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Meme Stocks Lose $167B as Reddit Crowd Preaches Defiance

40 points by undefined1 6y ago

f430 6y ago
THE DIP IS FAKE. LOOK AT HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE BUYING COMPARED TO SELLING. RELAX AND HOLD. this summarizes whats happening. ppl are in their own bubble, rejecting anything that threatens their own flawed version of reality.
- pc86 6y ago
  I mean, "hedge funds and my shitty broker are complicit in securities fraud, which is why I lost $65,000 on an $80,000 bet" certainly sounds a lot better than "I was late to the party and got hosed."
  - baking 6y ago
    Or "I was the greatest fool."
- virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
  This bit immediately reminded me of qanon.
  - f430 6y ago
    yeah looks like quite a bit of HN folks actually bought into the meme stock and now they are furiously downvoting anything that suggests that they might not have been as smart as they've been brought up to believe.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Either it's someone in a bubble, or someone trying to prop up the price a little longer so they can liquidate the last few shares they own.
virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
I don't understand the reporting on this subject. Why would anyone think that GME, AMC etc would stay up?
- Clewza313 6y ago
  The dominant WSB narrative appears to be that the real short squeeze hasn't happened yet, the falling price is due to market manipulation, indicators showing that shorts are back to 50% instead of last week's 140% are all fake, and it's going back to the moon anytime now. Needless to say, it's requiring increasing levels of disconnect from reality to believe that this is actually the case. Here's a lengthy but interesting WSB analysis of the various theories: https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/lbaktb/sober_review_time_what_are_the_actual_data_we_can/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/lbaktb/sobe... My favorite bit: Argument #4: Market manipulation shenanigans didn't work, and retailers didn't sell off en masse, creating the liquidity shorts need to close cheaply. Claim: Price dips happened during low volume trading (short ladder market manipulation etc), and the longs are holding fast. Counterevidence: THE MOTHERFUCKING $300 PRICE DROP YOU DUMB FUCKING NUGGETS
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Not to be rude to a new account, but I have spoken to legitimate investment managers (who are licensed to have assets under management) who believe there is a still a reasonable possibility of a squeeze occurring (refer to the 800 strike on the GME options chain [1] [2], specifically the volume and open interest on those contracts, and the ongoing failure to deliver shares reports from the SEC [3] [4]). That's not to say WSB isn't....exuberant. They are, but that doesn't mean everyone in there is delusional. Maybe it goes back to $5, maybe it goes up, but it's pretty hard to say between retail, institutional, and what is going on behind the scenes. We departed fundamentals and technicals a while ago, and it's not easy to pick out the signal from the noise. Disclaimer: Not an advisor, not investment advice, comment is for educational purposes only. Thoughts and opinions are my own. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME/options?p=GME https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME/options?p=GME [2] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME/options?strike=800&straddle=false https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME/options?strike=800&strad... [3] https://www.sec.gov/data/foiadocsfailsdatahtm https://www.sec.gov/data/foiadocsfailsdatahtm (most recent zip file, extract and grep GME) [4] https://wherearetheshares.com/ https://wherearetheshares.com/
WalterBright 6y ago
Oh well. Back to SPY.
allendoerfer 6y ago
What is way more interesting is that the media can be weaponized by hedge funds, in that many (all?) outlets were incorrectly reporting, that r/wallstreetbets was hyping silver instead of GME now. To me the whole story certainly brought up a few things worth regulating. Why can brokers just arbitrarily decide to stop trading specific stocks? Why can different entities lend stocks for the purpose of shorting against the interests of the very owner of said stocks? Isn't shorting more than (or next to) 100% of the free float of a company too big of a risk for the whole system and how can we circumvent that in the future? Before the whole thing, I had the impression, that stocks are safe. Not necessarily their price, but the stocks themself. I was aware that they are a separate asset and don't belong to the assets of the broker. Little did I know that brokers could still just lend them out and that I would only get a maximum of 20,000 € back over here in Germany, in case shit actually would hit the fan. I want to be able to print out my stocks and physically put them somewhere or put them on a blockchain! How is it possible, that in 2021 I could actually lose my ownership rights to a company, because someone else is using it to gamble?
- esyir 6y ago
  Personally, I feel like all those news orgs should be liable for something. Blatantly lying to a huge audience in an attempt to influence the market to me feels like blatant market manipulation, especially in time-sensitive situations. If anything, this should be an eye opener to many. The media isn't your friend, and hasn't been your friend for a long time, if ever. Journalism is dead, and primarily exists as a tool of manipulation far more insidious than any government run propaganda campaign. They don't exist to report what has happened, or to inform; They exist to shape opinion and control their readers.
  - monoideism 6y ago
    > They don't exist to report what has happened, or to inform; They exist to shape opinion and control their readers. That's been the case for some time now, but there will be major pushback from many HNers, who believe we're attacking a pillar of our democracy. And yes, an independent media is an important part of a democracy. But most of our mainstream media are party-affiliated, not independent. They're party mouthpieces. And both parties are highly influenced by our major corporations, particularly the finance industry. Between a warped media, swarm-mind on social media, and societal upheavals like pandemics and rioting (at the Capitol and elsewhere), we're reaching a tipping point. I wish people would turn off their TVs, and their Facebook+Twitter. It's probably our only chance of avoiding the chasm we're fast approaching.
Simulacra 6y ago
"“Anything can turn sinister if people go in with the wrong education and intentions,” said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade." In other words, leave it to the "experts."
tumbleweeds 6y ago
The really disappointing thing is that a lot of desperate people who had just some extra stimulus money and no more assistance thought they could possibly win something. I'm not saying desperate to demean anyone, just that the failed state does spur some in despair to try anything. They thought they couldn't possibly lose if so many are in on the big mental error that'll destroy Wall Street. If they bought low, like $50-70, sure, that's not a complete loss yet as of today's $90 close. But there are those who went all in above $300 last week hoping to see the moon. This one kid I read tossed in $18,000 of his savings at the peak and currently down $9,000. Another young one is YOLOing his shares and willing to ride it to zero instead of just calling it quits. What could at least be some slim yet fair gains relative to last week or less of a loss will simply worsen with this attitude. Gamestop isn't like AMC where the current dip one can ride out a bit and possibly break even or gain. It's one thing to be struggling and another to lose more money. It's not like credit debt when at least the money borrowed went somewhere. This is pretty much cash grifted out of naive hands by both sides. Easy to miss an opportunity and forget, harder to deal with losses especially as the US government can't even agree if a future stimulus check is coming or going.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
adventured 6y ago
Interestingly across all of the lauding for the Reddit short squeezing (about how it was a populist uprising against Wall Street, blah blah blah and other similar fraudulent non-sense), it's being almost universally ignored that the Reddit crowd is doing nothing more than performing rampant pump and dump schemes on stocks. They're going to leave GameStop to die by the side of the road and they will not care one bit as it gradually implodes back down toward where it was, it's on to the next pump and dump, GME will be yesterday's forgotten news. There is nothing glorious about what's going on, there's nothing honorable about pumping and dumping stocks for a quick buck. If it were Wall Street behaving this way (as they so often do) it'd be properly called despicable behavior.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wesapien 6y ago
I thought this was about Melvin Capital shorting more than 100% of the float. They start losing money and media brings up: what about the pensions? Those poor people blah blah. Yea, Melvin Capital why the hell would you do that to pension funds. Is that the risk profile for such things?

