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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. Pe

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)
    - aaahayatav 6y ago
      Agreed. I think it is lazy to look at the rise in real income and not look at the rise in real expenses and decline in stable, non-precarious employment.
    - api 6y ago
      All three of those things are things that are hard to outsource. My suspicion for a long time has been that we've actually had massive inflation since roughly the year 2000, but it's been masked by the effect of outsourcing and automation reducing the price of pretty much all manufactured goods.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ (Reduced labor power) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/new-american-populism-needed-save-west/582202/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/new-americ... (Globalization) https://www.lynalden.com/money-printing/ https://www.lynalden.com/money-printing/ (Assets bubbles from central reserve QE) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL (Fed Total Assets)
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      Housing is a tough one; houses on average cost the same amount on an inflation adjusted basis per square foot as they did in the 1970s. However, houses are on average twice as big as they were back then, and contain far fewer occupants on average, too. In 1970 the average household was 3.14 people, today it's 2.5 people. [edit] There's a lot of reasons for the increase in the actual price of accommodation. They're largely driven by local ordinances. Setback rules, minimum size rules, minimum number of bathrooms/closets/etc all - all sorts of code things. Further, in major metros city councils refuse to increase supply to meet demand - to benefit existing landowners. One solution to this is national zoning rules like Japan has.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - aaahayatav 6y ago
    Is that measured on a monthly or yearly basis? Are those incomes reconciled with increases of cost of living? You should compare workforce participation from 1999 and 2021, and you should compare savings rates by age bracket.
  - CameronNemo 6y ago
    How are you measuring real income? Inflation has many measurements and benchmarks. Two large expenses, health and housing, have skyrocketed in the past two decades.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    This looks like household incomes, not incomes for individual earners. There has been a huge rise in double income households - i.e. households where there are two working adults. In the 60's 25% of households were double income, compared to ~60% now. If incomes are up 40%, but it requires a commensurate increase in work, is that really an improvement? https://www.pewresearch.org/ft_dual-income-households-1960-2012-2/ https://www.pewresearch.org/ft_dual-income-households-1960-2...
- notJim 6y ago
  I think you really have to look at fed policy and the stock market to understand this. We're in the midst of a barely-uncontrolled pandemic that has caused massive disruption and unemployment in particular sectors, and yet the stock market is hot as shit. I don't think it's irrational to look at that and conclude that it's better to get it while the getting is good.
- please333 6y ago
  You think we have 90% unemployment?
- sfblah 6y ago
  Agreed. Just wanted to add that the policy in question is reacting to recessions using monetary policy instead of fiscal stimulus, because of gridlock and regulatory capture. The government is largely at fault for the current bubble. I fear for what will happen if/when it pops.
bmitc 6y ago
I like going to /r/wallstreetbets. I'm not even sure if those YOLO posts are real. Maybe some are. But it seems a lot of people are there just to have fun. I want to think that someone who posts about YOLOing on GME is really someone just invested in ETFs. Every now and then, there's actually really good advice on /r/wallstreetbets. It's one of the rare subreddits where you can just let loose joining in on the fun and memes, but then if you ask a serious question, you usually get a serious and useful answer.
- weird-eye-issue 6y ago
  I posted a quarter million GME YOLO on WSB over a week ago and it was real (ended up making around $300k and I only have 1000 shares left, so even if it went to $0 right now I'd still have a nice profit)
  - sakopov 6y ago
    I saw posts yesterday asking if it's still worth buying GME at market open. I was sure these people are crazy and about to lose their asses. I just checked price action a few minutes ago and it went from $60 to $144 before selling off back to $70s. Crazy.
    - scruple 6y ago
      This was the craziest day of trading I have ever seen. As GME was crashing down from $155, there was a moment when the entire market went down 5-10% and futures spiked. I ended up triggering limit sales on VXX that I had set weeks ago and forgotten about. Truly, this is a speculative bubble that is going to pop very, very hard.
    - rob 6y ago
      Have you checked lately? ;-)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - defen 6y ago
jdhn 6y ago
Earlier today someone claimed to put their parents life savings into BlackBerry. As WSBers say, that's truly a diamond hand move.
- weird-eye-issue 6y ago
  No, that's not the correct terminology
- rjbwork 6y ago
  That would be a "retarded yolo", not "Diamond Hands". If they hold onto those shares as the price drops and/or sky rockets in hopes of further future gains, that would be "diamond handing".
treis 6y ago
>Taking credit card advances to YOLO into short-dated OTM call options is drug-addict level desperation. It's actually somewhat rational. Say you just graduated college and make 30k as a waiter. You scrape together savings, loans, CCs, etc. and pull together 20k. Take that to Robinhood 2-3x it with margin and place a 50k bet that has a 8% chance to pay off 10x. If you "win" you're up 15 years of wages or more. If you lose, well, you declare bankruptcy and shit gets wiped. It's not like you were buying a house or a nice car on 30k a year anyways.
- tpmx 6y ago
  The sensible response from society is unfortunately restricting personal bankruptcy laws. Essentially this is an organized attack on civilized society and it needs to be shut down, somehow.
  - baq 6y ago
    if this is the only alternative you can come up with, then you unfortunately suffer from a lack of imagination. another solution would be to make that $30k enough for a comfortable life so the bet doesn't seem that attractive in the first place.
    - tpmx 6y ago
      I think you may have replied to the wrong comment?
      - cbozeman 6y ago
        No, they didn't. If you're so daft that you think its okay to give literally trillions of aid to companies in the form of tax breaks, bailouts, subsidies, and other horseshit, but letting people write off mere millions in bankruptcy proceedings because they know at a fundamental level that the system is - if not broken, definitely malfunctioning - then brother, you are part of the problem here.
  - treis 6y ago

