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The point about how you couldn't make money on the stock market is that the SEC has tools to catch insider trading? You could as easily say you couldn't hack Tw

The point about how you couldn't make money on the stock market is that the SEC has tools to catch insider trading? You could as easily say you couldn't hack Twitter because the FBI has tools to catch hackers. Many people, hundreds if not thousands, have long positions on Hertz. They may be able to find something suspicious, but not anything that could differentiate you from "I read on wallstreetbets that buying these Hertz calls was a good idea." Especially if you seed your account with a few similar bets first.

AndrewBissell 6y ago
Hundreds of thousands may have long positions on HTZ, but the vast majority are all day trading punters with relatively small positions that wouldn't net all that much money. The intersection of those with large enough positions to yield a large profit and those who perfectly timed their sale at the very peak before the market realized it was a fake rumor would be a lot smaller than you might think.
Sebb767 6y ago
Yes, but for that you first need a lot of money (especially if you're buying other positions as 'cover') and a lot of preparation time (as going deep into puts just before the hack is extremely suspicious). And then you're still in hell, because instead of having a total damage amount of 120k$ plus some vague twitter downtime you now have cost investors millions of dollars and are in the highly illegal territory of stock market manipulation, instead of a rather simple scam with modest damage. Also, saying "I've read that on WSB" is nice, but the FBI is still going to take your equipment for a nice inspection. No fun, I can tell you that.
mrfredward 6y ago
To trade you need to open an account with your name, social security number, address, occupation, and other details. Your broker will have to verify most of these details under federal anti-money laundering regulations. Immediately following the hack, your brokerage will be asked to provide a list of people who traded around the hack and benefited. All of your personal information will be in the hands of the SEC and FBI within a few days, and you will be one of very few people with no trading history who made a million dollars out of no where. Yes, the FBI can do much more with having all your personal and financial information handed directly to them then they can with the IP address of a VPN exit node in a server log. There is no comparison.

AndrewBissell 6y ago

Hundreds of thousands may have long positions on HTZ, but the vast majority are all day trading punters with relatively small positions that wouldn't net all that much money. The intersection of those with large enough positions to yield a large profit and those who perfectly timed their sale at the very peak before the market realized it was a fake rumor would be a lot smaller than you might think.

Sebb767 6y ago

Yes, but for that you first need a lot of money (especially if you're buying other positions as 'cover') and a lot of preparation time (as going deep into puts just before the hack is extremely suspicious). And then you're still in hell, because instead of having a total damage amount of 120k$ plus some vague twitter downtime you now have cost investors millions of dollars and are in the highly illegal territory of stock market manipulation, instead of a rather simple scam with modest damage. Also, saying "I've read that on WSB" is nice, but the FBI is still going to take your equipment for a nice inspection. No fun, I can tell you that.

mrfredward 6y ago

To trade you need to open an account with your name, social security number, address, occupation, and other details. Your broker will have to verify most of these details under federal anti-money laundering regulations. Immediately following the hack, your brokerage will be asked to provide a list of people who traded around the hack and benefited. All of your personal information will be in the hands of the SEC and FBI within a few days, and you will be one of very few people with no trading history who made a million dollars out of no where. Yes, the FBI can do much more with having all your personal and financial information handed directly to them then they can with the IP address of a VPN exit node in a server log. There is no comparison.