Stock Market - Market Manipulation Exposed Worldwide by WallStreetBets!

itwasntme001

BananaRepublic said:

itwasntme001 said:

BananaRepublic said:

itwasntme001 said:

Malthusian said:

itwasntme001 said:

This post shows the serious naivety in what is really going on and should be ignored.

What is really going on is not about making money.  It is about causing problems.  Whether it is due to genuine anger against the elite or not, it is about having fun and they are enjoying it. 

It will be "not about making money" for as long as the punters are making money, in the sense that their trading apps are showing a profit. Then when the share price reverts to the mean, and the suckers who came in late have lost their money, it will be about money again.

We're being asked to believe that bros who've never in their life donated more than a tenner to feed the hungry or some other charitable cause of their choice, are charitable enough to lose hundreds of pounds purely to "stick it to the hedge funds" and protect the jobs of people working for a struggling retailer.

If someone is willing to spend hundreds of pounds simply to keep someone in a dead-end job for a bit longer, you would imagine they must also be the kind of person who would spend hundreds of pounds to fund food banks, save endangered animals, fund suicide helplines, etc etc. Quite clearly that's not what's happening. So what is it that makes The Great Gamestop Crusade so much more compelling than saving people from dying of hunger or depression? Popular anger about bankers? Give over, the credit crunch was 12 years ago, and the current depression was caused by the twin viruses of rona and lockdown, which even the most ardent Antifasista would struggle to blame the bankers for. You might as well blame the dot-com crash for the riots of 2011.

What differentiates spending hundreds of pounds to stick it to hedgies over any number of other worthy causes is that if you give $100 to one of the others, your phone won't tell you it's multiplied to $200 one day and $500 the next (and there aren't fellow donors posting screenshots of how their donation turned into a million dollar fortune). It. Is. About. Making. Money.

Anytime someone in a money game tells you that it's not about money, that means it's about money.

This is no different to the idea that people piled into cryptos because they were really excited about the potential of blockchain to make financial transactions quicker and more secure.

Take a look at the posts on the reddit forum.  It is about having fun and about causing chaos to the financial elite.  Of course it will end badly for them as well as they all try to exit at once when they see serious falls.  But the original intention was never about making money for most of them.

Being charitable does not have the same impact.  Not even close.  This is about anger and resentment (and having fun whilst doing so).  Giving a few bucks to a homeless-man will go unnoticed.  Forcing hedge funds to take billions in losses is making headlines and causing all sorts of problems along the chain.  Many of the reddit traders will get hurt also, eventually.

There is still a lot of hatred against the financial elite, the bailouts of 2008, the widespread inequality etc.  This is the cause for what is happening now.  It is the cause of Trump, Brexit, various protests etc.  Whether they are right or wrong about what they believe is another matter.  What is, is.

Why did the hedge funds need to short so much?  Surely there needs to be controls in place to limit how much can be shorted (especially since they seem to have shorted more than the outstanding shares), in order to prevent destabilising of financial markets.  GME and others won''t likely ever be that disruptive, but I hope there are controls in place to prevent something like this happening in the future that will have much more serious repercussions.  I suppose hedge funds are likely to be smart enough to realise this, so it becomes self regulating.  But obviously not smart enough to realise it can happen to a stock like GameStop!

Except is isn’t sticking a finger up at the financial elites, or getting revenge for 2008.

The result is that hedge funds which correctly identified overpriced stocks are being punished by organised market manipulation, As a result they will have to sell other holdings to raise the collateral to support their positions, or buy back the gamestop shares at a loss. The result of stocks being sold is market instability which punishes everyone. 

The GFC was not caused by hedge funds, some of them even warned about the bad debt. Hedge funds identify overpriced stocks, and then short them. This can alert others to investigate the stocks and also discover that they are overpriced, perhaps due to accounting irregularities or false statements by the board. The stocks might also have risen due to market manipulation, as happened here. 

No doubt some very cynical investors have manipulated the forums for their own enrichment, and many forum users will lose money. 

They are punished at the moment.  So it is sticking a finger up at the financial elite.  At least for now.

