What came first? The app or the attitude?
The big story is not about GameStop, Blackberry, AMC or whatever single stock gets blown up next. It’s about sentiment and technology, and how both (especially the former) just made dabbling in individual equities more suicidal. Whatever the outcome, it will be drenched in the bodily fluids of a million (at least) newbie ‘investors.’
Let’s start with the app. Then the fuel. Then the fools.
The Street calls them Hoodies – those DIY investors (overwhelmingly young) who have downloaded the Robinhood app and turned instantly into day traders. There are millions and millions of them now, attracted by an application that feels like a video game, costs nothing and allows free trades. It’s fun. It’s instant. There’s no set of weird, detailed know-your-client questions. No adults in the room. A few clicks and you’ve bought some shares. Empowering, and powerful.
There are more Hoodies now than clients of Schwab and E-Trade combined. They’re frenzied, too, trading about 40 times more shares than users of those other platforms. In many cases they own a security for just a few days. Sometimes just a few minutes. Researchers have found the Hoodies move in herds, rushing into publicized stocks with no real knowledge of the underlying business, based on ‘most popular’ or ‘trending’ lists. Two-thirds of the investors end up losing money, since the equities that are inflated inevitably plop, leaving the last ones in stranded. It’s not investing. It’s rolling the dice.
As for the fuel, these days it’s Reddit’s Wallstreetbets discussion board. That’s where the oxygen came from to push a crappy video retailer (GameStop) from nothing into orbit. Up 1,700%. It happened with BlackBerry too, now AMC, and previously it was Tesla and Doordash. Even crypto is being goosed beyond Bitcoin, with Dogecoin being pumped and inflated 77% in a few hours. But a lot of Hoodies don’t actually know much about the companies or the currencies. They focus on the ticker symbol and push the buy button. A TickTok stock-tip vid the other day featured a moister giving the secret to his success: “I just buy stocks that are going up and when they stop going up, I sell them.”
What could possibly go wrong with that depth of understanding and experience?
Well, the consequences just started. On Wednesday brokers stopped giving margin for these trades, forcing the kids to use their cash, and on Thursday the GameStop orgy can to a halt as platforms (including Robinhood) pulled the plug after it touched $500 a share – the pinnacle of absurdity. Imagine if you were one of the horde that joined the party just as the cops were pulling up outside.
This is stock market insanity on an historic scale. More to come. But it’s the attitude that’s the real toxin. On this blog yesterday we were awash in comments like, “Stick it to the man!!,” and “Bring the big boys to their knees,” and this gem: “It’s a beautiful thing Garth, watching the fortunes of lifelong money movers ruined, embrace it, just like the prostitutes at the Capitol cowering before the mob, brings a tear to the eye.”
GameStop etc. is being heralded as a white-vs-dark, David-Goliath, retail-institutional, moister-Boomer, fintech-paleo war. The kids are digging it. Regulators and capital market professionals are having a cow. When a $1 billion company with dim prospects becomes a $24 billion corporation with dim prospects, every alarm bell goes off. As stock prices detach from either profits (like the banks) or the potential for them (like Tesla), everybody knows what comes next. Slaughter. It’s not the hedge funds shorting the stocks and being swarmed by the Hoodies that we care about. It’s the integrity of the financial system which backs the economy.
Do the Mills think they’re paying back ‘the man’ for making them go to uni for 14 years in order to graduate into a jobless pandemic-addled world when nobody can afford a house while their parents’ portfolios plump? Hmmm. Well then, it’s another fail.
Look what happened yesterday to those kids who bought GME at $500 a pop overnight. The smart money bailed. The stock crashed, gyrated and shocked. It dropped $200 a share in five minutes during the afternoon. It lost 45% of its value on Thursday. The rabble at the bottom learned what a Ponzi scheme is. Redditers may end up investigated for market manipulation, especially those insiders who lit the fuse. Quelle mess.
Securities trading rules exist for a reason. To curtail fraud, cheating, criminality and unethical behaviour, of course. But also to protect complete idiots, especially the greedy ones, from themselves. What have Reddit and the Hoodies proven? Yup, that more regs are needed. The stock market is not a casino, nor can it be allowed to become one. The advent of mass trading by ingénues gassed up by a social media rabble is a fresh threat – not just to a system where corps get financed in order to expand and create jobs – but to all the naïve players tricked into thinking they’re noble.
It’s not the first time markets have been rocked by technology. Telephone trading morphed into online discount brokerages, then came high-frequency trading, algos, quants, hedgies, now fintech, trading apps, the Reddit rabble, DEFI and web3.0.
Well, the kiddos are too young to have been in the market when the dot-com euphoria turned to dust, wiping out 80% of the value of tech darlings. And they weren’t yakking on chat boards when Bre-X went to the moon before being vaporized. They weren’t in existence when people lined Toronto’s Yonge Street to buy gold as it hit the highest-ever price point – and everyone said it would go up forever.
