13 ms·

The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets

173 points by jsonne 6y ago

logicslave 6y ago
Wall street bets is just exposing the facade of wallstreet. As more information about investing becomes available, hedge funds and investors will look increasingly less sophisticated. Platforms like Robinhood will erode their edge by increasing liquidity, lowering transaction costs, and providing access to more exotic investments and financial derivatives.
- gchokov 6y ago
  Non sense.
  - brodouevencode 6y ago
    How so?
  - ThisIsTheWay 6y ago
    > Non sense. Really great contribution there, appreciate you sharing your thoughts and furthering the conversation. What LogicSlave said is dead on accurate. Lowering the barrier to market entry has empowered millions of people to make their money work for them. Is some of it unhealthy? Absolutely. But not all gamblers are addicts, and its not all counter-productive either. The downside is that many are jumping in without fully understanding the risks, but in my opinion, the best way to learn the game is to play. Investopedia fantasy portfolios are a risk free way to try it out, but those have been around for decades and few people use it as an opportunity to learn the market.
    - seabird 6y ago
      There's nothing nonsense about it. These big firms have billions on the line and are interested in protecting it. WSB is a comedy outlet where active posters are at least in the high end of hobbyist traders, and they realized that some very greedy short selling left an opening for a decent buck. The vast majority of Robinhood's userbase couldn't even come close to explaining to you the mechanism through which this happened, let alone know when it's happening elsewhere and how to enter and exit. Nobody there has any delusions that they would be able to take on a large firm if the large firm was able to hit back. Markets and the choices you make them in can be incredibly complex. Most people don't have the time and drive to deal with that, no matter how much you "democratize" the technology.
      - ThisIsTheWay 6y ago
        > Markets and the choices you make them in can be incredibly complex. Most people don't have the time and drive to deal with that, no matter how much you "democratize" the technology. Fully agreed here. My point wasn't to say that people are taking on Wall St. and getting rich quick by developing a deep understanding the mechanizations of the market. But you don't have to understand a gamma squeeze to make money. In the past, brokers were a luxury only the wealthy could afford, and I think it's a great thing that that is no longer the case.
    - greenonions 6y ago
      Also, I think it's overlooked how much of the banter on wallstreetbets does not necessarily dictate how participants invest. There are probably many people who read, joke, and occasionally make a risky investment, but who otherwise maintain a relatively conservative portfolio. Wallstreetbets is just the most entertaining way to casually pick up knowledge on the subject.
- 1996 6y ago
  I work in finance and I agree so much with everything you wrote!
- ViVr 6y ago
  Max Keiser sure agrees that Wall Street is rampant with fraudulent practices. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2euIWm6Ch4&t=1m15s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2euIWm6Ch4&t=1m15s
- cbozeman 6y ago
  This is what's really pissing off a lot of people who think they're "somebodies" in the finance world. A bunch of people who didn't attend Columbia, Harvard, and Yale Business Schools are using a fucking phone app to do what only they used to be able to do - manipulate the market. And its pissing them off. For decades, these arrogant little shits were told they were the Masters of the Universe. Now they're finding out firsthand that it just ain't so, and their egos can't handle it.
  - tiziniano 6y ago
    What is this fantasy? revenge porn fanfic?
    - cbozeman 6y ago
      A hedge fund with $12.5 billion in assets lost so much money that two other hedge funds had to step in and save it with a capital injection of $2.75 billion. You tell me.
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  >and providing access to more exotic investments and financial derivatives. People having access to exotic investments they didn't understand (and hence couldn't correctly price) was exactly how we got 2008. Wall Street benefits from volatility and all of this trading, they aren't losing any edge.
  - ThisIsTheWay 6y ago
    People - and here I mean the average person, not the ultrawealthy - were conned into buying things they couldn't afford, not exotic investments. Assuming the exotic investments you're talking about were the various derivatives markets propped up by bullshit, that was massive corporations making investments and taking on risk they didn't even understand. Unfortunately, the fallout impacted average people who weren't even directly involved.
- tiziniano 6y ago
  Lo, n behold, yet another example of the average American obsession with "looks".
koolk3ychain 6y ago
I don't understand why people think /r/wallstreetbets is really that interesting or provides insight into actual wall street? Anyone who knows anything about actual options trading / building strategies knows these people are idiots. Sure, there's a lot of money flowing around - but most people don't realize that to many $60k is pocket change.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- roland35 6y ago
  There is always an alure of outsmarting everyone and getting rich quick.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    How can you be outsmarting people when you're just taking public advice from random people on the Internet? Unless you're the guy posting the "hot tips" that you just happened to buy a bunch of shares in a few minutes ago hoping that the sheep will push up the price for a moment.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      Eppur si muove
  - devoutsalsa 6y ago
    It’s also very easy to think you’ve found easy money. When I first heard about options, I was super excited about how I could make money if a stock went up or down. It was less obvious that you can lose 100% of your money if the stock fails to move much at all. Thankfully I did my homework and didn’t get too wrapped up in option trading.
  - koolk3ychain 6y ago
    Albeit, it's incredibly entertaining - however anyone who things any of it is "real information" who doesn't have pre-existing professional experience is a moron. Unless you're already a professional I highly doubt anyone can cut through the noise to signal ratio.
tyleo 6y ago
Here is some useful context for this article about recent behavior from members of wallstreetbets: https://www.wired.com/story/gamestop-stock-wall-street-bets-short-squeeze/ https://www.wired.com/story/gamestop-stock-wall-street-bets-... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-22/gamestop-tug-of-war-gives-reddit-army-a-win-on-record-volatility https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-22/gamestop-...
- jsonne 6y ago
  This Bloomberg article actually inspired me to write this and provide additional context on the "why" this place even exists in the first place.
  - tyleo 6y ago
    It may be useful to link from within your article so readers know what you are responding to.
    - jsonne 6y ago
      Good idea. I'll do a quick ninja update.
      - dvtrn 6y ago
        How did you come to the “autism” conclusion, was that meant to be read clinically?
        dwohnitmok 6y ago
        The author is basically quoting the community here rather than actually diagnosing anyone with autism. The subreddit usually calls themselves some variation of "autist," "autistic," or "retard."
        dvtrn 6y ago
        Pretty gross, but thanks for the clarification.
notananthem 6y ago
This is a poorly written article trying to time a large economic exploitative event. WSB is, genuinely, pretty dumb but they actually advocate normal positions like index holdings, and only trading on "moonshots" with a very small % of portfolio. Their offensive language and such is a product of being on Reddit though.
- launch_queue 6y ago
  I think the author was right that its 4chan language. I wouldn't say its a product of being on Reddit. Besides /r/the_donald and /r/wallstreetbets/, I've only ever seen that kind of language on 4chan-specific subreddits like /r/greentext and /r/4chan.
  - jsonne 6y ago
    Some of the gun subreddits mimic this language as well. Particularly weekendgunnit before they went off platform.
davidw 6y ago
I don't know anything about WSB, but how does: > It’s a bunch of autistic losers that live in their mom’s basement who are gambling what little money they have to try and become rich to live lifestyles of hedonism square with "These people were involved in very meaningfully moving a stock price around" ?
- whymauri 6y ago
  It's the same paradox as 4chan /b/ and /pol/ influencing real-world events despite similar stereotypes about the userbase. And /r/wsb is, after all, if 4chan found a Bloomberg Terminal.
  - jsonne 6y ago
    You get it.
  - imesh 6y ago
    The biggest /b/tard I knew growing up now works at a bank and actually has had multiple large windfalls from bitcoin,TSLA stocks and Pokemon cards.
- jsonne 6y ago
  The former is how they view themselves in a tongue and cheek fashion. The latter has more to do with how much the community has grown and how many people this community apparently resonates with.
  - brodouevencode 6y ago
    > Degenerate gamblers Well, they apparently do move markets. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen and there's no telling what sort of action the SEC will take to curtail this. IMO all it will take is one bad day to have something happen. But wsb does understand one thing: the barriers to entry are artificially there - it doesn't take a quant with an MIT education to make and lose money.
    - 6y ago
29athrowaway 6y ago
Imagine a subreddit called "roulettebets". Someone posts: 36x gain!!!1 And then someone posts: I lost everything. Should that be a motivation to spend all your money playing roulette?
- jsonne 6y ago
  If you don't have enough money to pay your rent but winning means getting a Ferrari then yes. Losing means nothing and winning is everything. At least that's the point I was trying to make.
  - chasebank 6y ago
