everybody on ilx complains about reddit

no. It's a really underundervalued company, with a turnaround story and activist investors, that was being shorted into the ground/hoping for their bankruptcy.

I certainly take your word for it as I've not paid much attention until the last week and not much even then. I just have a hard time understanding how any mall retailer in 2021 that is not a luxury brand could be undervalued at any price.

I probably know as much about the company as anyone, and it's a bad company in many ways but also is undervalued

I mean I don't know what stock values even mean like with stuff like Tesla etc

they do e-commerce as well

I'm not saying it's a great company long term but it was always undervalued because it sells actual stuff that actual people buy not some grand vision of the future or w/e


https://news.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gamestop-reports-2020-holiday-sales-results

what r/wsb is doing is really funny to me, especially since you've got all these high-paid analysts on CNBC who are trying to understand what's going on but can't wrap their heads around the concept of shitposting. the fact that any online rando can trade without having to pay $8/transaction anymore lifts the barrier to stock trading and IMO kinda invites things like this to happen. obviously it's insane to see it so nakedly demonstrated that the thing we're sacrificing our lives and the future of our planet for is based on absolutely nothing but still, lmao

Xp Doesn't the price stabilizing (in this case completely crashing back down to reality) by definition mean that a lot of investors will lose a lot of money?

Idk much about it but it feels like bitcoin in 2017, when a bunch of early adopters made big profits and a boat load of late adopters lost money due to FOMO. Probably a lot of broke people right now who don't really know what they're doing downloading robinhood and looking at this stock like a lottery ticket when it might have already peaked

fuck I ordered a share when it was $200 last night, then this morning the order was rejected, so I put another 200 in when it was $273/share and now I'm up 4 bucks instead of $80

I also put $69 on a $8 call option (I learned all these words last night) and that one's up about 200% today, nice

Certainly wouldn't want to miss out

another word I only vaguely understand is "speculation" but this seems like it's probably what this is, I'm just putting a few bucks in hoping to ride the wave and then bailing, for the lulz

xp to frogbs: It's been a while since I've fucked around with stocks. I was actually not terrible at it as a hobby, but was way too broke at the time I was most interested in it and kept having to sell my holdings to pay bills and shit. What do you mean by "any online rando can trade without having to pay $8/transaction anymore"?

isn't there another problem where a big part of this price surge is fueled by people buying options, not the stock itself? everything i've read about it gives me vague recollections of the "buying on margin" craze that crashed the market in '29

this shit is fun as hell but seems like you have to be a total degen to want to do this all the time without some sort of expertise, the adrenaline is insane tho I'm extremely tilted that I had to buy 273 and not 200,

congress must act now to legalize online poker

yes absolutely

Most brokers no longer have a commission to place regular equity trades.

They have to cover, and there are not enough shares for the amount they shorted it. People buy shot dated calls options that are placed by market makers, the market makers have to buy the underlying to hedge in case it gets to that price and pay out the shares if the options are exercised. Thus more buying = stonks go up. gamma squeeze.

shot-short

xp to frogbs: It's been a while since I've fucked around with stocks. I was actually not terrible at it as a hobby, but was way too broke at the time I was most interested in it and kept having to sell my holdings to pay bills and shit. What do you mean by "any online rando can trade without having to pay $8/transaction anymore"?

I know basically zero so correct me if I'm wrong here but as I understand it newer platforms are easy to use and don't have those flat fees which make investing under $1000 or so automatically unprofitable, so you've got a lot of people now just throwing a hundo in and seeing what happens. and when thousands of redditors are doing that it can cause weird things to happen. In other words that whole early-20s/first job/no real expenses demographic can get into stock trading in a way the prior generation really couldn't.

i just opened the ameritrade app and it has a warning popup about "unprecedented volumes today"

Doesn't the price stabilizing (in this case completely crashing back down to reality) by definition mean that a lot of investors will lose a lot of money?

This is what I was thinking, but I was seeing a lot of tweets that were pretty gleeful about how many redditors were going to cash in on this and I wasn't sure that was going to be anywhere nearly universal.

Anyway, I also saw somewhere that the guy who led this whole thing on reddit also started with $50,000 of his own money, so it's not quite a clear cut narrative of the "triumph of the little guy" as it is being sold some places.

the thesis and due diligence about GME was really good. people got in and out based on it and have paid off all their student debt, rent, bills and mortgages. I'm not mad.

Anyway, I also saw somewhere that the guy who led this whole thing on reddit also started with $50,000 of his own money, so it's not quite a clear cut narrative of the "triumph of the little guy" as it is being sold some places.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, January 27, 2021 10:41 AM (twenty-five seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://i.imgur.com/24GhVDU.png

lol people still say that a lot about the Bitcoin run-up too. "everyone's gonna make money, weeeeee!!" - like, by definition that can't be true, because Bitcoins aren't money!

there was no leader, there was one person that posted his huge gains and losses every month for over a year. the thesis was solid and there were catalysts along the way.

This is what I was thinking, but I was seeing a lot of tweets that were pretty gleeful about how many redditors were going to cash in on this and I wasn't sure that was going to be anywhere nearly universal.