This is not investing. It’s not a revolution. It’s not even new. It’s financially-illiterate, greedy sheep being manipulated by the unscrupulous and the irresponsible. They’ll learn the way the suckas of the past did. And ‘the man’ once again will move in and try to corral human nature. Good luck with that.
308 comments ↓
Trump, Wallstreet Bets all the same phenomena – Rejectionism
Rejectionism of a rigged system that many now realize leads to serfdom.
Regarding the economy, they see big corporate bailouts and capitalism “red of tooth and claw” does not apply to the powerful.
A System that turns a blind eye to offshore tax evasion, money laundering and then proports to restrict the trading to protect the small investor – “it is a club and you’re not in it“.
Smart people realize the Red Tie – Blue Tie political systems are an illusion of Democracy, Trump was a free vote getting out of hand, that mistake will not happen again.
Obama explain that really there is little difference between Democrats and Republicans, Obama: ‘We’re Fighting Inside the 40 Yard Line’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbKBjLaBHOg
Growing rejection on the left and right of the Political and economic system. They see widespread violation of “Fairness”, one of Jonathan Haidt’s – 5 fundamental moral dimensions shared by all humans.
Contempt and loss of respect for the integrity of our systems.
The response to this challenge to the legitimacy of the entrenched establishment will be a crack down (censorship, more surveillance of anyone outside the mainstream), as they crack down more and more people will join the rejection.
“The more you tighten your grip Tarkin, the more Star systems Will slip through your fingers” – Princess Leia
The insightful perhaps prescient Smoking Man from 2016.
341 Smoking Man on 06.25.16 at 10:21 pm
The root of the Brexit middle finger and rejectionisum that is sweeping all nations.
When I was a kid bucking rivets inside dash-8 wings I easly bought a house, had a Trans-Am with a tee-bar roof, a wife the cooked and cleand that didn’t bitch about it. Two good vacations a year, with a growing savings account. And my wife stayed at home raising the kids never to work again, well that’s not true, she worked in our business.
It was a shit factory job and the only resson I stuck with it for 10 years, my teachers had me convinced I was stupid because I really sucked in english as you can see and had trouble memorizing and regurgitating shit I had no interest in. All the while designing and building remote control aircraft including building the radios, any one remember Heath Kit.
I snapped out of this madness, quit the job and started several successful business. Constantly evolving. It was amazing time in my life.
Fast forward to today, most people are in debt up to there eyeballs and are getting blammed for it even though there has been no real wage growth for the last 20 years. The labour market like all markets is dictated by supply and demand. That market is influenced by two factors. Interest rates, and immigration policy. It’s Ironic to me all the big banks are going ape shit over debt levels yet they use a shit load of temporary foreign workers to suppress demand and lower wages of IT staff.
RBC got nailed a few years ago with Igate. Did it stop them, Hell No. they just moved them all to new jersey. That’s why I own RBC, pricks are pretty sneaky.
Bottom line, Globalization has been a huge windfall for third world countries and a disaster for the middle class in first world countries. I understand that there are some bleeeding heart billionaires that feel sorry for the lost souls in those countries and feel they need to help them and thereselves at the same time offshoring jobs.
The machine knew this would cause problems down the road, so via the education industrial complex, they programmed the students to focus their energy on stupid things to take there eye of the magicians hand . Social Justice, Climate Change, save trees, Gender Issues. Rather than demanding a living that doesn’t require insane amounts of debt just to survive.
Then came the coming of age of the internet, MSM as proven in Britton this week has lost the lead in the game of mind fking.
The Brexit was the middle finger to the machine, it’s lies and deceptions and it’s just the start.
Bet accordingly.
Dr Smoking Man
Ph.D. Herdonomics
Time for a drink!!!!!!!!!!!
“greedy sheep being manipulated by the unscrupulous and the irresponsible”
Kind of like wallstreet and the FED in bed together.
Funny how a Goldman Sachs Bankers become embedded into the Central Banks globally.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/this-is-unacceptable-aoc-and-others-side-with-retail-investors-slam-robinhood-and-wall-street-amid-game-stop-mania-171906758.html
I agree with you Garth . The last in will get burned.
But you gotta hand it to the hoodies for figuring out how to beat the hedge funds with just figuring out how options work.
Kudos to them……
I like that iced tea company changing its name. Then some newbie with an app on his phone buys the stock in a frenzy… ’cause its blockchain, dude!!
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/iced-tea-company-changes-name-to-long-blockchain-stock-immediately-skyrockets
, Long Island Iced Tea Corp., a little-known company based in Hicksville, New York, was best known for hawking ready-made iced teas and similar refreshing beverages. But that all changed on Tuesday morning, when the company announced in a press release that it would rebrand as a blockchain-technology company
“Just got a tip that Citadel reloaded their shorts before they told Robinhood to stop trading $GME.”
Will be interesting to find out if this is true. The kids are dumb (well, except the smart ones who made a mint), but having hedge funds tampering with stock purchasing apps to goose the market needs to be illegal.