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)
  - aaahayatav 6y ago
    Agreed. I think it is lazy to look at the rise in real income and not look at the rise in real expenses and decline in stable, non-precarious employment.
  - api 6y ago
    All three of those things are things that are hard to outsource. My suspicion for a long time has been that we've actually had massive inflation since roughly the year 2000, but it's been masked by the effect of outsourcing and automation reducing the price of pretty much all manufactured goods.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/ (Reduced labor power) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/new-american-populism-needed-save-west/582202/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/new-americ... (Globalization) https://www.lynalden.com/money-printing/ https://www.lynalden.com/money-printing/ (Assets bubbles from central reserve QE) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL (Fed Total Assets)
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Housing is a tough one; houses on average cost the same amount on an inflation adjusted basis per square foot as they did in the 1970s. However, houses are on average twice as big as they were back then, and contain far fewer occupants on average, too. In 1970 the average household was 3.14 people, today it's 2.5 people. [edit] There's a lot of reasons for the increase in the actual price of accommodation. They're largely driven by local ordinances. Setback rules, minimum size rules, minimum number of bathrooms/closets/etc all - all sorts of code things. Further, in major metros city councils refuse to increase supply to meet demand - to benefit existing landowners. One solution to this is national zoning rules like Japan has.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- aaahayatav 6y ago
  Is that measured on a monthly or yearly basis? Are those incomes reconciled with increases of cost of living? You should compare workforce participation from 1999 and 2021, and you should compare savings rates by age bracket.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  How are you measuring real income? Inflation has many measurements and benchmarks. Two large expenses, health and housing, have skyrocketed in the past two decades.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  This looks like household incomes, not incomes for individual earners. There has been a huge rise in double income households - i.e. households where there are two working adults. In the 60's 25% of households were double income, compared to ~60% now. If incomes are up 40%, but it requires a commensurate increase in work, is that really an improvement? https://www.pewresearch.org/ft_dual-income-households-1960-2012-2/ https://www.pewresearch.org/ft_dual-income-households-1960-2...
notJim 6y ago
I think you really have to look at fed policy and the stock market to understand this. We're in the midst of a barely-uncontrolled pandemic that has caused massive disruption and unemployment in particular sectors, and yet the stock market is hot as shit. I don't think it's irrational to look at that and conclude that it's better to get it while the getting is good.
please333 6y ago
You think we have 90% unemployment?
sfblah 6y ago
Agreed. Just wanted to add that the policy in question is reacting to recessions using monetary policy instead of fiscal stimulus, because of gridlock and regulatory capture. The government is largely at fault for the current bubble. I fear for what will happen if/when it pops.

bmitc 6y ago

I like going to /r/wallstreetbets. I'm not even sure if those YOLO posts are real. Maybe some are. But it seems a lot of people are there just to have fun. I want to think that someone who posts about YOLOing on GME is really someone just invested in ETFs. Every now and then, there's actually really good advice on /r/wallstreetbets. It's one of the rare subreddits where you can just let loose joining in on the fun and memes, but then if you ask a serious question, you usually get a serious and useful answer.

weird-eye-issue 6y ago
I posted a quarter million GME YOLO on WSB over a week ago and it was real (ended up making around $300k and I only have 1000 shares left, so even if it went to $0 right now I'd still have a nice profit)
- sakopov 6y ago
  I saw posts yesterday asking if it's still worth buying GME at market open. I was sure these people are crazy and about to lose their asses. I just checked price action a few minutes ago and it went from $60 to $144 before selling off back to $70s. Crazy.
  - scruple 6y ago
    This was the craziest day of trading I have ever seen. As GME was crashing down from $155, there was a moment when the entire market went down 5-10% and futures spiked. I ended up triggering limit sales on VXX that I had set weeks ago and forgotten about. Truly, this is a speculative bubble that is going to pop very, very hard.
  - rob 6y ago
    Have you checked lately? ;-)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- defen 6y ago

jdhn 6y ago

Earlier today someone claimed to put their parents life savings into BlackBerry. As WSBers say, that's truly a diamond hand move.

weird-eye-issue 6y ago
No, that's not the correct terminology
rjbwork 6y ago
That would be a "retarded yolo", not "Diamond Hands". If they hold onto those shares as the price drops and/or sky rockets in hopes of further future gains, that would be "diamond handing".

treis 6y ago

>Taking credit card advances to YOLO into short-dated OTM call options is drug-addict level desperation. It's actually somewhat rational. Say you just graduated college and make 30k as a waiter. You scrape together savings, loans, CCs, etc. and pull together 20k. Take that to Robinhood 2-3x it with margin and place a 50k bet that has a 8% chance to pay off 10x. If you "win" you're up 15 years of wages or more. If you lose, well, you declare bankruptcy and shit gets wiped. It's not like you were buying a house or a nice car on 30k a year anyways.

tpmx 6y ago
The sensible response from society is unfortunately restricting personal bankruptcy laws. Essentially this is an organized attack on civilized society and it needs to be shut down, somehow.
- baq 6y ago
  if this is the only alternative you can come up with, then you unfortunately suffer from a lack of imagination. another solution would be to make that $30k enough for a comfortable life so the bet doesn't seem that attractive in the first place.
  - tpmx 6y ago
    I think you may have replied to the wrong comment?
    - cbozeman 6y ago
      No, they didn't. If you're so daft that you think its okay to give literally trillions of aid to companies in the form of tax breaks, bailouts, subsidies, and other horseshit, but letting people write off mere millions in bankruptcy proceedings because they know at a fundamental level that the system is - if not broken, definitely malfunctioning - then brother, you are part of the problem here.
- treis 6y ago