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Re: Subtleties. I disagree. I think a big part of why this whole thing is fascinating is the depth. Yesterday morning, financial press were blathering generali

Re: Subtleties. I disagree. I think a big part of why this whole thing is fascinating is the depth. Yesterday morning, financial press were blathering generalities pinning WSB as market manipulators and calling for regulation to stop them. That is, stop retail investors trading at a scale that moves markets. IE, the stuff that insiders get away with regularly. Between yesterday afternoon and now, millions of people have been catching up on the detailed mechanics of stock trade execution. There's a mad dash from reporter to get interviews with brokers, clearing house operators & such. Note that the maneuver itself was analyzed in detail, and in public. That's what allowed big names like Cuban, Musk, various politicians and such to take a side and comment on it intelligibly. Ultimately, whoever is holding these meme stock shorts needs to buys stock to cover their positions. I acknowledge that brokers had legitimate/legal/normative reasons to stop retail buys. But, it's also true that they created a window where short sellers could buy without competition from retail investors. Maybe brokers are covered legally against market manipulation charges because clearing houses were genuinely short on liquidity. But, (1) that doesn't change what happened and (2) Isn't this the regulator's job? The reason people are cheerleading is because of these shenanigans. "Rigged" gets thrown around often, usually it's devoid of subtlety. This time, it's detailed. We can debate the details and construction of the rig. Truths fly around reddit for an afternoon, and are discarded the following day. Few people cheerleading because they want a no regulation, pre-depression stock market. They just aren't willing to accept a rigged system. In any case, who are the speculators here? Short sellers like Melvin or Redditors? Short sellers future-sold 140% of the stock... hoping for a crash and potentially creating one. Redditors recognized this by looking at publicly available information and discussing it in the open.

dkrich 6y ago
Yesterday premarket when Robinhood announced the cessation of trading in these ultra volatile stocks, was there a deep analysis of what led them to that decision? A measured consideration of why they might do that? Of course not. Immediately a false narrative was created that citadel forced them to do it under threat that they would stop their order flow. Had any politician or public figure merely suggested we let the CEO of Robinhood explain the decision, they would’ve been dragged by the Twitter mob. Just look at how Steve Cohen, Lee Cooperman and John Fortt were shamed for raising what I believed to be perfectly legitimate questions. But nobody is interested in legitimate questions when it’s hive mind mob rule which is what always takes hold in a bubble. In fact the vilification of naysayers is one of the tell tale signs of a speculative bubble. To answer the last question who are the speculators here, shorts or wsbers? Both. But what I’m talking about are the speculators who are simply buying this up with the expectation they will make huge gains like deep fucking value. They can say all they want about how they don’t care about potential losses and this is something bigger. Total nonsense. Let’s see who gets blamed and who plays the victim if we get a crash. It’s an interesting world when Mark Cuban and chamath palyhapitia can be portrayed as champions of the little guy when they have made billions of dollars at their expense. Chamath takes a SPAC public every Tuesday. Who do we think are buying these up? Warren Buffett? Didn’t Cuban make his fortune selling a worthless business to Yahoo? These guys are using this entire thing to build their own popularity.
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  > Just look at how Steve Cohen, Lee Cooperman and John Fortt were shamed for raising what I believed to be perfectly legitimate questions. Leon got shamed not for his commentary on the speculation around the stock, but for the complete failure-to-read-the-room commentary on his taxes, commenting on marginal tax rates and "fair shares" as "bullshit": > "This fair share is a bullshit concept. It’s just a way of attacking wealthy people, and I think it’s inappropriate," Cooperman said Thursday. “We’ve all got to work together and pull together.”
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    ... He also blamed stimulus cheques. Especially nasty considering that the corporate stimulus, just prior, had a similar effect on market price inflation. It was beyond "not reading the room." He literally believes that only the people like him are responsible enough to play the market, or even have money at all.
- dalbasal 6y ago
  Of course mid-sprint reporting is all over the place. That said, so has the financial press and insiders. In fact, during an interview of NASDAQ's CEO, the suggestion was floated that this is the Russians or something. That rumour was dropped by professional journalists and insiders. In fact, the regular, non financial press had a far more curious response than the financial press... they even read reddit. Going back to "Citadel rumour.." It certainly was off the cuff and certainly doesn't encompasse everything. That said, RH is financially dependant on Citadel and Citadel is in a position to benefit from RH's decision. Whatever you think of Cuban, these people are being drawn in for the same reason you and I are talking about it. It's saucy. I think your "vilification of naysayers" point is off-mark. This is not about whether or not GME bets make money. The whole saga is a naysaying of sorts. Naysaying to the rigging. I suspect I'm probably on the same side as you regarding the larger point. Speculation, HFT, etc are negatives to be curtailed not expanded. But, the "me but not thee" way that financial markets have been structured is an outrage. The "revenge for 08'" stuff is symbolic. But, the symbolism is fairly subtle. The firms being protected from long tail risk (right, wrongly or even essentially are, again, being shielded from long term risk on bets only they have access to. This includes clearing houses and market makers. The "systemic risk" is the risk that these guys lose money. Stability is premised on them not losing money.
itronitron 6y ago
>> (2) Isn't this the regulator's job? Is the regulator in this case the SEC, the exchange, or some other party?