    You're literally describing gambling. I watch people drop entire paychecks on scratchers at the local liquor store every week in hopes of a new mustang. If I head up north to the Chumash Casino, I'll find hundreds playing Keno with their entire lifesavings trying to win it big. WSB's is no different. Hell, it's even in the name of the sub! Also, although WSB has had some affect on the GME squeeze, it was originally identified by no other than Michael Burry, the guy from the movie the Big Short. He's been in the GME game long before the reddit army joined in. [1]https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190819005633/en/ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190819005633/en/
  - 29athrowaway 6y ago
    That is not the case in WSB. Many of them gamble with amounts well beyond their bankroll, which is not possible with most casino games.
    - chasebank 6y ago
      No, they're just leveraged beyond their bankroll. Any broker will have a backend stop-loss and force margin call them before the broker lets the client go negative.
- fullshark 6y ago
  The guy that lost everything clearly didn't know what they were doing. I can recreate the 36x gain based on a deep dive analysis.
ookblah 6y ago
uh, there's way too much analysis here lol. at it's core it's a fun distraction and people are gamblers. it's no different than fantasy football or going to your local casino. there's a big subset there that is obviously cash strapped and desperate. there are also people there with 6-7 figure net worths that are just passing the time. the DD is actually "okay" once you cut thru the lingo and I'd be willing to bet most people learn a lot about market mentality with trial by fire. short squeeze ain't over btw
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > at it's core it's a fun distraction and people are gamblers. it's no different than fantasy football or going to your local casino I think the cultural links with 4chan are interesting and non-obvious to someone who didn't grow up knowing about those sorts of communities.
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  There's a lot of analysis to do on people at a casino as well, and I expect there's actually a significant demographic difference between them and r/wsb. Fantasy sports probably has a closer profile. And there is a LOT of money to be made analysing why people who like gambling do one type or another.
- aynyc 6y ago
  Well, you can't really change the odds or outcome of fantasy footballs or casinos. But at WSB, with enough retards (WSB terms), they can change the outcome.
  - quineoa 6y ago
    Is it necessary to replicate the insensitive language here? I suppose the point could have come across without adopting the WSB usage in the same way.
    - fuzzer37 6y ago
      It's on a post directly referencing the /r/WSB board. I don't think it's out of character to use their language.
some_furry 6y ago
> It’s a bunch of autistic losers Gross. How has this not been flagkilled for ableism yet?
- hervature 6y ago
  You probably shouldn't go to r/wallstreetbets, people there call each other that among many other slurs.
- seanyesmunt 6y ago
  That is how r/wallstreetbets users refer to themselves.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  It is describing the presented public image of r/WSB. The next paragraph makes it clear that this is intended by r/WSB to be humor. I personally don't think that an article reporting on offensive humor should itself be flagkilled.
- jsonne 6y ago
  "I also don't agree with the Wallstreetbets culture. I'm just trying to explain it."
  - some_furry 6y ago
    You can explain it without calling people "autistic losers". Just "losers" is sufficient.
    - derision 6y ago
      It's not sufficient, because the culture of WSB is such that they refer to themselves as autists. To not use the term would be an inaccurate description
      - some_furry 6y ago
        You don't have to use the same language as the people you're talking about. See, for example, ThoughtSlime's coverage of fascist militias. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZMWQDvZQZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZMWQDvZQZs
bjt2n3904 6y ago
Boy, I'm only a fraction of the way through this article. What a fantastic piece. Nietzsche is a frightening author, but I think what he writes is the logical conclusion of what we've done by championing existentialism. "The end doesn't matter, the true meaning is the friends we make along the way." WSB is taking that and running with it.
- Bakary 6y ago
  Even before existentialism was formulated people behaved in such a way. They always have. What we think of as modern day absurdity or boldness is nothing new
geoman123 6y ago
you can still get in on GME dude no need to be salty. to the moooon :rocket: :rocket: :rocket:
klodolph 6y ago
I think half the story here is not just the role of r/wallstreetbets but also the curious phenomenon of shows like Mad Money and their decline. My general take on these shows is that you get a bunch of men in their 30s, put them in a gym where the blood is flowing and they’re thinking about how their life compares, and put a TV in front of them with stock advice. Bam! Manipulation. If you had a short position and a TV show, wouldn’t you want to convince other people that your short position is correct? And if you could mobilize more people to take a long position, couldn’t you make money that way, too?
jandrese 6y ago
I always read /r/wallstreetbets as /r/pumpanddump. I'm not surprised but disappointed that people go there for actual investment advice.
curiousllama 6y ago
WSB is hilarious. It’s also such a place of sadness. Taking credit card advances to YOLO into short-dated OTM call options is drug-addict level desperation. People joke about YOLOing their inheritance - and I suspect there’s some reality to it. Their parents’ entire life’s wealth can’t dig them out of whatever hole their in. The CNBC guys freaking out is incredible. Their Cramer feud is gold. But... this trend is different than people picking random internet stocks in the 90s. It’s desperate.
- aaahayatav 6y ago
  I highly suspect the reason for this is because there is less income security for the young generation in 2021 compared to 1999. In 1999, people under 40 were gambling large sums that, if lost, could be made back through x months of work. In 2021, people under 40 are gambling any random ad hoc payment they receive in the attempt of calling it a career. The reason? 10% of our country have great jobs, and the rest have none. That is a result of policy.
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    The median bottom quintile of incomes is higher today in real terms than is was in the 1990s, and the median income is higher as well. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      And yet, education, healthcare, and housing raced away from wages. I'm not here to argue a failed economic system in this thread, but the motivation behind wsb's nihilism is exceptionally clear. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-live-with-their-parents-for-the-first-time-since-the-great-depression/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-... (A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression) https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-reason-most-americans-file-for-bankruptcy.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-reason-most... (66% of bankruptcies are tied to medical issues) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/great-affordability-crisis-breaking-america/606046/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/great-affo... (The Great Affordability Crisis Breaking America)
supernova87a 6y ago
It just doesn't add up to me. If you take Gamestop (GME) today's hot item, it's trading 170M shares back and forth, at say, $70. That's $11B sloshing back and forth. You're telling me 10,000 (if even?) guys sitting at home doing retail trading have $1M each in positions driving this? 100,000 people with $100,000 each, during the day? I think it's quant and algorithmic trading. I would love to hear from an expert though.
- curiousllama 6y ago
  It’s not 11B sloshing. It’s probably 1% of that, if that. Market cap > available shares Available shares > traded shares Traded shares > actual $ involved
  - supernova87a 6y ago
    What do you mean? Today's traded volume is 170M shares. The price is $80. $13-14B has to change hands to settle that.
    - intpx 6y ago
      if i give you a dollar and you give it back to me 7 billion times, 14 billion in volume occurred with $1. some percentage of this is tomfoolery that triggers cascades in the HFT space and create a lot of volume without much sound.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      Alternatively, 1 stock could be traded back and forth 170 million times if two parties have each have $80 in capital.
- umvi 6y ago
  > I think it's quant and algorithmic trading. Yeah, I wonder if ML-driven investing is being tricked by reddit into buying stock in failing companies and causing a runaway effect. If so, it makes me nervous that lots of stocks might be massively over-inflated right now.
vorpalhex 6y ago
This post is a great tutorial in why we shouldn't derive meaning from expressed language. Imagine if you sat in a room of software engineers and tried to make conclusions about their life views based on their jargon: "I think what they're saying is you just need to form a single value store and react to it, dividing life into small composable micro components that are DRY. We can really comprehend how this minimalism impacts engineers..." Language like WSB uses is meant to frustrate outsiders and limit posers. It makes it hard for the media to reprint things that are said, and even if it does, it would be nonsense. That's intentional. And yes, there's double meanings and jokes to some of this language. Many WSB'ers comprehend the gambling-esque nature of what they do, and how many of their strategies aren't traditionally recommended.
- curiousllama 6y ago
  “Computers are haunted never go near them” - every SWE I know
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks is a wonderfully funny essay on the topic.
  - vsareto 6y ago
    The alternate title to Ghost in the Shell
- nostromo 6y ago
  This comment reads like a "they're really playing 4-dimensional chess" moment. There are definitely some smart people on wsb, but I very much doubt the use of silly language (like, say, calling bears "gay bears") is anything other than users being intentionally ridiculous and funny.
  - brodouevencode 6y ago
    $420.69
draw_down 6y ago