GFC had a number of entities involved.  They all played a part to cause the level of destruction that resulted in the GFC.  It was not just poor regulations, absurd central bank policy or bad under writing of mortgages.  It was also massive leverage stemming from the investment banks and hedge funds.  Driven by greed and reckless gambling behaviour.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/bear-stearns-collapse.asp

When you create a massive demand for credit using leverage (via the hedge funds for example), you encourage reckless lending in the real economy (subprime).  Everyone played a part.  Some more so than others.

And you never heard of LTCM?

You do not need hedge funds to tell you where a stock should be valued.  There are enough players in the market to tell you that.  You certainly do not need short selling (although I would agree some of it is probably healthy for the market for price discovery - but certainly not something like shorting over 100% of shares outstanding - that is just absurd and reckless).

A stock can fall without any short selling.  You just need more quantity of shares wanting to be sold than be bought via the auction process at exchanges.  That forces prices to fall such that there is then enough quantity of shares wanting to be sold to meet the quantity of shares wanting to be bought.  It is basic market making and price discovery.

A stock can fall to 0 if the market thinks there will be insolvency.  The majority will want to sell and the price will need to fall to encourage buyers to step in.  If no buyers, it will just fall to 0.  No short selling involved.

I don't think you read my post. And I have mentioned Long Term Capital Punishment many times, probably in this thread, so clearly you don't read other posts.

I don't need to read your other posts.  I am replying to just that one post which I have read.  I am stating how you are being wrong in your assumptions.

You said "it isn't sticking a finger up at the financial elite" - wrong, it is.

You said "GFC was not caused by the hedge funds" - wrong, they did (along with other entities).

My post was also to outline how hedge funds and short selling are not needed for a stock to fall.  Granted, your post does not disagree with this directly (although you may very well do).  But I was just pointing out for those who may think short selling and hedge funds serves a crucial purpose for price discovery.  Because the answer is they do not.

Thrugelmir

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Malthusian said:

Thrugelmir said:

Round up 4.5 million users find $20 billion and start buying up shares. Share price rises. The Company issues new shares and starts selling them into the market. Raising fresh capital. Doesn't make the fundamentals of the underlying business any better. Apparently an announcement is expected that a significant number of stores are going to be closed.

Would any of the bros actually buy any of the company's new shares though?

If the music's stopped by the time Gamestop gets its share offer off the ground, the pump doesn't actually do them any good.

One bro buying a share off another bro (or off someone that bought the share off a hedge fund going short) doesn't put any more money into Gamestop; as you point out, they need a capital raising for that.

Gamestop announcing that they're going to issue new shares would likely send the Redditors running for the exit, as they tried to cash out before the share offer diluted the value. Gamestop announcing that it's going to try to take some money off the table would result in the remaining players all trying to grab their share before it does.

This all assumes that there will actually be new equity issuance.  Big reputational risk for the banks to carry this out.  Imagine writing up prospectuses on GME stock issuance at $330 or $180 or even $50.  Everyone knows it is not worth much more than $20.  If you try to issue it that low, it will be seen as the banks helping out the hedge funds.  I doubt anyone would want to be near that sort of reputational damage.

No need for a prospectus.  The Company will have previously obtained authorisation at an AGM to issue shares. The shares will be placed directly. To hedge funds even. 

Are you sure it is as simple as that?  You need SEC approval as well.  I think there are a number of regulatory hurdles to cross.

Ever used PrimaryBid in the UK? That's how easy it is these days. 

Nope but GME is a US stock not a UK listed one.

Looser principles in the US than the UK.  SEC aren't going to object to a capital fund raising issue. The whole purpose of the stock market is to raise capital. . 

GameStop raised $3 billion by issuing new shares. 

See a cheerleader has lost $700,000 trading meme stocks. Always someone new who believes that "That this is different".  To find that these wise words of the sages of the past are spot on. 

bery_451

How do you short 140% of a company stock  ? Sounds impossible.

bery_451

Thrugelmir said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Malthusian said:

Thrugelmir said:

Round up 4.5 million users find $20 billion and start buying up shares. Share price rises. The Company issues new shares and starts selling them into the market. Raising fresh capital. Doesn't make the fundamentals of the underlying business any better. Apparently an announcement is expected that a significant number of stores are going to be closed.

