There are some interesting stories coming out about the hedge fund that owns the Robin Hood app.

It's now being reported that Robinhood is selling people's GME shares without their OK...

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/you-can-not-purchase-additional-shares-robinhood-reportedly-removed-shuts-down-buying

There is probably more to the story that Zero Credibility is failing to mention. We need more info to be sure.

If you have a margin account and your equity level has fallen below the firm's maintenance margin requirements, the brokerage has every right to sell your securities without contacting you or obtaining your permission. Most often, firms are not required to give you a margin call, so if they give one, they are doing so as a customer courtesy.

Game Stop Stock, GME
 

I’m reminded of the scene in the Big Short where Steven Carell’s character realizes that the market around mortgages debt is orders of magnitude larger than the value of the mortgages.

i love the scene in that movie when steve carells character figures out that the market isn't fair, not a level playing field, wildly illegal, and the whole system is ****ed. like the very concept that people will bend/break the rules to make money is somehow an insane thing.

it always hits the most ardent "free market" defenders hardest, when they figure it out.

And the law suits have started against Robinhood. Two as of right now...

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/robinhood-lawsuits-gamestop-amc-restrictions

Just received this from Robinhood

Robinhood

An update on market conditions

Hi
It’s been a tough day, and we’re grateful to you for being a Robinhood customer. In light of the extraordinary market conditions this week, we temporarily limited buying for certain securities this morning. Starting tomorrow, we plan to allow limited buys of these securities. We’ll continue to monitor the situation and may make adjustments as needed.
This was a temporary decision made to best continue serving you, and was not an easy one to make. We know it’s led to frustration and confusion, and wanted to provide some clarity.
As a brokerage firm, we have many financial requirements, including SEC net capital obligations and clearinghouse deposits. Some of these requirements fluctuate based on volatility in the markets and can be substantial in the current environment. These requirements exist to protect investors and the markets and we take our responsibilities to comply with them seriously, including through the measures we have taken today.
To be clear, this decision was not made on the direction of any market maker we route to or other market participants.
The past year in particular has shown us that the financial markets are for everyone—not just institutional investors and hedge funds. We’ve seen a new generation enter the market, and they’re sparking conversations about what it means to be an investor. We stand in support of you, our customers. Democratizing finance for all means giving more people access, not less.
We’ll keep monitoring market conditions and will update this Help Center article with the latest changes. We also published a blog post regarding today’s events.
Thank you again for being a Robinhood customer. We’re so grateful for your support.
Sincerely,
The Robinhood Team

Any comments from the SEC ?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden has named U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Allison Herren Lee, a Democrat, as acting chief of the financial industry regulator, the SEC said in a statement.

“During my time as Commissioner, I have focused on climate and sustainability, and those issues will continue to be a priority for me,” Herren Lee said in a statement released on Thursday.

Interesting simplified read, wonder if it's 100% accurate.

https://www.thechicagogarage.com/att...01-jpeg.80108/
https://www.thechicagogarage.com/att...17-jpeg.80109/
https://www.thechicagogarage.com/att...79-jpeg.80110/
https://www.thechicagogarage.com/att...72-jpeg.80111/
https://www.thechicagogarage.com/att...77-jpeg.80112/

"F" him! Turn those machines back on! Turn those machines back on!

$1

So much shorted float...it is going to be very interesting day.

Diamond Hands emojis.

And they claim Bitcoin is easily manipulated.....

I love that movie, just watched it the other day....feeling good Billy Ray !

Any guy would with Jamie Lee in her prime sitting next to them in a bikini😁

GME still heavily shorted. No one is selling. 60% up today. This is really riveting to watch for us geeks. Apparently, other heavily shorted stocks are under attack as well.

[QUOTE=GG Allin;11201831]Interesting simplified read, wonder if it's 100% accurate.

Veeery simplified, some parts accurate, others not.

Note the margin requirements on GME and similar stocks are going to 100%, so that whole part of the spiel is wrong.

Also, people are saying that for short interest to > 100% of shares outstanding means something illegal was going on. That's not correct, you can have SI > 100$ SHO without any naked shorting (which is generally prohibited for traders/investors). Hard to quickly explain why but here's a fairly easy read https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/01/28/yes-a-stock-can-have-short-interest-over-100-heres/

It is certainly unusual to see such high short interest, and that should raise big red flags in a hedge fund's risk management process.