Whatever "nihilism" WSB exhibits is as nothing compared to Wall Street and the securities/finance industry overall. It's almost laughable to talk about, I'd say. They're like a dog chasing its tail. It's a mistake to take them more seriously than they're taking themselves.
ralph84 6y ago
With interest rates at 0% and a quarter of all US dollars in existence having been created in the last year, there is no other choice besides speculation to have any hope of getting ahead. Policymakers have made quite clear that "work hard, save money" is a suckers bet.
- baq 6y ago
  the memes about the money printer were pure gold - and totally right given the madness of the past couple weeks.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  have they? my meme positions have barely broken even this year, while the S&P 500 is up ~19% over the same time period. working hard and investing the bulk of my savings in broad market ETFs is working quite well for me so far.
  - screye 6y ago
    > while the S&P 500 is up ~19% over the same time period Which reinforces WSB's claim of the market having no grounding in reality.
  - filoleg 6y ago
    This is just your own sample not representative of the overall picture (not claiming that mine is representative either). Out of my group of friends that I talk to almost every day and bet on "meme positions" (all fairly similar to each other in terms of which positions we pick), it is all over the place. Just for this year alone: One person in a significant negative this year. One with a small negative. One with 45%+. One with 77%+. One with 110%+. One with 247%+. It is less about which specific "meme positions" you enter, but when you enter them and when you exit them. As well as predicting certain "meme positions" before they show up on WSB, but that one had a very small effect on our portfolios, given it is something really difficult to predict correctly. And mine you, none of us went full yolo wsb-style. None of us bet our life savings, we were just betting fairly consistently and on a lot of different things. And even the highest gainers never went full yolo and dropped more than 5-7% of their portfolio on their biggest bets
simpixelated 6y ago
Pretty good analysis, but I don't know if I agree with some of the final lines. Hard to see this as a "Molotov cocktail through the front window of the country and the global financial system". I mean they are literally playing by the rules of the financial system. This isn't Occupy Wall Street, or anything close to that. Sure, I get that they will declare bankruptcy and move on, but ultimately the major players of the global financial system are happy if people are buying stocks, win or lose.
- jsonne 6y ago
  Mostly a fringe benefit I think or some sort of minor act of rebellion against the system they feel screwed them over rather than some sort of organized protest like Occupy.
ve55 6y ago
Here's a screenshot of Gamestop's ($GME) price across its entire existence , which I took near the peak today: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsluAdAXAAA_m9H?format=png&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsluAdAXAAA_m9H?format=png&name=... WSB (r/Wallstreetbets) is basically just an ultra-popular subreddit for gambling via buying options on stocks, which allow you to significantly increase your risk for potentially insane returns (feasible chances at 100-500%+ returns, but also a great chance you will literally go broke). This style of gambling is very easy to do and requires nothing more than a phone app for a brokerage (most commonly Robinhood) and a little cash (a few hundred dollars is definitely enough for some fun), with many users having little prior investing experience or knowledge. It's also much more fun to do in groups and to brag about on the Internet, as most things are. Although many of the users have a lot of fun doing this, I'd personally estimate it has so far caused more than ten suicides, perhaps significantly more. I don't have a source for this aside from the number of subscribers (2,000,000) multiplied by an approximate amount of how many experience gambler's ruin at some point (..a lot, even many lucky ones), multiplied by a very low suicide success rate for some people who are hit particularly hard by losing money they've worked and saved for for years or decades. Having been near people gambling in one way or another for many years, it's difficult to state the amount of pain that someone can experience from abrupt financial losses, but we have had confirmed suicides from something as 'minor' as a glitch showing a user they had lost much more than they actually had (QA literally saves lives!): https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/06/17/20-year-old-robinhood-customer-dies-by-suicide-after-seeing-a-730000-negative-balance/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/06/17/20-y... Coupling this with the current scenario of our market (very high volatility and strong upwards momentum in sectors anywhere from tech to IPOs to SPACs to cryptocurrencies) we are living in some interesting times. Investing has felt increasingly more like a casino to me over the last few years, and it seems to be entering its final phase at this point: you may want to avoid the casino, but the casino has become quite efficient at making this very hard to do, expanding its reach until you somehow find yourself surrounded by slot machines and lottery ticket winners. With popular stocks from FANG to Tesla having doubled or even 10-20X'd investors' money within months, you will be hard-pressed to keep yourself on the safe side of the gambling<->investing dichotomy. I'm not sure exactly where this ends up, besides, well, exactly where we are right now: more and more speculation, gambling, and volatility. Whether we will enter a 'single' bubble and eventually crash or just maintain this higher-risk chaotic state is of course, not predictable by me (and even if I could could predict bubbles, it is useless without precise and accurate timing predictions), but I must admit I've found myself falling into higher and higher risk 'investing' as well, especially as I found myself growing bored during covid lockdowns. I do think we will see some changes from the SEC at some point to try to curb this as well (also very interested in what they will do with WSB at some point, if anything), but those that want to gamble will always find ways to do so, so it may be futile. All I can say for certain is that you should be careful and to repeat the old adage of never investing what you cannot afford to lose, but both financially and emotionally.
boringg 6y ago
Interesting take - especially the tie in to other internet culture. I think it might be a bit over analysis and a lot of people just effing around (people actively taking advantage) enjoying the ridiculousness/oneupmanship of the subreddit thread. I would say that the thread rewards ridiculous behavior by the upvote dopamine loop (small but some level of street cred in the subreddit). I also wonder how many institutional investors now have algorithms developed or at least monitor this thread.
CivBase 6y ago
Sounds to me like r/WSB is just a community of high stakes gamblers dressed up in memes and internet culture.
xwdv 6y ago
I understand the nihilism. When you start earning vast sums of money very quickly, and see other people do the same, you start getting a sense that money isn’t really worth working all that hard for. I’ve been making about 5k or 6k a week regularly this past year in the stock market with little effort, through stock appreciation and selling options. It definitely makes me feel less motivated to do my job, but the one thing that keeps me going is that I know this situation is not forever and the market goes through feast and famine cycles, so I need to maintain a job. But certainly nothing more ambitious than that, I have no plans to ascend into management or whatever bullshit that has me taking more work and responsibility for slightly more pay. Once I have a resilient source of passive income I’m off to be a gentleman hacker. Working hard for money is a waste of life.
- jsonne 6y ago
  This is certainly part of it too and something I wish I expanded on more. When you can make so much money without really doing much hard work can seem like a suckers game.
  - xwdv 6y ago
    It is actually a bit depressing. Society looks up to people who make a lot of money through hard work, but a person who makes a lot of money with little effort is kind of seen as a lazy douche, only looked up to by people who also want to make fast effortless money (r/wallstreetbets). But what really crushes me is people who work a lot harder than me and make a lot less money. I dated a younger girl recently who worked hard every week while also finishing her university courses. She prided herself on being a hard worker and assumes I work hard too since I make a lot of money. But the truth is I can make what she makes in a week by selling a couple option contracts while on my phone taking a dump. To me it pretty much feels like she’s a slave. All that youth being wasted chasing small amounts of money. Of course, I would never want to give up my income stream just to feel better.
- razius 6y ago
  That's way off mark, it's actually the opposite. It's people earning 7.25 per hour that are desperate.
somacore 6y ago
"It’s a bunch of autistic losers that live in their mom’s basement who are gambling what little money they have to try and become rich to live lifestyles of hedonism." Clearly written by someone who has never interacted with the community beyond reading the sidebar on reddit. Also explains why the rest of the article is mostly wrong.
- joezydeco 6y ago
  I don't agree. The sentence before that one changes the context: "The basic surface-level story of WSB is this." The author is trying to explain that this is how the majority of the world sees the group, but the reality is different.
  - baq 6y ago
    more like 'what the group pretends to be to have fun losing money'
- 0x008 6y ago
  It's a terribly judgemental article.
undefined1 6y ago
Generational warfare waged via Robinhood. The video and comments here sum up a lot of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l1u036/wsb_gets_emotional_on_mad_money/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l1u036/wsb_...
- safog 6y ago
