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A year on, GameStop champion Roaring Kitty is quiet, yet much richer
- belval 5y agoConsidering he is being investigated, any lawyer would have told him to lay low and just enjoy his money for the new 2-3 years. Nothing here is surprising.
- q_andrew 5y agoHe's probably smart enough to know that his discovery and fame was one-in-a-million, and that lightning doesn't usually strike the same place twice.
- jermaustin1 5y agoYou say that, but Zack Morris (not real name) champions Pump and Dumps every week or so. They might not all work for him, but he pushes a new one, and makes (from what he discloses) millions on them. If you pay something like $250/mo, you can get early access to his buys and get notified when he sells. I've watched this guy singlehandedly pump a penny stock to 10x its value in days before dumping. Not sure how he doesn't get arrested or investigated by the SEC, but its common place for him and his "crew" Atlas Trading.
- unmole 5y ago> (from what he discloses) millions on them. If you pay something like $250/mo, you can get early access to his buys and get notified when he sells. If actually can pump stocks and make millions, why does he need to sell early access subscription?
- darkwater 5y ago> If actually can pump stocks and make millions, why does he need to sell early access subscription? Diversification? :)
- jermaustin1 5y agoJust to be clear - I don't really follow this guy, and I definitely do not trust him. But just guessing, if he just give it away, it would be less effective, and who doesn't like a few hundred grand - few million extra each month? Might as well make an additional million a month on a few thousand suckers, on top of the other couple million a month from pumping schemes.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago> If actually can pump stocks and make millions, why does he need to sell early access subscription? Because he starts selling before he tells this group. People who spend $250/month are going to be convinced that the “buy” and “sell” recommendations are now valuable because they literally spent money on them, and therefore will follow them more closely.
- lmm 5y agoThe newsletter is how he pumps it.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- matsemann 5y agoBecause he needs someone to buy when he wants to dump his shares, is my guess. You're basically paying to get scammed by following the advice you get, those paying are the same ones making the stock pump.
- thomcano 5y agoThat's so insane; he's a legend for sure—one for the history books.
- 3pt14159 5y agoPeople have figured out that one of the ways to get to overnight wealth is to solve the collective action problem and they're getting better and better at fostering it and at coming up with legal ways to avoid existing regulations against pump and dump schemes. Doing it "for the lulz" to hose a bunch of hedge fund shorts. Or creating NFTs around "things" you "own" and pumping them up. Knockoff dogcoins that have nothing to do with the playfulness of the original. The sad part is that we could actually solve some real problems by coordinating collective action on, say, starting a new city that's designed around non-motorized transit within the city limits. But we don't. We get Snoop Dogg crypto instead. It's all so depressing.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y agoThe collective action problem that’s been solved is getting people to collectively click a button. It’s why you see tons of people upvote things or change their profile pictures in support of a movement. But getting them to go past that is still as hard as it’s ever been.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago> ...starting a new city... Curious what you mean here, and how it relates to collective action?
- 3pt14159 5y agoWhat I'm trying to point to here is that in the developed world the vast, vast majority of the value of a dwelling is how many dwellings exist around it. That's because land value is an arms race. So many people want to live in, say, Toronto that large sums are poured into mortgages. The materials cost is only a small fraction of the value of the home. But it doesn't have to be this way. People could put all this energy they're burning on crypto and apply the same principles into getting everyone to agree to some sort of better city with sustainability and low-cost-of-maintenance built in by default. That way we could have affordable housing spring up. It would take work to vet; escrows, webs-of-trust, etc. But it's totally doable in the new work from anywhere future.
- jdmoreira 5y agoI watched some of his videos where he went through his setup for finding investment opportunities. It was very informative and it resonated with me since his approach definitely falls under the umbrella of value investing. He did get very lucky with the way Gamestop played out for him but overall I think he is a person deserving of his luck and he did his work beforehand. This is not some crazy NFT opportunist, he seems like a decent guy and he even has a CFA so he put in the hours in that as well. There was luck involved but also skill and hard work.
- udbhavs 5y agoI've seen some comments comparing the recent r/antiwork mod on Fox fiasco to how well spoken and prepared DFV was defending himself in front of congress. The guy knew his stuff and it puts into perspective how bad things could have turned had he not known how to handle his sudden media presence.
