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On wsb u/deepfuckingvalue showed he still holds 50,000 shares and 500 deep ITM call options. He has secured a profit of $13.8 million dollars, and his remaining

On wsb u/deepfuckingvalue showed he still holds 50,000 shares and 500 deep ITM call options. He has secured a profit of $13.8 million dollars, and his remaining open position is valued at $45 million. I would caution people to not quickly fall into the "if he's still in, I'm still in" meme. He has secured a $14 million bag, regardless if the stock goes to zero he's already secured a life changing amount of money, he can afford to weather the storm. If you're holding because he's still in and you haven't taken any profits you are nowhere near in the same position as him. A hodling mania has overtaken the subreddit that would make btc blush. Know that we don't know what kind of deals are happening behind closed doors in these two last days of manipulated activity. A sustained short interest does not necessarily mean that the shorts are holding their initial position, they could have closed and reopened at these elevated levels. The narrative has changed so quickly from this being a value play, to a short squeeze, to now militant activism via buying stock as a means to sticking it to the man. The rhetoric is as volatile as the price. The overall market is stressed, things are getting weird and I would not be surprised if this is the beginning of another stock market crash.

tootie 6y ago
It says as much in the article. He literally just thought GME was undervalued on its merits. He had no intention of creating a squeeze or punishing Melvin.
- hehehaha 6y ago
  The guy struck rich! Same with people who shorted crude last year when it went straight to -40. Billions were made.
  - dbtc 6y ago
    I realize I need to do some basic reading on this stuff... but, when you say "made" does that really mean "changed hands"? Or is value/money somehow generated in these processes?
    - hehehaha 6y ago
      No, it’s zero sum.
      - alasdair_ 6y ago
        It’s zero sum until a too big to fail actor is in danger, then new money is created and the game ceases to be zero sum.
        SuoDuanDao 6y ago
        well really, at that point everyone's purchasing power is diminished, so the game remains zero sum relative to anything outside itself.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - alasdair_ 6y ago
    Billions were made, but retail traders lost out. The fact that IBKR couldn’t handle a negative oil price at that time made me realize that for all their marketing as being a higher quality broker for serious investors, they had some serious holes. Then when they stopped buys on GME while Vanguard and Fidelity still allowed them, I gave up on IB completely. Right now I’ve bought puts on IBKR - I expect a lot of clients with money will drop them (along with Robinhood etc.) and move to Vanguard/Fidelity.
    - aphextron 6y ago
      Liquidated everything on Robinhood today and moved to Fidelity.
    - hehehaha 6y ago
      As a derivative trader and some one who is constantly looking for mispriced assets from the upside (ie short), my number one concern when we have market turmoils is always broker liquidity. This is also why hedge funds have prime accounts directly with bulge brackets. My recommendation is to always have at least two accounts plus Fidelity. FIDO, while expensive, invested a ton of money into their platform/technology. I rarely see them go down. Plus they basically own everything including cryptos. Key is to have multiple accounts and know how to wire money without even looking up the information so that you’re up and running in minutes not hours or days.
      - bravura 6y ago
        Which are good brokers for the primary two accounts?
        hehehaha 6y ago
        To be completely honest, you can’t beat RH and zero commish on options. But I only use it for trades that I can execute over the course of a day. Schwab/TOS is probably going to be the best discount broker when they complete the integration. I don’t like IKBR because it’s not that much better than others unless you are a quant. Pick the products you think you want to trade first then pick the brokers. For example, you don’t want to trade on a platform that doesn’t offer futures because you are more than likely to need it later down the road (this is also why some prefer IKBR due to their breadth in products). And make sure you try their mobile apps since most of them are horrible!
- sumedh 6y ago
  > He had no intention of creating a squeeze If I am not mistaken he did say in one of his videos that there is a chance for a squeeze to happen.
  - ggggtez 6y ago
    I believe this is CYA (cover your ass) language. Given the recent interest in the case, he's likely saying now that he didn't intend to (or that even if he intended to, he didn't think it was within his power) as a pre-emptive defense against litigation.
    - jstanley 6y ago
      It's more likely that he thought he was nowhere near influential enough to create one on his own. He would previously have had no reason to believe that his public statements would move the market.
      - ggggtez 6y ago
        That's exactly what I mean. Even if he thought he had some power, or acted as if he did, it's in his best interest to downplay that as much as possible. This guy was a well known poster. I'm sure he thought he had some power to motivate wsb users to invest, but he might not have predicted he had enough power such that he would get embroiled in an investigation. Regardless of how "internet-tuff-guy" people are, most people really don't like to suddenly be thrown into the limelight of a financial fraud investigation, even if they are innocent of any crimes. Thus, the CYA language. Better to get out in front and claim ignorance just in case.
        ManofPeace 6y ago
        While the narrative has made him the poster boy, you can look at the past discussions regarding GME. His initial posts around a value play were widely ridiculed. The short squeeze thesis(s) were made by other reddit users. Even those weren't particularly popular until around 1/13-1/15 when GME saw an unexpected pop. It was around then people were like "oh this squeeze thing might happen. we could test it"
- ggggtez 6y ago
  Just because he's still in doesn't mean that it's actually worth $300 on the fundamentals. I could definitely see the argument that $20 was undervalued, but it's plain to see that the short-squeeze is now part of the calculation of value. There is no way that GameStop has an actual fundamental value of $300 per share. That price is clearly inflated, and in a few weeks will decrease, probably to somewhere above $20, but not that much higher. The market will eventually correct, but $300 is an over-correction for sure.
  - jzoch 6y ago
    Trying to figure out the "fundamental" value of anything is a fools errand. Im not saying GME wont drop eventually but there is no value on fundamentals of everything. Look at all the short-sellers of TSLA who made the same mistake. These companies are valued on what the market decides and we all know "The market is irrational".
    - shyn3 6y ago
      Wsb can remain irrational longer than the market can remain solvent. That was a comment by a poster which I find funny.
      - jdminhbg 6y ago
        This is a common aphorism, attributed sometimes to Keynes: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        markrages 6y ago
        It is a funny spin on that aphorism.
        girvo 6y ago
        Right but the WSB one is inverted.
MuffinFlavored 6y ago
A ton of people aren't doing any thinking for themselves. I'm pretty convinced there's some kind of organized manipulation attack going on within r/wsb. The same reason Parler got taken down for inciting violence without proper moderation, I'm seeing a lot of baseless claims from literally millions of people who do not understand how large/complex the financial systems at play are. I'm kind of worried Reddit could shut down r/wsb because of the amount of influential misinformation being spread.
- sumedh 6y ago
  > I'm pretty convinced there's some kind of organized manipulation attack going on within r/wsb Do you have any proof for that? If not then arent you the one who is spreading misinformation?
