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Ask HN: How is GME not a pump-and-dump?

61 points by callwaiting 6y ago

I've deliberately stayed away from WSB so far, but curiosity got the best of me now, and I took a look. The amount of pumping behind GME is unbelievable. On of the top comments as of right now justifies burning a year's worth of income, just to stick it to Wall Street. The thing is, I don't think anyone at Wall Street is touching this stock right now. The stock price is far too high for a buy grounded in fundamentals, and shorting this particular stock right now can backfire catastrophically, as we have seen. This has the veneer of a crowd sticking it to someone they felt exploited by, but in the end, they're just being exploited by someone else. Right now, the only ones benefiting from someone sticking a year's worth of incoming into GME are those doing the pumping.

chovybizzass 6y ago
its because the hedge funds are shorting and buy buying $GME we are effectively going to bankrupt them. This is payback for 2008 and a million more things.
- hknd 6y ago
  Which will only get the price up for a short amount of time, it will be dumped after that anyway. GME fundamentals haven't changed (much) - it's not worth much on paper, maybe $10, $20, $30? Market behaves irrational rn, but at some point it will become rational again. And then GME stock will crash.
  - haakonhr 6y ago
    But as everyone knows: the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/)
- callwaiting 6y ago
  > its because the hedge funds are shorting and buy buying $GME we are effectively going to bankrupt them. Which hedge funds? Melvin has already retreated.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    For me the oddest thing about the situation is how people that absolutely won't believe Melvin Capital stating it has exited its position (an easily discoverable lie which would result in their LPs filing lawsuits against their personal wealth and probably jail sentences) seem to think all the people posting and upvoting BUY AND HOLD YOLO are acting in good faith and not trying to maximise the upside of their call options...
    - callwaiting 6y ago
      Yes, exactly. This is what I meant with "This has the veneer of a crowd sticking it to someone they felt exploited by, but in the end, they're just being exploited by someone else."
    - emteycz 6y ago
      Can you explain why didn't the data about shorts change then? Are you saying someone else went and shorted it over 130% when Melvin stepped back?
      - notahacker 6y ago
        Sure. Other people will have shorted at artificially high prices they don't need to worry about margin calls on, and will be quite happy to wait for the price to drop.
        allie1 6y ago
        Those high prices can still go up, and squeeze them toward a margin call. People thought $100, then $200, $400 were high, yet it passed those by. Yes, it is artificial, but the capital you need when shorting (to cover your position) is very real, and with each price hike, it goes up.
      - kevindong 6y ago
        The NYSE provided short interest data is only released twice a month. The last time being on Jan 27. https://www.nyse.com/market-data/reference/nyse-group-short-interest https://www.nyse.com/market-data/reference/nyse-group-short-...
- dev_tty01 6y ago
  I suspect you don't understand how large many of these funds are. This nonsense is not going to bankrupt these folks. Non-shorted hedge funds are going to use this event to extract more dollars from individual investors. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the funds that were initially short have already reversed their positions and are now riding this momentum to the bank. They have much more information and much more trading speed.
  - brodouevencode 6y ago
    > This nonsense is not going to bankrupt these folks. Non-shorted hedge funds are going to use this event to extract more dollars from individual investors And, probably worse, lobby the government for more regulation such that retail traders have even fewer levers to pull.
  - Miner49er 6y ago
    This short squeeze is a stress test of the entire market. The reason that the brokerages stopped trading yesterday is because the clearinghouse (there's apparently only really one) are at risk of going under from this. If that happens it'll be a cascading failure and the whole market will crash. Source: The WeBull CEO in the first 7 minutes of this video explains all this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MAqxQe0l4g0&feature=youtu.be https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MAqxQe0l4g0&feature=youtu.be
minhhnguyen 6y ago
Pump and dumps usually include telling lies to the masses to engineer a rally. This is just a bunch of people bidding it up to stick it to the man, there is no manufactured news involved.
dev_tty01 6y ago
>> I don't think anyone at Wall Street is touching this stock right now. Hmmm. Why wouldn't the hedge funds that are not short GME jump all over this? That is probably why it has gone so high. The quant programs detect the momentum and ride it up. The funds can trade so fast that they will exit before any of the RH traders.
