Wall Street Underestimates the Force of Robin Hood
At least two hedge funds got carted out betting against GameStop massive rise on a short squeeze.
GameStop, a company that is inherently worth next to nothing in a practical sense soared from obscurity to one of the the most widely discussed topics in the world.
Not Just GameStop
And it’s not just GameStop. Dozens of near-bankrupt or fundamentally worthless companies have soared into the stratosphere.
Wolf Richter at Wolf Street compiled a big list of companies soaring into the stratosphere.
Tian Ruixiang Holdings [TIRX] whose American Depositary Receipt (ADR) went public on the NYSE on Tuesday at $4 a share started trading today, and amid various trading halts soared by over 1,000% intraday and closed up 538%. That’s how nuts the whole mania was.
Most of the companies on his complete list I have not heard of. But it also includes Bed Bath & Beyond, Nokia, and Blackberry.
44 Circuit Breakers Triggered on Wednesday
As part of volatility control, 44 Circuit Breakers Triggered on Wednesday
About 44 circuit-breaker halts were triggered in the first two hours of trading Wednesday amid the rapid ascension of amateur investors armed with Robinhood and their favorite social media platforms.
From cult-favorite GameStop Corp. to stereo headphone and loudspeaker retailer Koss Corp., trading volume soared as gains and losses fluctuated by the minute.
Online brokerages including Robinhood Markets and Charles Schwab Corp. were hit again Wednesday by service disruptions as traders were transfixed by wild swings in shares of GameStop Corp. and other heavily shorted stocks. TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade and Fidelity were also affected, according to Downdetector.com, which tracks user complaints.
GameStop shares, which soared as much as 157% Wednesday, were halted at least twice, while movie theater company AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. triggered four halts as it more than quadrupled on volume that was roughly 13 times the three-month average.
AOC and Elon Musk Chime In
Yesterday, Robinhood put trading curbs on GameStop. That did not last long as the traders railed against Robinhood.
AOC is clearly concerned about trading curbs, not the volatility.
Ted Cruz and AOC on Same Side
Gamestonk
In response to that Elon Musk Tweet, GameStop rose 50%.
Rage Against Wall Street
Bloomberg writer John Authers comments GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine
This is all fascinating. In the space of 12 years, the role of the short-seller has turned on its head. Back in 2008, it was the shorts who upset the status quo, revealed what was rotten in the state of Wall Street, and brought down the big shots. They were even the heroes of a big movie. It was the Wall Streeters who attacked them.
Alienation has deepened since then. Short-selling hedge funds are now seen as part of a corrupt establishment, as is the media. The motives of anyone defending the shorts, or anyone wearing a suit, must be suspect. And there is a deep generational divide; those unable to own their own home and forced to rely on defined contribution pensions have a stunningly unfair deal compared to those a generation older, living in mortgage-free homes with guaranteed pensions. That percolates into anger, and a determination to right the scales by making money at the expense of corrupt short-sellers.
One respondent warned that the people squeezing the shorts aren’t “a herd of impressionable youngsters with Robinhood accounts. No. They are an experienced & ruthless army of insomniacs followed by a silent legion of rapidly learning new traders. This is a new paradigm that won’t go away.”
Ugly Side of Investing
The Wall Street Journal comments The GameStop Short Squeeze Shows an Ugly Side of the Investing World.
Andrew Left is no stranger to conflict when it comes to investing. He makes a living betting that companies will stumble, and he calls out executives by name.
Companies and their supporters fight back, but the criticism he normally gets is nothing compared with the venom spewed in recent days by stock traders who have come together online to drive up shares of an unlikely momentum stock, mall retailer GameStop Corp.
The angry traders have shared his personal information, hacked into Mr. Left’s social-media accounts and texted Mr. Left and his two children, using threatening, profane and personal language, according to people close to the matter.
The company’s fans have ordered dozens of pizzas sent to his home, well past midnight. Mr. Left even reached out to one online critic after he asked Mr. Left why he made his Twitter account private. “We spoke on the phone, he sounded like 15 years old,” Mr. Left said.
But Mr. Left has also contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities Exchange Commission about the more vicious abuse and what he sees as collusion among the investors. In a YouTube video posted on Wednesday, Mr. Left said he has now closed most of his short position.
“It’s extreme capitalism gone wild,” Mr. Left says. “We’re a nation of gamblers.”
Attack on Hedge Funds
Andrew Left of Citron Research and Gabriel Plotkin of Melvin Capital Management hedge fund manager attracted the ire of the WallStreetBets a group on Redditt.