  - ggggtez 6y ago
    I personally won't go as far as the grandposter here, but I'd be at least skeptical of any investment advice from random internet people. Even if this instance is not manipulation, I'm sure there are people on wsb that do try to make money through manipulating each other. I think that's just the nature of the internet in general.
  - MuffinFlavored 6y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7u8h5/reminder_rwallstreetbets_just_jumped_from_17/gl8on9x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7u8h5/remi... 6,000 upvotes about the possibility of disinformation
- yreg 6y ago
  Reddit admins have been rather supportive of WallStreetBets[0], even helping the mods with special technical support and tooling to handle the load of users. They seem to have a good relationship. Also kn0thing endorsed WSB yesterday. He's no longer officially affiliated with reddit, but it still says something. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7yc12/wsb_ama_live_now/gl9fa6x/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7yc12/wsb_...
yreg 6y ago
Well if a stock market crash triggered by this is realistic (which I agree is), doesn't it make sense to hold a bit of GME for insurance? I understand that there's no guarantee one will be able to exit it successfully even if it flies so high that it crashes the market. However I don't see a better insurance for people who don't have access to options/inverse etfs and don't want to sell their stocks.
- afterburner 6y ago
  > Well if a stock market crash triggered by this is realistic (which I agree is), doesn't it make sense to hold a bit of GME for insurance What is the reasoning here? Are you under the impression GME wouldn't crash right alongside the market? This isn't BTC or gold we're talking about. It's just another stock.
  - yreg 6y ago
    Presumably the crash would occur after the GME price skyrockets and shorts (and then their brokers and clearing houses) go broke trying to close the short positions. The insurance pays up if they buy your share. Do you have another idea how it could end?
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      It could end by simply crashing without shorts going broke. There's not much reason to believe a larger short squeeze is forthcoming.
      - yreg 6y ago
        Why would that crash the entire stock market?
        SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        The theory I've seen is that there could be hidden systemic risks here. If GME tanks suddenly, there's some possibility that traders bailing out of their trades will take down Robinhood (who doesn't seem to be very healthy right now), and a major broker collapsing is never gonna be great for the market. I share your skepticism that it would actually happen this way, but it seems at least somewhat plausible.
acover 6y ago
Couldn't those with shorts buy otm calls to hedge the possibility of a squeeze?
- cecilpl2 6y ago
  OTM calls are super expensive because the IV is through the roof (it has been over 700% most of the week).
  - jondwillis 6y ago
    However, if Melvin had picked up deep OTM calls before the (literal in both senses) volume started ramping up about two weeks ago, they might have done a little better. To be clear, I don’t actually think they did.
    - jaycroft 6y ago
      And even if they did, who's on the other side of those options now that they're in the money?
      - nursur2011 6y ago
        Could be anyone. What matters is whether they're covered calls or not. I don't know if that info is available. If it's a covered call the seller of the option has the shares, so they essentially sell them to whoever bought the option and decided to exercise the option. If they're not covered, then they have to go out and buy them.
cblconfederate 6y ago
... and if bitcoin is any guide, people can hodl forever, bacause they are no longer doing it blindly. Who will blink first?
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  The difference is the supply of bitcoin is fixed. Whereas a company can issue shares at any time. Obviously if the market cap stays at $30 billion for a long time, Gamestop management is going to start spending their overvalued stock like drunken sailors. First it'll be just to plug up the money their operations are constantly losing. Then they'll start going on acquisition sprees, giving out giant compensation packages, get into empire building. Maybe they'll buy a movie studio or a Vegas casino. That's a constant supply of new stock that will keep pushing down the price. It's the same way that AOL used their stock to buy Time Warner during the Internet bubble. AMC already took advantage of the meme madness by selling a huge chunk of shares to lock in some cash. That's why AMC didn't moon like GME. But give it a week or two, and GME's board will pretty much be forced to do the same thing.
  - aeternum 6y ago
    GME issuing shares would be the smart thing to do. The primary goal of a stock market is really to allow exactly that. The market determines the cost of capital for each company, thereby influencing the allocation of capital in society. The question then becomes how efficiently the company can put that capital to use.
    - smattiso 6y ago
      If they do that it's instant bankruptcy for GameStop. Nobody will ever shop there again. Period. It's over.
      - xur17 6y ago
        Agreed. I think the smart play is to come out with a grand plan that hopefully entices some people to hold onto their stock and keep the game going. Possibly use this to convince people that a small issuance of additional shares to do X would be a good idea. Then, just live off of the crazy publicity and hopefully good will this affords you.
rcoveson 6y ago
> Know that we don't know what kind of deals are happening behind closed doors in these two last days of manipulated activity. As the saying goes: If you're at a poker table and you can't tell who's the fish, get up. You're the fish.
- semi-extrinsic 6y ago
  If you know that there is only one fish and a lot of sharks, sure. But with payment for order flow you know there are tons of other fish at the table. That changes things, as you only have to beat the other fish to get a small payout. And the sharks aren't focusing on you in particular, so you might get lucky and beat the sharks.
  - stcredzero 6y ago
    Isn't that the "bigger fool" theory? To quote Obi-Wan: "Who's more foolish? The fool or the one who follows him?"
    - semi-extrinsic 6y ago
      Well, yes and no. If you assume that all Joe Random on Robinhood can do is to chase momentum and try to offload before everyone else, then yes. But if you believe that certain Joe Randoms are actually talented and lucky enough to identify a bona fide unrealized potential in a stock and then invest in that, all the other Joe Randoms doing stuff provides enough noise that you don't get immediately picked up as a signal by the big players who can outgun you.
Grimm1 6y ago
I think this is sound advice. I still have some in, but I locked in gains such that if I lost anything still in I'd still be well up.
jpmattia 6y ago
> The overall market is stressed, things are getting weird and I would not be surprised if this is the beginning of another stock market crash. GME short interest was still greater 100% of shares outstanding as of 1pm 1/29 (S3 Shortsight numbers). If forced to cover, short holders will have to liquidate other assets. Could those liquidations force more liquidations in a positive feedback loop? Hopefully no, but certainly possible.
- eurasiantiger 6y ago
  Time to short everything.
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  Yes, exactly. When a hedge fund is getting its face ripped off because its shorts are up 50 - 200%, it will liquidate its longs to cover. The rotational dynamics of many funds doing that at once can drive the price down on traditionally stable stocks that everyone owns. In a worst case scenario that could trigger a massive selloff which would crash the market. This is compounded by the fact that funds will defensively sell off (or sell short) stable stocks owned by other funds that look like they're about to blow up. If a fund seems like it's circling the drain and it owns 5% of a ticker, other firms are not going to wait for it to implode and move the price down before they liquidate their own positions in that stock. This market is terrifying.