If just 1 wallstreet gazillionaire hedge fund couldnt cover their shorts……
Then the kids have won and they’ll be back again.
Knuckle wrapping is on its way.
Popular Delusions and Madness of Crowd by Charles McKay.
Nothing’s changed just the fools.
Perhaps the greedy ones were also the short sellers who shorted more shares than actually existed (of GME) ? After all these short sellers lost 5 billion ! Maybe the SEC needs to ban short selling to protect these guys.
I just like the utter chaos it provides- since “the man” manipulates, controls, uses predatory practices and outright theft, I say the hoodies find new fun ways of “sticking it” to “the man” – if the games rigged, flip the board upside down
To be fair, WSB was doing nothing illegal, this ‘market manipulation’ tripe is pure slander and you know it. The 120%+ short float is a bomb, where’s the SEC on that? And last I checked the worst supposed free market manipulators are the Fed.
For sure a platform that has no real fees attached, margin at that is asking for trouble. My stodgy broker that I pay for trades has no blocks on those silly tickers – not that I’d bite at those valuations.
A ton of ink is going to get spilled over this but At it’s core this was the millennials grabbing Wall Street by the short and curlies and giving them a mighty good squeeze.
And damm it felt good seeing the small guy humiliate the big guy! Classic Hollywood stuff.
While Wall-street took a 70 billion dollar hit, give or take a million it will only be a matter of time (minutes hours) before they get bailed out. So feel no pity for those rich hedgefund guys!
So what are we waiting for?
Bring on transaction taxes on day trades.
And tax them hard.
Most Day traders are addicted gamblers, who sooner or later need rehab on the public dime.
Time to remove the picture of day traders being some kind of James Deans.
This heard stock story is no different than the housing market buyers that inflate prices of homes in Canada beyond of what their real value is. It is the same game different field. Pyramid scheme in the making…
Garth, why did you not mention anything about the short squeeze? Also what about the fact that on all platforms you can sell these stocks but not buy, which directly helps the hedge funds who shorted the stock? Isn’t that why trading halts exist? Has this ever happened before where a brokerage will let you sell but not buy?
Game stop is not a 1 billion dollar company. They did 6 billion in sales this past year. It is not a dying business but a severely undervalued business.
People with more money and more brains such as Ryan Cohen have invested in it and are on its board. RC was the founder of Chewy and with him on board GME will be converted into a e-commerce gaming giant.
Who are you to say GME is not worth 500$. Did you say anything when it was shorted more than 100% by the same hedge fund billionaires you are defending? And how is it fair that retail investors cannot buy GME anymore? My money, my choice.
I don’t see government giving two hoots about the housing market. Housing is severely overpriced in Canada and last one in will lose it all so why not restrict that as well?
The market cap was $1 billion before the sheep stomped in. Nowhere did I say it was dying, but ‘dim.’ It is. – Garth
What are securities regulators going to do? Ban internet message boards related to stock trading? And they’re going to enforce that ban internationally? Just asking the question I can’t help but laugh.
Now what if there’s a Chinese version of WSB looking to screw US elite speculators?
Live in fear, hedgies.
Anyone interested in what is going to happen next needs to put on hip waders and wander over to 8kun.
Most of you probably have heard of 4chan…well 8kun is just better I guess. It is where all this Gamestop planning and putting into motion began.
#5 BlogDog123 on 01.28.21 at 2:04 pm
I like that iced tea company changing its name. Then some newbie with an app on his phone buys the stock in a frenzy… ’cause its blockchain, dude!!
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/iced-tea-company-changes-name-to-long-blockchain-stock-immediately-skyrockets
, Long Island Iced Tea Corp., a little-known company based in Hicksville, New York, was best known for hawking ready-made iced teas and similar refreshing beverages. But that all changed on Tuesday morning, when the company announced in a press release that it would rebrand as a blockchain-technology company
——————-
Hicksville?
Also remember, companies sell the sizzle not the steak.
That’s why Advertising Agencies make the big bucks.
Maybe this a wake up call into a complete ban of hedge funds, shorting, central banks pumping trillions into what are supposed to be “free markets”, margin trading and all other forms of bail outs and casino-like market manipulation. Oil above $50 when no one is travelling, planes sitting on the ground by the tens of thousands, hundreds of millions working from home, economies shut down world wide, give me a break.
Then we can stop deluding ourselves into believing that Mr Market is “forward thinking”, actually has any connection to the current and future economy or has the 1st clue about anything for that matter.
“Securities trading rules exist for a reason. To curtail fraud, cheating, criminality and unethical behaviour, of course.”
So that’s why HEDGE FUNDS can invest in whatever they want – long or short.
Still waiting for MY BAILOUT from 2009 like they got theirs.
GME jumped from $232 to $431 in the five minute period from 14:00 to 14:05. Ten minutes later, it’s back to $237.
Time to get on board! Oops… no, wait.
Stay tuned…
“ Securities trading rules exist for a reason. To curtail fraud, cheating, criminality and unethical behaviour, of course.”