Andrew left used to publish a list of short stock ideas.
Not any more. Today he threw in the towel.
Andrew Left Throws in the Towel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPoVv7oX3mw
“We uncovered more fraud than any non-governmental agency out there. We helped bring down drug pricing against the interest of hedge funds. But now after 20 years we noticed something. We started Citron to be against the establishment. We have become the establishment. As of today, Citron Research will no longer be publishing short selling research.”
Summation
“Wall Street clearly underestimated a generation raised on highly coordinated Friday night World of Warcraft raids.”
I can guarantee you this will end badly, but I cannot tell you when.
Holding or if you prefer “HODLing” worthless or nearly worthless companies is not the route to long-term success.
Service Issues
As an aside someone just informed me they are having service issues with Robinhood.
So consider my post from last October: Robinhood Accounts Looted and No Customer Service to Call
I have not heard more complaints of looting but customer service still seems to be lacking.
Mish
What the FED has created.
In the end it isn’t supposed to matter anyway. The elites of the World Economic Forum are colluding to “Build Back Better.” It is Klaus Schwab’s intention for the common people to own nothing and be happy.
” … for the common people to own nothing and be happy.”
Wealth is relative, this is the inevitable result of the wealthy who aspire to grow that wealth, intended or not, thanks to our system of campaign finance, where bribery is now “Free Speech”.
80% of the market is owned by 10%, 39% is owned by the top 1%, these folks wield much more influence over tax & regulatory policy, which means their wealth is likely to outgrow the bottom 90% that own 20% of the market.
The wealthy buy influence over candidates via campaign funding/Superpac’s who will enact tax/regulatory policy to their advantage.
As a result, Household debt has almost doubled in 45 years, wages have failed to rise with inflation….the Fed cuts rates to make debt cheaper for households and the government reaping less revenues and doling out stimulus/entitlements as a result.
The Fed being comprised of bankers who benefit from lending doesn’t help.
These hedge funds and day traders really have no redeeming value to society. Many of them could be helping with the pandemic but instead will find that money isn’t going to rescue you from death.
At the end of the day the big money will win. The retail speculator (not investor) that doesn’t sell Gamestop is a reminder of February of 2000 in tech stocks. Everytime the retail investor thinks he is the smartest guy in the room, is the end, not the beginning.
Short sellers are the only ones REQUIRED to buy stocks in the future. During a sell-off, shorts provide market liquidity and price support as they cover their positions. Sell-offs would be deeper without short covering.
Mr Left’s mistake was making public comments on social media that drew the attention of people who wanted to silence him through a short squeeze. Poker players don’t become champions showing all of their card while betting is still taking place.
‘sell offs’ are part of normal cycles …no need for short squeezed assholes trying to cover their asses….
As an aside, Peterffry who started IBKR has been in the news lately discussing possible systemic risk. He is a very smart guy and don’t think he is talking his book since he is so rich. He’s in this for the game now. I recall in 2008 he said instead of bailing out the losers the government should have just paid off all the mortgages in the country as it would be cheaper and better for the economy. I think it was a wsj opinion letter.
He probably didn’t make the comments until he’d gone long. 🙂
Mish, Gamestop is not worthless. They still are often the firs retailer to launch major consoles and unlike other dying brick and mortar brands, are in a highly profitable and growing industry. I think walmart is more worthless than gamestop, because of how notoriously bad their half-assed online experience is
mish works for the street, owned by jim cramer, the premier anti-GME shill. this will be my last time reading your blog.
ill be back if you ever go independent or do true due diligence on stories like this.
Yes honey, sure honey ….now take my advice, SELL while you still can, with a nice baseless,, windfall profit !
Sound principles matter in the end. Maybe GameStop will survive but I doubt it. Just another bubble and some folks will be rich and some will lose their 401k
Plain vanilla buying and/or selling THAT s what stock markets should be about! Options, margin shit, short fucking and all the other casino hustling should be illegal !
With zero commissions and no margin interest, where’s the profit for the brokers?
The spead.
Who mentioned zero commissions? Commissions have to to be paid all of the time. As a private banking client I pay between 0,50 and 0,75% with a minimum of 100 euro for bonds and shares transactions….
All that has existed since at least Roman times and probably before. You could kick it off the exchanges but it would then go OTC where only large investors could profit from these technics.