  Along this note, the new generational warfare is Gen Z vs Millenials. Gen Z posters are mostly tired of the millenial narrative of boo-hoo the system is rigged, I'm so poor, why won't someone give me free stuff and it's a meme to make fun of millenials on TikTok for saying this. I wonder how it'll go for them given they're mostly still in college / high school but we shall see. They've mostly graduated into a booming economy, got well paying jobs just as they graduated but that might all change in the next few years. I for one am pretty tired of all the doom and gloom inequality nonsense all the time. I did everything right and am not successful story doesn't resonate with me at all for one. Most people who went to college and chose a standard, decent major (business, law, medicine, engineering) are doing pretty well for themselves. Yes we had 2008 and things really sucked just as we were graduating, but so what? Lots of people (including me) have dug ourselves out of that deep career hole. Don't blame rich people for your nonexistent career. Even if you took away all of Jeff Bezos' wealth and wiped out college loans, the career you've built for yourself doesn't change.
  - interstice 6y ago
    There's a bit of survivorship bias in this response, some eras are a lot less forgiving than others. It would be disingenuous to claim that hard work is the only factor for success.
    - safog 6y ago
      Yeah that's fair. I think I need some concrete data before making statements like these - In absolute numbers, Millenials haven't been hitting the financial milestones that their parents did (incomes, home ownership %, retirement savings etc.). If that's worth the non stop complaining, I have to figure out.
virmundi 6y ago
I love WSB. Up 200% on GME, 240% NIO, 60% on Carnival Cruise. They have decent insight when you learn their lingo. They also admit this is gambling. Current GME argument. A short squeeze will come around April. Long term the guy that fixed Chewy is going to take over. It will become a good company again. However between those two sentences is a gap where the stock will go back down to 5-10. Current theory: ride the fucker to 300-500 like VW when it was short squeezed. Get out while there are still bag holders. Get back in later.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  I’d be surprised if there are any shorters left right now. Probably all got margin called and forced to exit. VW’s squeeze was different as it turned out their parent was holding almost all the shares. There was only one seller left.
  - virmundi 6y ago
    Valid point. People in WSB are tracking shorts. Haven’t heard them call for bailing. Could be they just want to beat up the boomers. Here is a discussion on why they think it will go up. https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l4tu4r/why_im_holding_gme_and_why_you_should_too/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l4tu4r/why_...
    - Scoundreller 6y ago
      Dunno how they're doing it. Thinking aloud, it's not the easiest thing to calculate. You can can short a stock and acquire it right after without closing the two net-zero positions. Why? To mess with short interest calculations. You do lose trading fees and spreads whenever you do it. Then you have all of the options going around.
hamolton 6y ago
It seems like a lot of WSB stock runs are amplified by automated trading strategies. Between the information that hedge funds get from Robinhood and the feeds I'm sure they might have from Reddit, they should have good visibility on the trends of these retail investors.
bern4444 6y ago
money printer goes brrr, stonks go up Obviously there's a lot more to WSB, but the memes and videos they produce (on the above statemenet for example) are fun and descently accurate given the community
cwhiz 6y ago
As opposed to the “professionals” who short a company and then work to ruin the company so their bet pays off. No no. It’s the WSB crowd that is the nihilists.
notJim 6y ago
"Most of these people are in hopeless debt with no clear path out anyway" I really really think this misreads who is trading on WSB, especially who are making big trades. There was a thread the other day of someone maxing out his credit cards to buy GME, and the comments were full of people calling him an idiot (albeit a lucky one), and imploring others not to do the same. If you read the comments on any big YOLO post, you'll see people pressing the person about their job or their portfolio, and you'll find out they're already very wealthy, or working in a highly paid job. Or they started small and have made a number of good bets that ratcheted them up. I think instead what has happened is that nihilistic language has become the currency of authenticity. It's honestly not that cool to be an option trader or Wall Street guy, but by using this nihilistic language, you get some of that back. There is interesting analysis to be done about that, though I think it honestly leads back to some of the same conclusions found in this article, but at a different level.
- scruple 6y ago
  Case in point... The reddit user (u/DEEPFUCKINGVALUE) with the largest (publicly proven) gains in the recent GME episode seeded their position with over $750,000. They first showed up on r/WSB in March of 2019 when they first publicized their position.
  - v64 6y ago
    He started off with $50k, but the cost basis is $750k now because he's cashed out some of the position.
    - scruple 6y ago
      Thanks for the correction.
  - CTDOCodebases 6y ago
    u/DeepFuckingValue shits all over the writers narrative. Watch the video linked below if you disagree with me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZTr1-Gp74U&t=49m0s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZTr1-Gp74U&t=49m0s I guess if you are not used to interacting with people who have a sense of humour about everything and don’t take life too seriously then you are going to struggle to understand what’s going on in WSB. How can a gambler be nihilistic? Don’t you need hope to gamble?
pyrrhotech 6y ago
This post is so wrong on so many levels. WSB celebrates wealth inequality. Their two heroes are papa Musk and Bezos. They frequently clash with socialists cult subs like r/latestagecapitalism. This is classic example over-analysis, trying to find some deeper liberal societal problem, when really, this is just a group of immature gamblers who want to get rich quick without working too hard.
renewiltord 6y ago
Just a characteristic of the fact that money has increasing marginal value for quite a while before it has decreasing marginal value. $10000 is more than ten times more valuable than $1000. $100k is more than 100 times more valuable than $1000. Each of these shifts you into a new spending class.
jefe_ 6y ago
I've perused WSB for a while, but watching GameStop this morning, I'm worried this recent 'short squeeze initiative' opens the door for various retail trading restrictions. Whether phase-out of commission-free trading, per-trade taxes, restrictions on options trading, tightening of pattern day trading restrictions, it seems something is coming. It's tough to envision a circumstance where retail trading is permitted to interfere with such a fundamental activity as short-selling. It's like a DDoS attack on the stock market, and I expect the defenses to be similar: additional vetting, limits, circuit breakers (which already exist but could be modified). I really hope I'm wrong because their ability to make GameStop, Nokia, and BlackBerry trend in 2021 is genuinely hilarious.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Short selling is not a fundamental activity. Short selling should be the thing that is illegal. None of this nonsense would exist if it weren’t for the absurd nonsense that is borrowing a stock, selling it, waiting for the price to drop, buying a stock, and giving it back. Short selling is absurd. All options trading should be banned by the SEC.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    What you are suggesting is a one-sided market where prices can only go up and there is no restoring force. That's dumb. What's worth knowing is that immoral conspiracies among short sellers are incredibly rare. I challenge you to find a documented case. By contrast, there have been many, many pump-and-dump sell-side scams, and without the short side there would be many more.
    - cwhiz 6y ago
      One sided? You buy, and you sell. The price goes down if there are more sellers than buyers. This is how it worked until the “professionals” invented all of this ridiculous nonsense so they could gamble on the markets. Buy or sell. And nothing more.
      - 6y ago
synaesthesisx 6y ago
As a regular myself, I was inspired to "Yolo" money into OTM GME calls after I saw Andrew Left (of Citron Research) post a video. Citron has been burned shorting Shopify, Nvidia, Tesla, and much much more. Needless to say it worked out quite well. https://i.imgur.com/GUb3mEk.jpg https://i.imgur.com/GUb3mEk.jpg The reality is, most hedge funds don't actually know what they're doing - the vast majority can't even outperform simply buying & holding Apple stock or S&P index. Fund managers sell a narrative (the "idea" that they know what they're doing). I only throw speculative amounts into absurd WSB-level plays, because I can afford to lose a few thousand here and there with zero consequence whatsoever. When it works in your favor, the wins far outweigh the losses. 80x returns in a day or two is absolutely insane (and rare), but I've been consistently making 6 digits of profits annually just from this kind of madness. In the spirit of WSB, YOLO
nathias 6y ago
that article is why 4chan continues to mock 'normies', they see two memes and begin to judge (falsely)
at_a_remove 6y ago
Somewhere on the internet there exists a photo of a boy who looks enraged, looming over a chessboard, captioned (in Impact, probably) "STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE." "Stop investing the way I don't approve of" is probably what we're seeing here. Some folks are having fun in an unapproved of manner, and to make their situation more impenetrable, they have invented (and reinvent) jargon likely to "trigger" the people who are, as far as I can tell, continually prowling over Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and such, looking for something to be angry over, and better yet, get a bunch of other people to be angry over. Something of defiling an abandoned church so you can have a speakeasy in the basement, where the bluenoses dare not look. You can tell because most of the criticisms will revolve around some variant of men who have "refused to grow up," whatever that means, but it usually mentions maturity or lack of interest in settling into a harness pulling a plow, like Boxer in Animal Farm. Just as a compare and contrast, when did you last hear "woman-child" as an insult?