Remind me how many bankers ended up in Jail after 2008?
It’s a big club and we ain’t in it.
With respect, I don’t think new regulations are necessary. The kids are executing a fairly classic short-squeeze- they (correctly) identified a weakness in others’ (i.e. Melvin Capital etc) position (i.e. massive short betting on a low-float stock) and exploited it. Melvin had their a** exposed while attempting to basically do what the WSB kids did in the opposite direction. Good for the kiddos for identifying and exploiting this. You may say it’s not “investing”, but like it or not most of Wall Street doesn’t exist to invest Gartho, it exists to trade. So if this isn’t “investing”, there’s a lot of “investment” firms that should be called “speculation firms”, but yet they’re some of the biggest names in finance and banking. You can’t have it both ways- either what the Hoodies did was perfectly fine, or the whole system needs a rethink.
For the record, I agree with the rest of what you said whole-heartedly. This isn’t what I consider investing, it’s pure gambling, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. And as for new regs, completely unnecessary at this point- the outcome of this will be a lesson to everyone involved that is much more powerful and memorable than any regulations could ever be. You said it yourself- this is nothing new, and it doesn’t need a knee-jerk regulatory reaction. The massive losses all the kids with their $600 stim checks are about to take will teach them not to be so stupid, the Billions lost by hedge funds will teach them not to short 140% of the shares outstanding on low float stocks with the intent of manipulating the stocks downward, and life will go on. By March it’ll just be the third or fourth weirdest thing to happen so far in 2021.
It’s funny to see people “moralizing” the GME movement like it’s some righteous stand against capitalism. The movement is fueled by one emotion and that is greed.
What I don’t get about all of the “Stick it to the man” people is why?
As in “why do you care about hedge funds?” Sure, you’re too poor to be allowed to play with them, but every single one of them lost the Buffet bet, so why would you want to?
It’s like not being allowed into a restaurant that serves turd sandwiches. Who cares?
“the pinnacle of absurdity.”
Interesting choice of words, seeing as we are living through the “Age of Absurdity”.
Musk said something about predicting outcome by whatever the most interesting outcome may be. I would argue that the prediction is by absurdity: whatever the most absurd outcome is, that will come to pass.
“ Two-thirds of the investors end up losing money, since the equities that are inflated inevitably plop, leaving the last ones in stranded. It’s not investing. It’s rolling the dice.”
So what? Let them do it…that’s the whole concept of an open free market.
Basically retail investors had the rules changed on them today to try and save these greedy unethical hedge funds who shorted a company by 123%.
One can only hope “The revolutionaries” can revolt against the CB’s, and bring down the bond prices to what fair prices and yields should be.
Asset price gas bag has to be pricked.
#22 some guy on 01.28.21 at 2:38 pm
“It’s funny to see people “moralizing” the GME movement like it’s some righteous stand against capitalism. The movement is fueled by one emotion and that is greed.”
If you’ve spent any time on /wallstreetbets then you know that this isn’t true. A surprising number of the people throwing the little they have into the stock seem to know they will be left holding the bag but think it’s worth it to really just shove that middle finger deep into the sphincter of Wall Street.
This is a vengeance play for many. Not really a much more honourable emotion but I’ll admit I am more sympathetic to it. The fun part is watching Trump and Cruz on the same side as OAC and the Squad regarding the apps screwing their customers who already have the stock by turning off the buy option to let the involved hedge funds escape possible annihilation.
#10 Doug t on 01.28.21 at 2:16 pm
—
Liking “utter chaos” is an extremely naive and entitled thing to say. It’s only through very careful, deliberate, thoughtful human action that Canadians have what we have. “Utter chaos” can rip this apart in the blink of an eye. You should not cheer for it.
This is genius. Pure and simple.
So let me see if I get this straight.
A bunch of rich ruling class hedge fund guys lost their shirt in a naked short, costing their rich ruling class clients THEIR shirts, and had to get bailed out by their OTHER rich, ruling class hedge fund buddies.
Oh, muffin! How terrible for them! The poor things! Here, let me get the world’s smallest violin.
Why should I, or anybody else reading this, spare any tears for them? Some rich jerk-off finally gets a taste of his own medicine? Good. Screw ’em all, and the horse they rode in on.
The sooner they lose everything and have to learn (or be reminded of) what it means to no longer be in the club, the better.
‘The stock market is not a casino…’ Well, that may be true but the underlying principle is what is driving this crazy train. Gambling is an addiction & the ‘hoodies’ are acting like they’re partying in Las Vegas, except they are clicking a mouse at home instead of pulling a lever on a one armed bandit. There is a reason why VLT’s bring in the cash & it isn’t because the user is using their noggin. They all have $ signs in their eyes, convinced that just a few more trades & they’ll be rich enough to live high & never have to serve ‘the man’ or anyone else ever again.
Dogs are great
beers r good
people will always be crazy
A fool and his money are soon parted
#26 SoggyShorts on 01.28.21 at 2:41 pm
It’s like not being allowed into a restaurant that serves turd sandwiches.