Lots of 10K share blocks on tape.

All the hedge funds are now starting to add "natural language" processing to capture social media sentiment within their Algorithms. Time to start talking in IB. (sIBell gIBamestock)

The crazy thing is that I could show you several stocks that have gone up as much or more in the last month or so with no manipulation at all...the market is that crazy. At least one of these, I was in:

BNGO
JAGX
PLUG

Look at the 6 month or one month chart for any of those.

And I bet that every one of those stocks have better valuations than Gamestop does.

In the end, research and wise investments always win over speculation, manipulation, and hunches...

Not always.... just like lotteries and Vegas .... some will win just playing along.

I am not one of those ;)

Generally good advice but a guy could get awfully rich just paying attention to which way the wind is blowing as well. Some people are better at that then others. :)

That has already happened this week, long/short hedge funds have degrossed a lot and fast, don’t know if they are done but probably mostly so.

GME shorts have either held on to positions or new shorts have stepped in. But I’d think the new shorts are well hedged. Other HFs are likely (certainly) on the long side, or in different options trades.

If they liked shorting it at 10 or 15 they gotta love it at 350.

Killing the rich investors!

https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/gme-stock-gamestop-investors-instantly-make-16-billion-gamestop-stock-squeeze/

Nine investors, including large fund-running institutions like Fidelity FMR and BlackRock (BLK) plus some well-positioned individuals like Chewy (CHWY) co-founder Ryan Cohen watched the value of their GameStop holdings soar more than $1 billion. That's based on an Investor's Business Daily analysis of the most current holdings reported to S&P Global Market Intelligence. It's possible some of these investors may have boosted or cut their stakes since the rally.

All told, these nine investors made a total of $16 billion on their GameStop stakes, just this year.

Made, as in, they cashed out?
It's not the chips out on the table that are your winnings..

Same with the mob that has drives up the price to hurt the rich. How are they going to unwind their holdings? Yet, the rich are still on track to make an even bigger return because of the mob.

Some will cash out, others won’t - just like the retail traders.

RH raised an emergency $1BN to meet capital requirements. I would guess they are between a rock and a hard place. If they restrict trading, their customers bail. If they don’t, they need more and more capital. RH must be wishing this settles down. The CEO has done a bad job communicating, as in alternating between no communications and lying (claimed no capital issue). Their VC investors are also kinda stuck - watch the juicy IPO go away or dump more and more capital into this company.

Wouldn't Fidelity and Vanguard be selling into the feeding frenzy? It's volume has been averaging over 100 million a day. They hold too much to feed much at a time. It looks to me the mob jumped back in everytime the price drops.

If the shares are in passive (index) funds (e.g. IWO) then I’m not sure what their flexibility is to sell. In active funds, I suspect they are selling.

Good point on the index funds.

Neither am I... everytime I 'played along,' I lost. To the tune of a 60% loss once. That was sufficient to learn me

I learned my lesson about playing along when the dot com bubble burst. Did make some good coin for a while, though.

The assumption in the case of GME is that since over 100% of the float is purported to be short the short sellers will be forced - by margin calls - to close the positions and so long as they stick sell orders in at a price higher that they paid they are gtg.

They are also - apparently - trying to do same with silver now. Given how JPM manipulated that market that could get interesting.

Edit: Since I don’t like throwing out unsubstantiated comments

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/jp-morgan-settles-spoofing-lawsuit-alleging-fraud-in-metals-trades.html

I think if you’re early, then it’s ok to play along with something like this, with risk control. By the time lots of people know it, it’s not early any more. And when every shoeshine boy is playing, it’s kinda late.

I used to own GME at my old shop, we bought in 2011, which was a little too early, bought more in 2012 then exited in 2015. That was a fundamental thesis /trade, it was for the console cycle that was coming, that was still going to rely on DVDs. Shorting in 2016 would have been early, shorting in 2020 seems kinda late. Going long in 2020 would have been early - even if you had to be something other than a fundamental investor to do it, that’s cool, different strokes for different folks etc. Now? When you can make or lose 60% in ten minutes? I’m not into that kind of strokes.

In the end, we shall all be dead.

- apologies to JM Keynes