GameStop/GameStonk (1 Viewer)

[Ruz-El]

This has been in the news for a bit online, reddit and trolls have discovered Wallstreet and are shorting the shorters. Or something... I won't pretend to fully understand it, but it's a heck of a story that's playing out and I kind of love it?

GameStop Has Another Record-Shattering Day On Wall Street [Update: And Another One]

Update - 6:28 p.m. ET, 1/26/21: Closing over $145 after another record day, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas reports that GameStop was the most traded equity in the world today. It’s even continued to rise in after hours trading, bobbling over $200. DeepFuckingValue, the Redditor instrumental to...

kotaku.com

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I think the entire thing is hilarious. I mean, GameStop is not a good company and all that but it's really funny to see a handful of nerds on the internet (I use that term affectionately) really taking it to i-banks by pointing out that the stock market is generally junk that can ruin people's investments for no reason.

 

[TravisR]

You can bet that there will shortly be laws passed to protect the hedge fund scum from the nerds.

 

[Ruz-El]

I so fascinated by it for that reason! And a little jealous I couldn't get in on it haha.

This morning there were some tweets that Blackberry was going to be next, but it looks like Nasdaq is trying to shut them down so the "real" brokers can recover a bit. Which sounds like it should be illegal, but isn't? As someone tweeted: Wallstreet is absolutely not a casino, but they can kick you out if you start winning too much.

 

[Ruz-El]

Getting spicy lol.

 

[Steve Y]

This whole thing is fascinating to me, though I understand next to nothing about the mechanisms that make it possible. And I think it's hilarious that suddenly people are preaching about "detaching stock price from value."

 

[Sam Posten]

Watching this thread closely. We'll likely be forced to remove any buy/sell advice so please don't go there. Talking about the emerging phenomenon of crowdsourced "investment" bandwagoning is ok tho!

 

[Morgan Jolley]

So Robinhood has completely blocked people from buying any more GME or AMC stock. That's probably really, really illegal. Going to be fun watching the class action lawsuits arise from this.

 

[jcroy]

Heh.

"Occupy Wall Street" part 2.

Turning supply and demand into a form of destruction, and squeezing the short sellers.

 

[TravisR]

So Robinhood has completely blocked people from buying any more GME or AMC stock.

That might be the most ironic thing I've ever read.

 

[Ruz-El]

So the hedge funds behind many of the political superpacks (on both sides of the isle) are taking a hit so now there's talk of government bailouts with the nasdaq CEO mentioning it numerous times and talk that the white house is paying attention. Considering how many people lost their savings with zero compensation in 2008-09, fallout from speedy hedge fund bailouts should prove interesting if they happen.

I have no doubt that reddit started this as a troll move, but it has the potential of being the largest protest action we've ever seen. First week of January saw the senate get occupied, now we're seeing internet trolls potentially cripple the markets. This is the first month! I thought 2021 was supposed to be chill?

 

[TravisR]

So the hedge funds behind many of the political superpacks (on both sides of the isle) are taking a hit so now there's talk of government bailouts with the nasdaq CEO mentioning it numerous times and talk that the white house is paying attention. Considering how many people lost their savings with zero compensation in 2008-09, fallout from speedy hedge fund bailouts should prove interesting if they happen.

"All in the game, yo. All in the game."- Omar

 

[Scott Voth]

This has been in the news for a bit online, reddit and trolls have discovered Wallstreet and are shorting the shorters. Or something... I won't pretend to fully understand it, but it's a heck of a story that's playing out and I kind of love it?

GameStop Has Another Record-Shattering Day On Wall Street [Update: And Another One]

Update - 6:28 p.m. ET, 1/26/21: Closing over $145 after another record day, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas reports that GameStop was the most traded equity in the world today. It’s even continued to rise in after hours trading, bobbling over $200. DeepFuckingValue, the Redditor instrumental to...

kotaku.com

Yes, its funny except this crap is tanking the whole market down and a lot of us have our retirement money there since that's the only place we can make any money these days. I don't play the options game. I always followed the if you don't understand it don't do it rule and the stocks involved here are poor bets for conservative investors but it's bringing down the good with the bad. The market is down over 8% in the last 3 days pretty much wiping out January.

 

[jcroy]

I don't play the options game.