173 points by jsonne 6y ago

Wall street bets is just exposing the facade of wallstreet. As more information about investing becomes available, hedge funds and investors will look increasingly less sophisticated. Platforms like Robinhood will erode their edge by increasing liquidity, lowering transaction costs, and providing access to more exotic investments and financial derivatives.

gchokov 6y ago
Non sense.
- brodouevencode 6y ago
  How so?
- ThisIsTheWay 6y ago
  > Non sense. Really great contribution there, appreciate you sharing your thoughts and furthering the conversation. What LogicSlave said is dead on accurate. Lowering the barrier to market entry has empowered millions of people to make their money work for them. Is some of it unhealthy? Absolutely. But not all gamblers are addicts, and its not all counter-productive either. The downside is that many are jumping in without fully understanding the risks, but in my opinion, the best way to learn the game is to play. Investopedia fantasy portfolios are a risk free way to try it out, but those have been around for decades and few people use it as an opportunity to learn the market.
  - seabird 6y ago
    There's nothing nonsense about it. These big firms have billions on the line and are interested in protecting it. WSB is a comedy outlet where active posters are at least in the high end of hobbyist traders, and they realized that some very greedy short selling left an opening for a decent buck. The vast majority of Robinhood's userbase couldn't even come close to explaining to you the mechanism through which this happened, let alone know when it's happening elsewhere and how to enter and exit. Nobody there has any delusions that they would be able to take on a large firm if the large firm was able to hit back. Markets and the choices you make them in can be incredibly complex. Most people don't have the time and drive to deal with that, no matter how much you "democratize" the technology.
    - ThisIsTheWay 6y ago
      > Markets and the choices you make them in can be incredibly complex. Most people don't have the time and drive to deal with that, no matter how much you "democratize" the technology. Fully agreed here. My point wasn't to say that people are taking on Wall St. and getting rich quick by developing a deep understanding the mechanizations of the market. But you don't have to understand a gamma squeeze to make money. In the past, brokers were a luxury only the wealthy could afford, and I think it's a great thing that that is no longer the case.
  - greenonions 6y ago
    Also, I think it's overlooked how much of the banter on wallstreetbets does not necessarily dictate how participants invest. There are probably many people who read, joke, and occasionally make a risky investment, but who otherwise maintain a relatively conservative portfolio. Wallstreetbets is just the most entertaining way to casually pick up knowledge on the subject.
1996 6y ago
I work in finance and I agree so much with everything you wrote!
ViVr 6y ago
Max Keiser sure agrees that Wall Street is rampant with fraudulent practices. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2euIWm6Ch4&t=1m15s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2euIWm6Ch4&t=1m15s
cbozeman 6y ago
This is what's really pissing off a lot of people who think they're "somebodies" in the finance world. A bunch of people who didn't attend Columbia, Harvard, and Yale Business Schools are using a fucking phone app to do what only they used to be able to do - manipulate the market. And its pissing them off. For decades, these arrogant little shits were told they were the Masters of the Universe. Now they're finding out firsthand that it just ain't so, and their egos can't handle it.
- tiziniano 6y ago
  What is this fantasy? revenge porn fanfic?
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    A hedge fund with $12.5 billion in assets lost so much money that two other hedge funds had to step in and save it with a capital injection of $2.75 billion. You tell me.
itsoktocry 6y ago
>and providing access to more exotic investments and financial derivatives. People having access to exotic investments they didn't understand (and hence couldn't correctly price) was exactly how we got 2008. Wall Street benefits from volatility and all of this trading, they aren't losing any edge.
- ThisIsTheWay 6y ago
  People - and here I mean the average person, not the ultrawealthy - were conned into buying things they couldn't afford, not exotic investments. Assuming the exotic investments you're talking about were the various derivatives markets propped up by bullshit, that was massive corporations making investments and taking on risk they didn't even understand. Unfortunately, the fallout impacted average people who weren't even directly involved.
tiziniano 6y ago
Lo, n behold, yet another example of the average American obsession with "looks".

koolk3ychain 6y ago

I don't understand why people think /r/wallstreetbets is really that interesting or provides insight into actual wall street? Anyone who knows anything about actual options trading / building strategies knows these people are idiots. Sure, there's a lot of money flowing around - but most people don't realize that to many $60k is pocket change.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
roland35 6y ago
There is always an alure of outsmarting everyone and getting rich quick.
- jandrese 6y ago
  How can you be outsmarting people when you're just taking public advice from random people on the Internet? Unless you're the guy posting the "hot tips" that you just happened to buy a bunch of shares in a few minutes ago hoping that the sheep will push up the price for a moment.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Eppur si muove
- devoutsalsa 6y ago
  It’s also very easy to think you’ve found easy money. When I first heard about options, I was super excited about how I could make money if a stock went up or down. It was less obvious that you can lose 100% of your money if the stock fails to move much at all. Thankfully I did my homework and didn’t get too wrapped up in option trading.
- koolk3ychain 6y ago
  Albeit, it's incredibly entertaining - however anyone who things any of it is "real information" who doesn't have pre-existing professional experience is a moron. Unless you're already a professional I highly doubt anyone can cut through the noise to signal ratio.

tyleo 6y ago

Here is some useful context for this article about recent behavior from members of wallstreetbets: https://www.wired.com/story/gamestop-stock-wall-street-bets-short-squeeze/ https://www.wired.com/story/gamestop-stock-wall-street-bets-... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-22/gamestop-tug-of-war-gives-reddit-army-a-win-on-record-volatility https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-22/gamestop-...

jsonne 6y ago
This Bloomberg article actually inspired me to write this and provide additional context on the "why" this place even exists in the first place.
- tyleo 6y ago
  It may be useful to link from within your article so readers know what you are responding to.
  - jsonne 6y ago
    Good idea. I'll do a quick ninja update.
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      How did you come to the “autism” conclusion, was that meant to be read clinically?
      - dwohnitmok 6y ago
        The author is basically quoting the community here rather than actually diagnosing anyone with autism. The subreddit usually calls themselves some variation of "autist," "autistic," or "retard."
        dvtrn 6y ago
        Pretty gross, but thanks for the clarification.

notananthem 6y ago

This is a poorly written article trying to time a large economic exploitative event. WSB is, genuinely, pretty dumb but they actually advocate normal positions like index holdings, and only trading on "moonshots" with a very small % of portfolio. Their offensive language and such is a product of being on Reddit though.

launch_queue 6y ago
I think the author was right that its 4chan language. I wouldn't say its a product of being on Reddit. Besides /r/the_donald and /r/wallstreetbets/, I've only ever seen that kind of language on 4chan-specific subreddits like /r/greentext and /r/4chan.
- jsonne 6y ago
  Some of the gun subreddits mimic this language as well. Particularly weekendgunnit before they went off platform.

davidw 6y ago

I don't know anything about WSB, but how does: > It’s a bunch of autistic losers that live in their mom’s basement who are gambling what little money they have to try and become rich to live lifestyles of hedonism square with "These people were involved in very meaningfully moving a stock price around" ?

whymauri 6y ago
It's the same paradox as 4chan /b/ and /pol/ influencing real-world events despite similar stereotypes about the userbase. And /r/wsb is, after all, if 4chan found a Bloomberg Terminal.
- jsonne 6y ago
  You get it.
- imesh 6y ago
  The biggest /b/tard I knew growing up now works at a bank and actually has had multiple large windfalls from bitcoin,TSLA stocks and Pokemon cards.
jsonne 6y ago
The former is how they view themselves in a tongue and cheek fashion. The latter has more to do with how much the community has grown and how many people this community apparently resonates with.
- brodouevencode 6y ago
  > Degenerate gamblers Well, they apparently do move markets. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen and there's no telling what sort of action the SEC will take to curtail this. IMO all it will take is one bad day to have something happen. But wsb does understand one thing: the barriers to entry are artificially there - it doesn't take a quant with an MIT education to make and lose money.
  - 6y ago

29athrowaway 6y ago

Imagine a subreddit called "roulettebets". Someone posts: 36x gain!!!1 And then someone posts: I lost everything. Should that be a motivation to spend all your money playing roulette?