Buying and selling exchanges are OK and necessary, complicated and deceptive derivatives absolutely NOT ….I says
Define “deceptive”. It has different meanings to different people.
….meant to unfairly and deliberately ruin the counterparty in this case….Hey you, don t challenge me to become too philosophical , I am not in the mood….
…is devious or deceitful a more accurate definition ? I am not speaking my language after all…
Personne n’aime la déception et les subterfuges mais la définition exacte dépend sur les circonstances. En finance il y a séparation entre l’investisseur avisé et expérimenté et la néophyte. Ce qu’est déceptif pour un ne l’est pas pour l’autre. C’est ça que je voulais dire.
T’a raison….et en plus…. honni soit qui mal y pense….
…honi..
They’d certainly be a lot less volatility without futures and options etc.
Sell both a call and a put and create a short straddle, volatility is something like 700%. The premiums for this are almost the same as the stock price.
Wall Street and Central Banks policies have so distorted the markets the fundamentals are weak at best. The strong have been taking from the weak big time over the last thirty years and its been getting steadily worse as politicians abdicate their roles as referees or actually arre getting bribed by the wealthy to look the other way. Humans are at their strongest when they organize effectively in groups. I see no difference between this and hedge funds getting large groups of very wealthy folks to invest in their fund to have more market power. Reasonable position limits for investors and groups of colluding investors should have been set long ago, naked shorting violations go unpunished, and leverage limits are way too generous. These markets are being exposed as the corrupt casinos they are.
Looks like RobinHood is getting another margin call.
ZH has a story about it with a link to RobinHood main page where they are effectively cutting off all trading in 51 stocks. Story suggests RobinHood may not have all the money it needs and that’s why it’s cut off trading. If true and RobinHood shuts down then the mania will die quickly and some may lose their profits/money entirely.
do you honestly think other brokers don’t exist? no one is loyal to robinhood.
There are other brokers but because of rules brokers and clearing houses have to follow to remain liquid and viable any broker having the same problem of its clients being vastly overweight in Gamestop would have the same problem and have the same margin calls. We can see that it is a flaw in the stock delivery system exposed by the Gamestop weirdness.
I think Fidelity & Vangard have their own clearing houses and a lot of RH customers are flocking to them.
The WSB board does research extremely fast
Such entertaining comments on this posting! Up-votes for all. Really. What a fun read.
More seriously, consider the fragility of a “market” in which a lot of players are explicitly following the herd – owning Vanguard-ish, S&P/Russell ETF-ish shares, that is. The explicit, automated nature of the herd-ness along with the a total disconnect between owners and particular companies – well, what could possibly go wrong?
I know, right?!?
It’s almost like the stock market’s been converted into a place where people with money can cumulatively vote with their money on companies they think have value….freaking crazy, man.
I agree with Left that the U.S. is a nation of gamblers (frankly ‘investing’ has been a euphemism for gambling for more than a generation as far as stawks are concerned).
I disagree with Left’s sentiment that this is capitalism gone wild. There is equality here (in the sense of the masses being able to bring financial pain to the large funds), but it sure isn’t capitalism.
Trading stocks isn’t investing. It is speculating that the price or earnings will go up over time. It it does, good for you. If not, so sad.
A corporation selling new stocks into the market to raise funds for building new capital is investment. Once they are out there and trading, its the same as a casino and doesn’t really have any relationship with capitalism, in the sense of building something that will create something of value.
I made nearly 1 million. The media and everyone gets the story wrong mostly. DeepValue a wsb in may posted about GameStop. I was already interested because at the time short squeezes were happening. I already owned 2k shared less than 5k purchase. We were trying to figure out how to make it squeeze. We were laughed at until the catalyst Cohen. Thats what drew interest to make it happen and the fact citron and other short sellers have been wrong many times. ENPH was one of my biggest losses at the time I bought in was around 60 q short seller put out a false report I lost more than most make in a year I did hold its now around 180 per share respectfully. Thats the issue the market is full of head games and manipulation. If the TV says buy sell they say sell look deeper. I don’t like what wsb has become nor do many long term participants now especially the ridiculous publicity.
If this isn’t an indicator of a top, I don’t know what is. Definitely risky to try to go short any of these, and probably impossible for a lot of them, but there’s gotta be a way to make some money off this if it’s a top.
There is. Most hedge funds run long and short. The Robinhoodies are attacking the stocks that the hedgies are short. When the hedgies have to meet capital calls, where do they get the money? They sell their longs, driving those prices down. So, the profit is in shorting their longs. There are lists on the internet.