————
Haha, that’s good!
It’s the integrity of the financial system which backs the economy.
_______________________________
this is a joke right? you seriously wrote that??
when in you had mortgage fraud in the US, when banks sold garbage securities to unsuspecting public, when Lehman, Fannie, Freddie, Bear Sterns, etc, all behaved like drunken sailors and nearly collapsed the whole economic system… and nobody went to jail. and nobody paid a penalty, and when the taxpayer bailed out the banks…
you seriously have the gumption to say this is about the integrity of the financial system??
you’re joking, right?
Did you miss the reforms that followed the US housing crash? Try to keep up. – Garth
Shame on you Garth,
You completely skipped over the fact that the hedge funds have put themselves in an untenable position, by shorting 140% of the float and writing uncovered calls which they now cannot fulfill. They got greedy.. boo hoo.. they are supposed to be the smart guys in the room.
The simple fact is that few smart kids beat the adults, at the adults game, with the adults rules.. and now these smart hedge fund guys are crying foul… now we need regulators to “save them from themselves..”
You are ignoring the fact that these people are freely willing to pay $500 to stick it to the Hedge Fund, knowing full well that they wont see that money back. Some would call this FU money.. its not like they have mortgage payments to make.
“This is not investing. It’s not a revolution. It’s not even new. It’s financially-illiterate, greedy sheep being manipulated by the unscrupulous and the irresponsible”
And none of those unscrupulous ones will ever be prosecuted or punished, in any way, if history is any guide.
Try it:
List all the names of the scores of men who went to jail after….
The financial collapse of 2008?
Or Bre-X? Enron? Nortel’s collapse?
Or all the penny stock mining and tech frauds of the last 50 years?
Or the rampant norm of insider trading everywhere?
Etc, etc, etc….
Can we think of anyone?
Yet our society’s police and investigation efforts focus on picking up poor people in racialized neighbourhoods targeted for possibly committing petty crimes and selling street drugs.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/02/california-police-black-stops-force
In reality, if we cared about actual justice and the massive harms created by financial criminals, far worse than drug selling or petty theft, the cops should be stopping and strip searching every dude walking in or out of a building on Bay St or Wall St, every single day.
The Hoodies may be following an old pattern of market bubbles.
But they do recognize that the existing financial system is hopelessly self-serving and corrupt, worthy of little respect.
Good on them for that.
The sad truth is that while the long-term credibility of the Hoodies may only be about 30%, the credibility of the ethically-challenged regular marketeers is probably only about 20%.
JMHO.
Robinhood was in cahoots with the sheriff all along. Ha. Long rebellion.
My informal survey has revealed who the happiest people are: people living on a gov subsidy with/without a part time job and no aspirations of greatness. To the welfare bum, I salute you. You have found ‘the way’. Everyone else is destroying the planet with their unfulfilled wants.
Tulip bulbs! Its the next big thing.
Thanks for writing about it. Lotsa gnashing of teeth and shedding of tears coming. Is the TI Brain Trust going long, dentures & Kleenex?
“This is a seminal moment. I don’t think we’ll go back. This is a byproduct of the connected internet. This is a new normal…. the start of a new era…” – Alexis Ohanian (Reddit Co-Founder)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByFuJ9tB4tY
“The smart money bailed. The stock crashed, gyrated and shocked. It dropped $200 a share in five minutes during the afternoon.”
The stock didn’t crash because “the smart money bailed”. The stock crashed because Robinhood and other apps got calls from these hedge funds and LITERALLY PREVENTED people from buying more of these stocks, and only allowed selling. How is that not market manipulation? Maybe that’s why Robinhood is being hit with a class action lawsuit now; more will follow.
I didn’t throw any money into the $GME fire, but I wish I had. Even if I lost it all, it would have been worth it to watch those hedge funds suffer even more. They’ve eaten a $70 billion loss on these shorts already, and it’s only going to go higher.
These Wall St. parasites bet billions of dollars that companies like Gamestop would fold and throw people out of work (how is THAT not market manipulation, by the way?) and would be thrilled if that came to pass, so I don’t see why turnabout isn’t fair play.
Investing money to punish capitalism. Ah, the irony. – Garth
hoodies and hedgers trying to out-greed each other lol.
#26 SoggyShorts on 01.28.21 at 2:41 pm
What I don’t get about all of the “Stick it to the man” people is why?
As in “why do you care about hedge funds?” Sure, you’re too poor to be allowed to play with them, but every single one of them lost the Buffet bet, so why would you want to?
It’s like not being allowed into a restaurant that serves turd sandwiches. Who cares?
—
Ha, yeah. That’s good.
There’s a running theme of GFC embittered young adults who watched big investment players get bailed by the government while ma and pa withered, lost their house, and went jobless for a few years to a decade as the Sacklers were pushing opiates into anyone they could sink their teeth into. Recall that most of these guys are American where the GFC played out far far differently than it did here in Canada. Some of the WSBers think they are getting vengeance on those same players. That’s why some of them “care”. The Buffet bet is way beyond their level of investing know how. Just check twitter to see videos of porn stars pumping stock and praying to god it goes well… Yikes!
