“ To effect, alone or with 1 or more other persons, a series of transactions in any security … creating actual or apparent active trading in such security, or raising or depressing the price of such security, for the purpose of inducing the purchase or sale of such security by others.”

“ (1) That the accused had the ability to influence market prices; (2) that the accused specifically intended to create or effect a price or price trend that does not reflect legitimate forces of supply and demand; (3) that artificial prices existed; and (4) that the accused caused the artificial prices.”

Can the SEC bring a market manipulation case based on the r/wsb stuff? Maybe - not against the herd but against the ringleaders, maybe. I believe they were very explicitly telling people how, why, and when to use options purchases to force dealer hedging and a short squeeze, and the SEC has taken actions (against hedge funds) for conspiracy to create a short squeeze.

Perhaps it’s more likely the SEC will simply write some rules giving itself (even more) ability to step in when orderly market function is threatened.

Read this:

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=241454 .

Moot when the big guys have the keys to the marketplace.

I hope the whole thing picks up momentum and burns the entire deal to the ground. Creating money without creating value was never a sustainable model. Its all pretend.

A 10 minute video that breaks down what happened and what "they're" trying to do to stop it. :rolleyes:

"They" actually want MORE regulation NOW? lol ;)

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Yup... There was that @$$hole ackman almost crying about Hotels going to zero on CNN... Betchyal never guess what he did... And he never got busted. Why doesn't CNN get prosecuted for aiding and abetting?

There are 2 sets of laws in this nation one for the lords and ladies and one for us serfs...

Is this going to screw the little guy out of day trading? Or make it less profitable?

Unless you are personally short Gamestop or if your kid works at a hedge fund getting worked over by the stock's upward move, this is actually kind of funny. Some guy (or guys/gals) from the Reddit/WSB forum bought time on an electronic billboard in Times Square today. Basically they are taunting the Hedge Fund crowd . Unlikely many of them will actually see it personally though. The HF crowd doesn't frequent Time Square very often.

<blockquote class="reddit-card" data-card-created="1612033251"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l8rf4k/times_square_right_now/">Times Square right now</a> from <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets">r/wallstreetbets</a></blockquote>
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The Planet Money podcast had a good program on the whole Gamestop fiasco. The centerpiece of the show was a guy who made 3.9 million on it. Not everyone lost.

GME has a market cap of $22BN. Almost all of that is artificial and will go away. Around $20BN of losses in long positions is coming. How many of the r/wsb crowd holding GME long have hedged their longs? The hedge funds holding long positions likely have.

that would help the little guy

Ah... hahahahahha ;)

Part of the issue in this whole thing for me is "retail day trading". It used to be that you had to pass scrutiny to both get margin and at least sign disclosures to trade options (whether you read them or not was on you). Now, not so much.

Social media gives the pump and dump types crazy reach. In the old days you had to call clients etc to manipulate them. Now, you post "Gamestop, screw the funds..."

And as to your last point, the big index funds (ie Vanguard) are among the leading gainers in GMSE because the hold it as part of their index balancing. Hopefully they've taken safeguards as its shot up and they've had to buy in...

This is hilarious. GME -32% intraday. GME call options down in the -50% to -75% range. IV crazy, like 500-600%. GME put options mostly down too. Even a 2/6 $300 strike put, that was OTM yesterday but ITM by $75 today, is slightly down. Stock volume so far today 32MM shares, on a total shares outstanding of 70MM.

Halt and Catch Fire for a gamer stock...

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Not all the action was with little guys. One small hedge fund (Senvest) cashed out with a cool $700 million by taking an opposite position from the others. They started accumulating a ton of Gamestop starting last September at very low share prices. They cashed out in stages in late January. This was reported in the WSJ yesterday.