40 points by undefined1 6y ago

f430 6y ago

THE DIP IS FAKE. LOOK AT HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE BUYING COMPARED TO SELLING. RELAX AND HOLD. this summarizes whats happening. ppl are in their own bubble, rejecting anything that threatens their own flawed version of reality.

pc86 6y ago
I mean, "hedge funds and my shitty broker are complicit in securities fraud, which is why I lost $65,000 on an $80,000 bet" certainly sounds a lot better than "I was late to the party and got hosed."
- baking 6y ago
  Or "I was the greatest fool."
virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
This bit immediately reminded me of qanon.
- f430 6y ago
  yeah looks like quite a bit of HN folks actually bought into the meme stock and now they are furiously downvoting anything that suggests that they might not have been as smart as they've been brought up to believe.
ogre_codes 6y ago
Either it's someone in a bubble, or someone trying to prop up the price a little longer so they can liquidate the last few shares they own.

virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago

I don't understand the reporting on this subject. Why would anyone think that GME, AMC etc would stay up?

Clewza313 6y ago
The dominant WSB narrative appears to be that the real short squeeze hasn't happened yet, the falling price is due to market manipulation, indicators showing that shorts are back to 50% instead of last week's 140% are all fake, and it's going back to the moon anytime now. Needless to say, it's requiring increasing levels of disconnect from reality to believe that this is actually the case. Here's a lengthy but interesting WSB analysis of the various theories: https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/lbaktb/sober_review_time_what_are_the_actual_data_we_can/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/lbaktb/sobe... My favorite bit: Argument #4: Market manipulation shenanigans didn't work, and retailers didn't sell off en masse, creating the liquidity shorts need to close cheaply. Claim: Price dips happened during low volume trading (short ladder market manipulation etc), and the longs are holding fast. Counterevidence: THE MOTHERFUCKING $300 PRICE DROP YOU DUMB FUCKING NUGGETS
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Not to be rude to a new account, but I have spoken to legitimate investment managers (who are licensed to have assets under management) who believe there is a still a reasonable possibility of a squeeze occurring (refer to the 800 strike on the GME options chain [1] [2], specifically the volume and open interest on those contracts, and the ongoing failure to deliver shares reports from the SEC [3] [4]). That's not to say WSB isn't....exuberant. They are, but that doesn't mean everyone in there is delusional. Maybe it goes back to $5, maybe it goes up, but it's pretty hard to say between retail, institutional, and what is going on behind the scenes. We departed fundamentals and technicals a while ago, and it's not easy to pick out the signal from the noise. Disclaimer: Not an advisor, not investment advice, comment is for educational purposes only. Thoughts and opinions are my own. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME/options?p=GME https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME/options?p=GME [2] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME/options?strike=800&straddle=false https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME/options?strike=800&strad... [3] https://www.sec.gov/data/foiadocsfailsdatahtm https://www.sec.gov/data/foiadocsfailsdatahtm (most recent zip file, extract and grep GME) [4] https://wherearetheshares.com/ https://wherearetheshares.com/