- dogman144 5y agoCFA III or just took the CFA?
- anm89 5y agoYeah I think this gets lost in this conversation. When you watch his earlier videos it was very clear that he was incredibly sharp. I'm sure even he was dumbfounded at how this all played out but he wasn't some idiot running around trying to low effort pump and dump on forums. He had an extensive portfolio which was incredibly well researched, Gamestop just happened to be one of his higher conviction positions.
- jimmydorry 5y agoIt really lifts the veil on how little research goes into some of these articles when you see the reporting on a topic you have closely followed. >The stock, which peaked at $482.95 a share when hedge funds that had shorted GameStop were forced to buy at any price, has come back to earth. But it is still at about $112 a share, compared to less than $20 on Jan. 1, 2021. This is a pretty basic error to make when the SEC investigated and even put out a report showing that the majority of that price movement was from non-short sellers (e.g. retail) and that as a proportion of volume, barely any of it was due to short sellers closing their positions. The article also completely glossed over the fact that DFV was made fun of and derrided for taking such a large risk in GME. Especially when it was down (for a majority of the time since he started posting that position, if I recall corrected). It instead portrays him as making "consistent returns" and starting a movement to influence the price. [1] https://www.sec.gov/files/staff-report-equity-options-market-struction-conditions-early-2021.pdf https://www.sec.gov/files/staff-report-equity-options-market... Page 28 if you want a nice graph to take a glance at.
- bigram 5y agoIt's not clear to me what you think the error is. That the majority of the price action was caused by retail and not short sellers covering their position doesn't negate the fact that shorts were forced to cover their positions and did so. The language and charts in the SEC report show as much.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoI check the GameStop subreddits every once in a while out of morbid curiosity. The content has become a cross between pump spam and conspiracy theories. It’s hard to tell, but I think the masses of GameStop believers aren’t even interested in the dump portion of the pump-and-dump scheme because all of the smart money exited the trade a while ago. Everyone left is convinced that they’re either performing some sort of activism and/or about to become unbelievably wealthy when their conspiracy theories come true and the stock price is forced into the millions. The “mother of all short squeezes” theory has been debunked over and over again, but the initial price action due to the media frenzy has convinced a lot of people that there’s something else going on. Any information that contradicts the theory is not welcome in their Reddit bubbles, but any “DD” that supports the theory is upvoted rapidly. It was interesting to watch at first, but it’s becoming increasingly depressing as it becomes clear how many people have put too much of their own money into this pump scheme turned conspiracy theory.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoThe people still holding AMC are even more deluded given that AMC has already bought back stock multiple times, making plenty of money on the suckers still hanging on.
- zerocrates 5y agoYou mean they issued stock several times, right? Buybacks would be basically the opposite. AMC generated a bunch of cash and shed a bunch of debt off their temporary high valuation... good for them I say.
- jdjslskshdj 5y agoYeah, no kidding, and I'm surprised I haven't seen them talked about much on the internet...for a complete outsider, they're completely insane and nonsensical. And for somebody that kind of knows the history of the subreddits, it's a super interesting study on how being financially invested in something can totally warp your beliefs and thinking.
- rockshassa 5y ago
- rtkwe 5y agor/wallstreetbets is still riding high on the idea they can do it again with another stock and/or that there's still a squeeze just waiting to happen and people holding GME aren't bag holding.
- unmole 5y agoWell, AMC was a similar story.
- rtkwe 5y agoI'm not super familiar the "DD" that happen happened with it but AMC only really popped ~500%. I always thought it was more of your standard pump with a quiet dump than a real short squeeze like GME (maybe already caused).
- swarnie 5y agoThey badly need to run another paper trading challenge... The new userbase needs a pruning.
- wsb_mod2 5y agoWho exactly is this "r/wallstreetbets" that is riding high on this idea? Unlike other subreddits, WSB is very much not a hivemind. This did not happen by accident. You can take a look at mention trends [0] and see that most people are talking about stocks that have no "squeeze" story behind them. You can also take a look at the rules [1] to see that market manipulation (like 95% of the GME discussion that goes on) is not allowed. Finally you can take a look at the daily thread [2] and note that within the top 1,500 comments, only two mention the word "squeeze". [0]: https://www.quiverquant.com/wallstreetbets/ https://www.quiverquant.com/wallstreetbets/ [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/about/rules https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/about/rules [2]: https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/silx0h/daily_discussion_thread_for_february_02_2022/?limit=1500 https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/silx0h/dail...