  - codeisawesome 6y ago
    After the sell-off, there’s a lot of cash (yes even more) washing around right? It has to go somewhere, and so it will come back into securities in probably a few weeks or max, months. The value represented isn’t exactly disappearing it’s still in the ‘system’. So why is a crash in equities prices such a big deal?
    - fractionalhare 6y ago
      It depends. If a hedge fund went bankrupt, the cash will go to investors who may be risk averse. If the hedge fund survives it will have significant losses and probably be cagey about deploying a lot of capital again too quickly because it just stared into the face of death. In the case of individual investors selling off everything, they might be scared because everything is crashing. There's no rule that says the money will come back to the market quickly. It depends on investor sentiment. Often things have a V-shaped recovery and things are more or less "fine". We had a few of those over the past few years. But put it to you this way, if this statement of yours: It has to go somewhere, and so it will come back into securities in probably a few weeks or max, months. The value represented isn’t exactly disappearing it’s still in the ‘system’. ...was correct, then we wouldn't have crashes. But we do. When fear takes over the money doesn't just come back into the market quickly. And then even if it could, it doesn't because second order effects take over. Small businesses close en masse, etc, which magnifies the downturn until it snowballs into a legitimate recession. I'm not saying a crash will happen because of this. I'm saying it very realistically can happen.
amluto 6y ago
I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if some big players have carefully arranged to have large short interest but to be hedged against large upswings. This could be an expensive position to carry, but it could be quite profitable if people thought they were squeezing an unsqueezable short.
- stcredzero 6y ago
  According to one report I saw, the long/short fundamentals driven hedge funds see this as really bad news, but the quant funds are simply adjusting to the implications.
- jaycroft 6y ago
  This generally requires far out of the money call options for medium term and long term dates. For most of the week, there have been no options available for sale far out of the money. Last week there were no calls that even could exist that were out of the money. See last Friday's gamma squeeze and resulting short covering on the 25th and 26th. Anyway, at this point, the position is costing many 10's of % per week to carry, not exactly great when the bag has also been doubling in size every day.
- 015a 6y ago
  Right. My biggest concern with these plays, at this point, is that they're not taking into account the possibility of bankruptcy. There's a ton of "they have to buy it, if we hold all the shares then it'll go to the moon, 1k, 2k, 4k". (1) The sheer variety of financial vehicles available to professional investors is staggering, and while the initial DD was really good, we probably missed something at this point, and (2) if all else fails, and a fund can't buy back the 50,000 shares it owes some brokerage, that fund doesn't have to buy them back. They can just declare bankruptcy. I think these realizations are why much of the r/WSB discourse over the past two days has shifted from "we're going to be millionaires" to "i'm just in it at this point to stick it to the man". That's fair, and some people did legitimately become very rich off of this, but at this point, more funds are playing with WSB than against them. Funds are not some conglomerate that moves together; they hate each other as much as the public hates all of them. Short interest in the past week has remained pretty steady. Some people view this as "the funds are doubling down, get 'em while they're bleeding". No, actually; they know what's most likely to happen, which is, everyone is going to forget about this in about three days. Gamestop's stock isn't good. These new shorts are not priced like "I think its going to go below $7"; they're priced like "I think its going to go below $200".
runarberg 6y ago
> I would not be surprised if this is the beginning of another stock market crash. Good. Let it crash and burn. The stock market has never done anything for me. Shareholders making money out of my work is not exactly in my interests, nor is it in the interest of the majority of the world’s workers. My only wish is that this time around the stock markets will stay down after they burn, and be remembered in history as the idiotic idea that it truly is.
- gred 6y ago
  Honest question, do you not have a 401(k) or similar? I certainly have a vested interest in seeing a healthy, sustainable stock market over the long term. Not because I'm part of the 1%, but because my upper-middle class retirement depends on it.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    idk. It seems like a savings account could do the trick. You can save a healthy retirement by putting a portion of your salaries in a savings account in your local credit union. As a bonus—while you are not using that money—other members of your credit union can use this savings in a form of a loan, to buy a home, start a business, etc. The idea of my retirement being at the will of some hedgefund manager is not appealing next to the idea of my retirement being used temporary to help my neighbors buying a house or start a business.
    - kinghajj 6y ago
      > It seems like a savings account could do the trick. You can save a healthy retirement by putting a portion of your salaries in a savings account in your local credit union. With interest rates as low as they are, savings accounts have a negative real return. The $1000 you save today would have substantially less purchasing power by the time you'd retire. > As a bonus—while you are not using that money—other members of your credit union can use this savings in a form of a loan, to buy a home, start a business, etc. Well, yes and no. Banks don't really directly lend out the money deposited in savings accounts, due to fractional reserve requirements. > The idea of my retirement being at the will of some hedgefund manager is not appealing next to the idea of my retirement being used temporary to help my neighbors buying a house or start a business. I don't get this. With an IRA or a personal taxed brokerage account, you aren't at the mercy of anyone: you can choose which companies & funds to invest in. Hedge funds are not the be-all-and-end-all of the stock market, most funds are mutual funds who invest conservatively. If you just mean that hedge funds can cause black swan events like what we're seeing with GME, then sure, that's a concern, but only for the short term. Long-term, the stock market tends to appreciate and substantially beat inflation. We can add regulations to prevent hedge funds from fucking things up, without tearing the entire system down.
paulpauper 6y ago
When I saw him bragging, I went long GME as well (even though it is not a stock I would typically buy) just because if it crashes it will be a guilty pleasure seeing him lose so much, but if it goes up, well then we both make money. The latter seem to be playing out.
mylons 6y ago
This isn’t holding mania. It’s a war. $GME is the front line.
chillacy 6y ago
> militant activism via buying stock as a means to sticking it to the man. > beginning of another stock market crash Hmm sounds like it's working then.. Going off of the resentment against the 'elites' in wsb comments to the tune of "I started broke and I'll go broke again but if the rich go broke..."
- __MatrixMan__ 6y ago
  Maybe we'll see a new class of financial instrument come out of this. Not sure how it would work but I have to imagine that some clever person on Wall Street can find a way to sell shares of: > Give me $1 and I'll make sure your target loses $5
  - doyouevensunbro 6y ago
    Spite investing? Count me in.
  - voldacar 6y ago
    this sounds both illegal and extremely fun
- trianglem 6y ago
