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Institutional investors did do what people suspect wsb of doing. Retail investors where net sellers of GME during this event. The short squeeze happened because

Institutional investors did do what people suspect wsb of doing. Retail investors where net sellers of GME during this event. The short squeeze happened because other institional investors went in hard under cover of the WSB memes. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/gamestop-mania-may-not-have-been-the-retail-trader-rebellion-it-was-perceived-to-be-data-shows.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/gamestop-mania-may-not-have-...

javagram 6y ago
> Institutional investors did do what people suspect wsb of doing. Buying based on observing market conditions or seeing the posts in reddit wouldn’t have been questionably legal afaik. Only actively coordinating e.g. through posts on Reddit or phone calls or a Smoky back room could be argued to be market manipulation I think? If they were posting in Reddit to feed the squeeze that’s when stuff may get problematic.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  The sentiment on WSB from what I can tell is that they can’t coordinate which thread to sticky, let alone which stock to buy. My impression of observing it for a couple of weeks is that this is true. They aren’t capable of truly coordinating anything. Best I can tell, Roaring Kitty/Deepfuckingvalue basically had been buying more and more GME stock for like a year and every month showed screenshots to prove this saying a short squeeze was coming. Eventually in January something happened and everyone else was like “he might actually be right, I’m buying”. Then the news picked it up and it hit a positive feedback loop. Robinhood stopping buy orders put a wet blanket on things and after they lifted the restrictions enough time had passed that the frenzy slowed down. The short squeeze might still happen but lots of WSB participants bought at $300+ and I suspect will never recover that loss. But also because of this specific crowd it seems a good chunk of them are not selling on the idea that if you buy at $300 and sell at $50, you definitely lose. And if you hold the stock it might some day rise back to above $300-400. Mark Cuban did an AMA there where he basically reaffirmed this point of view which they took and ran with. Part of this behavior is that WSB wasn’t really focused on going long on stocks until now. They mostly traded options which have specific deadlines. They simply aren’t used to the idea of an open ended investment. I saw people talking about how GME is a solid company and how they believe it’ll transition to digital successfully. How it might grow from fundamentals, etc. Nevermind their EPS, or the fact that their valuation currently sits at 10x what it was with no justification as to how their fundamentals might have changed to account for this. The difference with this crowd is that they for the most part acknowledge that this is gambling and that you are likely to lose all the money you invest so don’t worry about losing it. They also acknowledge that they don’t know what they are doing vs pretending like this is all based on research, experience, or education. Makes them a sort of dangerous crowd, especially as some there do accumulate a good amount of wealth, IMO.
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    But also because of this specific crowd it seems a good chunk of them are not selling on the idea that if you buy at $300 and sell at $50, you definitely lose. So close! You're almost completely correct, but remember that a loss is considered a win on wsb, because you get to post loss porn. Can't spell trader without retard. https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/ljde34/rip/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/ljde34/rip/ Your comment is excellent. But I just wanted to chime in with a "yes, but remember that they don't take themselves very seriously" type reply. It's necessary for preservation of their culture. People who act like they know a thing or two tend to get immediately jumped on, which I found quite refreshing. "But will a gamma squeeze happen?' is usually met with "stfu and go read a book rather than drop terms you don't understand." Which ... seems unhelpful and awful, until you realize that it preserves the important property of letting everyone feel like they can participate. You, me, anyone. And I don't really see how that's a dangerous group; it's more like a virtualized casino meme factory.
    - baq 6y ago
      that wsb is gone. maybe it'll come back after the dust settles. it isn't all bad though - old timers migrated to a myriad of other subreddits where quality content is more popular. it may take a while to get back to late 2020 level of memes, though.
    - fractionalhare 6y ago
      > People who act like they know a thing or two tend to get immediately jumped on, which I found quite refreshing. "But will a gamma squeeze happen?' is usually met with "stfu and go read a book rather than drop terms you don't understand." Maybe this is how it was 6 million subscribers ago. Based on my (extensive) reading of WSB the past few weeks, this is no longer true. I've read just about every WSB post (and its comments) about GME with over ~1000 upvotes. People asking when the gamma squeeze is going to happen were definitely not being told to read a book, they were being told things like "this Friday!" And people acting like they had intimate knowledge of this fact weren't exactly downvoted either...

javagram 6y ago

> Institutional investors did do what people suspect wsb of doing. Buying based on observing market conditions or seeing the posts in reddit wouldn’t have been questionably legal afaik. Only actively coordinating e.g. through posts on Reddit or phone calls or a Smoky back room could be argued to be market manipulation I think? If they were posting in Reddit to feed the squeeze that’s when stuff may get problematic.