- rtkwe 5y agoI skim and see at least a few mentions and threads a week talking about the GME squeeze that's still coming. Combined with seeing people talking about trying the same pump method on other stocks feels to me like there's a lot of people trying to replicate the fluke that GME was.
- barrkel 5y agoThe fact that the stock is still up >$110 from <$20 suggests that his value hypothesis wasn't completely wrong. Prices reflect current demand and viral meme demand should have long ebbed away by now.
- Macha 5y agoI think there's still an aspect of inflation going on right now. iirc, DFV's proposition (as also mentioned in the congress hearings) was that it was a $20 stock that should be more like a $50 stock because rumours of the demise of video game retail were overstated. If it wasn't for covid, he was probably right on that. He just made the case for a stock which he had an investment in, laying out his reasons, and being upfront about his interest in it. It was the meme brigade that sent it to $400 which obviously DFV made quite a lot on, but I don't see any evidence that this was planned on his behalf or incited illegally. I think he would have been quite happy if his projections of the PS5/XSX generation had given him the returns he predicted in a 5 year timeframe.
- Traster 5y agoI don't think the current stock price tells you that. You can make an argument that GME was undervalued relative to it's core performance metrics before this whole saga (revenue, eps, etc) but you don't strengthen that by pointing to the current share price, because based on those exact same metrics GME is currently way over valued, which indicates it current share price isn't based on fundamentals now.
- swarnie 5y agoDFV owns my heart but ruined my favourite subreddit, i have mixed feelings.....
- llampx 5y agoBold of you to assume there was anything to be ruined. The entire subreddit consists mostly of stupid-as-rocks "Due Diligence", screenshots of accounts showing off big gains and losses, and memes.
- swarnie 5y agoIt had a culture, you can have a person view on if that culture has value but it did have one, a unique one that i enjoyed. Now its just teenagers with $600 trading accounts calling each other "apes".
- llampx 5y agoI guess its slightly better or worse than wife's boyfriend jokes.
- swarnie 5y agoTo be fair that's just and adaption and extension of the "Can't stump the Trump" and "LibCuck" thing from 2015. Reddit really, really cant let a joke die.
- wsb_mod2 5y agoWhere exactly on r/wallstreetbets are you seeing these 'teenagers with $600 trading accounts calling each other "apes"'? Can you provide some recent links?
- derivagral 5y agoThe subreddit started as a goofy IRC chat back in like 2012. The humor about yachts and such was similar, but there were actual people interested in and (allegedly) good at automated trading setups. Last I saw, jartek moved admin rights to the subreddit to another entity (presumably for $? i forget at this point). It'd been a goof-fest for quite a while, but GME sent it overboard.
- Leader2light 5y ago
- RowanTree 5y agoIt's history, it takes a lot of skill to disperse a campaign that nobody wants) And then dump it all on the reddit crowd....LOL
- anyfactor 5y agoI have watched DFV's senate hearing several times. That man is incredibly smart. Seriously have his speaking compilation video a watch. The way he handles bipartisan questions and won the heart of both democrats and republicans is incredible. He was extremely empathatic and personable when it came to responding to questions. He didn't dodge a single question but everything he said made him stronger by word. It is incredible. I have watched a lot senate and cogressional hearing and I can say he was phenomenonal. These hearing almost always make people feel they were being blamed of something or being negligent but in DFV's case.... I have no clue how he formed sentences on the spot to create common ground. I have been in WSB for ages and there is a very very niche, handful of people who might be the smaetest people I have ever interacted on the internet.
- Graffur 5y agoI think it mostly stems from him knowing exactly what he was talking about. When you see CEOs in these hearing.. you have to wonder how close to the work (e.g. algorithms) they actually are.
- ChicagoBoy11 5y agoUsually, I think, that's on purpose. They lose nothing by the CEO seeming in front of Congress to be a bumbling idiot... to provide more substantive material, more meaty answers, etc., is precisely what a company may not want the CEO to do in those circumstances.
