Gamestop, AMC, and the Angry Hedge Funds

[Matticus13]

So, now that the common folk of the interwebs have figured out the power of coordinated dumping the Feds, Wall Street, and Scrooge McDuck are pissed. Do they have a legitimate reason to be pissed? Can the question be answered with more questions? I question that, but...

“How is the Redditors’ collaboration much different from hedge funds and institutional investors deciding to short GameStop almost as a collective? Why is market manipulation and activist investment acceptable when a billionaire does it but not when an anarchic group of quarantined day traders does? Why is it OK to bet on a company’s failure?"
Jacob Silverman, New Republic

So many questions.

[Jamiet99uk]

Short selling is a form of gambling. If billionaires and hedge funds are allowed to do it, then ordinary people should be allowed to do it as well. That seems a pretty simple position.

Billionaires, hedge fund managers and, to be blunt, a lot of senior people who derive their income and wealth from manipulating the stock market, are fucking parasites who leech off the labour of real workers and contribute little of genuine benefit to society. A society in which they did not exist would be a better one.

[Jamiet99uk]

(Someone should probably move this to the "Politics" area btw)

[Matticus13]

Is the stock market political?

[bo_sox48]

Off Topic seems appropriate, given the subject matter is not inherently political. Personally, sticking it to the hedge fund managers and massive capital firms for the last year and a half since I got involved has been a purely apolitical venture and in my mind the answers to these above questions are too apolitical.

[Jamiet99uk]

Lol @ people thinking the structural problems of late-stage capitalism aren't political, but ok, please continue.

[Jamiet99uk]

Personally, sticking it to the hedge fund managers and massive capital firms for the last year and a half since I got involved...

I KNEW THIS WAS ALL THE WORK OF BO_SOX, THE VIGILANTE OF WALL STREET

[Jamiet99uk]

You might enjoy this:

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/man ... A8fyXTC5ps

[yavuzovic]

I would support the idea that a bunch of ordinary people coordinating to manipulate the stock market but I would understand that the traditional owners of the stock market raging at them. It's understandable that media backs them and markets like Robinhood to take measures to protect the rich given they are more of a regular customer of the stock market. I believe that every independent company has the right to serve whomever they want so I don't hate them for discriminating against ordinary people by restricting certain transactions. I would protest their action by trying to avoid using their service. I don't know much about the stock market except those I heard from the people around and news, so I'm not sure if they would be affected if a crowd protests their policies.

[jmo1121109]

I would support the idea that a bunch of ordinary people coordinating to manipulate the stock market but I would understand that the traditional owners of the stock market raging at them. It's understandable that media backs them and markets like Robinhood to take measures to protect the rich given they are more of a regular customer of the stock market. I believe that every independent company has the right to serve whomever they want so I don't hate them for discriminating against ordinary people by restricting certain transactions. I would protest their action by trying to avoid using their service. I don't know much about the stock market except those I heard from the people around and news, so I'm not sure if they would be affected if a crowd protests their policies.

Any finance company under law has to follow specific non discrimination legislation and other regulatory rules. So they probably don't count as an independent company the way you are thinking about independent.

[leon1122]

What the good folks at r/wallstreetbets did was the epitome of free market capitalism. The hedge funds are now lobbying the government to create regulations to stop it from happening again. That is crony corporatism, not free market capitalism.

[Matticus13]

Lol @ people thinking the structural problems of late-stage capitalism aren't political, but ok, please continue.

I was more interested in the hypocrisy aspect of the whole situation.

[RoganJosh]

The whole thing sounds like a pyramid scheme to me. and by pitching themselves as anti-hedge, they got everyone to support there little pyramid scheme.

[bo_sox48]

If my 8000% profits are typical of a pyramid scheme, I need to find more pyramid schemes.

What this is is market manipulation of the same type that those hedge funds and money managers employ regularly. People my age (25), which I suspect is most of the “retail” investing crowd, remember 2008 quite well when these same people took us by the hand and led us into a worldwide economic depression because it made them money. Collectively, we want that money back, and we want them to disappear. There is no “pitching” as anti-anything; it’s just an expression of the way that so many of us have been raised to feel. The banks screwed us, the hedge funds screwed us, the government screwed us, and now, for just a brief moment in time that will surely end, we’re screwing back. It’s cathartic. That feeling should be mutual amongst those who participate, or at the very least they should be profiting nicely off of the exploits of those of us who have been in for over a year now. Pyramid schemes, in the way I understand them, do not work that way.

If you can work your way past the heavy layer of cringy memes and/or horrible people saying horrible things in r/wallstreetbets you will find that the explanations for how this works are all there and that furthering the education of a new brand of investor is a tertiary but important goal behind fucking Melvin and stealing his money. We know and explain that exit strategies are important, and we also know and explain that some just don’t have one and will end up losing a lot more than they realized they could. Those with $10,000 in savings who dumped their piggy banks without a care at $400 are the ones I’m talking about. They will probably end up agreeing with your uninformed assessment in the end when they have to start all over again, as will Wall Street, their friends at CNBC, and many middle aged dads who are upset that their SPY shares are down a couple points and the $8000 they put into a fractional share of Berkshire Hathaway A has not yet gained 1% this year. I feel bad for them, but not to worry, as Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet will all be up nicely by the year’s end still, and this moronic swing trader here will buy back in when they’re low. Gonna go do that right now.

tl;dr - in the words of the wise Lord Farquad, some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

[RoganJosh]

I mean, I hope you realize that you're one of them now.

[President Eden]

I love that I can +1 Jamie and leon in the same thread in good faith lol.

Power To The Players

[bo_sox48]

I mean, I hope you realize that you're one of them now.

I sold out on Thursday, so no, not really.

[RoganJosh]

What difference does that make?

[flash2015]

I thought these were "hedge" funds. Surely they would have hedged their shorts with call options?

I am not a fan of what is happening here. Yes, there will be some "ordinary" people that make out like bandits...and some hedge funds are getting hurt. But new hedge funds likely have joined the party making money off the volatility. Insiders that are able to sell will also be making windfall profits. And the vast majority of people that have joined in the frenzy, unless they take profits when they have the chance, will likely lose their investments when the tide turns

[RoganJosh]

Yeah, hedge funds love this kind of shit. I guess that Melvin Capital took something of a beating, but overall I'd expect the hedge fund managers to be exuberant.