouldn’t be.

That pretty much sums it up to me


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:03 pm
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The stocks probably come from a Tracker.

Yeah but the price was paid by the hedge funds to repay the trackers right?

I'm just curious as to how much the Redditors needed to 'bump' up the price before the hedge funds committed this positive-feedback Harakiri loop, or indeed if some of the massively inflated price has been paid by online marks in addition.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:04 pm
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I think the Hedge Funds argument is that they should be allowed to do it (and make massive amts of money) but “those other people” shouldn’t be.

That pretty much sums it up to me

I don't know the particular rules, but in general, there are rules against coordinating actions on the stock market, i.e, institutions aren't supposed to coordinate. It's in the spirit of anti-trust type rules I guess?

The subreddit and online hype are more like a kind of flashmob in my view. It's a kind of organised chaos.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:09 pm
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Well from my point of view shorting sucks. I have shared in the US company I work for and it has been shorted to a lesser degree than GameStop. Ok our results have not been outstanding but the share price has dropped by half since I got them.
To the question above about the end game, simple, greed. And that applies to hedge funds, Reddit forum users and of course yours truly 😂


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:09 pm
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Will be very interesting to see what happens when the market opens, a lot of Redditors were posting they had sells set-up at $420.69 (meme number...) so if it opens above that it could trigger a flurry of sales. Whether that's enough for enough other people to lose their bottle and start dumping I don't know. Whilst that would be the usual thing that would happen to a vastly over-inflated stock, in this case there's supposedly a large volume of short positions due to expire at the end of the month so there's incentive for the Redditors to keep their stock until then (to hit the hedge funds hard).


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:11 pm
 dazh
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Had a phonecall from my sister-in-law yesterday. Apparently our 23 year old nephew has had a lot of money (10s of thousands) in GME and similar stocks for a while and is now a paper millionaire. I hope to god he's sold them now.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:17 pm
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It depends what investments people made. If you had $1000s then you'd get nervous but twitter suggests there are huge numbers of people with small amounts. They'd probably be happy to risk losing $100 just to see what happens.

Given this is now all over the internet I wouldn't be there will also be other people entering the game trying to ride the bubble up.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:17 pm
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there are rules against coordinating actions on the stock market,

yes there are, isn’t it remarkable how a number of Hedge Funds all independently decided to short one particular stock...


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:24 pm
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there are rules against coordinating actions on the stock market,

How do you define coordinated action?

Eg a tipster tips a stock in the Telegraph and Telegraph readers then buy it - is that coordinated action?

Next step, the tipster tips it on the Telegraph online and people on their website forum buy the stock - is that coordinated action?

Someone posts on STW, let's take down Blackrock by bumping a stock...


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:32 pm
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Had a phonecall from my sister-in-law yesterday. Apparently our 23 year old nephew has had a lot of money (10s of thousands) in GME and similar stocks for a while and is now a paper millionaire.
amazing 😀 hopefully he thinks fondly of good old uncle dazh 🤣


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:32 pm
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It’s the combination of shorting allegedly 140% of the number of shares, trying to manipulate the market by consistently talking trash about the company and picking GameStop, a company that for many is somewhat dear to their hearts.

This hedge fund represents the kind of fund that has screwed with many commons people’s life. Hence the sentiment aspect of it.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:35 pm
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Had a phonecall from my sister-in-law yesterday. Apparently our 23 year old nephew has had a lot of money (10s of thousands) in GME and similar stocks for a while and is now a paper millionaire. I hope to god he’s sold them now.

Unless he's a millionaire (which at 23, I doubt), why would he have any money in GME, let alone 10s of thousands? Or does he work there and they are stock options?


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:36 pm
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This hedge fund represents the kind of fund that has screwed with many commons people’s life

But fundamentally, if the company is sound and correctly valued, the short will either fail or be pretty inefective. Shorting only works when the company is genuinely over valued - in which case the shorting process is just speeding up the inevitable.

Does remind people that you should invest in a diversified portfolio, so the loss of any one stock won't make a big difference.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:37 pm
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But fundamentally, if the company is sound and correctly valued, the short will either fail or be pretty inefective. Shorting only works when the company is genuinely over valued – in which case the shorting process is just speeding up the inevitable.

Not saying shorting is bad. What I am saying is that this company represent the overly aggressive and greedy Wall Street types that have screwed with people’s lifes. Or at least that is the perception. Is it correct? I don’t know, however it is hilarious seeing a multi-billion investment banking firm crying out wolf.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:44 pm
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Unless he’s a millionaire (which at 23, I doubt), why would he have any money in GME, let alone 10s of thousands? Or does he work there and they are stock options?

yolo trade based on the year old reddit post, they were a 4 dollar share less than 6 months ago

£10,000 or 2500 shares was worth £867k at close yesterday


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:46 pm
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Gamblers never tell you about their losses. £10k into Gamestop based on a Reddit thread either means you're too wealthy to care or reckless.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:56 pm
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But fundamentally, if the company is sound and correctly valued, the short will either fail or be pretty inefective

but fundamentally Hedge funds should be allowed to say; create fake outages in a states power infrastructure to bump an energy company’s stocks, or drive a country’s (see Puerto Rico) debt obligations and collapse its govt; those are cool, right?


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:56 pm
 dazh
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£10,000 or 2500 shares was worth £867k at close yesterday

Yup that's exactly what's happened. He originally invested 10k from savings in various things and did quite well. Then he came across the GME thing very early on and took a punt. Now (assuming he's got out) he's setup for life. Lucky boy.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 2:57 pm
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How do you have £10k savings at 23?


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 3:02 pm
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How do you have £10k savings at 23?

Inheritance, normally. Or working hard, living rent-free at home, and no C&H.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 3:04 pm
 dazh
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How do you have £10k savings at 23?

Trust fund (yeah yeah I know!), not all young people are skint. He had a lot more than that but only used 10k to have a play on the stock market apparently.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 3:06 pm
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Or, living at home and much C&H, but from a supplier point of view.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 3:06 pm
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How do you have £10k savings at 23?

Inheritance? Previous dabbling in the market?

I had a bit more than that at that age. When I was 24 I stuck over 40k of my savings into investments thanks to a few rather good years and not paying rent (lived in a shed in my folks garden for six years).
Unfortunately I wasn't aware of GameStop a few months back.


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 3:09 pm
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Just took a look at GME on T212:

In the interests of mitigating risk for our clients, we have temporarily placed GameStop in reduce-only mode as highly unusual volumes have led to an unprecedented market environment. New positions cannot be opened, existing ones can be reduced or closed.

Beautiful eh?

Should the platforms be allowed to do that, effectively try and force people to sell?
That's got to be rigging the game?


 
Posted : 28/01/2021 3:10 pm
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