But, I agree, turd sandwiches all around. Were I in the wilds for a couple of weeks and came back to this it would be a shrug at best. Right now it’s more like watching a train wreck. Unfortunately, there will be suicides that come of this, so it’s not totally harmless.
Day trading should have been addressed eons ago.
No cap gains exemptions, etc.
Even retired celebrities like Ja Rule are getting in on the action – “Hold the Line”, he cries on Twitter.
Investment banks have been manipulating and front-running markets for decades. The hoodies are like Dexter, inflicting some long overdue payback.
Problem started when the geniuses at big hedge firms started to loose money. They couldn’t cover their short positions.
All of a sudden the computerized trading platforms, predictive software and AI got outnumbered and outsmarted.
Not ok for trading platforms to favor institutional investors and prohibit retail investors from trading.
More regulation is needed but it will not happen.
What have we done since Enron days?
#47 wallflower on 01.28.21 at 3:22 pm
Day trading should have been addressed
—
Then you have to define day trading and that gets murky really fast and certainly would make markets less liquid which is the last think anyone needs as equity markets these days have seen a steady decline in liquidity over recent years despite CB actions.
Might’ve been mentioned already but it wasn’t just margin trades being suspended on the apps – it was any kind of buy action (selling was OK). I’m curious, but you don’t think there was anything else going on there in terms of keeping the masses corralled?
For anyone who is interested in knowing the other side of story;
http://www.isthesqueezesquoze.com/
#31 faron
I relish this kind of chaos – bring down Wallstreet and its cronyism- burn the house and lock up the criminals – and Canada is in the toilet, has been for a long time
The Redditors did nothing wrong. There will be a movie about this someday!
Put your money to work became put your money to war.
Rejectionism sounds like a good label for it.
The Hoodies know the risks and don’t care.
Ammo is meant to be spent.
Garth,
many Robinhood users are complaining their shares were sold without permission. Rumour is the company who owns Robinhood also owns a massive short position on GME.
The GME ride has just begun.
Rich people: why don’t they invest their money?
Poor people: OK!
Rich people: hey what are you doing? Stop!
The kids beat the establishment at their own game.
GME lost 45% of its value in a single day. Yeah, big win for the kids. – Garth
A Classic pump & dump.
Investing money to punish capitalism. Ah, the irony. – Garth
Capitalism my ass!! Elite techno fascism is thy name..
There, I fixed it for you!
Thanks for the write up covering this Garth. As one of those mills ive been following this close, and know of a few jumped on the bandwagon without any knowledge, thinking it goes up, and they’ll sell high, no thought. A good chunk liked seeing it being stuck to “the man”, and letting the hedge funds take a huge hit. When hosing is expensive, job security is low, and you’re not in a good place due to the pandemic, you just want to see the world burn, and I can totally understand it. I’m not going to be surprised to see more of this happening now.
#44 SunShowers on 01.28.21 at 3:14 pm
I didn’t throw any money into the $GME fire, but I wish I had. Even if I lost it all, it would have been worth it to watch those hedge funds suffer even more.
———–
Yo, Sunny, your moment is now: stop wishing and act! Power to the people!
I suggest going big. Yell up to your mom and see if she’ll lend you the grocery money.
If Redditors rallying GameStop is unacceptable market manipulation, what would you call it when greedy Wall Street bankers gambled away our entire economy in 2008 and faced no consequences?
You call the failure of Lehman etc. no consequence? Weird. – Garth
So let me get this straight: Redditors rallying GameStop is market manipulation, but hedge fund billionaires shorting a stock is just an investment strategy?
Believing an asset will fall is not equal to making an asset rise. – Garth
You said it again. I keep quoting the name of this blog at the office. My house plants and the canines don’t understand your moist references
I do see this 2 sided view increasing in all facets of life.
Garth, what soothes you in these times? Any balms or meditation practice or any Steely Dan album or any soup recipe or 2 tylenol twice a day…? Or have you submitted to the suffering of the human condition?
The story of Robinhood will be another case history of how rich wall street filth get special treatment, while the little fish fry, instead of full life imprisonment, which is what they actually deserve.
Simon Black of Sovereign man today recounts how his in 2010, his success was stolen from him by financial institutions and investment banks “cancelling” his trades retroactively.
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/this-is-a-financial-revolution-30629/
#14 Housing Market is Just the Same on 01.28.21 at 2:19 pm
This heard stock story is no different than the housing market buyers that inflate prices of homes in Canada beyond of what their real value is. It is the same game different field. Pyramid scheme in the making…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Poor comparison. Everyone including the hoodies know that these share prices are tens and even hundreds of times greater than the fundamentals. It’s know to be a bubble that will end and it’s fully expected someone will hold the bag. For the housing market, it would be a rare and extremely bearish view to put the inflated housing market even at a lowly (by comparison) two or three times the fundamental value. Reality is the housing market can be sustained at these levels long term with the current policies. Zero chance of the same for GME.