  But it’s no longer effecting just the rich. It’s working people with pensions and 401ks... and this better not mess up the decade long sweet bull market for a handful of millionaires.
  - __MatrixMan__ 6y ago
    I'm not without sympathy for them, but I also think it would be good if people stopped allocating their retirements towards "money tricks on Wall-Street" and instead found ways to put it towards creating a world worth retiring in.
    - bawolff 6y ago
      Money tricks on wall street do have effects on the real world, some of which are positive.
nursur2011 6y ago
I'm not sure there really is much systemic risk. It's pretty clear that there are many mechanisms in play to prevent that (just look at the buy restrictions the past 2 days). There are circuit breakers, they will stop trading before this stock goes astronomical. They will just have GME issue more shares is my guess if things get dicy.
hehehaha 6y ago
Imagine if you’re his wife (and I believe he has a young daughter) and saw that your husband is leaving a $11M trade on a 8 sigma type of event? I want to ask him so many questions. Like when did you tell your wife? How did she react? Did she force you to take some profits? They need to make a movie about this whole thing when all the details spill out.
- wting 6y ago
  I was a professional poker player for ~5 years, and my wife—who has a much lower risk tolerance—asked that I never share variance with her since it causes quite a bit of anxiety. My daily numbers were in tens of thousands range rather than $11M, but the effect was the same.
  - fractionalhare 6y ago
    How'd you get into pro poker? I'm good at statistics and would be interested in learning how to play really well.
    - sjtindell 6y ago
      Not a pro but I recently started learning some poker. Two texts that absolutely opened the game up to me were The Grinders Manual (fundamentals) and The Mathematics of Poker (where your stats/math background will be useful). The way I started was by dedicating 2 hours per day (1 hour studying, one hour playing online micro stakes). Next I will start learning and memorizing output from Solvers, that seems to be key to success at higher levels. Good luck on your journey if you get into it!
      - always_left 6y ago
        I’m curious. Poker has a lot of strong strategies and what not, but if a new player comes in, how do those strategies prevail? You may be confident with two Aces, but the player could be extremely confident in their king pair and wager as if they have a straight
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
milofeynman 6y ago
Could you explain who would "loan" these hedge funds shorts at these elevates levels? Or is that not how it works.
- koolba 6y ago
  Anyone who has the stock. The loans are usually collateralized at 100+% and marked to market daily. For stocks this crazy the interest rates on the loans would be equally insane. So any large institutions (ex: pension funds) holding the stock are making bank lending it out.
OJFord 6y ago
> The narrative has changed so quickly from this being a value play, to a short squeeze, to now militant activism via buying stock as a means to sticking it to the man. Absolutely! A week or so ago I watched his July 2020 video (declaring it a great value buy looking for 50-100% at around $4..!!) out of curiousity. Interesting, but totally disconnected from the short squeeze mania, I missed that leap, at least from there to anti-shorters makes more sense (as in 'I understand your position').
- treis 6y ago
  It's wild over there now. WSB was always like the kid at school that always got into crazy stuff. Now, they're off their meds, haven't slept in a week, and just did a bunch of coke.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    I don't know, I've lurked there a bit in the past (for amusement/actually got a couple of good tips from the more serious end of posts, didn't see DFV/RK on GME at the time unfortunately!) but when I looked last night it just seemed filled with obviously new people commenting, membership has tripled or something. I didn't really participate in its 'culture', but I think it would be a shame if it lost that - after all I don't lurk on r/investing or get any amusement from it. I suppose probably they'll get bored when there isn't an official announcement that the next quick buck shall be X and here is a step by step guide on purchasing shares and options, and move on.
adolph 6y ago
Seems more effective than Occupy or Warren https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1355187260514250754 https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1355187260514250754
korethr 6y ago
> A sustained short interest does not necessarily mean that the shorts are holding their initial position, they could have closed and reopened at these elevated levels. This occurred to me today. I see it as entirely plausible that one or more large funds willingly took the loss to exit their initial short position, and proceeded open new short positions at the current crazy prices. In fact, I would not be surprised if they haven't been doing that all this past week with iceberg orders[1] so to not tip their hands by driving the price that much higher while doing so. It doesn't matter if they were able to bankroll the new position themselves or had to take on additional leverage to do so. A huge profit could be made from trying to short from these new crazy prices, and I'd not be surprised if big money was willing to fund such an attempt. With all the hype this past week, a bunch of people have jumped onto the bandwagon. I'd wager many are doing so out of an emotional excitement, without honestly considering the risk and whether they're truly willing to lose everything they put into this play. I'd also wager there are many who only think they're willing to lose everything they spend on $GME. But, when the share price starts going down, whether crashing from a panic selloff, or gently drifting downward as people start exiting their positions to lock in their profits, many will realize they're not as willing to lose everything as they thought. I fully expect the funds to try to play chicken with those trying to short squeeze. I fully expect them to try every dirty trick in the book to kick off a panic selloff. I would not be surprised if new dirty tricks get invented. I would not be surprised if favors get called in from politicians and other persons of power to try to scare everyone out of holding, whether that's looking the other way while the big funds do something maybe-not-so-legal, or other shenanigans, like very public arrests of u/DeepFuckingValue and others on BS charges. There's potentially very big money to be had here, and the big hedge funds everyone wants to screw over didn't get to their present riches by playing nice or fair. 1. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/icebergorder.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/icebergorder.asp
sfblah 6y ago
I'm not sure anyone cares, but the way to think about this is simply to ask if you would own GME at $300 a share if you had to hold it for the next 20 years. The answer is just obviously no. You'll never receive anything remotely close to that in dividends from the company. It's just a mania.
- j2bax 6y ago
  Why not? Gaming/hardware is a massive industry. They have enough brand recognition to take a slice of it if they make the right moves.
  - me_again 6y ago
    They don't have a moat. What can they do that Best Buy can't?
    - j2bax 6y ago
      They are getting a hell of a press boost. Watch next earnings based on that alone. Also, is there no room for an amazing online retailer of computer/gaming hardware and accessories? They definitely aren’t that yet, but with some dudes from Chewy joining the board, I don’t see why they couldn’t put all this together to make a splash.
system2 6y ago
Reddit kids do not have enough money to keep doing this after this stock goes bust. Eventually they will try 1-2 more stocks and some will make them lose money then they will post their losses and blame the subreddit. 2 years ago everyone was crazy about bitcoin(even close friends, family members, coworkers). Although it is 30k now, I don't hear it from a single person. This is another social media experiment and won't repeat this successfully in the future.