jsonne 6y ago
If you don't have enough money to pay your rent but winning means getting a Ferrari then yes. Losing means nothing and winning is everything. At least that's the point I was trying to make.
- chasebank 6y ago
  You're literally describing gambling. I watch people drop entire paychecks on scratchers at the local liquor store every week in hopes of a new mustang. If I head up north to the Chumash Casino, I'll find hundreds playing Keno with their entire lifesavings trying to win it big. WSB's is no different. Hell, it's even in the name of the sub! Also, although WSB has had some affect on the GME squeeze, it was originally identified by no other than Michael Burry, the guy from the movie the Big Short. He's been in the GME game long before the reddit army joined in. [1]https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190819005633/en/ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190819005633/en/
- 29athrowaway 6y ago
  That is not the case in WSB. Many of them gamble with amounts well beyond their bankroll, which is not possible with most casino games.
  - chasebank 6y ago
    No, they're just leveraged beyond their bankroll. Any broker will have a backend stop-loss and force margin call them before the broker lets the client go negative.
fullshark 6y ago
The guy that lost everything clearly didn't know what they were doing. I can recreate the 36x gain based on a deep dive analysis.

ookblah 6y ago

uh, there's way too much analysis here lol. at it's core it's a fun distraction and people are gamblers. it's no different than fantasy football or going to your local casino. there's a big subset there that is obviously cash strapped and desperate. there are also people there with 6-7 figure net worths that are just passing the time. the DD is actually "okay" once you cut thru the lingo and I'd be willing to bet most people learn a lot about market mentality with trial by fire. short squeeze ain't over btw

whimsicalism 6y ago
> at it's core it's a fun distraction and people are gamblers. it's no different than fantasy football or going to your local casino I think the cultural links with 4chan are interesting and non-obvious to someone who didn't grow up knowing about those sorts of communities.
lazyasciiart 6y ago
There's a lot of analysis to do on people at a casino as well, and I expect there's actually a significant demographic difference between them and r/wsb. Fantasy sports probably has a closer profile. And there is a LOT of money to be made analysing why people who like gambling do one type or another.
aynyc 6y ago
Well, you can't really change the odds or outcome of fantasy footballs or casinos. But at WSB, with enough retards (WSB terms), they can change the outcome.
- quineoa 6y ago
  Is it necessary to replicate the insensitive language here? I suppose the point could have come across without adopting the WSB usage in the same way.
  - fuzzer37 6y ago
    It's on a post directly referencing the /r/WSB board. I don't think it's out of character to use their language.

some_furry 6y ago

> It’s a bunch of autistic losers Gross. How has this not been flagkilled for ableism yet?

hervature 6y ago
You probably shouldn't go to r/wallstreetbets, people there call each other that among many other slurs.
seanyesmunt 6y ago
That is how r/wallstreetbets users refer to themselves.
aidenn0 6y ago
It is describing the presented public image of r/WSB. The next paragraph makes it clear that this is intended by r/WSB to be humor. I personally don't think that an article reporting on offensive humor should itself be flagkilled.
jsonne 6y ago
"I also don't agree with the Wallstreetbets culture. I'm just trying to explain it."
- some_furry 6y ago
  You can explain it without calling people "autistic losers". Just "losers" is sufficient.
  - derision 6y ago
    It's not sufficient, because the culture of WSB is such that they refer to themselves as autists. To not use the term would be an inaccurate description
    - some_furry 6y ago
      You don't have to use the same language as the people you're talking about. See, for example, ThoughtSlime's coverage of fascist militias. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZMWQDvZQZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZMWQDvZQZs

bjt2n3904 6y ago

Boy, I'm only a fraction of the way through this article. What a fantastic piece. Nietzsche is a frightening author, but I think what he writes is the logical conclusion of what we've done by championing existentialism. "The end doesn't matter, the true meaning is the friends we make along the way." WSB is taking that and running with it.

Bakary 6y ago
Even before existentialism was formulated people behaved in such a way. They always have. What we think of as modern day absurdity or boldness is nothing new

geoman123 6y ago

you can still get in on GME dude no need to be salty. to the moooon :rocket: :rocket: :rocket:

klodolph 6y ago

I think half the story here is not just the role of r/wallstreetbets but also the curious phenomenon of shows like Mad Money and their decline. My general take on these shows is that you get a bunch of men in their 30s, put them in a gym where the blood is flowing and they’re thinking about how their life compares, and put a TV in front of them with stock advice. Bam! Manipulation. If you had a short position and a TV show, wouldn’t you want to convince other people that your short position is correct? And if you could mobilize more people to take a long position, couldn’t you make money that way, too?

jandrese 6y ago

I always read /r/wallstreetbets as /r/pumpanddump. I'm not surprised but disappointed that people go there for actual investment advice.

curiousllama 6y ago

WSB is hilarious. It’s also such a place of sadness. Taking credit card advances to YOLO into short-dated OTM call options is drug-addict level desperation. People joke about YOLOing their inheritance - and I suspect there’s some reality to it. Their parents’ entire life’s wealth can’t dig them out of whatever hole their in. The CNBC guys freaking out is incredible. Their Cramer feud is gold. But... this trend is different than people picking random internet stocks in the 90s. It’s desperate.

aaahayatav 6y ago
I highly suspect the reason for this is because there is less income security for the young generation in 2021 compared to 1999. In 1999, people under 40 were gambling large sums that, if lost, could be made back through x months of work. In 2021, people under 40 are gambling any random ad hoc payment they receive in the attempt of calling it a career. The reason? 10% of our country have great jobs, and the rest have none. That is a result of policy.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  The median bottom quintile of incomes is higher today in real terms than is was in the 1990s, and the median income is higher as well. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    And yet, education, healthcare, and housing raced away from wages. I'm not here to argue a failed economic system in this thread, but the motivation behind wsb's nihilism is exceptionally clear. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-live-with-their-parents-for-the-first-time-since-the-great-depression/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-... (A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression) https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-reason-most-americans-file-for-bankruptcy.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-reason-most... (66% of bankruptcies are tied to medical issues) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/great-affordability-crisis-breaking-america/606046/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/great-affo... (The Great Affordability Crisis Breaking America)

supernova87a 6y ago

It just doesn't add up to me. If you take Gamestop (GME) today's hot item, it's trading 170M shares back and forth, at say, $70. That's $11B sloshing back and forth. You're telling me 10,000 (if even?) guys sitting at home doing retail trading have $1M each in positions driving this? 100,000 people with $100,000 each, during the day? I think it's quant and algorithmic trading. I would love to hear from an expert though.

curiousllama 6y ago
It’s not 11B sloshing. It’s probably 1% of that, if that. Market cap > available shares Available shares > traded shares Traded shares > actual $ involved
- supernova87a 6y ago
  What do you mean? Today's traded volume is 170M shares. The price is $80. $13-14B has to change hands to settle that.
  - intpx 6y ago
    if i give you a dollar and you give it back to me 7 billion times, 14 billion in volume occurred with $1. some percentage of this is tomfoolery that triggers cascades in the HFT space and create a lot of volume without much sound.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    Alternatively, 1 stock could be traded back and forth 170 million times if two parties have each have $80 in capital.
umvi 6y ago
> I think it's quant and algorithmic trading. Yeah, I wonder if ML-driven investing is being tricked by reddit into buying stock in failing companies and causing a runaway effect. If so, it makes me nervous that lots of stocks might be massively over-inflated right now.

vorpalhex 6y ago

This post is a great tutorial in why we shouldn't derive meaning from expressed language. Imagine if you sat in a room of software engineers and tried to make conclusions about their life views based on their jargon: "I think what they're saying is you just need to form a single value store and react to it, dividing life into small composable micro components that are DRY. We can really comprehend how this minimalism impacts engineers..." Language like WSB uses is meant to frustrate outsiders and limit posers. It makes it hard for the media to reprint things that are said, and even if it does, it would be nonsense. That's intentional. And yes, there's double meanings and jokes to some of this language. Many WSB'ers comprehend the gambling-esque nature of what they do, and how many of their strategies aren't traditionally recommended.

curiousllama 6y ago
“Computers are haunted never go near them” - every SWE I know
- arcticbull 6y ago
  https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks is a wonderfully funny essay on the topic.
- vsareto 6y ago
  The alternate title to Ghost in the Shell
nostromo 6y ago
This comment reads like a "they're really playing 4-dimensional chess" moment. There are definitely some smart people on wsb, but I very much doubt the use of silly language (like, say, calling bears "gay bears") is anything other than users being intentionally ridiculous and funny.
- brodouevencode 6y ago
  $420.69

draw_down 6y ago

Whatever "nihilism" WSB exhibits is as nothing compared to Wall Street and the securities/finance industry overall. It's almost laughable to talk about, I'd say. They're like a dog chasing its tail. It's a mistake to take them more seriously than they're taking themselves.