A warning on water futures:
One WSB thread is aimed at squeezing silver so that big banks are forced to take possession of physical silver. Silver is scarce, so this would drive up the silver price massively.
Now think of the same thing happening with the water futures market that now exists in California. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where people who need water can’t afford it because of market manipulation. That would, again, have real and undesirable consequences. I think all of this is demonstrating how much of a train wreck equity markets and derivative markets can be and how the train wrecks never directly benefit the least wealthy. Maybe there is substantial secondary benefit, but that effect is lost on all who witness twisted market events like what is unfolding now.
Tomorrow is Friday when options expire. Expect a serious cluster.
All this is, is a sign of the times. People are tired of working for jobs that do not exist anymore within a system they no longer feel works for them and now they have found an exploit.
This will end and many will fall but, the message has been sent none the less.
Investing money to punish capitalism. Ah, the irony. – Garth
————————————
I think Robinhood and TD shutting down purchases of GME and AMC so that hedge funds can extract themselves from short positions puts to bed the idea that equity markets have anything to do with capitalism.
“It’s the integrity of the financial system which backs the economy.”
There is no integrity…just like politics.
While I won’t shed a tear for the robinhooders about to get wiped out, I find the concern for the integrity of the markets a little misplaced. The shorts on GME were the other side of the market manipulation coin, trying to drive price down and possible ruin a company with 10K+ employees for financial gain.
It’s amazing to me that THIS is the event that has people saying ‘OMG, we need to stop all this market manipulation” as if the game hasn’t been rigged forever. This is an absolute nothing burger compared to the crimes that brought about the GFC. And pump and dump is BAU for financial markets. The difference is the hoodies and getting into the game, and this game is only for insiders.
So ya, let’s regulate markets, I’m down. Remove all of the incentives to gamble for ALL players.
Increasing margin requirements is ok. use your own cash. But blocking people from trading seems very one sided. Not fair game unless every player is blocked from speculating.
Also it will be interesting to see if the ones posting on wallstreet Reddit are real Robinhoods. Transfer their money to some of the people who lost piling in late. But I doubt anyone is going to do it. Looks like some people found a quick Ponzi scheme to make money.
#55 Faron on 01.28.21 at 4:18 pm
A warning on water futures:
One WSB thread is aimed at squeezing silver so that big banks are forced to take possession of physical silver. Silver is scarce, so this would drive up the silver price massively.
—————————————————-
I’ve been thinking about this. It might well explain why silver is up 4% today while other commodities mostly flat to down (including gold!). I would certainly not want to be in the shoes of a bullion bank executive (large precious metal short positions) at this time.
And what’s the most hated, beaten down, and I believe one of the most shorted markets (although I don’t have the stats handy)? ENERGY.
Honestly the fallout from this paradigm shift could go in so many directions it makes the head spin.
And this is why people don’t trust the stonk market… shenanigans on both sides but the house always wins.
#44 SunShowers on 01.28.21 at 3:14 pm
I didn’t throw any money into the $GME fire, but I wish I had. Even if I lost it all, it would have been worth it to watch those hedge funds suffer even more.
********************
Ah yes, the noble communist:
“It’s OK if I’m up to my knees in crap as long as that guy is up to his neck! In fact, I wish I could jump in up to my neck in order to push him under!”
So much better than trying to pull yourself out. /sarc
The original meteoric rise of GME came from a legitimate due diligence post on reddit, not from illegal pumping. HFT have been fleecing people long enough with no consequence. If a bunch of people want to invest in a stock, based on a meme, that’s a free market baby.
Robinhood, Ameritrade and others halted the ability to purchase GME but you can sell. That is market manipulation. If someone in the USA wants to buy a stock because it is going up, they should be allowed. Hedge funds are allowed, billionaires are allowed.
Now that you can’t even buy the stock in the US and you can only sell, look what happens to the price. Coincidentally Citron re-established their short position yesterday while Robinhood who makes money giving info to hedge funds, seized the individual investors ability to go long GME.
Let Wall Street burn and let’s see the little guy win for once. Maybe they may have to sell one of their yachts or sports teams because they were on the wrong side of a gamble.
Investor protection my ass, it is billionaire/hedge fund protection. Class actions already filed.
I just noticed that sheep in the picture has wolf’s eyes.
Goodness.
Lots of angry non investors posting their fervent wishes today.
Apparently it was just vaccines in short supply at the asylum medication station……
#68 Anecdote just for fun
https://thedailywtf.com/articles/Special-Delivery
“It’s the integrity of the financial system which backs the economy.”
Garth, please do a one question survey about this ”integrity”. It would be interesting.
An empty mind is a devil’s workshop.
Get all these young something productive to do. The young are smart and full of energy. It’s our job to guide them.
I drink your milkshake.
Not my place to go.