- nursur2011 6y ago
  Yeah, I have a hard time believing it's just small retail investors.
sizt 6y ago
First you need to offer a definition of "pump and dump". Otherwise you're just using a term that fits your conclusion.
maest 6y ago
> This has the veneer of a crowd sticking it to someone they felt exploited by, but in the end, they're just being exploited by someone else. You are 100% right and that's what's going on. However, the pump-and-dump kinda took a life of its own becuase GME is a perfect storm: * it's a highly shorted stock, so the chance of a short squeeze is high * there's a (misguided) wall street vs retail narrative going on * GME is a name everyone knowns, especially the reddit crowd, so people are more willing to buy in People are being duped into raging against the machine right until they lose their life savings, while u/deepfuckingvalue and friends are laughing all the way to the bank. And when it will all collapse, everyone will point fingers at the rigged market, instead of realising they shouldn't have thought twice before jumping in this senseless buying.
- mckirk 6y ago
  Retail investors being blocked from buying while short sellers use ladder attacks to buy back shorts cheaper very much seems like a 'rigged market' though, no? (Even if the move to block buyers wasn't orchestrated.) Granted, the big fish are just playing the game, but that doesn't mean it's just 'whining' to take serious issue with how it's played.
- space_rock 6y ago
  Except this is all trur at the same time. It's a rigged market, it's a pump and dump and a protest all in one https://twitter.com/IsicaLynn/status/1354894529208348673?s=20 https://twitter.com/IsicaLynn/status/1354894529208348673?s=2...
- imtringued 6y ago
  >And when it will all collapse, everyone will point fingers at the rigged market, instead of realising they shouldn't have thought twice before jumping in this senseless buying. https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l8b92a/cnbc_thinks_loss_porn_isnt_a_thing/glbmmv4?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l8b92a/cnbc... Are you sure?
User23 6y ago
On a tangent, are insiders who can’t trade still allowed to lend their shares out to shorts? The idea of Elon Musk collecting borrow fees from TSLA shorts and then watching them get crushed is an amusing one.
- victor106 6y ago
  Great question. I am not an expert in this area, so don’t take this as the correct answer I think the way it works is your broker lends out your stock (at a profit) to short without any explicit consent from you. It’s your brokers responsibility to make sure that you have access to your stock when you need them.
- deleted 6y ago
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nowherebeen 6y ago
If the stock was <100% shorted, it would be a pump and dump. The moment it was >100% shorted, the hedged fund exposed themselves to financial risk. No matter how much people buy, they can't buy >100% of the shares on the market unless GameStop issues new shares. The people buying are betting that when these hedge funds need to cover, they will be covering ~120% of the number of shares (the amount of shorted stock) on the market. That covers everyone that has shares right now. So right now, its a tug of war (hence the volatility). Its a zero sum game where one side will definitely lose. You can argue that the company isn't worth anything and that buyers will get hurt, but only when <100% of the stock is shorted. edit (below): The loser will be the one holding 100% of the stock. At that point the stock would plummet because all the buyers have left. Meaning if the hedge fund loses, they are not just covering at a higher price (and thus continuing to drive it up even more), they will effectively be buying worthless stock. I consider this a battle of trading strategies. The fundamental value of the company is beside the point. Hedge funds have done this to each other before, that's why there's an existing term for it - short squeeze. Its definitely covered in a textbook for first year business school students.
- deleted 6y ago
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- pastrami_panda 6y ago
  But according to statements from e.g. Melvin Capital they closed their position at a loss already. It's very hard to tell if this is actually the case but assuming it's true that ought to change the situation, no?
