3 ms·
> And Melvin Capital lost a couple billion dollars while quite a number of Redditors got a massive payout, so a net win for society. And quite a lot of Reddito
by dcolkitt 6y ago
> And Melvin Capital lost a couple billion dollars while quite a number of Redditors got a massive payout, so a net win for society.
And quite a lot of Redditors suffered massive losses. There's not shortage of WSB posts with 7 figure losses. Overall it's pretty hard to assess whether on net "Wall Street" made or lost money to retail. Melvin certainly wasn't the only player here.
It's likely that other funds jumped in on the squeeze, and were much better in terms of timing their exit. Some funds may have shorted on the way back down, and made a killing.
But most importantly, intermediaries like HFTs, option market makers, internalizers, and stat arb funds made a killing. Almost entirely at the expense of retail flow. It's like a casino. Some win, some lose, but the house rake always wins.
But even if retail on net made money, it probably wasn't a benefit to society. 20 people losing their life savings so that /u/deepfuckingvalue can become a multimillionaire isn't exactly a heartwarming story.
- jki275 6y agoEspecially when you look at who that dude actually is...
- fileeditview 6y agoCare to explain what is wrong about him? This is a genuine question.
- mschuster91 6y agoKeith Gill aka u/deepfuckingvalue is an actual licensed broker and financial analyst: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Gill_(investor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Gill_(investor)
- jki275 6y agoYep. Works(ed?) for Mass Mutual.
- jjeaff 6y agoHe is licensed, but it doesn't appear that he was an active broker. From what I have read, he was creating marketing or training videos of some type for Mass Mutual. He also resigned his position in January. Though not fully before everything blew up with gme.
- mschuster91 6y ago> But even if retail on net made money, it probably wasn't a benefit to society. It is, because the open corruption of the stock market, the absolutely disgusting behavior of major players and especially the arcane rules (like T+2 settlement, made necessary by the US's fossilized banking infrastructure) became dragged into the spotlight. Wall Street claimed to have learned their lesson after 2008ff? GME proved that they all haven't learned a single damn thing. > 20 people losing their life savings so that /u/deepfuckingvalue can become a multimillionaire isn't exactly a heartwarming story. It's called wallstreetbets for a reason. I'm sorry but people dumping their life savings into the stock markets on a crazy bet by anonymous Redditors, that's just... dumb. (On a side note, such cases are why basic financial education should be mandatory at schools!) (Disclosure: sunk a couple hundred into AMC and NOK, planning on holding all of it until at least the pandemic ends)
- fileeditview 6y agoIf you have a 7 figure loss you most likely had at least 7 figures in the bank.. not really the typical "simple man". Also laying blame on deepfuckingvalue seems ridiculous to me. He was basically the only one that invested in Gamestop as a value investment.. about a year ago. Everyone told him he was stupid but he kept with his plan. Then at some point a horde of crazies jumps on the train and now he is taking money from "20 people losing their life savings"? meh... This whole topic reeks of simplifications, misguided blame and populism.
- fractionalhare 6y ago> If you have a 7 figure loss you most likely had at least 7 figures in the bank.. not really the typical "simple man". I do not think this is usually the case on WSB, where people regularly show off trading on margin several times larger than their total account size :) Even without margin, it's not uncommon to see people freely admitting they put everything they have into a single position (and mods happily verify it).