Would any of the bros actually buy any of the company's new shares though?

If the music's stopped by the time Gamestop gets its share offer off the ground, the pump doesn't actually do them any good.

One bro buying a share off another bro (or off someone that bought the share off a hedge fund going short) doesn't put any more money into Gamestop; as you point out, they need a capital raising for that.

Gamestop announcing that they're going to issue new shares would likely send the Redditors running for the exit, as they tried to cash out before the share offer diluted the value. Gamestop announcing that it's going to try to take some money off the table would result in the remaining players all trying to grab their share before it does.

This all assumes that there will actually be new equity issuance.  Big reputational risk for the banks to carry this out.  Imagine writing up prospectuses on GME stock issuance at $330 or $180 or even $50.  Everyone knows it is not worth much more than $20.  If you try to issue it that low, it will be seen as the banks helping out the hedge funds.  I doubt anyone would want to be near that sort of reputational damage.

No need for a prospectus.  The Company will have previously obtained authorisation at an AGM to issue shares. The shares will be placed directly. To hedge funds even. 

Are you sure it is as simple as that?  You need SEC approval as well.  I think there are a number of regulatory hurdles to cross.

Ever used PrimaryBid in the UK? That's how easy it is these days. 

Nope but GME is a US stock not a UK listed one.

Looser principles in the US than the UK.  SEC aren't going to object to a capital fund raising issue. The whole purpose of the stock market is to raise capital. . 

GameStop raised $3 billion by issuing new shares. 

See a cheerleader has lost $700,000 trading meme stocks. Always someone new who believes that "That this is different".  To find that these wise words of the sages of the past are spot on. 

As long there's disc drives in the new PS5 and Xbox consoles then the market is still there for Game GME. Raising $3 Billion can help the company to survive until the PS6 and next next gen xbox come out.

Reaper

bery_451 said:

How do you short 140% of a company stock  ? Sounds impossible.

2 ways:

Imagine you lend me some shares and I sell them to somebody else. That somebody can now lend them out to another hedge fund who sells them. So the same shares have now been shorted twice.

The other way is a "naked short" in which a hedge fund sells shares they don't own and has to go out and buy some before the settlement date. However I believe there are some restrictions on this method to stop things getting too crazy.

Thrugelmir

bery_451 said:

How do you short 140% of a company stock  ? Sounds impossible.

By using options. 

Remember when Porsche squeezed VW some years back?  In the end only 6% of VW stock was left in free float. 

EthicsGradient

Thrugelmir said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Malthusian said:

Thrugelmir said:

Round up 4.5 million users find $20 billion and start buying up shares. Share price rises. The Company issues new shares and starts selling them into the market. Raising fresh capital. Doesn't make the fundamentals of the underlying business any better. Apparently an announcement is expected that a significant number of stores are going to be closed.

Would any of the bros actually buy any of the company's new shares though?

If the music's stopped by the time Gamestop gets its share offer off the ground, the pump doesn't actually do them any good.

One bro buying a share off another bro (or off someone that bought the share off a hedge fund going short) doesn't put any more money into Gamestop; as you point out, they need a capital raising for that.

Gamestop announcing that they're going to issue new shares would likely send the Redditors running for the exit, as they tried to cash out before the share offer diluted the value. Gamestop announcing that it's going to try to take some money off the table would result in the remaining players all trying to grab their share before it does.

This all assumes that there will actually be new equity issuance.  Big reputational risk for the banks to carry this out.  Imagine writing up prospectuses on GME stock issuance at $330 or $180 or even $50.  Everyone knows it is not worth much more than $20.  If you try to issue it that low, it will be seen as the banks helping out the hedge funds.  I doubt anyone would want to be near that sort of reputational damage.

No need for a prospectus.  The Company will have previously obtained authorisation at an AGM to issue shares. The shares will be placed directly. To hedge funds even. 