  - trsohmers 6y ago
    It is pretty easy to tell that Melvin was lying through their teeth when they said this... the volume for them to cover was not there, and most estimates was that it would take 6-8 days for them to actually exit their position.
    - nursur2011 6y ago
Terretta 6y ago
> one of the top comments as of right now justifies burning a year's worth of income, just to stick it to Wall Street For the past week, a majority of “stick it to Wall St” comments have been saying (a) don’t buy it if you don’t like the stock, (b) only buy with money you don’t care if you get back, and (c) if you really really just want to stick it, then buy in order to take the share off the market not to make money, only buy a share or two then put them under your mattress. Can’t speak for the top comment, but a majority of the advice has been in the “only spend a few dollars for entertainment and political value, and only spend if you never expect to get back”. Some are being explicit, saying, think of your buy as a political contribution to Occupy Wall Street.
LatteLazy 6y ago
People seem very convinced that because the "victim" is Big Finance, that makes it OK. Convincing them otherwise requires logic to beat emotions or prejudice. That's proving very difficult at the moment.
- valdiorn 6y ago
  as someone who actually works in finance, I've just decided it's not even worth engaging with people on reddit, trying to explain that the actions of RH and other brokers is justified. There too much of this "us vs. the evil Wall Street system" going on for people to actually listen to reason. Nobody gives a fuck about the fact that, if RH continued to sell shares and options to customers, they would be liable for billions in damages, and a whole host of related entities (clearing house, market markers they work with, etc) would be in the shit. It would effectively "break the system". Of course, that's what some people want. However, don't blame them for not wanting to sell customers illegal services, just because the customers feel entitled to it. Also, there's this huge misconception that the markets are "free", and that means anyone can participate. Soooo not true. First of all, you don't get to rock up to any market and just ask to buy or sell stuff; only trusted members of that exchange actually have the right to do that. Even hedge funds with direct market access are usually sponsored by a broker, so while they get to submit their own orders, the broker oversees the flow and can pull the plug, because the fund is trading on their good word. Some funds (like one I used to work for) go as far as actually buying a seat on the board of major exchanges, like the CME, and that seat itself is worth millions or tens of millions of dollars. that's the premium you pay for market access. Maybe now people understand why RH would rather play it safe and anger their customers rather than piss off literally the entire market and get kicked out, along with the clearing house and market makers going bust in the process. It's bad for everybody - even the retail traders, because their assets become worthless when there's nobody left to fulfill the trade.
  - nvarsj 6y ago
    > Also, there's this huge misconception that the markets are "free", and that means anyone can participate You just hit the nail on the head. Lots of people believe that in a free and fair market, everyone should have equal access. Yesterday just made it abundantly clear to literally everyone that this isn't reality, as you point out. Which is why everyone is pissed.
interestica 6y ago
So I've been wondering about how this is different. I'm wondering, at what level, this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy? A lot of the talk has been that the stock price doesn't reflect the company's 'true value' (it's volatile and mostly inflated). But there are a few outcomes that truly increase the company's value. Obviously the brand/marketing aspect -- lots of free marketing. New key board placements show that they are potentially restructuring/refocusing and that potential strength is highlighted by the public messaging within WSB. (The messaging is obviously disproportionate and a reaction to negative valuations by the those that shorted it...but still influential.). It seems to be growing at about 1m+ per day. You have a lot of influencable eyes on content there. What if GameStop gets essentially treated like a defacto co-op of sorts? What if WSB helps coordinated buys? What if it becomes the "preferred retailer" for purchasing/selling consoles? (Even going so far as recommending against purchasing from other retailers). What if it gets championed as some sort of anti-corporation corporation. What if WSB helps guide whatever transition is necessary at the retailer (e-sports? some sort of wework-gaming hybrid? Sustainable? who knows). The brick-and-mortar retail space is going to be very unpredictable in a post-pandemic world.... There could be a certain pride and self-interest in helping drive gamestop's business. A lot of the wit and intelligence gets overshadowed by outside reading of the memes. The mods over there are very smart and there's potential for something well-organized to come out of this. We might look at how WSB affects Robinhood as a business as some kind of indicator of the massive power of such an organized group. The company has the potential to become as valuable as the "inflated" valuation.