This used to bother me but who really cares. If it makes for a better learning environment for the kids maybe its OK. It bothered me for years when bridges got renamed around here. Didn’t really change anything. Sure I use the old names in protest but there are bigger fish to fry.
It’s a bizarre world when the anti-establishment short sellers, trying to point out corporate fraud, are viewed as the “establishment” enemy by robinhood millennials. Even crazier, the short sellers are now humbled and agree to only play long games going forward.
Strange bedfellows indeed. We now have a world where incompetent, fraudulent, CEOs running near bankrupt firms are the heroes of the Robinhood millennials and anyone trying to undo them is evil.
Well on the other side we have incompetent companies like Uber and Tesla. The investors and government made them Kings for no reason.
If a bunch of degenerates can make gamestop king we know that really its a bunch of degenerates elsewhere making others king. Its been a long time since efficiency and productivity got you somewhere, now its all puffery, and marketing to the degenerates.
And somewhere, someone gets rich and claims they know something. . . when it was really taking a risk and blind luck that yielded success.
We are a country headed for implosion.
As I think about it more, it’s all just further manifestations of a growing nihilistic societal attitude. Vote in an incompetent president. Buy stock in bankrupt companies with fraudulent management. Just burn it all down…
The common thread is complete disdain for any semblance of order or respect. A lot of people feel the “system” has failed them and just want to bring the hole bloody thing down.
So what is elon musks deal in this. I keep seeing headlines rise on musk tweets. Either making money or making revenge????
Notice how the politicians vilify Robinhood for restricting trade on GME and never mention that shorts were 140% of float. As long as most of the public miss the significance, the politicians will sign some new legislation that Wall Street wrote and delivered with a note that their future campaign funds depend on this new bill being passed.
“… the politicians will sign some new legislation that Wall Street wrote and delivered with a note that their future campaign funds depend on this new bill being passed.”
The root cause of the sub-prime, removing Glass-Steagall and creating the CFMA at the behest of Citi & Travelers in ’99, banks could then originate assets comprised of garbage and sell them as “AAA” rated, while secretly shorting their own assets as derivatives without public scrutiny.
… and take part in commodities trading.
Indeed, oil surging to $145/barrel with no increased demand, no supply crunch, but just enough to cut into disposable incomes & start the onslaught of defaults based on no-income sub-prime loans.
Wall Street/Washington, any difference? Janet Yellen was paid $810K for speaking engagements by one of the hedge funds and Jen Psaki’s brother works at one of the funds too. This is what the revolt is about. Keep it up!
Hmmm we maybe getting close to a top….But I have thought that before..
https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/buy-and-hodl-forever-legendary-short-seller-throws-in-the-towel?l1dp=01/29/2021 23:10:54&l1m=5qim4iASmU2vLFWjr0YglA
I read somewhere today that there were large net sales of an S&P 500 ETF this week. This is what happens when markets get out of hand. Long term holders begin to exit leaving more of the ownership in the hands of speculators. One day they realise and there’s no staircase, only a lift shaft.
Kids coordinating a short squeeze to sustain a bubble. central bankers coordinating multiple short squeezes to sustain the global bubble. The Kids just learnt from their masters how to create wealth…
Like the pirate who asked Alexander the Great: “Why is it when I do it, you call me a criminal but when you do it, they call you an Emperor?”
EXACTLY
Hi Mish, I was waiting and hoping you will cover this story ~2 days ago. I kept on checking your blog many times during the last 2 days. Obviously I’m only saying this because I care about what you have to say abs was disappointed not to see what you have to say about it sooner.
I thought one of the Fed’s mandates was price stability 🙂
They’re not doing very well.
Good point, compiling a list of all stocks that have exceeded the Fed’s 2% target, gonna file a complaint!
I read that GME had something like 140% short float before this started. Sounds like some fraud going on.
Another thing I wonder: if it is so easy to focus on one heavily-shorted stock and squeeze it to the sky, why weren’t the big bag pros already doing that? … Or is it just that the story isn’t over and a bunch of Robinhooders are going to find out what it means to be a bag holder? That is actually concerning, surely some of these kids are going to get completely destroyed. How many are using leverage that they will not be able to cover? Someone behind the leverage is going to be left with a bill.
“… Or is it just that the story isn’t over and a bunch of Robinhooders are going to find out what it means to be a bag holder?”
I have a feeling this is more than just Robinhood millennials, something here smells like a pump/dump scheme via social media, I have popcorn on hand.
