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> I'm buying to squeeze the shorts You are buying in specifically to manipulate the price of availability of an asset in the market. > I'm buying because the

> I'm buying to squeeze the shorts You are buying in specifically to manipulate the price of availability of an asset in the market. > I'm buying because the shorts are overextended You're buying in based on some perception of the market, but not attempting your action of "buying in" to have a direct impact. Ya, they can be very similar, but as with a lot of legal aspects, intent matters (but is still hard to prove). Regarding investing in a targeted managed fund, I think it's different because the rules are sort of different. A fund has to have an exit strategy that is a net positive for the whole fund. A fund can't make a profit for half of it's investors, and a lose for the other half of it's investors, on the same position. If there is no exit strategy, the position/play/trade/whatever doesn't make sense. The current WSB exit strategy seems to be "hope to make it out before everyone else loses money".

innagadadavida 6y ago
>> I'm buying to squeeze the shorts > You are buying in specifically to manipulate the price of availability of an asset in the market. Naive question: isn’t shorting market manipulation as well or only if it is coordinated among many people?
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  There is a difference between "market manipulation" and "illegal market manipulation. Any action that can impact the price of something can be called "market manipulation". Apple releasing their quarterly earnings affects the price, but is clearly not illegal. When people short a stock, it is typically because they believe that the current price is not representative of what the business fundamentals and environment dictate it should be. Ie, they expect it to go down in the long run. While yes, the act of "shorting" can lower the price, that is not the main goal of the action, and it doesn't actually cause them an immediate profit (if they wanted to exit their position, they'd have to buy it all right back up, and the price would rebound as they do).
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maxerickson 6y ago
Yes, I likely wouldn't have constructed the compact example if I didn't understand the basics of the issue. I suppose my point is that someone with intent can use careful language to avoid creating any evidence of intent (and lawyers will cheer them on) and then someone without much in the way intent will say something sloppy that implies intent (and lawyers will punish them severely).
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  Ya, you're not wrong. And the unwritten/unknown rules of how to do skirt around the law aren't going to be changed by this situation. We still (in my opinion, unfortunately) have a legal system that is way to heavy on "word of the law" vs "intent of the law". We saw some of this a couple weeks ago. True intent is hard to prove through words, and context is super important. For what it's worth, I seriously doubt that someone on reddit who made an market-manipulation-incriminating statement and made a couple hundred bucks will face punishment. I suspect that when all of this is looked at at the end, the "gains" will be rather bi/tri-modal. A ton of people losing money, a bunch making a little bit (relatively), and then a small handful who make absolute bank. The group on the right are the ones who will have to be careful/worried.
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feanaro 6y ago
> Ya, they can be very similar, but as with a lot of legal aspects, intent matters (but is still hard to prove). It is so hard to prove that it becomes practically impossible in most cases, which leads to legislation that can choose when to strike and when not, leading to further concentration of unassailable power in regulating entities.

innagadadavida 6y ago

>> I'm buying to squeeze the shorts > You are buying in specifically to manipulate the price of availability of an asset in the market. Naive question: isn’t shorting market manipulation as well or only if it is coordinated among many people?

nrmitchi 6y ago
There is a difference between "market manipulation" and "illegal market manipulation. Any action that can impact the price of something can be called "market manipulation". Apple releasing their quarterly earnings affects the price, but is clearly not illegal. When people short a stock, it is typically because they believe that the current price is not representative of what the business fundamentals and environment dictate it should be. Ie, they expect it to go down in the long run. While yes, the act of "shorting" can lower the price, that is not the main goal of the action, and it doesn't actually cause them an immediate profit (if they wanted to exit their position, they'd have to buy it all right back up, and the price would rebound as they do).

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maxerickson 6y ago

Yes, I likely wouldn't have constructed the compact example if I didn't understand the basics of the issue. I suppose my point is that someone with intent can use careful language to avoid creating any evidence of intent (and lawyers will cheer them on) and then someone without much in the way intent will say something sloppy that implies intent (and lawyers will punish them severely).

nrmitchi 6y ago
Ya, you're not wrong. And the unwritten/unknown rules of how to do skirt around the law aren't going to be changed by this situation. We still (in my opinion, unfortunately) have a legal system that is way to heavy on "word of the law" vs "intent of the law". We saw some of this a couple weeks ago. True intent is hard to prove through words, and context is super important. For what it's worth, I seriously doubt that someone on reddit who made an market-manipulation-incriminating statement and made a couple hundred bucks will face punishment. I suspect that when all of this is looked at at the end, the "gains" will be rather bi/tri-modal. A ton of people losing money, a bunch making a little bit (relatively), and then a small handful who make absolute bank. The group on the right are the ones who will have to be careful/worried.

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feanaro 6y ago

> Ya, they can be very similar, but as with a lot of legal aspects, intent matters (but is still hard to prove). It is so hard to prove that it becomes practically impossible in most cases, which leads to legislation that can choose when to strike and when not, leading to further concentration of unassailable power in regulating entities.