strikelaserclaw 6y ago
I truly hope the ones benefiting are really the little guys and not "other" wallstreet, manipulating desperate people by giving them a narrative is so easy.
nwallin 6y ago
IANAL. I'm not touching GME with my money, but I'm happy to stand on the sidelines and cheer the memers on. You need to define your terms. You don't get charged and go to prison for "pump and dump", you get charged and go to prison for "securities fraud". Right now, people are saying it's worth burning a lot of money just to stick it to Wall Street. As in, if you do this, you're probably gonna lose a lot of money, but you should do it anyway, because it's the right thing to do. (note: I'm not arguing the merits of this argument, I'm just stating what I interpret the argument to be.) The thing that's illegal that will put you in prison for securities fraud is to claim that if you buy GME and hold it, you will make a lot of money. This isn't illegal because it's fucking over Wall Street, this is illegal because you're lying. The crime isn't "pump and dump", the crime is "securities fraud". Also note that traditionally, in a pump and dump scheme, you buy first and pump later. People right now are buying and pumping at the same time. They're not (just) pumping by telling other people to buy the stock, they're pumping by buying the stock. This is a significant difference. That being said, since Everything Everywhere Is Securities Fraud, I guess this is securities fraud too. (/s) https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everything-everywhere-is-securities-fraud https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...
zaphirplane 6y ago
I think it started as some noticed the hedge funds with their pants down. Now a whole bunch of pump and dump people are taking advantage of the “movement” with this rocket Valhalla business
CTDOCodebases 6y ago
You can only consider it a “pump-and-dump” if the individuals doing the “pumping” buy in at a low price and “dump” at a high price. I too doubt this will end well for the people pouring money in at high prices but no one seems to have trouble with the legality of gambling so I don’t see how this is any different. If Gamestop issues shares at these elevated prices and successfully uses this money to pay down debt and pivot it could end up a good long term investment. I think the bigger question is “Is allowing market participants the ability to drive down the price of a share using leverage or no capital at all a good thing for the stock market and economy as a whole?”

jfengel 6y ago

I've seen this argument several times and I don't understand it. Why can't they buy >100% of the shares in exactly the same way they were able to sell >100% of the shares? They buy some shares, return them to their owners, and then buy them up again? They don't even need to buy up 100%. They only need to buy up 20%. Then they're back in the situation of being under 100% shorted, and problem no longer applies. With such a large short interest it means that a motivated or coordinated buyer can force them to cover it at highly inflated prices, and that's their fault. But doesn't seem to be impossible just because the interest is >100%, merely very expensive (perhaps bankruptcy expensive). Am I missing something?

bananabiscuit 6y ago
I don’t think you are missing anything. This magic 100% number is somewhat of a meme going around.
stevofolife 6y ago
You're also missing the fact that these hedge funds are bleeding interest per day. So buying 20% only will not suffice.
- jfengel 6y ago
  I take it the interest is based on the current price? If so, that would make some sense: if they're paying (say) .1% per day on a stock that is worth 100x the amount you got for shorting it, you'll gradually burn through all of the cash you got for the short. You're still in a kind of race to see whether it will stay that high for long, or if people will eventually want to take their profits. But it definitely puts pressure on you to reduce your exposure to that, even at the inflated price.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Exactly. Short seller buys 100 shares, return shares to lender, lender sells back to short seller, repeat as many times as needed to close
- t0mas88 6y ago
  Except that the lender is seeing the price skyrocket, so they're not selling it back.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    Surely the price is soaring because that's what it takes for the seller to keep selling it back?