tootie 6y ago

It says as much in the article. He literally just thought GME was undervalued on its merits. He had no intention of creating a squeeze or punishing Melvin.

hehehaha 6y ago
The guy struck rich! Same with people who shorted crude last year when it went straight to -40. Billions were made.
- dbtc 6y ago
  I realize I need to do some basic reading on this stuff... but, when you say "made" does that really mean "changed hands"? Or is value/money somehow generated in these processes?
  - hehehaha 6y ago
    No, it’s zero sum.
    - alasdair_ 6y ago
      It’s zero sum until a too big to fail actor is in danger, then new money is created and the game ceases to be zero sum.
      - SuoDuanDao 6y ago
        well really, at that point everyone's purchasing power is diminished, so the game remains zero sum relative to anything outside itself.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  Billions were made, but retail traders lost out. The fact that IBKR couldn’t handle a negative oil price at that time made me realize that for all their marketing as being a higher quality broker for serious investors, they had some serious holes. Then when they stopped buys on GME while Vanguard and Fidelity still allowed them, I gave up on IB completely. Right now I’ve bought puts on IBKR - I expect a lot of clients with money will drop them (along with Robinhood etc.) and move to Vanguard/Fidelity.
  - aphextron 6y ago
    Liquidated everything on Robinhood today and moved to Fidelity.
  - hehehaha 6y ago
    As a derivative trader and some one who is constantly looking for mispriced assets from the upside (ie short), my number one concern when we have market turmoils is always broker liquidity. This is also why hedge funds have prime accounts directly with bulge brackets. My recommendation is to always have at least two accounts plus Fidelity. FIDO, while expensive, invested a ton of money into their platform/technology. I rarely see them go down. Plus they basically own everything including cryptos. Key is to have multiple accounts and know how to wire money without even looking up the information so that you’re up and running in minutes not hours or days.
    - bravura 6y ago
      Which are good brokers for the primary two accounts?
      - hehehaha 6y ago
        To be completely honest, you can’t beat RH and zero commish on options. But I only use it for trades that I can execute over the course of a day. Schwab/TOS is probably going to be the best discount broker when they complete the integration. I don’t like IKBR because it’s not that much better than others unless you are a quant. Pick the products you think you want to trade first then pick the brokers. For example, you don’t want to trade on a platform that doesn’t offer futures because you are more than likely to need it later down the road (this is also why some prefer IKBR due to their breadth in products). And make sure you try their mobile apps since most of them are horrible!
sumedh 6y ago
> He had no intention of creating a squeeze If I am not mistaken he did say in one of his videos that there is a chance for a squeeze to happen.
- ggggtez 6y ago
  I believe this is CYA (cover your ass) language. Given the recent interest in the case, he's likely saying now that he didn't intend to (or that even if he intended to, he didn't think it was within his power) as a pre-emptive defense against litigation.
  - jstanley 6y ago
    It's more likely that he thought he was nowhere near influential enough to create one on his own. He would previously have had no reason to believe that his public statements would move the market.
    - ggggtez 6y ago
      That's exactly what I mean. Even if he thought he had some power, or acted as if he did, it's in his best interest to downplay that as much as possible. This guy was a well known poster. I'm sure he thought he had some power to motivate wsb users to invest, but he might not have predicted he had enough power such that he would get embroiled in an investigation. Regardless of how "internet-tuff-guy" people are, most people really don't like to suddenly be thrown into the limelight of a financial fraud investigation, even if they are innocent of any crimes. Thus, the CYA language. Better to get out in front and claim ignorance just in case.
      - ManofPeace 6y ago
        While the narrative has made him the poster boy, you can look at the past discussions regarding GME. His initial posts around a value play were widely ridiculed. The short squeeze thesis(s) were made by other reddit users. Even those weren't particularly popular until around 1/13-1/15 when GME saw an unexpected pop. It was around then people were like "oh this squeeze thing might happen. we could test it"
ggggtez 6y ago
Just because he's still in doesn't mean that it's actually worth $300 on the fundamentals. I could definitely see the argument that $20 was undervalued, but it's plain to see that the short-squeeze is now part of the calculation of value. There is no way that GameStop has an actual fundamental value of $300 per share. That price is clearly inflated, and in a few weeks will decrease, probably to somewhere above $20, but not that much higher. The market will eventually correct, but $300 is an over-correction for sure.
- jzoch 6y ago
  Trying to figure out the "fundamental" value of anything is a fools errand. Im not saying GME wont drop eventually but there is no value on fundamentals of everything. Look at all the short-sellers of TSLA who made the same mistake. These companies are valued on what the market decides and we all know "The market is irrational".
  - shyn3 6y ago
    Wsb can remain irrational longer than the market can remain solvent. That was a comment by a poster which I find funny.
    - jdminhbg 6y ago
      This is a common aphorism, attributed sometimes to Keynes: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - markrages 6y ago
        It is a funny spin on that aphorism.
      - girvo 6y ago
        Right but the WSB one is inverted.