ralph84 6y ago

With interest rates at 0% and a quarter of all US dollars in existence having been created in the last year, there is no other choice besides speculation to have any hope of getting ahead. Policymakers have made quite clear that "work hard, save money" is a suckers bet.

baq 6y ago
the memes about the money printer were pure gold - and totally right given the madness of the past couple weeks.
leetcrew 6y ago
have they? my meme positions have barely broken even this year, while the S&P 500 is up ~19% over the same time period. working hard and investing the bulk of my savings in broad market ETFs is working quite well for me so far.
- screye 6y ago
  > while the S&P 500 is up ~19% over the same time period Which reinforces WSB's claim of the market having no grounding in reality.
- filoleg 6y ago
  This is just your own sample not representative of the overall picture (not claiming that mine is representative either). Out of my group of friends that I talk to almost every day and bet on "meme positions" (all fairly similar to each other in terms of which positions we pick), it is all over the place. Just for this year alone: One person in a significant negative this year. One with a small negative. One with 45%+. One with 77%+. One with 110%+. One with 247%+. It is less about which specific "meme positions" you enter, but when you enter them and when you exit them. As well as predicting certain "meme positions" before they show up on WSB, but that one had a very small effect on our portfolios, given it is something really difficult to predict correctly. And mine you, none of us went full yolo wsb-style. None of us bet our life savings, we were just betting fairly consistently and on a lot of different things. And even the highest gainers never went full yolo and dropped more than 5-7% of their portfolio on their biggest bets

simpixelated 6y ago

Pretty good analysis, but I don't know if I agree with some of the final lines. Hard to see this as a "Molotov cocktail through the front window of the country and the global financial system". I mean they are literally playing by the rules of the financial system. This isn't Occupy Wall Street, or anything close to that. Sure, I get that they will declare bankruptcy and move on, but ultimately the major players of the global financial system are happy if people are buying stocks, win or lose.

jsonne 6y ago
Mostly a fringe benefit I think or some sort of minor act of rebellion against the system they feel screwed them over rather than some sort of organized protest like Occupy.

ve55 6y ago

Here's a screenshot of Gamestop's ($GME) price across its entire existence , which I took near the peak today: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsluAdAXAAA_m9H?format=png&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsluAdAXAAA_m9H?format=png&name=... WSB (r/Wallstreetbets) is basically just an ultra-popular subreddit for gambling via buying options on stocks, which allow you to significantly increase your risk for potentially insane returns (feasible chances at 100-500%+ returns, but also a great chance you will literally go broke). This style of gambling is very easy to do and requires nothing more than a phone app for a brokerage (most commonly Robinhood) and a little cash (a few hundred dollars is definitely enough for some fun), with many users having little prior investing experience or knowledge. It's also much more fun to do in groups and to brag about on the Internet, as most things are. Although many of the users have a lot of fun doing this, I'd personally estimate it has so far caused more than ten suicides, perhaps significantly more. I don't have a source for this aside from the number of subscribers (2,000,000) multiplied by an approximate amount of how many experience gambler's ruin at some point (..a lot, even many lucky ones), multiplied by a very low suicide success rate for some people who are hit particularly hard by losing money they've worked and saved for for years or decades. Having been near people gambling in one way or another for many years, it's difficult to state the amount of pain that someone can experience from abrupt financial losses, but we have had confirmed suicides from something as 'minor' as a glitch showing a user they had lost much more than they actually had (QA literally saves lives!): https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/06/17/20-year-old-robinhood-customer-dies-by-suicide-after-seeing-a-730000-negative-balance/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/06/17/20-y... Coupling this with the current scenario of our market (very high volatility and strong upwards momentum in sectors anywhere from tech to IPOs to SPACs to cryptocurrencies) we are living in some interesting times. Investing has felt increasingly more like a casino to me over the last few years, and it seems to be entering its final phase at this point: you may want to avoid the casino, but the casino has become quite efficient at making this very hard to do, expanding its reach until you somehow find yourself surrounded by slot machines and lottery ticket winners. With popular stocks from FANG to Tesla having doubled or even 10-20X'd investors' money within months, you will be hard-pressed to keep yourself on the safe side of the gambling<->investing dichotomy. I'm not sure exactly where this ends up, besides, well, exactly where we are right now: more and more speculation, gambling, and volatility. Whether we will enter a 'single' bubble and eventually crash or just maintain this higher-risk chaotic state is of course, not predictable by me (and even if I could could predict bubbles, it is useless without precise and accurate timing predictions), but I must admit I've found myself falling into higher and higher risk 'investing' as well, especially as I found myself growing bored during covid lockdowns. I do think we will see some changes from the SEC at some point to try to curb this as well (also very interested in what they will do with WSB at some point, if anything), but those that want to gamble will always find ways to do so, so it may be futile. All I can say for certain is that you should be careful and to repeat the old adage of never investing what you cannot afford to lose, but both financially and emotionally.

boringg 6y ago

Interesting take - especially the tie in to other internet culture. I think it might be a bit over analysis and a lot of people just effing around (people actively taking advantage) enjoying the ridiculousness/oneupmanship of the subreddit thread. I would say that the thread rewards ridiculous behavior by the upvote dopamine loop (small but some level of street cred in the subreddit). I also wonder how many institutional investors now have algorithms developed or at least monitor this thread.

CivBase 6y ago

Sounds to me like r/WSB is just a community of high stakes gamblers dressed up in memes and internet culture.

xwdv 6y ago

I understand the nihilism. When you start earning vast sums of money very quickly, and see other people do the same, you start getting a sense that money isn’t really worth working all that hard for. I’ve been making about 5k or 6k a week regularly this past year in the stock market with little effort, through stock appreciation and selling options. It definitely makes me feel less motivated to do my job, but the one thing that keeps me going is that I know this situation is not forever and the market goes through feast and famine cycles, so I need to maintain a job. But certainly nothing more ambitious than that, I have no plans to ascend into management or whatever bullshit that has me taking more work and responsibility for slightly more pay. Once I have a resilient source of passive income I’m off to be a gentleman hacker. Working hard for money is a waste of life.

jsonne 6y ago
This is certainly part of it too and something I wish I expanded on more. When you can make so much money without really doing much hard work can seem like a suckers game.
- xwdv 6y ago
  It is actually a bit depressing. Society looks up to people who make a lot of money through hard work, but a person who makes a lot of money with little effort is kind of seen as a lazy douche, only looked up to by people who also want to make fast effortless money (r/wallstreetbets). But what really crushes me is people who work a lot harder than me and make a lot less money. I dated a younger girl recently who worked hard every week while also finishing her university courses. She prided herself on being a hard worker and assumes I work hard too since I make a lot of money. But the truth is I can make what she makes in a week by selling a couple option contracts while on my phone taking a dump. To me it pretty much feels like she’s a slave. All that youth being wasted chasing small amounts of money. Of course, I would never want to give up my income stream just to feel better.
razius 6y ago
That's way off mark, it's actually the opposite. It's people earning 7.25 per hour that are desperate.

somacore 6y ago

"It’s a bunch of autistic losers that live in their mom’s basement who are gambling what little money they have to try and become rich to live lifestyles of hedonism." Clearly written by someone who has never interacted with the community beyond reading the sidebar on reddit. Also explains why the rest of the article is mostly wrong.

joezydeco 6y ago
I don't agree. The sentence before that one changes the context: "The basic surface-level story of WSB is this." The author is trying to explain that this is how the majority of the world sees the group, but the reality is different.
- baq 6y ago
  more like 'what the group pretends to be to have fun losing money'
0x008 6y ago
It's a terribly judgemental article.

undefined1 6y ago

Generational warfare waged via Robinhood. The video and comments here sum up a lot of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l1u036/wsb_gets_emotional_on_mad_money/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l1u036/wsb_...