nowherebeen 6y ago
> Why can't they buy >100% of the shares in exactly the same way they were able to sell >100% of the shares When a company issues shares, there is a finite amount. It determines the the percentage of the company someone owns. So if there is 100 shares, you own 20, it would mean you own 20%. When a company goes public, they typically give, say 10%, to the market. So those 10 shares exist only. You either stock split or issues more shares. But issuing more shares would mean you own less percentage (and who would do that to themselves without a payoff). You can buy more than 100% if you buy a financial instrument that has its underlying value tied to the company stock price (i.e. vanilla equity derivative), but its price is determined by the stock and not the other way around. > Then they're back in the situation of being under 100% shorted Let's say now there are 5 hedge funds that hold GameStock. Each has 20% (because hedge funds bet big, not small). The first one to cover will lose the least. You never want to be the last one because you lose the most and liquidity would be scarce because no one is willing to sell you their shares since its going up, meaning you would be double screwed. With each player that leaves, it causes a cascading effect. > With such a large short interest it means that a motivated or coordinated buyer can force them to cover it at highly inflated prices, and that's their fault. Yup. edit: The only people that can issue more shares without dilution is the Federal Reserve. They have a count of how much money is in flow, and can print money when need. But that only works if people believe in it. It hasn't been backed by gold in a long time. Otherwise, you will be in the same situation as some European countries prior to WW2 - hyperinflation (i.e dilution).
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  FYI the equity derivative might solve the money pit problem in theory but not if the instruments are in separate net margin accounts — then you may still get margin calls from one counter-party even when the other is showing you a gain.
  - nowherebeen 6y ago
    Seems like they opted for purchasing long call options and short put options; effectively, locking in their losses. Will be interesting to see how this ends. Either the price drops back down to a reasonable price, they can exit their position, or they will continue to delay closing their position. Either way, it will be awhile because this plays out.
Wheaties466 6y ago
so theres several different ways to buy calls and put. Theres calls and covered calls. Some brokers will only let you sell the later due to the margin needed. With a covered call you have to own the stock and hold it in your portfolio. With a non covered call, if your option gets exercised you then buy the stock at market value and sell to the executor at the agreed upon price. basically when people are saying they shorted over 100% of the stock they are saying that its a non covered PUT contract and there isn't enough stock to cover the volume of all the PUT options contracts. BUT what we don't know is when this PUT options contracts expire, which could basically make all of this worth fairly worthless. If the shorts option contracts don't expire til next year then this really doesn't matter to them. Generally the P&L dept will make them stagger the options contracts over dates spanning the next year or so though. I would recommend reading up on call and put options for more information.
- beagle3 6y ago
  These shorts aren’t options. They are real (borrowed) shares - which is what makes it much harder for the short sellers to wiggle out, and every price increase makes them lose more money. (If it were puts, they’d lose the premium paid but wouldn’t care about price going up further)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
tashmahalic 6y ago
This may help: https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/01/28/yes-a-stock-can-have-short-interest-over-100-heres/ https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/01/28/yes-a-stock-can-ha...
noodle 6y ago
> Am I missing something? A few things. I'm not an expert, but: > They don't even need to buy up 100%. They only need to buy up 20%. Then they're back in the situation of being under 100% shorted, and problem no longer applies. They're still in a very tough position. Buying 20% will raise the cost of the stock further, since they're buying it at market price which would drive up the price. And raising the price makes maintaining the rest of their shorts more expensive. That's ultimately the goal - make and maintain a higher share price, which would force shorts to buy instead of continue to pay to maintain their position, which in and of itself would make the stock price grow. This is also why /r/wsb is interested in other large but not greater than 100% short interest stocks. They might not get squeezed as much as GME but the pressure would still result in a similar situation with lesser gains. This becomes much less possible as the short interest shrinks or the lower impact you have on the share price.