MuffinFlavored 6y ago

A ton of people aren't doing any thinking for themselves. I'm pretty convinced there's some kind of organized manipulation attack going on within r/wsb. The same reason Parler got taken down for inciting violence without proper moderation, I'm seeing a lot of baseless claims from literally millions of people who do not understand how large/complex the financial systems at play are. I'm kind of worried Reddit could shut down r/wsb because of the amount of influential misinformation being spread.

sumedh 6y ago
> I'm pretty convinced there's some kind of organized manipulation attack going on within r/wsb Do you have any proof for that? If not then arent you the one who is spreading misinformation?
- ggggtez 6y ago
  I personally won't go as far as the grandposter here, but I'd be at least skeptical of any investment advice from random internet people. Even if this instance is not manipulation, I'm sure there are people on wsb that do try to make money through manipulating each other. I think that's just the nature of the internet in general.
- MuffinFlavored 6y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7u8h5/reminder_rwallstreetbets_just_jumped_from_17/gl8on9x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7u8h5/remi... 6,000 upvotes about the possibility of disinformation
yreg 6y ago
Reddit admins have been rather supportive of WallStreetBets[0], even helping the mods with special technical support and tooling to handle the load of users. They seem to have a good relationship. Also kn0thing endorsed WSB yesterday. He's no longer officially affiliated with reddit, but it still says something. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7yc12/wsb_ama_live_now/gl9fa6x/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7yc12/wsb_...

yreg 6y ago

Well if a stock market crash triggered by this is realistic (which I agree is), doesn't it make sense to hold a bit of GME for insurance? I understand that there's no guarantee one will be able to exit it successfully even if it flies so high that it crashes the market. However I don't see a better insurance for people who don't have access to options/inverse etfs and don't want to sell their stocks.

afterburner 6y ago
> Well if a stock market crash triggered by this is realistic (which I agree is), doesn't it make sense to hold a bit of GME for insurance What is the reasoning here? Are you under the impression GME wouldn't crash right alongside the market? This isn't BTC or gold we're talking about. It's just another stock.
- yreg 6y ago
  Presumably the crash would occur after the GME price skyrockets and shorts (and then their brokers and clearing houses) go broke trying to close the short positions. The insurance pays up if they buy your share. Do you have another idea how it could end?
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    It could end by simply crashing without shorts going broke. There's not much reason to believe a larger short squeeze is forthcoming.
    - yreg 6y ago
      Why would that crash the entire stock market?
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        The theory I've seen is that there could be hidden systemic risks here. If GME tanks suddenly, there's some possibility that traders bailing out of their trades will take down Robinhood (who doesn't seem to be very healthy right now), and a major broker collapsing is never gonna be great for the market. I share your skepticism that it would actually happen this way, but it seems at least somewhat plausible.

acover 6y ago

Couldn't those with shorts buy otm calls to hedge the possibility of a squeeze?

cecilpl2 6y ago
OTM calls are super expensive because the IV is through the roof (it has been over 700% most of the week).
- jondwillis 6y ago
  However, if Melvin had picked up deep OTM calls before the (literal in both senses) volume started ramping up about two weeks ago, they might have done a little better. To be clear, I don’t actually think they did.
  - jaycroft 6y ago
    And even if they did, who's on the other side of those options now that they're in the money?
    - nursur2011 6y ago
      Could be anyone. What matters is whether they're covered calls or not. I don't know if that info is available. If it's a covered call the seller of the option has the shares, so they essentially sell them to whoever bought the option and decided to exercise the option. If they're not covered, then they have to go out and buy them.

cblconfederate 6y ago

... and if bitcoin is any guide, people can hodl forever, bacause they are no longer doing it blindly. Who will blink first?

dcolkitt 6y ago
The difference is the supply of bitcoin is fixed. Whereas a company can issue shares at any time. Obviously if the market cap stays at $30 billion for a long time, Gamestop management is going to start spending their overvalued stock like drunken sailors. First it'll be just to plug up the money their operations are constantly losing. Then they'll start going on acquisition sprees, giving out giant compensation packages, get into empire building. Maybe they'll buy a movie studio or a Vegas casino. That's a constant supply of new stock that will keep pushing down the price. It's the same way that AOL used their stock to buy Time Warner during the Internet bubble. AMC already took advantage of the meme madness by selling a huge chunk of shares to lock in some cash. That's why AMC didn't moon like GME. But give it a week or two, and GME's board will pretty much be forced to do the same thing.
- aeternum 6y ago
  GME issuing shares would be the smart thing to do. The primary goal of a stock market is really to allow exactly that. The market determines the cost of capital for each company, thereby influencing the allocation of capital in society. The question then becomes how efficiently the company can put that capital to use.
  - smattiso 6y ago
    If they do that it's instant bankruptcy for GameStop. Nobody will ever shop there again. Period. It's over.
    - xur17 6y ago
      Agreed. I think the smart play is to come out with a grand plan that hopefully entices some people to hold onto their stock and keep the game going. Possibly use this to convince people that a small issuance of additional shares to do X would be a good idea. Then, just live off of the crazy publicity and hopefully good will this affords you.

rcoveson 6y ago

> Know that we don't know what kind of deals are happening behind closed doors in these two last days of manipulated activity. As the saying goes: If you're at a poker table and you can't tell who's the fish, get up. You're the fish.

semi-extrinsic 6y ago
If you know that there is only one fish and a lot of sharks, sure. But with payment for order flow you know there are tons of other fish at the table. That changes things, as you only have to beat the other fish to get a small payout. And the sharks aren't focusing on you in particular, so you might get lucky and beat the sharks.
- stcredzero 6y ago
  Isn't that the "bigger fool" theory? To quote Obi-Wan: "Who's more foolish? The fool or the one who follows him?"
  - semi-extrinsic 6y ago
    Well, yes and no. If you assume that all Joe Random on Robinhood can do is to chase momentum and try to offload before everyone else, then yes. But if you believe that certain Joe Randoms are actually talented and lucky enough to identify a bona fide unrealized potential in a stock and then invest in that, all the other Joe Randoms doing stuff provides enough noise that you don't get immediately picked up as a signal by the big players who can outgun you.

Grimm1 6y ago

I think this is sound advice. I still have some in, but I locked in gains such that if I lost anything still in I'd still be well up.

jpmattia 6y ago

> The overall market is stressed, things are getting weird and I would not be surprised if this is the beginning of another stock market crash. GME short interest was still greater 100% of shares outstanding as of 1pm 1/29 (S3 Shortsight numbers). If forced to cover, short holders will have to liquidate other assets. Could those liquidations force more liquidations in a positive feedback loop? Hopefully no, but certainly possible.

