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> but I do worry for people like my dad who can just buy a stock more easily than order dinner. I can't wrap my head around this argument at all. Why can't you

by cactus2093 6y ago

> but I do worry for people like my dad who can just buy a stock more easily than order dinner. I can't wrap my head around this argument at all. Why can't you trust your dad about his stock purchases? Yes, someone like your dad can buy a stock easily. They can also lose all their money at a casino or buy a lottery ticket easily. They can spend all their money on gadgets or fancy clothes. They can drink too much alcohol, or gain too much weight. Life comes with risks. To the extent that a behavior will harm innocent bystanders, then I am fine with making various things illegal, I'm not an anarchist or hard core libertarian or anything. But I don't see how letting someone buy shares of a stock falls into that category of things that could harm innocent bystanders.

gmaster1440 6y ago
> Why can't you trust your dad about his stock purchases? It's not the stock purchases in themselves. It's the degree to which certain stocks are hyped, largely by misinformation and traditional bubble mechanics, that's particularly insidious here. There's a reason why pump-and-dump schemes are traditionally regulated by securities laws.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  From what I understand, pump-and-dumps are illegal if you make untrue promises about future behavior or otherwise are shown to deceive or lie about it. Or if you are coordinating to have a certain group all sell at an exact same time to leave others holding the bag. I suppose it's a fine line, but to me this seems much more loosely coordinated. I don't think there's been any particular time to sell that has been agreed on, and all the communication is out in a public forum. And the demand for the stock is all based around public knowledge that it was shorted 140% of its market cap. It seems like the difference between insider trading vs if information leaks to the public about a company's plans in which case it's completely legal to trade based on.

gmaster1440 6y ago

> Why can't you trust your dad about his stock purchases? It's not the stock purchases in themselves. It's the degree to which certain stocks are hyped, largely by misinformation and traditional bubble mechanics, that's particularly insidious here. There's a reason why pump-and-dump schemes are traditionally regulated by securities laws.

cactus2093 6y ago
From what I understand, pump-and-dumps are illegal if you make untrue promises about future behavior or otherwise are shown to deceive or lie about it. Or if you are coordinating to have a certain group all sell at an exact same time to leave others holding the bag. I suppose it's a fine line, but to me this seems much more loosely coordinated. I don't think there's been any particular time to sell that has been agreed on, and all the communication is out in a public forum. And the demand for the stock is all based around public knowledge that it was shorted 140% of its market cap. It seems like the difference between insider trading vs if information leaks to the public about a company's plans in which case it's completely legal to trade based on.