WalterBright 6y ago

Oh well. Back to SPY.

allendoerfer 6y ago

What is way more interesting is that the media can be weaponized by hedge funds, in that many (all?) outlets were incorrectly reporting, that r/wallstreetbets was hyping silver instead of GME now. To me the whole story certainly brought up a few things worth regulating. Why can brokers just arbitrarily decide to stop trading specific stocks? Why can different entities lend stocks for the purpose of shorting against the interests of the very owner of said stocks? Isn't shorting more than (or next to) 100% of the free float of a company too big of a risk for the whole system and how can we circumvent that in the future? Before the whole thing, I had the impression, that stocks are safe. Not necessarily their price, but the stocks themself. I was aware that they are a separate asset and don't belong to the assets of the broker. Little did I know that brokers could still just lend them out and that I would only get a maximum of 20,000 € back over here in Germany, in case shit actually would hit the fan. I want to be able to print out my stocks and physically put them somewhere or put them on a blockchain! How is it possible, that in 2021 I could actually lose my ownership rights to a company, because someone else is using it to gamble?

esyir 6y ago
Personally, I feel like all those news orgs should be liable for something. Blatantly lying to a huge audience in an attempt to influence the market to me feels like blatant market manipulation, especially in time-sensitive situations. If anything, this should be an eye opener to many. The media isn't your friend, and hasn't been your friend for a long time, if ever. Journalism is dead, and primarily exists as a tool of manipulation far more insidious than any government run propaganda campaign. They don't exist to report what has happened, or to inform; They exist to shape opinion and control their readers.
- monoideism 6y ago
  > They don't exist to report what has happened, or to inform; They exist to shape opinion and control their readers. That's been the case for some time now, but there will be major pushback from many HNers, who believe we're attacking a pillar of our democracy. And yes, an independent media is an important part of a democracy. But most of our mainstream media are party-affiliated, not independent. They're party mouthpieces. And both parties are highly influenced by our major corporations, particularly the finance industry. Between a warped media, swarm-mind on social media, and societal upheavals like pandemics and rioting (at the Capitol and elsewhere), we're reaching a tipping point. I wish people would turn off their TVs, and their Facebook+Twitter. It's probably our only chance of avoiding the chasm we're fast approaching.

Simulacra 6y ago

"“Anything can turn sinister if people go in with the wrong education and intentions,” said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade." In other words, leave it to the "experts."

tumbleweeds 6y ago

The really disappointing thing is that a lot of desperate people who had just some extra stimulus money and no more assistance thought they could possibly win something. I'm not saying desperate to demean anyone, just that the failed state does spur some in despair to try anything. They thought they couldn't possibly lose if so many are in on the big mental error that'll destroy Wall Street. If they bought low, like $50-70, sure, that's not a complete loss yet as of today's $90 close. But there are those who went all in above $300 last week hoping to see the moon. This one kid I read tossed in $18,000 of his savings at the peak and currently down $9,000. Another young one is YOLOing his shares and willing to ride it to zero instead of just calling it quits. What could at least be some slim yet fair gains relative to last week or less of a loss will simply worsen with this attitude. Gamestop isn't like AMC where the current dip one can ride out a bit and possibly break even or gain. It's one thing to be struggling and another to lose more money. It's not like credit debt when at least the money borrowed went somewhere. This is pretty much cash grifted out of naive hands by both sides. Easy to miss an opportunity and forget, harder to deal with losses especially as the US government can't even agree if a future stimulus check is coming or going.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

adventured 6y ago

Interestingly across all of the lauding for the Reddit short squeezing (about how it was a populist uprising against Wall Street, blah blah blah and other similar fraudulent non-sense), it's being almost universally ignored that the Reddit crowd is doing nothing more than performing rampant pump and dump schemes on stocks. They're going to leave GameStop to die by the side of the road and they will not care one bit as it gradually implodes back down toward where it was, it's on to the next pump and dump, GME will be yesterday's forgotten news. There is nothing glorious about what's going on, there's nothing honorable about pumping and dumping stocks for a quick buck. If it were Wall Street behaving this way (as they so often do) it'd be properly called despicable behavior.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wesapien 6y ago

I thought this was about Melvin Capital shorting more than 100% of the float. They start losing money and media brings up: what about the pensions? Those poor people blah blah. Yea, Melvin Capital why the hell would you do that to pension funds. Is that the risk profile for such things?