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As long as the price keeps going up, there's no bag to hold yet in this metaphor. We're still at the part of the heist where the vault is being emptied.

paulgb 6y ago
Let me put it this way, if someone bought GME over the last few days and sold it at 3x what they paid, what fraction of that gain (on average) came from a hedge fund covering a short vs. from another retail investor buying in? The assumption seems to be that it comes purely from a short cover but that’s not at all obvious to me.
- polka_haunts_us 6y ago
  I agree. The holding the bag metaphor comes from a gang of thieves robbing a place and then leaving a patsy behind with all the evidence of the crime and none of the loot. Right now, in my opinion, a lot of the Robinhood faction of the gang are funneling into the vault thinking Joe Wallstreet is that patsy, not realizing that the savvy senior members bailed out an hour ago and the cops are about 2 blocks over and closing. There doesn't have to be just one patsy after all. The whole metaphor discounts the "I just want the shortsellers to burn b/c anarchy" aspect that some people are claiming, which honestly I think is believed by very few and projected onto many more who really just want quick money.
  - paulgb 6y ago
    Yep, we’re on the same page. Well put.
  - radihuq 6y ago
    Reminds me of a phenomena calling merchanting clans[0] on the video game RuneScape. It would start with a small group of players convincing a bunch of casual players to join their clan and buy out as much of the supply of a specific item on the market as they could. They claimed if everyone held on to the items for two weeks the price would rise and they'd all get rich. Of course, the leaders would then sell their items one week in. This would cause the price of the item to drop, resulting in the other members of the clan panic-selling all of their items. The price of the item would then crash resulting in most players losing their money. Eventually the game developers made the organization of such clans a bannable offense since too many casual players were losing a lot of their wealth participating in these events. [0] https://runescapeclans.fandom.com/wiki/Merchanting_Clan https://runescapeclans.fandom.com/wiki/Merchanting_Clan

paulgb 6y ago

Let me put it this way, if someone bought GME over the last few days and sold it at 3x what they paid, what fraction of that gain (on average) came from a hedge fund covering a short vs. from another retail investor buying in? The assumption seems to be that it comes purely from a short cover but that’s not at all obvious to me.

polka_haunts_us 6y ago
I agree. The holding the bag metaphor comes from a gang of thieves robbing a place and then leaving a patsy behind with all the evidence of the crime and none of the loot. Right now, in my opinion, a lot of the Robinhood faction of the gang are funneling into the vault thinking Joe Wallstreet is that patsy, not realizing that the savvy senior members bailed out an hour ago and the cops are about 2 blocks over and closing. There doesn't have to be just one patsy after all. The whole metaphor discounts the "I just want the shortsellers to burn b/c anarchy" aspect that some people are claiming, which honestly I think is believed by very few and projected onto many more who really just want quick money.
- paulgb 6y ago
  Yep, we’re on the same page. Well put.
- radihuq 6y ago
  Reminds me of a phenomena calling merchanting clans[0] on the video game RuneScape. It would start with a small group of players convincing a bunch of casual players to join their clan and buy out as much of the supply of a specific item on the market as they could. They claimed if everyone held on to the items for two weeks the price would rise and they'd all get rich. Of course, the leaders would then sell their items one week in. This would cause the price of the item to drop, resulting in the other members of the clan panic-selling all of their items. The price of the item would then crash resulting in most players losing their money. Eventually the game developers made the organization of such clans a bannable offense since too many casual players were losing a lot of their wealth participating in these events. [0] https://runescapeclans.fandom.com/wiki/Merchanting_Clan https://runescapeclans.fandom.com/wiki/Merchanting_Clan