7 ms·

There are plenty of "Average people" that entered near the top, and since not everyone can sell simultaneously, that means a ton of people are losing the life s

There are plenty of "Average people" that entered near the top, and since not everyone can sell simultaneously, that means a ton of people are losing the life savings they dumped into this out of excitement as it crashed back down. I think the point being made here is that the whole narrative of "average people beating wall street" is pretty naive and quite bullshit. All in on, maybe a few handful of people got 10x or even 100x their money, but most of the gains were most likely made by hedge funds and with the exception of one or two hedge funds who were squeezed, the majority of losses will probably be by average people.

JakeTheAndroid 6y ago
Well in fairness to WSB, it was really built around loss porn, not sticking it to the hedge funds. So even those people losing their life savings are contributing the to the WSB cause so long as they show off all the red.
simias 6y ago
Lurking the wsb threads now it's clear that none of these people have exit strategies, or even strategies at all. Even if that fabled squeeze was to take place I'm sure many of them would still be left holding the bags because they wouldn't know when to sell. And again, at this point I'm really not sold on that squeeze theory at all, it seems very plausible that it ended last week and now we're just seeing a good old pump-and-dump taking place. In the end some people are going to be very lucky and some others are going to learn a very expensive lesson about the dangers of gambling.
jb775 6y ago
This explains what's actually happening right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMShFx5rThI&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMShFx5rThI&feature=youtu.be
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
SignalNotSecure 6y ago
I think there is a name for people positioning themselves in the market on the advice of self-proclaimed "retards and autists"
- Ekaros 6y ago
  Or absolutely anything hyped in headlines... It should be clear that once something is in mainstream press it is usually too late.
notyourday 6y ago
> There are plenty of "Average people" that entered near the top, and since not everyone can sell simultaneously, that means a ton of people are losing the life savings they dumped into this out of excitement as it crashed back down. Most of "average people" entered at or near the top. The ones that did not were so engaged in gambling that they did not sell when it did 20x return. Call it what it is: fear of missing out. Even DeepFuckingValue, who sold at least some of this position and netted a lot of money after taxes was not smart enough to say that 20x return in a few months is a time to pack the toys and go home so he could fight another day, leaving millions on a table in a futile hope that it would do much, much better.
- cperciva 6y ago
  I think DeepFuckingValue is smarter than you give him credit for. It's worth leaving $20M on the table if it lets you tell the SEC "look, I'm clearly an idiot, there's no way I could have been deliberately engineering a pump and dump scheme". Better to take $15M of profit than to gamble $35M on the SEC deciding not to prosecute.
  - ac2u 6y ago
    If he did offload his entire position at the "top", and became seen as a symbolic catalyst of a subsequent drop, I reckon it's randomers on the internet that took a loss that he'd be more worried about. Especially when the newspapers decided to plaster his real identity all over the place.
  - vimy 6y ago
    The SEC doesn’t have a case. He’s been holding for 2 years and was laughed at many times by people on the wallstreetbets sub.
    - cperciva 6y ago
      The SEC wouldn't be prosecuting him for holding GME. They would be prosecuting him for pumping up the stock price.
nprz 6y ago
> that means a ton of people are losing the life savings they dumped into this out of excitement as it crashed back down Can you provide a single case of someone losing their entire life savings by YOLOing it on GME at the top?
- xapata 6y ago
  So strange that YOLO has come to mean the opposite of what one would do if worried about the fact one only lives once. But I guess that's true for much slang.
  - toast0 6y ago
    YOLO has always meant, you only live once, gotta try everything. Not you only live once, make it last as long as possible and never do anything dangerous or with possible (probable even) negative repercussions.
    - xapata 6y ago
      Some choices are mutually exclusive. It seems common, but in my view (intentionally?) ironic, to use the term in those contexts.
- FractalParadigm 6y ago
  There is this example [0]. Maybe not their whole life savings, but still a sizeable chunk. I'm sure there are a LOT of other people in similar scenarios now, who may not have fared much better. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/lavxcb/21_years_old_lost_25k/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/lavx...
  - cryptnotic 6y ago
    > For context, I just turned 21 ... and am on track to graduate soon as a software engineer. A 21-year-old soon-to-be software engineer losing $25k is not a life-changing tragedy.
- 6y ago
fortran77 6y ago
> , that means a ton of people are losing the life savings they dumped into this out of excitement as it crashed back down. Let's hope that Congress doesn't try to bail these people out!