boatsie 6y ago

There isn't something "magical" about > 100% short interest. It should be stated a ratio to be less confusing, rather than a percentage. It just means that if there were, say 100 shares of a company, and 120 shares sold short, it would be "120%" short. But all this means is that there are 220 shares "owned" by others. And thus, to cover, the "shorts" need only buy back 120 of those 220 shares, so there will certainly be bag holders at the end of this since the shorts don't actually need to buy up "all the shares", only 54% of them in this case. Now, of course, some of those shares are locked up by funds tracking, say the Russell 2000 index, which cannot liquidate their holdings (and may even be required to buy more as GME climbs) in order to maintain it's percentage in the fund. Other shares are held by other funds or institutions, and so on. So the reality is it is difficult for the shorts to cover quickly. This isn't a problem during "normal times" because the volatility of the stock is relatively low and thus the short margin interest that you have to pay to keep borrowing the stock is a small percentage. But as the price runs up, that interest and collateral requirements grow dramatically since the broker needs to be sure you can pay up if you have to buy the shares at the current market price.

tashmahalic 6y ago
If an index fund wants to maintain the same portfolio percentage of GME when GME’s stock price rises, wouldn’t the fund sell GME, rather than buy?
- reducesuffering 6y ago
  Isn't it actually neither buy nor sell? Most common indices (by AUM) are market-cap weighted. If a total market ETF contains 0.25% of it in GME, and GME doubles in value, it's GME it holds is now 0.50%, and that's how much it should hold now, according to market-cap weight. No buying or selling. Of course there's many ETF's that aren't market-cap weighted, but the majority of funds/value is.
  - boatsie 6y ago
    That’s right, I misspoke. It could possibly require other funds that were tracking, say, the top 1000 stocks by market cap to buy, not ones tracking the regular index.
- kozd 6y ago
  Not if it's a cap-weighted index fund.
CuriousNinja 6y ago
>It just means that if there were, say 100 shares of a company, and 120 shares sold short, it would be "120%" short. But all this means is that there are 220 shares "owned" by others. And thus, to cover, the "shorts" need only buy back 120 of those 220 shares Can someone please explain how the original 100 shares turned into 220? Does this mean that after borrowing a share and shorting it, the original owner and the one who shorted can both sell it?
- jfim 6y ago
  It's not unlike fractional reserve banking. Imagine three participants: Alice, Bob, and Charlie. Alice owns a share of Foo Corp, the only such share that exists. Bob decides to short Foo Corp, and borrows a share from Alice's broker (Alice's broker gets paid for this). At that moment, there are two shares that exist. If Alice logs into her brokerage account, she sees a share of Foo Corp, but it's really an IOU for a share of Foo Corp. If Bob logs into his account, he also sees a share of Foo Corp (that he borrowed from Alice). At that point, there are two "shares" of Foo Corp that exist. To make money on the short, Bob has to sell the share and buy it later, so he puts it in the market and sells it to Charlie. At this point, there are two shares: a share owned by Charlie and an IOU to Alice from Bob. Bob could be very confident about shorting Foo Corp, so he could also borrow a share from Charlie's broker, at which point there would be three shares in existence: an IOU to Alice, an IOU to Charlie, and the sole share that exists. Each of these participants, if they log into their brokerage account, do see a share. These phantom shares can't exist forever though: Bob is paying both Alice's and Charlie's brokers. Keep in mind that either Alice and Charlie can decide to sell their share, which Bob could then buy, at which point he could cover the remaining IOU, and everything would settle. But then, what if both Alice and Charlie just bought the share and weren't planning to sell it? Bob would be in a position where he owes two shares but there are zero to buy on the market. Normally, that doesn't happen because shares are traded often enough, but in certain scenarios (short squeeze, collusion between participants) there might be issues. At that point, Bob can decide to keep on borrowing the shares until one sells, or maybe he runs out of cash to borrow shares and closes his account. That's when things get a bit dicey. At this point, there are two "shares", one actual share and one IOU for a share. What happens is that Bob's broker is in a fail to deliver position. They're supposed to deliver a share of Foo Corp to close the IOU but there's no such share to deliver.
mapster 6y ago
You mention it should be stated as ratio then go on to discuss it as percentage.