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Reddit's GameStop, AMC surge is the new Occupy movement
- Quequau 6y ago"terrifying". That seems way over wrought.
- sharker8 6y agoAgreed its hyperbolic. Some might be terrified. Depending on how the narrative shifts the dominant cognitive effect could go from terror to amazement or admiration. If so we might see second order effects like submission (if it shifts to admiration) or awe (if it moves toward amazement). I imagine its a good opportunity for a reboot for populist leaders of previous movements (tea party and occupy). But they will have to struggle for the same mindshare.
- cafard 6y ago"terrifying new Occupy Wall Street" probably will get more clicks than "disturbing new method of market manipulation."
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- david927 6y agoIt's neither disturbing nor exactly new. The problem is more derivatives in general -- what Warren Buffet has long called "weapons of mass destruction" -- than the use of a forum.
- peanut_worm 6y agoTerrifying to my bank account currently
- cpach 6y agoWhy?
- cpach 6y agoYeah. I fail to see what is terrifying about this...?
- floren 6y agoIn the modern age, everything inspires terror to journalists and Internet commenters.
- anthk 6y agoGood. I'm tired of fake Economics where the value of a company or the product is not made from the real value of it, while some yuppies get rich in the proccess. The more they cry, the better. Hope is collapses so "middle" and low class workers can get fair prices of what they earn by doing actual hard work. Because this will create a good crash, dont fool about it. It will harm everyone, but at least this Century will be less focused on speculation and more on actual earnings.
- ramblerman 6y agoI also don't care about a hedge fund losing out but Id hardly call the current value of Gamestop to be "real" Economics. And for the few /r/wsb guys and girls making a killing there are a lot more late comers who will lose big, and can't afford to.
- agildehaus 6y agoNo, it's not real economics. It's the little guys coming together to fight the big guys at their own game.
- ceejayoz 6y agoA lot of little guys are gonna be left holding the bag at the end, though. The stock was probably overvalued at $10. It's definitely overvalued at $400.
- vsareto 6y agoBased on how people acted during the pandemic, these people will be more than willing to be bagholders, constantly deny they are bagholders, and constantly deny anyone else is a bagholder.
- criddell 6y agoPeople were shorting this stock when it was an order of magnitude less expensive. Isn't it an even more attractive short target now?
- fassssst 6y agoIt’s terrifying because so many people have retirement funds tied up in stocks and this has the potential to decrease everyone’s trust in the idea of stocks.
- adamnemecek 6y agoYes, it was this event and not say the 2008 crisis.
- macNchz 6y agoThere's a lot of retirement money tied up in stocks right now that should be in less risky investments. People should distrust stocks if they're going to need the money the near/mid term, but monetary policy in recent years has driven people to stocks in search of yields that have dried up in bonds etc. This has a feedback effect where now the government is hyper sensitive to stock market downturns, for fear that millions will lose their retirement savings.
- hugi 6y agoThere are people that "trust" stocks? To me it's always been a somewhat stupid casino game for the rich to rig.
- jaywalk 6y agoAnyone who doesn't do it for a living should treat investing in individual stocks exactly as they would gambling in a casino.
- michaelt 6y agoIt's a casino if you're buying individual stocks and trading on a daily basis. But if you're saving for retirement by putting x% of your income into an index fund? That's pretty conventional, most people with retirement savings do something along those lines.
- anewaccount2021 6y agoPick your funds wisely. No one should have their next meal dependent on a weird short position. Read the risk prospectus for your funds and take it seriously. There is little deception. Funds that take crazy risks will say so in their prospectus. There's no chance your S&P500 index fund is taking a huge Bed Bath And Beyond short position when no one is watching.
- protomyth 6y agoShorting a stock 140% is the market manipulation and should be criminal. Anything a large group does after some hedge fund pulls that stunt is fair game.
- djoldman 6y ago1. There isn't any one entity that is short 140% of the GME float. 2. If a stock shouldn't be allowed to be sold short past 100% then we should outlaw subletting apartments. Why shouldn't someone be allowed to pay to borrow something, and then rent it out? How is that manipulative in and of itself?
- cordite 6y agoCould you elaborate on how shorting past 100% is comparable to subletting? How is shorting alike borrowing something?