Even worse are the folks who don't understand the underlying assumptions behind the black-scholes equation for options, and trade using it anyways. (ie. Become sitting ducks).

 

[B-ROLL]

So the hedge funds behind many of the political superpacks (on both sides of the isle) are taking a hit so now there's talk of government bailouts with the nasdaq CEO mentioning it numerous times and talk that the white house is paying attention. Considering how many people lost their savings with zero compensation in 2008-09, fallout from speedy hedge fund bailouts should prove interesting if they happen.

I have no doubt that reddit started this as a troll move, but it has the potential of being the largest protest action we've ever seen. First week of January saw the senate get occupied, now we're seeing internet trolls potentially cripple the markets. This is the first month! I thought 2021 was supposed to be chill?

I'm wondering how Free Enterprise class teachers are explaining this one. So you bet on a horse to lose the horse race. The horse looses and now you want to blame the horse. the jockey and the track and the US of A Government so you can get your money back -

!


Another thing that people forget is that the hedge bets don't take in to account that usually the company ends up being "arbitraged" which is a nice way of saying well take the parts we want and throw out the rest (employees included). Many of the Willenials I worked with all had their starts at Game Stop. Unless they were on salary they worked less than 34 hours a week and received an employee discount, management training and best for them they were able to try out the new games on or before release day and share their knowledge with their peers and with parentals etc. who were buying the games/systems.

Full disclosure - I've bought a few "previously enjoyed" films, TV-Shows and games on various media from GameStop.

AMC is a similar story - though not as compelling as GameStop - Full Disclosure - I've watched movies at AMC theaters.

 

[Edwin-S]

I so fascinated by it for that reason! And a little jealous I couldn't get in on it haha.

This morning there were some tweets that Blackberry was going to be next, but it looks like Nasdaq is trying to shut them down so the "real" brokers can recover a bit. Which sounds like it should be illegal, but isn't? As someone tweeted: Wallstreet is absolutely not a casino, but they can kick you out if you start winning too much.

Which pretty well makes them a casino as casinos can also kick out people who win too much, since the casino assumes they are cheating somehow.

 

[Edwin-S]

This whole thing is fascinating to me, though I understand next to nothing about the mechanisms that make it possible. And I think it's hilarious that suddenly people are preaching about "detaching stock price from value."

Stock prices haven't reflected value for decades.

 

[Edwin-S]

The problem I see with this game playing is that everyone invested in the stock market eventually gets hurt when the music stops, not just a few hedge funds that supposedly deserve to lose.

Also, the story that these games being played are for the altruistic reason of teaching Wall Street a lesson doesn't hold water to me. The guy who started the "movement" has parlayed 50G into 20M by Pied Piping a bunch of of small retail investors into following his tune. He has made out like a bandit and a ton of his "followers" are going to be left holding the empty bag.

If the guy was really smart he would short the stock then ride it all the way down as his "followers" bail in panic and pocket even more money. There is nothing in GameStop stock that suggests that it is actually a stock to buy and hold.

Edit: Also, this feels like it should be in the after hours forum since it really isn't about gaming but more about gaming a system.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The thing to note about the regular folks who are investing money into this GameStonk thing is that they are going with small investments (hundreds to a couple thousand dollars) primarily to see a hedge fund get taken out. My generation (millennials) is already being screwed over by society for a variety of reasons so we don't feel bad losing a few hundred bucks if it means a hedge fund manager isn't able to buy a 3rd yacht for his 5th home. (Not speaking for my views specifically, just about what "my generation" sees it as, generally.)

The core issue here is that a hedge fund was trying to short GameStop stock at something like 140%, meaning they were going to get 1.4x their investment if GameStop's stock sank (conversely, they had a 53% interest rate on the stock going up in value). People on reddit decided that it's extremely unfair that a handful of billionaires should be able to bet against a publicly traded company and get 1.4x their money back for doing literally nothing while regular folks who actually work for a living are currently living in an economic crisis with zero help coming our way.

Not trying to justify anything or argue who is right or wrong, but just give the context of why people are supporting this. For me, I just find it funny because it seems like everyone is suddenly realizing lessons about the market and shorting that were learned over a decade ago when the housing collapse happened and nothing changed.