Is there nothing that stops going over 100%
I guess it is the loss of the gambler if they do?

There is a big difference between those two actions. The hedge fund firms had to disclose that they were shorting the stock. The Reddit Collective made no such disclosure. Because they did not disclose their intentions, it had a major effect on the market and on GME, AMC, and others, as well as those who shorted the stock.

One may argue that a regular Joe doesn't need to disclose when they buy are sell stocks. And that is true. But when you have 3 million people who are purposefully buying stocks to force the hedge fund holders to sell because of their shorts, IMHO, that is manipulation.

If you want to consider the Reddit collective as legit, then they need to behave like a legit firm - and disclose their intentions just like the rest of wall street does.

No. That is the funny thing with shorts. You borrow a share from someone, tell him "I'll give it back later + some money" and you quickly sell it to someone else, planning to buy it back later (and cheaper). But that other buyer can also lend the same share to third person. Suddenly, you have two shorted contracts on one share.

If bet goes bad and share price goes up person 3 will need to buy it back (with loss) from person 4. Then person 2 will need to buy it back from person3, then give it back to person 1 + extra monies.

All of this scarity drives price up even further, making situation even worse for shorters. Losses are only limited by how high share price goes (and the solvency of shorter).

wall street is not not letting anyone buy GME. you can sell it, but you can't search for and buy it.

you wanted market manipulation, thats it right there. unequal access, specifically and totally designed to drop a stocks price, in protection of a hedge fund's profits, over the stocks actual investors.

pathetic.

there really must be a term for when white guys who thought the world was fair, and the rich played by the rules and that the rules made sense, realize none of that is true, and in fact, everything is and has been stacked against them for a generation while wall street milks the profits of their life's work into a bunch of do nothing, add zero value, self appointed, stock managers pockets.

Ah, the wrong people are losing? So they will just disable "buy" button?? That might not go well... a market where hedge funds are not allowed to lose. Everyone is free to buy and sell as long as big guys aren't losing...

yup. there has always been two sets of rules in this world economically. those for the rich, and those for everyone else.

its amazing to see it so blatantly on display just how ****ed our economic system is.

In the end, doing something like this might cost much more than what those two hedge funds were about to lose. Basically, market is based upon trust that you can buy and sell. If they game the market openly to save couple of hedge funds the trust will vanish. Really bad things happen then...major selloffs, run on the banks etc.

Remember when I said that the stock market was nothing but institutionalized gambling, and you guys laughed at me and gave me the lecture on the importance of "investing" and "owning a piece of a company"?

I do not agree. I am in the trade and still believe that open, transparent market with clear rules is making sure capital is spent in best possible way.

But all of that is moot if broker is able to disable "buy" button on arbitrary instrument just because Hedge Fund betted wrong and are about to lose money.

Not sure which brokerage you use, but GME is readily available for buying and selling on Fidelity right now.

Do ya want me to buy some and manipulate the sudden crash :D?

So people cry foul and blame brokerages if the idiot traders don't know what they are doing lose everything and take it further:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/14/investing/robinhood-suicide-congress-underwood/index.html

and people also cry foul if the brokerage tries to step in and protect idiot traders.:rolleyes:

Clearly WSB's interest has drifted away from AMC:

NYSE: AMC
12.70 USD −7.17 (36.08%)

I am not buying anything. I am just watching with amusement.

But Robinhood (?) apparently just disabled "Buy" button for all heavily shorted stocks that are under attack by Reddit crowd. It is not helping. GME is up 20% today...the mother of short (and gamma) squeezes is coming. It will crater later but no one really cares, they are doing this for lulz and basically siphoning money from Hedgies to stock holders.

I wish they'd pick AT&T to short squeeze. If T did what GME has, I could probably quit working.

So now Robinhood and Interactive Brokers are restricting trading in the "Casino Stocks" you can sell the shares of GME, AMC...etc. you just can't buy them on those platforms.

Now it gets a bit messy... that is more like market manipulation than what started this whole thing.

And I think the Reddit collective will move on to another set of stocks that are being shorted by the hedge fund guys.

Interesting - will need to see how this plays out now.

Getting worse:

NYSE: AMC
7.13 USD −12.74 (64.12%)

Stocks can get halted for trading, similarly options trading can be halted. Not common, but when things get too crazy, it happens. Action in GME etc is crazy by any measure.

These are the rules, too bad if traders don't know them. Just like when short selling was temporarily banned in 2008 (? or 09), hedge funds were furious but they couldn't do anything about it.

posted a bit too quick:

NYSE: GME
330.66 USD −15.71 (4.54%)

wow is this moving fast now!

NYSE: GME
297.00 USD −49.37 (14.25%)

Yea, but what about trading platforms like Robinhood (which some of these hedge funds apparently have a financial interest in and can control) suddenly refusing to execute buys of GME?
They’ll let you sell, but not buy. Thus clearly designed only to drive the stock price down.