- Bantros 6y agoIt isn't
- czinck 6y agoShorting is literally borrowing the stock and then reselling it, so a shorter is pretty analogous to someone renting and then immediately subletting an apartment (Yes, there's the rent/buy distinction, which is what leads to short squeezes, but close enough). To get past 100% short interest just means some of the subletters have sub-sublet.
- zaphod12 6y agoshorting is identically borrowing. You borrow the stock from someone who owns it, and resell it at the current price. Then later down the road, you buy it back at the lower price and return it to the original owner. You have made money on whatever that difference is. This is not a metaphor, this is how shorting operates. It can easily go over 100% if the person you sell it to also lends it to someone to short (and they have no clue that the share they bought was involved a short, already). Note - this is why it's possible to lose your shirt when you are shorting. Eventually you will need to return that stock you've sold, which means buying it at whatever the price is. So if it goes WAAAY up, you lose a lot of money. In contrast to buying a stock, where you can only lose your position.
- Simulacra 6y agoIt's only terrifying to hedge funds and the rich. We've seen this before in very limited circumstances where citizens acting on their own, force the hand of the powerful/rich, who really don't like to be challenges.
- ARandomerDude 6y agoA lot of "ordinary" people buy into funds hoping for a decent retirement.
- tamaharbor 6y agoThe good ole boys finally got caught and are paying the price.
- InTheArena 6y agoI think this is overstating it a bit. The WSB guys have figured out something simple - that in manipulating stocks to take them down via shorts and public statements - the institution doing the short is very very vulnerable to a short squeeze, in which everyone might make some money, some people astronomically so. Tesla's current stock price is very much a result of some very public shorts, which led to a series of short squeezes. Now it doesn't fall because the people who pulled the short squeeze can't unwind their trade quickly without loosing everything.
- supernovae 6y agoThe people can/have unwound their stock.. its the institutional groups who had to buy to cover that can't afford to sell.
- this_user 6y agoThe only thing more ridiculous than the rise in the GME stock are these attempts to frame this is some sort of culture war. All this is is a bunch of people on an online forum trying to make a quick buck; it's not some grand statement against Wall St. or whatever.
- detritus 6y ago...yet.
- josefresco 6y agoIt may have started for the lulz but has seemingly morphed into a culture war/statement. I think for each person involved, it means something unique to them, which is culturally and historically significant.
- gsfan252 6y agoNo, that's the narrative that e.g. bloomberg tried to sell by quoting single digit reddit posts. Contrast that to the OP's where they describe their GME position in pure financial terms, or the WSB admin's statement (he explicitly says it was never political). These mainstream pieces can't understand wsb, memes or irony (they probably think gamers are literally "rising up") and their audiences are financially illiterate.
- jaywalk 6y agoWow, you really have no idea what this is all about.
- Emma_Goldman 6y agoIt's obviously both, to some extent, and it's less a culture war than a class war.
- elicash 6y agoIt's more than one thing. There are lots of different people involved with a mixture of motivations. It's not just playing out in a single forum, either. And while I'd agree making a "quick buck" is a driving factor, arguably "the" driving factor, that term is also relative. The average time between trades for a high-frequency trading investment firm is 40 seconds. It's out-of-place to talk about these folks making a quick buck when average trade times are measured in seconds and money is made based on having a PHYSICAL location that enables faster trades by nanoseconds.
- altgeek 6y agoSo, Wall Street lives off of skimming fees from the retail investor, and now they cry when the masses cause them pain? Won't anyone shed a tear for the masters of the universe? Aren't these 2/20 "investment managers" supposed to hedge their positions with other derivatives (i.e. options.) ? So much for risk managers and the VaR metric (I know that has fallen out of favor since the last crisis' 10 sigma event.)
- kasey_junk 6y agoThinking of Wall Street as a homogeneous entity is a big mistake. Lots of finance firms are loving this (Citadel for instance used this as an opportunity to get in on a distressed asset, Melvin, cheaply). This Korean fund made a billion dollars on a 12 million dollar investment https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/large-gamestop-shareholder-must-asset-management-sold-off-its-stake-2021-01-28 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/l... Even Melvin didn’t take an existential beating. They are likely going to end their fund date positive which is good for the endowments they manage especially if they got there via a more diversified position than other options.