JakeTheAndroid 6y ago

Well in fairness to WSB, it was really built around loss porn, not sticking it to the hedge funds. So even those people losing their life savings are contributing the to the WSB cause so long as they show off all the red.

simias 6y ago

Lurking the wsb threads now it's clear that none of these people have exit strategies, or even strategies at all. Even if that fabled squeeze was to take place I'm sure many of them would still be left holding the bags because they wouldn't know when to sell. And again, at this point I'm really not sold on that squeeze theory at all, it seems very plausible that it ended last week and now we're just seeing a good old pump-and-dump taking place. In the end some people are going to be very lucky and some others are going to learn a very expensive lesson about the dangers of gambling.

jb775 6y ago

This explains what's actually happening right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMShFx5rThI&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMShFx5rThI&feature=youtu.be

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

SignalNotSecure 6y ago

I think there is a name for people positioning themselves in the market on the advice of self-proclaimed "retards and autists"

Ekaros 6y ago
Or absolutely anything hyped in headlines... It should be clear that once something is in mainstream press it is usually too late.

notyourday 6y ago

> There are plenty of "Average people" that entered near the top, and since not everyone can sell simultaneously, that means a ton of people are losing the life savings they dumped into this out of excitement as it crashed back down. Most of "average people" entered at or near the top. The ones that did not were so engaged in gambling that they did not sell when it did 20x return. Call it what it is: fear of missing out. Even DeepFuckingValue, who sold at least some of this position and netted a lot of money after taxes was not smart enough to say that 20x return in a few months is a time to pack the toys and go home so he could fight another day, leaving millions on a table in a futile hope that it would do much, much better.

cperciva 6y ago
I think DeepFuckingValue is smarter than you give him credit for. It's worth leaving $20M on the table if it lets you tell the SEC "look, I'm clearly an idiot, there's no way I could have been deliberately engineering a pump and dump scheme". Better to take $15M of profit than to gamble $35M on the SEC deciding not to prosecute.
- ac2u 6y ago
  If he did offload his entire position at the "top", and became seen as a symbolic catalyst of a subsequent drop, I reckon it's randomers on the internet that took a loss that he'd be more worried about. Especially when the newspapers decided to plaster his real identity all over the place.
- vimy 6y ago
  The SEC doesn’t have a case. He’s been holding for 2 years and was laughed at many times by people on the wallstreetbets sub.
  - cperciva 6y ago
    The SEC wouldn't be prosecuting him for holding GME. They would be prosecuting him for pumping up the stock price.

nprz 6y ago

> that means a ton of people are losing the life savings they dumped into this out of excitement as it crashed back down Can you provide a single case of someone losing their entire life savings by YOLOing it on GME at the top?

xapata 6y ago
So strange that YOLO has come to mean the opposite of what one would do if worried about the fact one only lives once. But I guess that's true for much slang.
- toast0 6y ago
  YOLO has always meant, you only live once, gotta try everything. Not you only live once, make it last as long as possible and never do anything dangerous or with possible (probable even) negative repercussions.
  - xapata 6y ago
    Some choices are mutually exclusive. It seems common, but in my view (intentionally?) ironic, to use the term in those contexts.
FractalParadigm 6y ago
There is this example [0]. Maybe not their whole life savings, but still a sizeable chunk. I'm sure there are a LOT of other people in similar scenarios now, who may not have fared much better. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/lavxcb/21_years_old_lost_25k/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/lavx...
- cryptnotic 6y ago
  > For context, I just turned 21 ... and am on track to graduate soon as a software engineer. A 21-year-old soon-to-be software engineer losing $25k is not a life-changing tragedy.
6y ago

fortran77 6y ago

> , that means a ton of people are losing the life savings they dumped into this out of excitement as it crashed back down. Let's hope that Congress doesn't try to bail these people out!