safog 6y ago
Along this note, the new generational warfare is Gen Z vs Millenials. Gen Z posters are mostly tired of the millenial narrative of boo-hoo the system is rigged, I'm so poor, why won't someone give me free stuff and it's a meme to make fun of millenials on TikTok for saying this. I wonder how it'll go for them given they're mostly still in college / high school but we shall see. They've mostly graduated into a booming economy, got well paying jobs just as they graduated but that might all change in the next few years. I for one am pretty tired of all the doom and gloom inequality nonsense all the time. I did everything right and am not successful story doesn't resonate with me at all for one. Most people who went to college and chose a standard, decent major (business, law, medicine, engineering) are doing pretty well for themselves. Yes we had 2008 and things really sucked just as we were graduating, but so what? Lots of people (including me) have dug ourselves out of that deep career hole. Don't blame rich people for your nonexistent career. Even if you took away all of Jeff Bezos' wealth and wiped out college loans, the career you've built for yourself doesn't change.
- interstice 6y ago
  There's a bit of survivorship bias in this response, some eras are a lot less forgiving than others. It would be disingenuous to claim that hard work is the only factor for success.
  - safog 6y ago
    Yeah that's fair. I think I need some concrete data before making statements like these - In absolute numbers, Millenials haven't been hitting the financial milestones that their parents did (incomes, home ownership %, retirement savings etc.). If that's worth the non stop complaining, I have to figure out.

virmundi 6y ago

I love WSB. Up 200% on GME, 240% NIO, 60% on Carnival Cruise. They have decent insight when you learn their lingo. They also admit this is gambling. Current GME argument. A short squeeze will come around April. Long term the guy that fixed Chewy is going to take over. It will become a good company again. However between those two sentences is a gap where the stock will go back down to 5-10. Current theory: ride the fucker to 300-500 like VW when it was short squeezed. Get out while there are still bag holders. Get back in later.

Scoundreller 6y ago
I’d be surprised if there are any shorters left right now. Probably all got margin called and forced to exit. VW’s squeeze was different as it turned out their parent was holding almost all the shares. There was only one seller left.
- virmundi 6y ago
  Valid point. People in WSB are tracking shorts. Haven’t heard them call for bailing. Could be they just want to beat up the boomers. Here is a discussion on why they think it will go up. https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l4tu4r/why_im_holding_gme_and_why_you_should_too/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l4tu4r/why_...
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Dunno how they're doing it. Thinking aloud, it's not the easiest thing to calculate. You can can short a stock and acquire it right after without closing the two net-zero positions. Why? To mess with short interest calculations. You do lose trading fees and spreads whenever you do it. Then you have all of the options going around.

hamolton 6y ago

It seems like a lot of WSB stock runs are amplified by automated trading strategies. Between the information that hedge funds get from Robinhood and the feeds I'm sure they might have from Reddit, they should have good visibility on the trends of these retail investors.

bern4444 6y ago

money printer goes brrr, stonks go up Obviously there's a lot more to WSB, but the memes and videos they produce (on the above statemenet for example) are fun and descently accurate given the community

cwhiz 6y ago

As opposed to the “professionals” who short a company and then work to ruin the company so their bet pays off. No no. It’s the WSB crowd that is the nihilists.

notJim 6y ago

"Most of these people are in hopeless debt with no clear path out anyway" I really really think this misreads who is trading on WSB, especially who are making big trades. There was a thread the other day of someone maxing out his credit cards to buy GME, and the comments were full of people calling him an idiot (albeit a lucky one), and imploring others not to do the same. If you read the comments on any big YOLO post, you'll see people pressing the person about their job or their portfolio, and you'll find out they're already very wealthy, or working in a highly paid job. Or they started small and have made a number of good bets that ratcheted them up. I think instead what has happened is that nihilistic language has become the currency of authenticity. It's honestly not that cool to be an option trader or Wall Street guy, but by using this nihilistic language, you get some of that back. There is interesting analysis to be done about that, though I think it honestly leads back to some of the same conclusions found in this article, but at a different level.

scruple 6y ago
Case in point... The reddit user (u/DEEPFUCKINGVALUE) with the largest (publicly proven) gains in the recent GME episode seeded their position with over $750,000. They first showed up on r/WSB in March of 2019 when they first publicized their position.
- v64 6y ago
  He started off with $50k, but the cost basis is $750k now because he's cashed out some of the position.
  - scruple 6y ago
    Thanks for the correction.
- CTDOCodebases 6y ago
  u/DeepFuckingValue shits all over the writers narrative. Watch the video linked below if you disagree with me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZTr1-Gp74U&t=49m0s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZTr1-Gp74U&t=49m0s I guess if you are not used to interacting with people who have a sense of humour about everything and don’t take life too seriously then you are going to struggle to understand what’s going on in WSB. How can a gambler be nihilistic? Don’t you need hope to gamble?

pyrrhotech 6y ago

This post is so wrong on so many levels. WSB celebrates wealth inequality. Their two heroes are papa Musk and Bezos. They frequently clash with socialists cult subs like r/latestagecapitalism. This is classic example over-analysis, trying to find some deeper liberal societal problem, when really, this is just a group of immature gamblers who want to get rich quick without working too hard.

renewiltord 6y ago

Just a characteristic of the fact that money has increasing marginal value for quite a while before it has decreasing marginal value. $10000 is more than ten times more valuable than $1000. $100k is more than 100 times more valuable than $1000. Each of these shifts you into a new spending class.

jefe_ 6y ago

I've perused WSB for a while, but watching GameStop this morning, I'm worried this recent 'short squeeze initiative' opens the door for various retail trading restrictions. Whether phase-out of commission-free trading, per-trade taxes, restrictions on options trading, tightening of pattern day trading restrictions, it seems something is coming. It's tough to envision a circumstance where retail trading is permitted to interfere with such a fundamental activity as short-selling. It's like a DDoS attack on the stock market, and I expect the defenses to be similar: additional vetting, limits, circuit breakers (which already exist but could be modified). I really hope I'm wrong because their ability to make GameStop, Nokia, and BlackBerry trend in 2021 is genuinely hilarious.

cwhiz 6y ago
Short selling is not a fundamental activity. Short selling should be the thing that is illegal. None of this nonsense would exist if it weren’t for the absurd nonsense that is borrowing a stock, selling it, waiting for the price to drop, buying a stock, and giving it back. Short selling is absurd. All options trading should be banned by the SEC.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  What you are suggesting is a one-sided market where prices can only go up and there is no restoring force. That's dumb. What's worth knowing is that immoral conspiracies among short sellers are incredibly rare. I challenge you to find a documented case. By contrast, there have been many, many pump-and-dump sell-side scams, and without the short side there would be many more.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    One sided? You buy, and you sell. The price goes down if there are more sellers than buyers. This is how it worked until the “professionals” invented all of this ridiculous nonsense so they could gamble on the markets. Buy or sell. And nothing more.
    - 6y ago

synaesthesisx 6y ago

As a regular myself, I was inspired to "Yolo" money into OTM GME calls after I saw Andrew Left (of Citron Research) post a video. Citron has been burned shorting Shopify, Nvidia, Tesla, and much much more. Needless to say it worked out quite well. https://i.imgur.com/GUb3mEk.jpg https://i.imgur.com/GUb3mEk.jpg The reality is, most hedge funds don't actually know what they're doing - the vast majority can't even outperform simply buying & holding Apple stock or S&P index. Fund managers sell a narrative (the "idea" that they know what they're doing). I only throw speculative amounts into absurd WSB-level plays, because I can afford to lose a few thousand here and there with zero consequence whatsoever. When it works in your favor, the wins far outweigh the losses. 80x returns in a day or two is absolutely insane (and rare), but I've been consistently making 6 digits of profits annually just from this kind of madness. In the spirit of WSB, YOLO

nathias 6y ago

that article is why 4chan continues to mock 'normies', they see two memes and begin to judge (falsely)

at_a_remove 6y ago

Somewhere on the internet there exists a photo of a boy who looks enraged, looming over a chessboard, captioned (in Impact, probably) "STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE." "Stop investing the way I don't approve of" is probably what we're seeing here. Some folks are having fun in an unapproved of manner, and to make their situation more impenetrable, they have invented (and reinvent) jargon likely to "trigger" the people who are, as far as I can tell, continually prowling over Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and such, looking for something to be angry over, and better yet, get a bunch of other people to be angry over. Something of defiling an abandoned church so you can have a speakeasy in the basement, where the bluenoses dare not look. You can tell because most of the criticisms will revolve around some variant of men who have "refused to grow up," whatever that means, but it usually mentions maturity or lack of interest in settling into a harness pulling a plow, like Boxer in Animal Farm. Just as a compare and contrast, when did you last hear "woman-child" as an insult?