- 127 6y agoWhat's terrifying to me here is how little actual law enforcement there is against the rich and well connected, when they do wrong. If you allow a rigged game, it will rot the entire system.
- kasey_junk 6y agoWhat about this specific financial event did someone “do wrong”?
- Tenoke 6y agoThe SEC is definitely investigating all involved parties and it is far far too early to talk about law enforcement's reaction.
- dcow 6y agoIt’s clear who’s mad when news media is equating this to the capitol riot.
- Darmody 6y agoThis reminds me of a quote I head on Boardwalk Empire. First rule of politics, kiddo, never let the truth get in in the way of a good story.
- boringg 6y agoCNET also known as the source for economic and social movement reporting is combining both in an article? Strange. They wouldn't be trying monetize a popular trending topic would they? Won't even open this click bait garbage.
- henriquez 6y agoThe fact that the word “terrifying” is in the headline indicates sensationalist bullshit written from a sympathetic perspective to hedge fund capitalists.
- FabHK 6y ago> The only difference in this case is the 99-percenters are reaping the massive gains while Wall Street titans are seeing a genuine upheaval of the norms of investing. Well, funnily enough, the earliest 1% of the 99% will reap massive gains, while the majority will lose their shirt when the stock finally collapses.
- ASalazarMX 6y agoAnd this is how the speculation (I mean, stock) market works: some insiders get the lion share, a few lucky get some crumbs, and the majority absorbs the loses. In this case the lion didn't get his share, and it made him angry.
- password321 6y agoThis has to be one of the more obnoxious things people have generated hype over. So much fake outrage over the 'rich' (some bullshit generic enemy) to rally people to buy stocks with hope they can get rich quick (because they heard some success story of the few). Looking forward to this one fizzling out.
- okareaman 6y agoI suspect you perceive the issue this way because you see things in black or white terms, don't care to understand the nuance or don't have an intuition of the nuance because of a low emotional intelligence quotient. That's not saying you're not a smart person, just maybe someone who lacks empathy.
- password321 6y agoWell we got a psychologist over here and apparently I have no empathy. Speaking of intelligence...
- carlisle_ 6y agoI'll take a ban to say this is the dumbest thing I've read all week congratulations.
- password321 6y agoDefinitely the most pompous.
- dtwest 6y agoIt is important to remember that if you take what is said on WSB at face value, you are on the outside of an inside joke.
- gandalfian 6y agoAaaaand it's crashing!!! Down from 450 to about 125 in the last few minutes!!!
- depingus 6y agoMany retail brokerages have disallowed buying GME, AMC, and a few others. Though, they are still letting users sell. Without the ability to buy, the price can only go down. There are other HN threads covering this aspect.
- gandalfian 6y agoYeah I thought that, then just after I posted the stock doubled again and then dropped 30% so who knows.
- BlueTie 6y ago...or it's the co-opting of OWS. Michael Burry, Ryan Cohen, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett are glorified in wsb as much as the handful of hedgefunds shorting GME are hated.
- cblconfederate 6y agoThis is what happens when we let the unwashed masses buy stocks for free. We saw it coming and we shouldn't have let this happen.
- jefurii 6y agoThey're talking about Occupy like it was a bad thing.
- Dirlewanger 6y agoI mean, nothing material happened because of it. People got angry at the shadowy nebulous "Wall Street" instead of Obama who actually gave the bailouts.
- ASalazarMX 6y agoRemember when Tesla, back in 2019, was featured in frequent news articles as doomed and failing, and there was even talk about replacing Elon because he was unstable? It was the same bullshit, some people wanted cheap Tesla stocks and went as far as buying misinformation-as-a-service. Funny how starting 2020, Tesla was awesome and a solid investment again. I guess some people are too impatient to wait for stocks to bring profits the way they were meant to.
- hedora 6y agoI wish they’d use their platform for something more constructive. Buy a majority share in a key link of the oil supply chain, then vote to cease operations. (Or similarly, do the same with coal plants, install co2 scrubbers, and scuttle all ongoing development projects).
- dfxm12 6y agoI'm not sure if the people comparing this WSB situation to occupy don't understand WSB or didn't understand occupy. Probably neither.
- g0ran 6y agoThe true fifth estate in the making, it seems?
- deathlight 6y agoA fun term I've seen being repurposed is occu-buy wall street.