- anyfactor 5y agoWhat I figured is that, the best strategy for a senate hearing is to be as forgetful as an individual as possible. You have no power over the hearing committe as they control the floor. So giving sophisticated justification will always be overshadowed by political rhetoric that they can filibuster over you. Answer questions with generic repeatable answers. Talk about organizational policies which makes everyone go to sleep. Never ask for clarification or questions. You shouldn't even really attempt reasoning with them. Do everything that makes the hearing boring tv. Dramatizing anything would result in focusing light on your activity. Don't hear the context of the questions tackle keywords with organizational policy response answers. You can never win. You might think you are the smartest person in the room but smartness won't work when you don't have the right to speak freely and people can form interpretations of whatever you are saying.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y agoDon't such short squeezes happen from time to time? For example I seem to remember somebody squeezing VW? I guess when the professionals do it, it is trading skill, when amateurs ("retail") do it, it is market manipulation and stupid social media minions? I think in any case that guy deserves his gains. Everything he did was out in the open, and most people had heard about it before the end game.
- perilousacts 5y agoWhat a hit piece. Shorts haven't closed the position. This fiasco is far from over. Closed vs covered are also very different. This hit pieces like to swap them like they're interchangeable too.
- mancerayder 5y agoI'm assuming the shorting is through puts that were bought and held long term, and are being rolled out before expiry? Otherwise a short of the underlying costs money and this has been going on a long time to not close out a position on.
- timdellinger 5y agoThe belief among GME enthusiasts is that the shorting wasn't through puts (options), but rather through straight up short selling. And that yes, this has been going on a long time and is in fact costing the hedge funds a lot of money. And buying to cover is way too expensive at current market prices, so the hedge funds are bleeding money in hopes that something will change the situation. Oh, and the belief is also that there are more short sales that need to cover than there are shares of the stock. Hence the squeeze potential.
- oneoff786 5y agoThe efficient market hypothesis is bleeding out in an alley.
- WJW 5y agoOverly excited investors have been part of the markets since forever. Even Newton remarked on his inability to predict "the madness of the crowds". The strong EMH has never been taken seriously anywhere outside of academia, precisely because everyone can find abundant counterexamples just by looking around on the trading floor. The weak EMH works on much longer timescales than a few years and will be absolutely fine.
- jdrc 5y ago
- izzydata 5y agoI still have friends that adamantly believe Gamestop stock is going to make them obscenely rich despite losing significant amounts of money on it. Yet at the same time they say things like NFTs are a scam and all crypto is a ponzi scheme. It is very weird to me that they can lack the self awareness of being in a cult while calling other things cults. If a year of nothing is not enough to convince them that nothing is going to happen I don't know what will. Hopefully in 5 years from now they will realize it was nothing but a retail fueled crazed pump and dump and the vast majority of players lost money.
- nexuist 5y ago> It is very weird to me that they can lack the self awareness of being in a cult while calling other things cults. It isn't weird at all. It's probably one of the hallmark symptoms of being in a cult. Everyone in your outgroup are the ones who are misguided, being misled by lies, etc.
- nemacol 5y agoOkay, but what if we sold their loses as an NFT. Then they can own their losses and make money on the NFT at the same time! No where to go but up! (this is a joke)
- Anadorr 5y agoIt seems that many people here are convinced that all short positions on GME were closed. This is actually surprisingly hard to prove, given that: - Market Makers don't fall under the same requirements as other market participants (e.g. broker dealers) and can create artificial short positions without having shares to borrow, and are allowed extra time to deliver them - Synthetic short positions (e.g. by the means of options) do not have to be reported and FINRA is only now 'considering' asking to report it [1] - Short positions by the means of shorting ETFs containing GME are reported as ETF SI (and XRT, by the way, has 700% SI) There are many indicators that suggest the opposite (that short positions were not closed): - Retail directly registered over 10% of available float (excl. insider shares) as of 3 months ago [2] - GME still had spikes of failure-to-deliver in August, similar to original FTD & price spike [3] - GME is IBKR's hottest short by value as of 1/27 [4] This is not a financial advice, everyone does their own due diligence. Disclosure: I own directly registered shares of GME. 1 - https://www.finra.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/Regulatory-Notice-21-19.pdf https://www.finra.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/Regulatory... 2 - https://investor.gamestop.com/node/19571/html https://investor.gamestop.com/node/19571/html "As of October 30, 2021, 5.2 million shares of our Class A common stock were directly registered with our transfer agent, ComputerShare" 3 - https://stocksera.pythonanywhere.com/ticker/failure_to_deliver/?quote=GME https://stocksera.pythonanywhere.com/ticker/failure_to_deliv... 4 - https://www.tradersinsight.news/traders-insight/securities/securities-lending/ibkr-hottest-shorts-as-of-1-27-2022/ https://www.tradersinsight.news/traders-insight/securities/s...