Well, it's working. Down from $483 at peak today to $153 and dropping like a rock.

Of course, that is also the natural trajectory of this stock. :cool:

Robinhood now says

'This stock is not supported on Robinhood'

for AMC and Gamestop.

Pardon my ignorance, but I'm more of a "buy and hold" guy.

When you short a stock like GME, how long do you hold it before you have to "pay the piper"? Can these guys just play the waiting game and wait for the stock to drop back to $8 or do they get "called' and have to take a loss at say, $135.

Check again. Also, take a look at VAG graph just prior to short squeeze ;)

But yes, the stock itself is not worth more than 40 bucks. But it is not over yet...just watch.

The lender of the shorted shares can request that the shares be returned by the investor at any time, with minimal notice, but this rarely happens in practice so long as the short seller keeps paying its margin interest.

Pretty soon though, those margin interest payments become very very expensive and not practical to pay anymore.

Pretty wild. From $475 down to $125 in an hour and a half.
Then back to over $300 in an hour.

Money to be made there, but I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

then back to $230 an another hour:eek:

I'm sure they realize it's all on paper anyways, but can you imagine the major shareholders of the stock like the exec's, etc that have seen their net worth go from a couple million, to billions, back to millions in the span of 24 hours?

Sounds like the big boys are crying foul that rules they made to allow them to create wealth out of nothing at all are now working in favour of people they don't think should have the same opportunity.
3 Million individual buyers are just that, individual buyers. Change the system or suffer the reality that people can talk and generate buying power.

The stock market as it stands should not even exist. It is a huge portion of what broke the world economy, you cannot generate wealth from nothing at all and think it is sustainable.

doesnt that just show just how stupid this entire system is?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1611860979.jpg

Manufacture something that adds value to a persons life when purchased.
Sell that product, pay your workers and your other bills and you get to keep what's left.
Use some profit to make a bigger factory, develop other products, or to do good works if you choose.
I used to live in a country that worked pretty much like that, but I'm older than most of you here.
Too bad.

Algorithm's designed so Billionaires can make money by jacking around a stock just became totally invalid due to social media activity that can yet to be quantified into an Algorithm.

Its a great day for the little guy

People who yesterday didn't know what an option or a trading halt or Gamestop are suddenly hailing this as the next social revolution and/or jumping in to get rich quick. Stupid. At least know the rules of the game. Rule #1: the market powers will step in to preserve the stability and orderly functioning of the financial markets. Rule #2: no one cares if you (or Mr. Hedge Fund) makes or lose money when they step in. Rule #3: your ideas of "fairness" don't matter.

I don't know exactly what Robinhood is doing, but last I heard they and other brokers had placed options on GME, AMC and some others on "closing transactions only". This means you can buy an option only to cancel an existing option i.e. close the position.

As for Robinhood, everyone (with a brain) has known that its business model is to get more retail investors day trading with "free" trades and an addictive interface, and funnel those trades to the market makers for payment. 80% of RH's revenue is payment for order flow. The market makers aggregate the millions of retail trades, discern the direction of trading thus prices, and front-run those trades. all in milliseconds.

Last year Citadel made something like $7 billion on market making. They made so much that they shut down their own hedge fund early in 2020 - why make your own bets when you can scalp others' bets. RH's founders came from the high frequency trading world, they knew exactly how they were going to make money.

Options trading is very attractive for the dealers because they make the option premium in addition to getting the front running opportunity. RH is thus particularly motivated to steer retail traders into options.

The r/wsb board is led by some ringleaders who steer the 2 million-strong mob to trade the stocks/options that they identify. Take your own position, with out of the money long-dated options or LEAPs that are super cheap, then rally the mob to spend their money driving the stock in your direction.

Enough of your followers will make money, derive psychic gratification from being part of a mob, or think that they might make as much money as you, to keep them fired up. Throw in some populist "screw the man" messaging and doctored "screenshots" of fabulous gains from shell accounts. A bunch of hedge funds will quietly dive in there too, a HF has no problem killing another HF. Its a stock trading version of Q'anon meets Vegas. 1.999 million of r/wsb are stupid and 0.001 million of them are making bank using the stupid ones' money.

I got a text from my friend "tell me about options trading". I referred her to a book. It is 200 dense pages. She texted "No, I have to do it to understand it". Yeah, that'll end well.

hint: you never lived in that country.

I like you more and more each and every day.

Reddit will be cancelled... and flooded with shills and noise makers intended to prevent organized movements from happening.

I’m not sure which Big Data provider hosts Reddit but you can bet they’re getting a lot of pressure to pull the plug on them a la Amazon / Parler.

When the establishment doesn’t like the little peons making noise, they find ways to squelch them. Same as it ever was.

It’s been very amusing to watch and I applaud it, but you know the hammer fall is coming.