In order for the value to keep going up you have to keep a lot of people convinced that the value is going to keep going up

Otoh I sure wish I downloaded robinhood a week ago

options are high risk high reward but the people on the subreddit, a lot actually know really well what they are doing and have made lots of useful info available in a way that is easy to understand. People are holding because they know how this works.

i just want some fund managers to have to sleep on the street is that too mmuch to ask

the people on the subreddit, a lot actually know really well what they are doing

People keep using WSB as an easy shorthand to talk about the story but it's way bigger than WSB now

People have been waiting for the GME thing for a long time. It was smaller then.

No one even cares about tesla's or apple's earnings today, that is how focused it is.

Otoh I sure wish I downloaded robinhood a week ago

― ✖, Wednesday, January 27, 2021 10:52 AM (fourteen minutes ago

I literally did it last night and I've made 75 bucks!

since online poker was brought up I can definitely see some similarities. back in 2005 a bunch of online kids crashed onto the poker scene and the common wisdom was that they were way too aggressive and had nothing on the real pros. by 2009 it was clear that these kids were able to pack an entire poker career into 3 months and were miles ahead of virtually all the poker "legends", outside of those who actually adapted to the online game (such as Phil Ivey), allowing them to basically take it over completely

I know a lot more about poker than I do stox but idk about that analogy, seems like what's going on now is pretty unsustainable whereas being better than other people at poker actually is a long-term recipe for success

otoh if it's gonna turn into a regular thing where the poors decide on a stock every week or so to pump up and drain hedge fund money maybe that'll be the new paradigm, again I know nothing about trading. I assume the rich people will change the rules somehow

I'm still figuring out how the call option thing works but the current share price is double the strike price I set, which as I understand it is good for me

you're probably right about that, this Gamestop thing is something I can see Congress intervening in to urgently fix so they can protect their donors

and yeah I don't know anything about trading either, I suspect this is unsustainable too, but the way some of the old guard talks about it definitely reminds me of poker circa '06 or whatever - I have a buddy constantly who for a year now has been sending me Jim Cramer clips where he's freaking out and dismissing all this movement as the work of online trolls just doing shit at random, which reminds me a lot of those episodes of WPT where someone pulls a weird (but correct) bluff and Mike Sexton goes "He's blowing up, Vince!" and VVP says something like "He just clicked all his chips away"

Congress will absolutely take action on this, even before they manage to pass any further COVID relief, which is, of course, depressingly predictable.

Another thing that reminds me of the crypto boom - WSB is currently flooded with new members trying to push the next big stock that will become a meme

Honestly things are so hot right now you could probably put some money in AMC, Nokia, bed bath and beyond and blockbuster(???) and make a little bit of profit

xpost

really really general: you pay a premium for ability to buy those shares (for buying calls) 100 shares per contract at that strike price on or before the expiration date only if it hits that price or above- being in the money. The premium price decays the closer to the expiration date and based on the stocks movement or lack of movement. There are a lot of other things involved with volatility, "the greeks". You should read a lot about it first. Options go to $0 by expiration if it doesn't move the way you want it to by that date or people just trade options without intent to exercise.

Another thing that reminds me of the crypto boom - WSB is currently flooded with new members trying to push the next big stock that will become a meme

Honestly things are so hot right now you could probably put some money in AMC, Nokia, bed bath and beyond and blockbuster(???) and make a little bit of profit

― ✖, Wednesday, January 27, 2021 11:28 AM (six minutes ago)

yeah there was a twitter thread where one of the tweets showed the most shorted stocks and AMC was one of them. others were BBB, tootsie roll, some others. I did the call option thing on AMC but the prices for the other ones were higher than I was comfortable with for just messing around

Huh, I didn't know Tootsie Roll was its own company.

I bought shares of Nintendo to hold indefinitely on Monday because I like Nintendo

I’m not messing around with this other stuff though I’m too dumb for anything other than index investing for the most part

Would buy shares of YERAC tho

Seriously, if there were a YERAC fund, I'd be all in. I know she does not want to be prescriptive with trading advice, but I absolutely trust her insights.

feel like congress will pass a law outlawing coordinated market activity with the expressed purpose of bankrupting a financial institution and stop short of cracking down on day-trading altogether (because many financial institutions do plenty of day-trading)

lmao

prophetic......we should have listened to him pic.twitter.com/SOCOq1cShI

— Megh Wright (@megh_wright) January 27, 2021

people just like a stock, if there are any additional bonuses well... funds shouldn't be taking excessive risk with their clients' money and breaching their fiduciary duty. someone should talk to these funds' risk management and compliance about lack of oversight.

The Robinhood app updates constantly so you can watch ‘line go up’ like a rat hitting the sugar water button. That seems psychologically exhausting for someone buying stock for the first time.

Yes, I know people who do this and wish they were able to step away a bit

i mean i don't recommend anyone getting into anything during a really volatile day unless you have your own firm plan.

funds shouldn't be taking excessive risk with their clients' money and breaching their fiduciary duty. someone should talk to these funds' risk management and compliance about lack of oversight.

― Yerac, Wednesday, January 27, 2021 11:57 AM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is 100% true, and hedge funds should not be allowed to over-leverage a stock to the point that over 130% (?!) of the outstanding shares are short-sold

they can't talk about needing to protect the poor retail investor when they allow these funds to short companies into the ground hoping to push them into bankruptcy and making shares worthless.

^^ otm and seems like a reasonable outcome from this, if anything, should be more pressure/oversight on hedge funds to prevent them from shorting companies into the ground. Which of course means that the Congressional response will instead be to, like, ban investment subreddits or something.