dkrich 6y ago

Yesterday premarket when Robinhood announced the cessation of trading in these ultra volatile stocks, was there a deep analysis of what led them to that decision? A measured consideration of why they might do that? Of course not. Immediately a false narrative was created that citadel forced them to do it under threat that they would stop their order flow. Had any politician or public figure merely suggested we let the CEO of Robinhood explain the decision, they would’ve been dragged by the Twitter mob. Just look at how Steve Cohen, Lee Cooperman and John Fortt were shamed for raising what I believed to be perfectly legitimate questions. But nobody is interested in legitimate questions when it’s hive mind mob rule which is what always takes hold in a bubble. In fact the vilification of naysayers is one of the tell tale signs of a speculative bubble. To answer the last question who are the speculators here, shorts or wsbers? Both. But what I’m talking about are the speculators who are simply buying this up with the expectation they will make huge gains like deep fucking value. They can say all they want about how they don’t care about potential losses and this is something bigger. Total nonsense. Let’s see who gets blamed and who plays the victim if we get a crash. It’s an interesting world when Mark Cuban and chamath palyhapitia can be portrayed as champions of the little guy when they have made billions of dollars at their expense. Chamath takes a SPAC public every Tuesday. Who do we think are buying these up? Warren Buffett? Didn’t Cuban make his fortune selling a worthless business to Yahoo? These guys are using this entire thing to build their own popularity.

FireBeyond 6y ago
> Just look at how Steve Cohen, Lee Cooperman and John Fortt were shamed for raising what I believed to be perfectly legitimate questions. Leon got shamed not for his commentary on the speculation around the stock, but for the complete failure-to-read-the-room commentary on his taxes, commenting on marginal tax rates and "fair shares" as "bullshit": > "This fair share is a bullshit concept. It’s just a way of attacking wealthy people, and I think it’s inappropriate," Cooperman said Thursday. “We’ve all got to work together and pull together.”
- dalbasal 6y ago
  ... He also blamed stimulus cheques. Especially nasty considering that the corporate stimulus, just prior, had a similar effect on market price inflation. It was beyond "not reading the room." He literally believes that only the people like him are responsible enough to play the market, or even have money at all.
dalbasal 6y ago
Of course mid-sprint reporting is all over the place. That said, so has the financial press and insiders. In fact, during an interview of NASDAQ's CEO, the suggestion was floated that this is the Russians or something. That rumour was dropped by professional journalists and insiders. In fact, the regular, non financial press had a far more curious response than the financial press... they even read reddit. Going back to "Citadel rumour.." It certainly was off the cuff and certainly doesn't encompasse everything. That said, RH is financially dependant on Citadel and Citadel is in a position to benefit from RH's decision. Whatever you think of Cuban, these people are being drawn in for the same reason you and I are talking about it. It's saucy. I think your "vilification of naysayers" point is off-mark. This is not about whether or not GME bets make money. The whole saga is a naysaying of sorts. Naysaying to the rigging. I suspect I'm probably on the same side as you regarding the larger point. Speculation, HFT, etc are negatives to be curtailed not expanded. But, the "me but not thee" way that financial markets have been structured is an outrage. The "revenge for 08'" stuff is symbolic. But, the symbolism is fairly subtle. The firms being protected from long tail risk (right, wrongly or even essentially are, again, being shielded from long term risk on bets only they have access to. This includes clearing houses and market makers. The "systemic risk" is the risk that these guys lose money. Stability is premised on them not losing money.

itronitron 6y ago

>> (2) Isn't this the regulator's job? Is the regulator in this case the SEC, the exchange, or some other party?