eurasiantiger 6y ago
Time to short everything.
fractionalhare 6y ago
Yes, exactly. When a hedge fund is getting its face ripped off because its shorts are up 50 - 200%, it will liquidate its longs to cover. The rotational dynamics of many funds doing that at once can drive the price down on traditionally stable stocks that everyone owns. In a worst case scenario that could trigger a massive selloff which would crash the market. This is compounded by the fact that funds will defensively sell off (or sell short) stable stocks owned by other funds that look like they're about to blow up. If a fund seems like it's circling the drain and it owns 5% of a ticker, other firms are not going to wait for it to implode and move the price down before they liquidate their own positions in that stock. This market is terrifying.
- codeisawesome 6y ago
  After the sell-off, there’s a lot of cash (yes even more) washing around right? It has to go somewhere, and so it will come back into securities in probably a few weeks or max, months. The value represented isn’t exactly disappearing it’s still in the ‘system’. So why is a crash in equities prices such a big deal?
  - fractionalhare 6y ago
    It depends. If a hedge fund went bankrupt, the cash will go to investors who may be risk averse. If the hedge fund survives it will have significant losses and probably be cagey about deploying a lot of capital again too quickly because it just stared into the face of death. In the case of individual investors selling off everything, they might be scared because everything is crashing. There's no rule that says the money will come back to the market quickly. It depends on investor sentiment. Often things have a V-shaped recovery and things are more or less "fine". We had a few of those over the past few years. But put it to you this way, if this statement of yours: It has to go somewhere, and so it will come back into securities in probably a few weeks or max, months. The value represented isn’t exactly disappearing it’s still in the ‘system’. ...was correct, then we wouldn't have crashes. But we do. When fear takes over the money doesn't just come back into the market quickly. And then even if it could, it doesn't because second order effects take over. Small businesses close en masse, etc, which magnifies the downturn until it snowballs into a legitimate recession. I'm not saying a crash will happen because of this. I'm saying it very realistically can happen.

amluto 6y ago

I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if some big players have carefully arranged to have large short interest but to be hedged against large upswings. This could be an expensive position to carry, but it could be quite profitable if people thought they were squeezing an unsqueezable short.

stcredzero 6y ago
According to one report I saw, the long/short fundamentals driven hedge funds see this as really bad news, but the quant funds are simply adjusting to the implications.
jaycroft 6y ago
This generally requires far out of the money call options for medium term and long term dates. For most of the week, there have been no options available for sale far out of the money. Last week there were no calls that even could exist that were out of the money. See last Friday's gamma squeeze and resulting short covering on the 25th and 26th. Anyway, at this point, the position is costing many 10's of % per week to carry, not exactly great when the bag has also been doubling in size every day.
015a 6y ago
Right. My biggest concern with these plays, at this point, is that they're not taking into account the possibility of bankruptcy. There's a ton of "they have to buy it, if we hold all the shares then it'll go to the moon, 1k, 2k, 4k". (1) The sheer variety of financial vehicles available to professional investors is staggering, and while the initial DD was really good, we probably missed something at this point, and (2) if all else fails, and a fund can't buy back the 50,000 shares it owes some brokerage, that fund doesn't have to buy them back. They can just declare bankruptcy. I think these realizations are why much of the r/WSB discourse over the past two days has shifted from "we're going to be millionaires" to "i'm just in it at this point to stick it to the man". That's fair, and some people did legitimately become very rich off of this, but at this point, more funds are playing with WSB than against them. Funds are not some conglomerate that moves together; they hate each other as much as the public hates all of them. Short interest in the past week has remained pretty steady. Some people view this as "the funds are doubling down, get 'em while they're bleeding". No, actually; they know what's most likely to happen, which is, everyone is going to forget about this in about three days. Gamestop's stock isn't good. These new shorts are not priced like "I think its going to go below $7"; they're priced like "I think its going to go below $200".

runarberg 6y ago

> I would not be surprised if this is the beginning of another stock market crash. Good. Let it crash and burn. The stock market has never done anything for me. Shareholders making money out of my work is not exactly in my interests, nor is it in the interest of the majority of the world’s workers. My only wish is that this time around the stock markets will stay down after they burn, and be remembered in history as the idiotic idea that it truly is.

gred 6y ago
Honest question, do you not have a 401(k) or similar? I certainly have a vested interest in seeing a healthy, sustainable stock market over the long term. Not because I'm part of the 1%, but because my upper-middle class retirement depends on it.
- runarberg 6y ago
  idk. It seems like a savings account could do the trick. You can save a healthy retirement by putting a portion of your salaries in a savings account in your local credit union. As a bonus—while you are not using that money—other members of your credit union can use this savings in a form of a loan, to buy a home, start a business, etc. The idea of my retirement being at the will of some hedgefund manager is not appealing next to the idea of my retirement being used temporary to help my neighbors buying a house or start a business.
  - kinghajj 6y ago
    > It seems like a savings account could do the trick. You can save a healthy retirement by putting a portion of your salaries in a savings account in your local credit union. With interest rates as low as they are, savings accounts have a negative real return. The $1000 you save today would have substantially less purchasing power by the time you'd retire. > As a bonus—while you are not using that money—other members of your credit union can use this savings in a form of a loan, to buy a home, start a business, etc. Well, yes and no. Banks don't really directly lend out the money deposited in savings accounts, due to fractional reserve requirements. > The idea of my retirement being at the will of some hedgefund manager is not appealing next to the idea of my retirement being used temporary to help my neighbors buying a house or start a business. I don't get this. With an IRA or a personal taxed brokerage account, you aren't at the mercy of anyone: you can choose which companies & funds to invest in. Hedge funds are not the be-all-and-end-all of the stock market, most funds are mutual funds who invest conservatively. If you just mean that hedge funds can cause black swan events like what we're seeing with GME, then sure, that's a concern, but only for the short term. Long-term, the stock market tends to appreciate and substantially beat inflation. We can add regulations to prevent hedge funds from fucking things up, without tearing the entire system down.

paulpauper 6y ago

When I saw him bragging, I went long GME as well (even though it is not a stock I would typically buy) just because if it crashes it will be a guilty pleasure seeing him lose so much, but if it goes up, well then we both make money. The latter seem to be playing out.

mylons 6y ago

This isn’t holding mania. It’s a war. $GME is the front line.

chillacy 6y ago

> militant activism via buying stock as a means to sticking it to the man. > beginning of another stock market crash Hmm sounds like it's working then.. Going off of the resentment against the 'elites' in wsb comments to the tune of "I started broke and I'll go broke again but if the rich go broke..."