Are you sure it is as simple as that?  You need SEC approval as well.  I think there are a number of regulatory hurdles to cross.

Ever used PrimaryBid in the UK? That's how easy it is these days. 

Nope but GME is a US stock not a UK listed one.

Looser principles in the US than the UK.  SEC aren't going to object to a capital fund raising issue. The whole purpose of the stock market is to raise capital. . 

GameStop raised $3 billion by issuing new shares. 

Are you sure? 3 days ago they hadn't, and I can't see any news saying they've done it since then:

But analysts say neither the recent hysteria nor constant headlines will have much effect on the business. Unlike AMC Entertainment - another shorted company that saw its stock shoot up, then raised $305 million by selling new shares - GameStop has taken no such measures.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2021-02-01/gamestop-struggles-to-stay-afloat-despite-stock-surge
Also:

The SEC also looks askance on companies selling new stock to short-sellers. Rule 105 of Regulation M prohibits such sales under certain conditions because it upends the "independent pricing mechanisms of the securities markets."

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/should-gamestop-help-the-shorts-and-issue-more-stock-2021-01-29

Thrugelmir

EthicsGradient said:

Thrugelmir said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Thrugelmir said:

itwasntme001 said:

Malthusian said:

Thrugelmir said:

Round up 4.5 million users find $20 billion and start buying up shares. Share price rises. The Company issues new shares and starts selling them into the market. Raising fresh capital. Doesn't make the fundamentals of the underlying business any better. Apparently an announcement is expected that a significant number of stores are going to be closed.

Would any of the bros actually buy any of the company's new shares though?

If the music's stopped by the time Gamestop gets its share offer off the ground, the pump doesn't actually do them any good.

One bro buying a share off another bro (or off someone that bought the share off a hedge fund going short) doesn't put any more money into Gamestop; as you point out, they need a capital raising for that.

Gamestop announcing that they're going to issue new shares would likely send the Redditors running for the exit, as they tried to cash out before the share offer diluted the value. Gamestop announcing that it's going to try to take some money off the table would result in the remaining players all trying to grab their share before it does.

This all assumes that there will actually be new equity issuance.  Big reputational risk for the banks to carry this out.  Imagine writing up prospectuses on GME stock issuance at $330 or $180 or even $50.  Everyone knows it is not worth much more than $20.  If you try to issue it that low, it will be seen as the banks helping out the hedge funds.  I doubt anyone would want to be near that sort of reputational damage.

No need for a prospectus.  The Company will have previously obtained authorisation at an AGM to issue shares. The shares will be placed directly. To hedge funds even. 

Are you sure it is as simple as that?  You need SEC approval as well.  I think there are a number of regulatory hurdles to cross.

Ever used PrimaryBid in the UK? That's how easy it is these days. 

Nope but GME is a US stock not a UK listed one.

Looser principles in the US than the UK.  SEC aren't going to object to a capital fund raising issue. The whole purpose of the stock market is to raise capital. . 

GameStop raised $3 billion by issuing new shares. 

Are you sure? 3 days ago they hadn't, and I can't see any news saying they've done it since then:

But analysts say neither the recent hysteria nor constant headlines will have much effect on the business. Unlike AMC Entertainment - another shorted company that saw its stock shoot up, then raised $305 million by selling new shares - GameStop has taken no such measures.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2021-02-01/gamestop-struggles-to-stay-afloat-despite-stock-surge

Read it on one of the US business news feeds. 

phillw

itwasntme001 said:

You said "it isn't sticking a finger up at the financial elite" - wrong, it is.

The casualties are predominantly on the wallstreetbets side.

phillw

itwasntme001 said:
But the original intention was never about making money for most of them.

I disagree, the majority of people were banking on it going up.

There are two sets of people, those who went long last year and bought for $4. They are still seeing 10x their investment and might be happy to hold.

But a lot of people who bought in at >$100 because of FOMO had already started working out how they were ever going to be spending all the money once the price went infinite.

There is a lot of bravado, but really the only reason they are in it is to make money & the ones still holding think the price is going to go back up and they can at least break even.