I’m thinking there are some deep pocketed momentum players who were joining in on the fun with the Robinhooders.
It’s mostly near-term far OTM Calls they are using. The only destruction is the dealers who had to buy stock to hedge.
To me, the outcome is obvious.
I’ve been following the GME/Wallstreetbets Saga.
Keep an eye on GME, if they don’t take this windfall and use it to immediately update their business model for online streaming, this is the short of the century.
Millennials have a childhood affinity for this Brick/Mortar retailer, but at the end of the day GME needs to compete with Steam online.
I would also add, something smells here, like an outside entity using a social forum for it’s own gain/agenda, a familiar theme of late…
I know for a 100% fact funds took advantage which propelled and took advantage know the long positions of companies would drop and were front loaded before the other funds could sell preventing a margin call. They’re missing the big picture. Robinhood can’t trade at times of big after hours spikes and the amount traded i don’t see someone using Robinhood with a 1 mil account.
” immediately update their business model for online streaming”
I believe that is the plan that new management has put forward already, but it is still going to be an uphill battle vs established players like Steam and challengers like Epic.
Definitely nothing to justify the valuation.
Agree, and not being all that versed in the sector, I looked for Valve or Steam’s ticker, would be the first place money goes once GME drops.
Alas, no luck.
Valve who owns and runs Steam is a private company flush with cash.
They are dominant and have a large lock in factor. Epic Megagames is using their Fortnite cash to attract users to their platform by giving away free games every week.
That’s essentially what it takes to be competitive if you can’t make your own games or console and require your platform to run them like Ubisoft, EA, Bethesda, Sony, Microsoft.
Best idea for Gamestop is to be a key reseller something in the lines of Humble Bundle.
Confession: I have a steam account…shhhh, don’t tell anyone about my closet juvenile propensities.
MMO’s are predominantly the 40/50+ crowd, like a digital version of old school bowling or softball leagues. Hop into a WOW discord channel, they’re sipping Jack Daniels while talking economics, credit/car loan rates, mortgage refi’s, the best lawn-mower to buy and, oh, a little about the game too.
That said, another GME pitfall is their lack of PC gaming, they need to get outside the “box”.
Steam has a lot of complaints, even lawsuits, over their monopolist tendencies, Millennials have an affinity for GME, memories from Christmas & birthdays growing up.
I can assure you, after reading the WSB threads, when GME goes online like Steam, business is guaranteed by the same individuals pressing the stock price higher.
While not completely sure GME will survive, I’m not sure of the inverse either, this’ll be interesting, especially if WSB tries investor activism with GME.
Not only Millennials have steam and discord accounts. The clients of both of these are widespread across age and income groups. If organized they become “the market”. That is a danger to mainstream finance but short of treating them as domestic terrorists I don’t see what Congress can do to stop it.
While their movement has a “Lord of the Flies” feel to it, at the end of the day the stock market’s supposed to be Democratic price discovery.
Considering there are enough of them to move the price this much, there are also enough to consume their products.
That just made GME’s effort to upgrade & compete dramatically easier.
I won’t buy, no way, but I have a feeling I’ll be wishing I did, though I’m still suspicious this could be a pump/dump scheme too.
I thought one of the Fed’s mandates was price stability 🙂
They’re not doing very well.
Sorry, didn’t mean to post that here.
What windfall?
The only way GME benefits is if they sell shares into this – do they have any significant amount of shares to do this? Or – maybe they issue new shares; but how would that be taken by those with the original float?
“What windfall?”
Interesting, a brick n’ mortar equivalent to Blockbuster video for gaming is up ~2000% in a month, but it’s not a windfall they should jump on.
I wasn’t saying they wouldn’t want to jump on that – I’m asking how they have, if they have.
If their shares are bouncing wildly or moving up or down violently, there isn’t really a mechanism for the company itself to cash in or out unless they have a large portion of shares to ‘play with’. I don’t know if this is the case or not (and I have not looked it up – sorry), but I would think that they wouldn’t have much to take advantage of this massive upswing unless they were actually creating more share to offer – which would probably cause other reactions, I would think.
I thought you were trolling.
They’d be insane not to capitalize quickly, use this price surge as leverage, mainly for restructuring to compete online / streaming, which another commenter says they had already started.
Gamestop has brand name recognition with millennials, even more than Steam, I used to go there for my nieces/nephews & Son for Christmas , Birthdays, they’d pick Gamestop over ice cream or candy hands down.
