6 ms·

Hedge funds are down $70 billion over this, so I'm pretty sure there's some accuracy. And no, its not all GameStop, but $GME is a driver. https://www.reuters.c

Hedge funds are down $70 billion over this, so I'm pretty sure there's some accuracy. And no, its not all GameStop, but $GME is a driver. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-retail-trading-shortbets-idUSKBN29X1SW https://www.reuters.com/article/us-retail-trading-shortbets-...

pjc50 6y ago
This is very much reminding me of 2008. If you keep blowing up financial institutions, eventually you're going to hit a Lehman and the counterparty risk spreads to the rest of the system.
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  The zeitgeist seems to be “screw ‘em; they’re jackals”.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Yes, I'm aware of that. Do we actually want to rerun 2008 again, though? Are people expecting it to have a different, better outcome and not a different, worse outcome or just the bailout again? The hedge funds aren't structurally important. Brokerages start to be. Retail banks definitely are.
    - germinalphrase 6y ago
      They probably don’t understand. If they do understand, they don’t seem to care. There are a lot of people under the age of forty who don’t feel like they are benefiting from our current system. When the Boomers hit age 35, they owned approx. 21 percent of the nation’s wealth. Gen X plummeted down to 9 percent. Millennials are on track to own about 3-4 percent. This is according to the Fed. They make less, own less, don’t see themselves or their interests represented at the highest levels of our government, and are fed up. So, yes, the young would suffer more than the wealthy, the elderly, and the connected in an economic collapse, but they don’t seem to care.
      - splistud 6y ago
        Well said. And these people under forty (to reduce everything to simple terms) divide themselves into roughly equal camps. Some see the problems as fatcats/gov not doing enough to help the poor. The other side sees the fatcats/gov not doing enough to help citizens as opposed to certain elites and all here because of illegal entry. Both are right to a large extent, and both are slandered as evil/racist/etc. by the other side.
      - chewz 6y ago
        > When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose!
    - ENGNR 6y ago
      If there is a systematic risk.. surely better to catch it earlier than let it keep inflating
tonfa 6y ago
Isn't that fairly misleading? > Ortex said the figures are based on the change in trading prices between the start of January to Wednesday’s close, and the number of short positions. The shorts might be down 70 billions, but won't most hedge funds hedge their position with something more complex than just a short?
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
If you only add up the estimated short positions, and you assume they didn't hold any winning long positions, and you assume short positions are only held by hedge funds, and you assume the hedge funds didn't hedge with other contracts, that estimate might come close. That's a lot of assumptions, though. Some hedge funds are going to make bank on this.

pjc50 6y ago

This is very much reminding me of 2008. If you keep blowing up financial institutions, eventually you're going to hit a Lehman and the counterparty risk spreads to the rest of the system.

germinalphrase 6y ago
The zeitgeist seems to be “screw ‘em; they’re jackals”.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Yes, I'm aware of that. Do we actually want to rerun 2008 again, though? Are people expecting it to have a different, better outcome and not a different, worse outcome or just the bailout again? The hedge funds aren't structurally important. Brokerages start to be. Retail banks definitely are.
  - germinalphrase 6y ago
    They probably don’t understand. If they do understand, they don’t seem to care. There are a lot of people under the age of forty who don’t feel like they are benefiting from our current system. When the Boomers hit age 35, they owned approx. 21 percent of the nation’s wealth. Gen X plummeted down to 9 percent. Millennials are on track to own about 3-4 percent. This is according to the Fed. They make less, own less, don’t see themselves or their interests represented at the highest levels of our government, and are fed up. So, yes, the young would suffer more than the wealthy, the elderly, and the connected in an economic collapse, but they don’t seem to care.
    - splistud 6y ago
      Well said. And these people under forty (to reduce everything to simple terms) divide themselves into roughly equal camps. Some see the problems as fatcats/gov not doing enough to help the poor. The other side sees the fatcats/gov not doing enough to help citizens as opposed to certain elites and all here because of illegal entry. Both are right to a large extent, and both are slandered as evil/racist/etc. by the other side.
    - chewz 6y ago
      > When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose!
  - ENGNR 6y ago
    If there is a systematic risk.. surely better to catch it earlier than let it keep inflating

tonfa 6y ago

Isn't that fairly misleading? > Ortex said the figures are based on the change in trading prices between the start of January to Wednesday’s close, and the number of short positions. The shorts might be down 70 billions, but won't most hedge funds hedge their position with something more complex than just a short?

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

If you only add up the estimated short positions, and you assume they didn't hold any winning long positions, and you assume short positions are only held by hedge funds, and you assume the hedge funds didn't hedge with other contracts, that estimate might come close. That's a lot of assumptions, though. Some hedge funds are going to make bank on this.