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I think we're talking past each other. I'm saying that the reddit-power short squeeze to-the-moon fantasy is a fantasy because the market is composed of many pa

I think we're talking past each other. I'm saying that the reddit-power short squeeze to-the-moon fantasy is a fantasy because the market is composed of many participants and lots of them will choose to sell at a price that's profitable, but not astronomical.

rualca 6y ago
It seems clear that you don't have much in the sense of a context regarding what the WSB crowd does or thinks or days. You're talking about "fantasy" about wins regarding a community renowned for posting screenshots of stock market losses under the premise of "loss porn". You're also talking about the possibility of losing money while talking about a phenomenon with a highly emotional and defiant tone, with multiple and reiterating and recurrent threads about how they don't care if they lose money or withstand massive losses if that means they have a shot at screwing hedge funds and their blatantly manipulative tactics. You're talking about the risk of losses on investments from a community where "exit strategy" is a kin to an inside joke. In essence, you're trying to find an explanation to a social and political event through the optics of basic conservative textbook investment principles, and your conclusion is that nothing fits your personal explanation.
- rspeele 6y ago
  I think the political side of it "screwing hedge funds" is a bunch of BS. It's about as real as Bitcoin being for "enabling worldwide payments free from censorship". It's a nice story but the big price swings are driven by people trying to get rich quick. And hey, more power to them, nothing wrong with trying to get rich quick. Diamond hands might force short sellers to pay high prices to cover. But they pay those high prices to the people who sell, not to the people holding. Those sellers are the real winners -- well, them and anybody who shorts it again at the peak. Are they other hedge funds? Retail investors with "paper hands"? Who knows. All that's obvious to me is that if you're the last to sell, the only person you succeeded in screwing over is yourself.
  - rualca 6y ago
    > I think the political side of it "screwing hedge funds" is a bunch of BS. You're free to ignore or downplay whatever facts you'd like, but it takes a lot of will power to turn a blind eye to the political and protest aspect of gamestop's stock purchases. You're talking about a bunch of small WSB-like retail investors who purchase half a dozen stocks with their disposable cash because they feel that contributes to evil hedge funds of the likes of Melvin Capital to lose half their cash on their manipulative shorts. You're talking about people who look at gamestop's stock as a high-risk investment where the payoff is not cash but screwing big financial companies out of their cash. It's like you're watching a parade or a protest march and you're there wondering why all those idiots are just standing there instead of running to win the race. The point of a protest march is not to ensure that your everyday flow stays neatly predictable, is it?
    - rspeele 6y ago
      It's possible, I just consider it a more charitable interpretation to assume they're trying to make a buck, than that they're trying to protest in the dumbest way since self-immolation. To be clear, the make-a-buck version of events DOES make sense to me. I'm not standing here going "why are these people all doing this irrational thing?". It makes perfectly rational sense if they really do plan to exit, regardless of what they joke about in memes. It's not a game everybody can win, but there are some big winners paid for by the long tail of losers holding the bag at the end, and everybody can try to time the bubbles to make themselves one of those winners. On the other hand, the "I'm fine with taking a loss because at least I stuck it to the man" version makes no sense to me. If you buy and hold, and your diamond hands cause you to miss the window of profitability, you are helping somebody else who does sell get a better price for their shares. All you know about that person is that they DON'T have diamond hands. They might just be another hedge fund. Helping an unknown fund that's long make money off some other unknown fund that's short is... something... but I don't see how it's an effective protest. I guess it makes some amount of sense if your definition of "evil" is just short-selling, so somehow long funds are "good" and short funds are "bad". I admit I have seen that sentiment floating around. It doesn't make any sense, but it is out there, so I'll grant that at least a few shares have been bought on that belief. Again, I think the most charitable interpretation is that most price movement is not driven by people with such a naive idea about shorts and longs, but I could be wrong.

rualca 6y ago

It seems clear that you don't have much in the sense of a context regarding what the WSB crowd does or thinks or days. You're talking about "fantasy" about wins regarding a community renowned for posting screenshots of stock market losses under the premise of "loss porn". You're also talking about the possibility of losing money while talking about a phenomenon with a highly emotional and defiant tone, with multiple and reiterating and recurrent threads about how they don't care if they lose money or withstand massive losses if that means they have a shot at screwing hedge funds and their blatantly manipulative tactics. You're talking about the risk of losses on investments from a community where "exit strategy" is a kin to an inside joke. In essence, you're trying to find an explanation to a social and political event through the optics of basic conservative textbook investment principles, and your conclusion is that nothing fits your personal explanation.

rspeele 6y ago
I think the political side of it "screwing hedge funds" is a bunch of BS. It's about as real as Bitcoin being for "enabling worldwide payments free from censorship". It's a nice story but the big price swings are driven by people trying to get rich quick. And hey, more power to them, nothing wrong with trying to get rich quick. Diamond hands might force short sellers to pay high prices to cover. But they pay those high prices to the people who sell, not to the people holding. Those sellers are the real winners -- well, them and anybody who shorts it again at the peak. Are they other hedge funds? Retail investors with "paper hands"? Who knows. All that's obvious to me is that if you're the last to sell, the only person you succeeded in screwing over is yourself.
- rualca 6y ago
  > I think the political side of it "screwing hedge funds" is a bunch of BS. You're free to ignore or downplay whatever facts you'd like, but it takes a lot of will power to turn a blind eye to the political and protest aspect of gamestop's stock purchases. You're talking about a bunch of small WSB-like retail investors who purchase half a dozen stocks with their disposable cash because they feel that contributes to evil hedge funds of the likes of Melvin Capital to lose half their cash on their manipulative shorts. You're talking about people who look at gamestop's stock as a high-risk investment where the payoff is not cash but screwing big financial companies out of their cash. It's like you're watching a parade or a protest march and you're there wondering why all those idiots are just standing there instead of running to win the race. The point of a protest march is not to ensure that your everyday flow stays neatly predictable, is it?
  - rspeele 6y ago
    It's possible, I just consider it a more charitable interpretation to assume they're trying to make a buck, than that they're trying to protest in the dumbest way since self-immolation. To be clear, the make-a-buck version of events DOES make sense to me. I'm not standing here going "why are these people all doing this irrational thing?". It makes perfectly rational sense if they really do plan to exit, regardless of what they joke about in memes. It's not a game everybody can win, but there are some big winners paid for by the long tail of losers holding the bag at the end, and everybody can try to time the bubbles to make themselves one of those winners. On the other hand, the "I'm fine with taking a loss because at least I stuck it to the man" version makes no sense to me. If you buy and hold, and your diamond hands cause you to miss the window of profitability, you are helping somebody else who does sell get a better price for their shares. All you know about that person is that they DON'T have diamond hands. They might just be another hedge fund. Helping an unknown fund that's long make money off some other unknown fund that's short is... something... but I don't see how it's an effective protest. I guess it makes some amount of sense if your definition of "evil" is just short-selling, so somehow long funds are "good" and short funds are "bad". I admit I have seen that sentiment floating around. It doesn't make any sense, but it is out there, so I'll grant that at least a few shares have been bought on that belief. Again, I think the most charitable interpretation is that most price movement is not driven by people with such a naive idea about shorts and longs, but I could be wrong.