- real-dino 5y agoWhat isn't mentioned here is the constant gaslighting by MSM about 'forgetting GameStop'. It can't be measured, but there are some seriously powerful people out there who want people to leave it well alone. If there is hidden short interest in GME, there is also short interest in countless other companies, including those liquidated like Sears, Blockbuster and Toys R Us. Although saying that it could be the end of financial markets doesn't help our cult like status.
- magic123_ 5y agoI agree, I'm not knowledgable to argue about the finance aspect of things, but simply seeing how the media talks about Gamestop decided me to hold on to the few shares I still have
- pyrrhotech 5y agoTruly amazing how well that worked out. I sat watching in disbelief while his returns in a week were more than mine over the last 2 years. Nevertheless I'm content with the steady path of passive investing + my algotrading models guiding my hedging decisions. It's the best of both worlds to me, I don't have to pick stocks or worry about the markets because the models tell me when it's time to hedge. My strongest model (https://grizzlybulls.com/models/vix-ta-macro-mp-extreme https://grizzlybulls.com/models/vix-ta-macro-mp-extreme) has returned > 70% ROI since April 2020, and 60% ROI longer term in the backtest with much lower volatility than the market as a whole.
- planetafro 5y agoI'm just aghast that they are still trying to figure out if he broke any laws. As in, how in the heck would a retail trader even know if the experts can't figure it out? ...feels like they think his actions results were negative and they want a scapegoat by any means possible. Ultimately, the sentiment is to protect the financial sector while punishing retail. Business as usual.
- notreallyserio 5y agoFolks, what's the next big GME unfairly shorted by hedge funds? Asking for a friend!
- thedangler 5y agoI've been watching this for a while now. /wallstreetbets was infiltrated by shills. Everyone that wanted to keep researching moved to /superstonk they have strict rules. Sure there are shills there too. If anyone wants to learn more about the situation should head to https://fliphtml5.com/bookcase/kosyg https://fliphtml5.com/bookcase/kosyg The best is MSM telling retail investors to forget GameStop and sell every single day. Why do they care? Who's interest do they have? Anyways, it's been a real eye opener. My opinion is the market is a giant slow Ponzi scheme built over time to fleece retail investors.
- wsb_mod2 5y ago
- skinkestek 5y agoWow, do you somehow know this user? I checked the profile and there wasn't much to go on and here I sit wondering if I should upvote or flag you.
- wsb_mod2 5y agoFair enough. I've rewritten my original comment (and this one) to ensure they align with HN's guidelines.
- anm89 5y agoIf you haven't watched his youtube content go watch it. It's unbelievably high quality. He comes of as a genuinely great guy and he the quality of the analysis he is doing is really good. Definitely puts some things around this story in perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZTr1-Gp74U&t=940s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZTr1-Gp74U&t=940s
- gvpmahesh 5y agoI don't think the retards on Reddit made any serious money, the big guys like chamath, other hedge funds have made good money on betting against shorts.
- ck2 5y agoRich is nice accomplishment, but I am more impressed with his 4:03 mile to be honest, takes both talent and skill. If he had not gotten injured he probably wouldn't have had enough time on his hands to research the investments, would be training for marathons, etc.
- axiosgunnar 5y agoI don't give a damn about one single upper-middle class guy that seems intelligent, friendly and made his hobby his job hitting the lottery and making 8 digit retirement money in a once-in-a-lifetime way with some lols along the way. I do give a damn about 9-12 digit old money on Wall Street and elsewhere profiting from rigged systems and trying to deflect the mobs anger from them onto the aforementioned single upper-middle class guy.
- dannyphantom 5y agoHe really deserves to be left alone.
- XIVMagnus 5y agoGME FUD in HN seems pretty rare. A lot of talk about GME being a 'cult' and that the hedge funds 'closed' their position. Yet the stock is extremely volatile with little to no volume. Seems weird to me but okay