__MatrixMan__ 6y ago
Maybe we'll see a new class of financial instrument come out of this. Not sure how it would work but I have to imagine that some clever person on Wall Street can find a way to sell shares of: > Give me $1 and I'll make sure your target loses $5
- doyouevensunbro 6y ago
  Spite investing? Count me in.
- voldacar 6y ago
  this sounds both illegal and extremely fun
trianglem 6y ago
But it’s no longer effecting just the rich. It’s working people with pensions and 401ks... and this better not mess up the decade long sweet bull market for a handful of millionaires.
- __MatrixMan__ 6y ago
  I'm not without sympathy for them, but I also think it would be good if people stopped allocating their retirements towards "money tricks on Wall-Street" and instead found ways to put it towards creating a world worth retiring in.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    Money tricks on wall street do have effects on the real world, some of which are positive.

nursur2011 6y ago

I'm not sure there really is much systemic risk. It's pretty clear that there are many mechanisms in play to prevent that (just look at the buy restrictions the past 2 days). There are circuit breakers, they will stop trading before this stock goes astronomical. They will just have GME issue more shares is my guess if things get dicy.

hehehaha 6y ago

Imagine if you’re his wife (and I believe he has a young daughter) and saw that your husband is leaving a $11M trade on a 8 sigma type of event? I want to ask him so many questions. Like when did you tell your wife? How did she react? Did she force you to take some profits? They need to make a movie about this whole thing when all the details spill out.

wting 6y ago
I was a professional poker player for ~5 years, and my wife—who has a much lower risk tolerance—asked that I never share variance with her since it causes quite a bit of anxiety. My daily numbers were in tens of thousands range rather than $11M, but the effect was the same.
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  How'd you get into pro poker? I'm good at statistics and would be interested in learning how to play really well.
  - sjtindell 6y ago
    Not a pro but I recently started learning some poker. Two texts that absolutely opened the game up to me were The Grinders Manual (fundamentals) and The Mathematics of Poker (where your stats/math background will be useful). The way I started was by dedicating 2 hours per day (1 hour studying, one hour playing online micro stakes). Next I will start learning and memorizing output from Solvers, that seems to be key to success at higher levels. Good luck on your journey if you get into it!
    - always_left 6y ago
      I’m curious. Poker has a lot of strong strategies and what not, but if a new player comes in, how do those strategies prevail? You may be confident with two Aces, but the player could be extremely confident in their king pair and wager as if they have a straight

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

milofeynman 6y ago

Could you explain who would "loan" these hedge funds shorts at these elevates levels? Or is that not how it works.

koolba 6y ago
Anyone who has the stock. The loans are usually collateralized at 100+% and marked to market daily. For stocks this crazy the interest rates on the loans would be equally insane. So any large institutions (ex: pension funds) holding the stock are making bank lending it out.

OJFord 6y ago

> The narrative has changed so quickly from this being a value play, to a short squeeze, to now militant activism via buying stock as a means to sticking it to the man. Absolutely! A week or so ago I watched his July 2020 video (declaring it a great value buy looking for 50-100% at around $4..!!) out of curiousity. Interesting, but totally disconnected from the short squeeze mania, I missed that leap, at least from there to anti-shorters makes more sense (as in 'I understand your position').

treis 6y ago
It's wild over there now. WSB was always like the kid at school that always got into crazy stuff. Now, they're off their meds, haven't slept in a week, and just did a bunch of coke.
- OJFord 6y ago
  I don't know, I've lurked there a bit in the past (for amusement/actually got a couple of good tips from the more serious end of posts, didn't see DFV/RK on GME at the time unfortunately!) but when I looked last night it just seemed filled with obviously new people commenting, membership has tripled or something. I didn't really participate in its 'culture', but I think it would be a shame if it lost that - after all I don't lurk on r/investing or get any amusement from it. I suppose probably they'll get bored when there isn't an official announcement that the next quick buck shall be X and here is a step by step guide on purchasing shares and options, and move on.

adolph 6y ago

Seems more effective than Occupy or Warren https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1355187260514250754 https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1355187260514250754

korethr 6y ago

> A sustained short interest does not necessarily mean that the shorts are holding their initial position, they could have closed and reopened at these elevated levels. This occurred to me today. I see it as entirely plausible that one or more large funds willingly took the loss to exit their initial short position, and proceeded open new short positions at the current crazy prices. In fact, I would not be surprised if they haven't been doing that all this past week with iceberg orders[1] so to not tip their hands by driving the price that much higher while doing so. It doesn't matter if they were able to bankroll the new position themselves or had to take on additional leverage to do so. A huge profit could be made from trying to short from these new crazy prices, and I'd not be surprised if big money was willing to fund such an attempt. With all the hype this past week, a bunch of people have jumped onto the bandwagon. I'd wager many are doing so out of an emotional excitement, without honestly considering the risk and whether they're truly willing to lose everything they put into this play. I'd also wager there are many who only think they're willing to lose everything they spend on $GME. But, when the share price starts going down, whether crashing from a panic selloff, or gently drifting downward as people start exiting their positions to lock in their profits, many will realize they're not as willing to lose everything as they thought. I fully expect the funds to try to play chicken with those trying to short squeeze. I fully expect them to try every dirty trick in the book to kick off a panic selloff. I would not be surprised if new dirty tricks get invented. I would not be surprised if favors get called in from politicians and other persons of power to try to scare everyone out of holding, whether that's looking the other way while the big funds do something maybe-not-so-legal, or other shenanigans, like very public arrests of u/DeepFuckingValue and others on BS charges. There's potentially very big money to be had here, and the big hedge funds everyone wants to screw over didn't get to their present riches by playing nice or fair. 1. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/icebergorder.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/icebergorder.asp

sfblah 6y ago

I'm not sure anyone cares, but the way to think about this is simply to ask if you would own GME at $300 a share if you had to hold it for the next 20 years. The answer is just obviously no. You'll never receive anything remotely close to that in dividends from the company. It's just a mania.

j2bax 6y ago
Why not? Gaming/hardware is a massive industry. They have enough brand recognition to take a slice of it if they make the right moves.
- me_again 6y ago
  They don't have a moat. What can they do that Best Buy can't?
  - j2bax 6y ago
    They are getting a hell of a press boost. Watch next earnings based on that alone. Also, is there no room for an amazing online retailer of computer/gaming hardware and accessories? They definitely aren’t that yet, but with some dudes from Chewy joining the board, I don’t see why they couldn’t put all this together to make a splash.

system2 6y ago

Reddit kids do not have enough money to keep doing this after this stock goes bust. Eventually they will try 1-2 more stocks and some will make them lose money then they will post their losses and blame the subreddit. 2 years ago everyone was crazy about bitcoin(even close friends, family members, coworkers). Although it is 30k now, I don't hear it from a single person. This is another social media experiment and won't repeat this successfully in the future.