IgorPartola 6y ago
The sentiment on WSB from what I can tell is that they can’t coordinate which thread to sticky, let alone which stock to buy. My impression of observing it for a couple of weeks is that this is true. They aren’t capable of truly coordinating anything. Best I can tell, Roaring Kitty/Deepfuckingvalue basically had been buying more and more GME stock for like a year and every month showed screenshots to prove this saying a short squeeze was coming. Eventually in January something happened and everyone else was like “he might actually be right, I’m buying”. Then the news picked it up and it hit a positive feedback loop. Robinhood stopping buy orders put a wet blanket on things and after they lifted the restrictions enough time had passed that the frenzy slowed down. The short squeeze might still happen but lots of WSB participants bought at $300+ and I suspect will never recover that loss. But also because of this specific crowd it seems a good chunk of them are not selling on the idea that if you buy at $300 and sell at $50, you definitely lose. And if you hold the stock it might some day rise back to above $300-400. Mark Cuban did an AMA there where he basically reaffirmed this point of view which they took and ran with. Part of this behavior is that WSB wasn’t really focused on going long on stocks until now. They mostly traded options which have specific deadlines. They simply aren’t used to the idea of an open ended investment. I saw people talking about how GME is a solid company and how they believe it’ll transition to digital successfully. How it might grow from fundamentals, etc. Nevermind their EPS, or the fact that their valuation currently sits at 10x what it was with no justification as to how their fundamentals might have changed to account for this. The difference with this crowd is that they for the most part acknowledge that this is gambling and that you are likely to lose all the money you invest so don’t worry about losing it. They also acknowledge that they don’t know what they are doing vs pretending like this is all based on research, experience, or education. Makes them a sort of dangerous crowd, especially as some there do accumulate a good amount of wealth, IMO.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  But also because of this specific crowd it seems a good chunk of them are not selling on the idea that if you buy at $300 and sell at $50, you definitely lose. So close! You're almost completely correct, but remember that a loss is considered a win on wsb, because you get to post loss porn. Can't spell trader without retard. https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/ljde34/rip/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/ljde34/rip/ Your comment is excellent. But I just wanted to chime in with a "yes, but remember that they don't take themselves very seriously" type reply. It's necessary for preservation of their culture. People who act like they know a thing or two tend to get immediately jumped on, which I found quite refreshing. "But will a gamma squeeze happen?' is usually met with "stfu and go read a book rather than drop terms you don't understand." Which ... seems unhelpful and awful, until you realize that it preserves the important property of letting everyone feel like they can participate. You, me, anyone. And I don't really see how that's a dangerous group; it's more like a virtualized casino meme factory.
  - baq 6y ago
    that wsb is gone. maybe it'll come back after the dust settles. it isn't all bad though - old timers migrated to a myriad of other subreddits where quality content is more popular. it may take a while to get back to late 2020 level of memes, though.
  - fractionalhare 6y ago
    > People who act like they know a thing or two tend to get immediately jumped on, which I found quite refreshing. "But will a gamma squeeze happen?' is usually met with "stfu and go read a book rather than drop terms you don't understand." Maybe this is how it was 6 million subscribers ago. Based on my (extensive) reading of WSB the past few weeks, this is no longer true. I've read just about every WSB post (and its comments) about GME with over ~1000 upvotes. People asking when the gamma squeeze is going to happen were definitely not being told to read a book, they were being told things like "this Friday!" And people acting like they had intimate knowledge of this fact weren't exactly downvoted either...