The GameStop stock fiasco transparently shows you who runs things

Janet Yellen’s first act as treasury secretary was to obliterate the little guy, simply because her hedge fund masters on Wall St demanded it. She's corrupt to the core.

pauliewalnuts12 wrote:

Redditors did nothing (Legally) wrong with their GameStop shenanigans. They played by the same rules as the hedge funds.

But “institutional” investors who, you know, are professional and prudent and went to top MBA programs, well they actually know what’s going on. Can’t have the little guy pretend he knows how to manipulate a stock.

The fact that Robinhood and other trading apps are blocking trades of GameStock and other stocks shows you who’s really in command (hint - it’s not Reddit)

This country is a joke

I think its pretty clear at this point that not everyone has to play by the same rules.

Wizzdumb wrote:

adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

So now rich capitialists are Democrats and not republicans? When did that happen?

A long time ago. You have been fooled by your corporatist overlords.

Remember folks, corporatism is the road to your beloved socialism/communism... the ultimate corporation.

More like neo-feudalism. 95% of the country owns nothing and lives, eats, and breathes as deemed appropriate by a benevolent feudal overlord.

Harambe wrote:

The real question is... why didn't some hedge funds capitalize on the insane short interest (>130%) before decentralized retail investors did.

They probably did. Well not before but at the same time.

15_50 wrote:

Agreed.

This whole episode highlights that the stock market is and has always been gambling. People want to believe that it's not... that it's investing. It's a big pyramid scheme... always has been.

If you were holding nothing but index funds, i.e. a bit of everything, right now, it would be impossible for you not to be ahead unless you bought them very recently. Counting inflation.

Buy solid stuff and hold it long enough and you'll win. It's "gambling" only the way the casino is "gambling" with its customers - odds are in your favor.

This isn't wallstreet screwing the little guy. This is billionaires going after billionaires. No way did a reddit group comprised primarily of people buying a few hundred dollars worth drive the market up this much.

pauliewalnuts12 wrote:

Redditors did nothing (Legally) wrong with their GameStop shenanigans. They played by the same rules as the hedge funds.

You don't know anything about investing so stop talking. It is illegal to "pump and dump." That is what happened. If the SEC wanted they, along with the FBI, can track down everyone who spread misinformation about Gamestop on Redditt and take all the earnings AND toss them in prison. They might at some point. The only trials will be for those who participated in the pump and dump scheme. Brokers have the legal right to restrict trading on stocks that will lead to cataclysmic losses for their clients. It's been happening for decades.

Wall Street played by the rules. The Redditers, whom I honestly believe are Wall Street traders tricking the sheep like you into losing all their money, are the criminals.

Bad Wigins wrote:

15_50 wrote:

Agreed.

This whole episode highlights that the stock market is and has always been gambling. People want to believe that it's not... that it's investing. It's a big pyramid scheme... always has been.

If you were holding nothing but index funds, i.e. a bit of everything, right now, it would be impossible for you not to be ahead unless you bought them very recently. Counting inflation.

Buy solid stuff and hold it long enough and you'll win. It's "gambling" only the way the casino is "gambling" with its customers - odds are in your favor.

This.

One can invest responsibly or one can gamble, or anything between the two.

I happen to advocate the accepted principal of first taking care of funds set aside for savings, then responsible long term investing, and lastly, after those are satisfied, a small portion for more speculative ventures, which you might call gambling if you prefer.

I hope everyone has been exposed to some fundamental ideas about managing their finances, and if they haven't, they really should.

sbeefyk2 wrote:

You don't know anything about investing so stop talking. It is illegal to "pump and dump." That is what happened. If the SEC wanted they, along with the FBI, can track down everyone who spread misinformation about Gamestop on Redditt and take all the earnings AND toss them in prison. They might at some point. The only trials will be for those who participated in the pump and dump scheme. Brokers have the legal right to restrict trading on stocks that will lead to cataclysmic losses for their clients. It's been happening for decades.

Wall Street played by the rules. The Redditers, whom I honestly believe are Wall Street traders tricking the sheep like you into losing all their money, are the criminals.

It's definitely more complicated than this. You either have to go after tens of thousands of people mostly making small trades in they claim that they all acted in concert or make the claim that a few big traders on the forum are mainly responsible for any manipulation.

Both seem only mildly feasible.

Won't happen. And this POS was one of five

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/politics/richard-burr-stock-trades-investigation.html

Market manipulation is illegal, but everyone does it. When a stock goes from $43 to $469 dollars in less than a week, it is hard to argue with a straight face that it wasn't market manipulation. I guess in this case the argument would be that people are free to bet their money to save a company from short sellers. But driving up the price of a stock to defeat short sellers quacks like and duck and walks like a duck

+++++++++++++++

PR is right. It is only manipulation if you don' t know what game you're playing. If you are thinking you are a market genius and are buying AMC and GME because of their "compelling fundamentals" or "oversold" status you are playing the wrong game and deserve everything that happens.