Imagine if Blockbuster had done the same at the advent of Netflix, that’s this.
Naked shorting is illegal, except of course for market makers who at some point will be the only ones short and that is when the stock will crash.
But I am not sure this is entirely the Hedge Funds fault. The big brokerages are supposed to deliver the borrowed shares for shorting.
Did they?
The brokerages must not have delivered the shares, I don’t see how they could.
My source on the 140% short was Jim Bianco, he gives a good summary in this Peak Prosperity video released today:
Not disputing the number.
But it is impossible to deliver 140% of something.
Not seen this discussed, but if GS or whoever allegedly delivered those shares then I smell lawsuits.
It makes one wonder how long this abuse has been going on in wall street. I don’t know about anyone else, I have my certificates in hand, not trusting my broker.
It’s an impossible number therefore it is wrong. There must be double counting somewhere. My guess is that brokers loaned some stocks twice or more. An alternative would be that the number reflects delivery date lag in which some double counting appears to happen. In any case the short interest was way too high to consider to be short the stock. Someone made a very bad call.
Saw an explanation for the 140% somewhere. Short story: You brokerage holds you stocks, but can loan them out. To someone who has a brokerage account, so they can be loaned out again. Hmmm. Rather like fractional reserve banking?
“It’s extreme capitalism gone wild,” Mr. Left says. “We’re a nation of gamblers.”
Damn straight. The Hobbesian war of all against all. Nasty, brutish and short.
You had a nice run, capitalism.
No friggin cries from the sophomores when things melt!
This is what happens when the Fed loses control, new highs($511) for Game stop were at 6am eastern Thursday morning. This is not retail traders that is doing that. This is an attack on the short sellers. When you have 40% short float, this sets up a massive short squeeze.
Yes, not just daytraders but big boy sharks in the water now. You can smell the blood.
What’s the best way to play it though? Put premiums are like 60% of the strike price. Writing calls is prohibited on most platforms. Shares aren’t available to short. All most can do is sit back and watch with horror/fascination.
The best way to play right now is to not play at all. Timing the end of manias is very difficult.
Listen to the voice of sanity. This does not bode well.
Best way to play it is to write down how you’d play it on a piece of paper and put it away. Pull it out in 6 months for a laugh.
Reinforces my long held commitment to never shorting anything, ever.
And never use leverage.
Not for stocks anyway.
Word! This one time in bank camp I thought it was a clever idea to short Netflix. Didn’t. But remember. Like remembering how lasers were, as everyone well know, a pathetic “product looking for a non-existent market”. Ah, good times, good times.
Short sellers have a point. They have exposed many frauds over the years such as Enron and World Com. Buying stocks will be more hazardous without them.
Shorting is fine and serves a valuable function, but naked shorting is criminal. These hedge fund guys were shorting GameStop up to 140% of outstanding shares and deserve massive haircuts.
Naked shorting is illegal, except of course for market makers who at some point will be the only ones short and that is when the stock will crash.
But I am not sure this is entirely the Hedge Funds fault. The big brokerages are supposed to deliver the borrowed shares for shorting.
Did they?
Mish, Just a thought, Game Stop, could issue additional shares, say 50 million or so. That would be interesting. What price would they put on them? I think all hell would break out over that.
I made the same argument to someone earlier today. If I were a GME exec, I’d do a secondary offering and use the funds to create a more sustainable online space.
Daniel Drew, a legendary speculator of the late 1800s quote:
“He who sells what isn’t his’n, must buy it back or go to pris’n.
Has been very satisfying watching these hedge funds squirm and cry crocodile tears. They’ve enjoyed a rigged casino for so long that any negative reaction provokes genuine shock. How dare the peasants revolt!
Taibbi wrote a good article about this yesterday with the fetching title “Suck It, Wall Street”.
I had another article that I wanted to include but could not remember it. That was the one.
Count DeMonet: “Sire, the peasants are revolting!”
King Louis: “I know, they stink on ice!”
Let have cake!!!
I had to laugh when I watched Andrew Left setting himself up as a public benefactor. He shorted his stocks to make money as does a fund manager who buys stocks to make money. Andrew Left would talk his portfolio just like they do. He is retiring because he knows that in this climate shorting can be very dangerous and not because there are no longer any companies worthy of being shorted. That he says it to his investors I can understand. That he says it to the public just shows that he has an inflated view of his worth. Finding good companies to buy is exactly the same as finding bad companies to short. He is a good specialized fund manager and nothing more.