Robinhood announces it will allow some trading on their mobile app tomorrow on Gamestop and AMC and they bounced somewhat in after hours trading as a result.

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

This is a lot more complex than the apps are trying to protect hedge funds. Also companies like Robin hood know an investigation is coming and the new administration LOVES regulation and any excuse to protect the people is the perfect reason for new regulations. They are trying to protect themselves as well.

It is idiotic to claim this administration LOVES regulation. How would you know this? Has it been in power before?

So capitalism is fine as long as it does not impact you negatively. President Biden already said he is doing nothing about it. Let the mark decide.

sbeefyk2 wrote:

pauliewalnuts12 wrote:

Redditors did nothing (Legally) wrong with their GameStop shenanigans. They played by the same rules as the hedge funds.

You don't know anything about investing so stop talking. It is illegal to "pump and dump." That is what happened. If the SEC wanted they, along with the FBI, can track down everyone who spread misinformation about Gamestop on Redditt and take all the earnings AND toss them in prison. They might at some point. The only trials will be for those who participated in the pump and dump scheme. Brokers have the legal right to restrict trading on stocks that will lead to cataclysmic losses for their clients. It's been happening for decades.

Wall Street played by the rules. The Redditers, whom I honestly believe are Wall Street traders tricking the sheep like you into losing all their money, are the criminals.

For it to be a pump and dump, there needs to be misinformation. What misinformation was spread? Nobody is buying gamestop because of fundamentals or anything. They are buying because they believe market conditions will cause a short squeeze. The people shorting the stock are looking at the same info and coming to a different conclusion. One group was right.

The real winners here are the executives/employees of gamestop. You bet every single one of them is waiting for the trade windows to open so they can dump every vested option/RSU they have.

And the real fun will be the minute people try to sell. At some point enough of the shorts will have covered and people will start taking profits. This thing could go from 300 to 10 bucks in a a couple days. Wait too long and your paper profits will vanish. But there is also a decent chance the stock will double again over the next couple days.

So what happens next?

These redditors turn to crypto? They are already pushing dogecoin today. Will Bitcoin and all these cryptos eventually be regulated too? They’re entirely speculative and not backed by anything.

This is correct. It is not illegal for a bunch of people to get together on reddit to say lets screw the hedge funds and go out and do it. They in no way tried to misrepresent what they are doing. What was illegal was that DB former facebook exec who went on TV saying he had a long position in Gamestop then dumped his shares for a profit. Then had the balls to go back and TV a lecture Wall Street about corruption.

My fear is that this will be used as an excuse for new regulations that will not be helpful to individual investors and will further skew things towards big institutional investors.

But as this bubble unwinds it is going to be extremely messy. Everyone knows this thing is a massive bubble and it's a game of wait and see if you can get someone who is willing to buy it for more because they think someone else will pay even more. Once there are no more buyers it will crash spectacularly. The execs of the company likely have contractual clauses where they must continue to hold their shares while employed or else they would have been out already.

seattle prattle wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

If you were holding nothing but index funds, i.e. a bit of everything, right now, it would be impossible for you not to be ahead unless you bought them very recently. Counting inflation.

Buy solid stuff and hold it long enough and you'll win. It's "gambling" only the way the casino is "gambling" with its customers - odds are in your favor.

This.

One can invest responsibly or one can gamble, or anything between the two.

I happen to advocate the accepted principal of first taking care of funds set aside for savings, then responsible long term investing, and lastly, after those are satisfied, a small portion for more speculative ventures, which you might call gambling if you prefer.

I hope everyone has been exposed to some fundamental ideas about managing their finances, and if they haven't, they really should.

They have convinced you that you are investing responsibly which is why you disagree. Plain and simple it is a zero sum game .... if you make money someone is losing money... that is not investing... it's gambling.

seattle prattle wrote:

Owning stock is no more a gamble than is owning a company.

In fact, they are the same thing.

Both carry risk.

And furthermore, owning stock in a publicly traded company makes you a part owner of that company.

Pawn your nonsense elsewhere.

Maybe this used to be true but not anymore.

Many shares you own are nonvoting -- so you have no say in the management of the company.

Most companies don't pay dividends and never plan to -- so you don't share in profits.

The only time you actually have any direct interaction with the company whose shares you own is 1) if the company is bought for cash 2) if the company liquidates itself.

Granted, these are still very real options, but a lot of the underpinnings of the stock market have been weakened and everything still chugs along as normal.

I'm not saying this is bad, the fractional ownership argument is pretty tenuous nowadays.