This sounds permanent:
https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2021/01/starbucks-stores-closing-permanently-toronto/
Here are the Starbucks locations in Toronto that are closing permanently in the next few days:
Bathurst and Fleet (600 Fleet St.)
Bay and Elm (686 Bay St.)
Bay and Grosvenor (37 Grosvenor St.)
Bloor and Bathurst (494 Bloor St. West)
Bloor and Gladstone (1090 Bloor St. West)
Church and Gerrard (66 Gerrard St. East)
Davisville and Yonge (1909 Yonge St.)
Dufferin Mall (900 Dufferin St.)
First Canadian Place (Sat)
Front and Jarvis (81 Front St. East)
Hillcrest Mall (9350 Yonge St.)
Jarvis and Dundas (253 Jarvis St.)
King and Peter (370 King St. West)
King and Sherbourne (251 King Street E.)
PATH Concourse, Royal Bank Plaza – closing Sunday
PATH Concourse, Richmond Adelaide Centre – Closing Sunday
Promenade Mall (1 Promenade Cir.)
Queen and Ossington (2 Ossington Ave.)
Queens Quay and Lower Jarvis (132 Queens Quay E.)
Scotia Plaza (40 King Street West) – closing Saturday
St Clair and Bathurst (504 St. Clair Ave. West)
Wellington and John (224 Wellington St. West)
Wellington and Simcoe, RBC (155 Wellington St. W) – Closing Saturday
Wellington and University (55 University Ave.)
Yonge and Wellesley (8 Wellesley St. East)
Yonge and College (450 Yonge St.) – Closing Sunday
Yonge and Queens Quay (1 Yonge St.)
York and Bremner (25 York St.)
York Mills Centre (16 York Mills Rd.)
Believing an asset will fall is not equal to making an asset rise. – Garth
——————————————————–
Come on Garth. These Hedge Fund shorts don’t just believe an asset will fall, they take their position and go on a a full media campaign to support that position and drive the stock price down. BNN, tweets, news articles, etc. The reason everyone knows their short position is they are actively pushing it.
Not buying it. Shorts are everywhere, all the time. And usually ignored. – Garth
Our old friend Mr Market will take care of it, Garth. More regulation not needed.
“GME lost 45% of its value in a single day. Yeah, big win for the kids. – Garth”
And the hedge funds lost 70 billion dollars, and they haven’t even had to cover most of their naked shorts yet.
“Believing an asset will fall is not equal to making an asset rise. – Garth”
https://www.dictionary.com/e/pop-culture/self-fulfilling-prophecy/
The kids don’t need regulation, they need education. And they’re getting it. Most of us went through this in 2000 during dot com. Let them get a little burned now and become a better investor later. It worked for the rest of us.
#70 Howard on 01.28.21 at 4:19 pm
I think Robinhood and TD shutting down purchases of GME and AMC so that hedge funds can extract themselves from short positions puts to bed the idea that equity markets have anything to do with capitalism.
————-
Never play a game of attrition against the ones who made the rules for the game.
It’s like commanding the rain to stop.
Money is a fabricated system, markets are a system atop a fabrication, rules are built on air. Many of the things you know for sure just ain’t real.
Recognize this, be cynical, sidestep risk. The main thing to understand is that there are no rules. Pretend there are, sure… but never take it seriously.
“The stock market is not a casino”
Very poor choice of words on so many levels. Just dripping with irony as well.
It may be small, but the new Tiny Home Takeout in front of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in downtown Kitchener can produce 12 personal pan pizzas in three minutes and at least 150 soups in the two hours it’s open.
So says Father Toby Collins, who was behind the initiative to serve fresh quality meals for free regardless of a person’s economic standing.
It’s an idea he came up with while sitting down to eat with other members of the religious community.
“I was like, why can’t they eat what we’re eating tonight,” Collins said. “This troubles me that people eat this emergency food supply and sometimes it comes out of a can. And I’m like, we can do better than this.”
He reached out to people and organizations in the region who had expressed an interest in community outreach.
That led to a kitchen renovation in the church basement and the design of the tiny takeout hut in front of the church.
A lot of the food is donated locally by restaurant suppliers in the region and prepared by chef Amy Cyr.
Some people who can afford to pay are dropping off donations when picking up food.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/tiny-home-takeout-kitchener-food-meals-1.5891891
Believing an asset will fall is not equal to making an asset rise. – Garth
——————————————————–
Come on Garth. These Hedge Fund shorts don’t just believe an asset will fall, they take their position and go on a a full media campaign to support that position and drive the stock price down. BNN, tweets, news articles, etc. The reason everyone knows their short position is they are actively pushing it.
Not buying it. Shorts are everywhere, all the time. And usually ignored. – Garth
——————————————————
Then with all due respect you aren’t following this GME story very closely. That is exactly what happened in the case of GME.
You also missed a few big pieces including the fact that most brokerages, early in the day, during a big run up, eliminated the option to buy the stock. Sell orders only. Our free market at work.
And FWIW I was cheering for the stock to crash, I find the hoodies nauseating. But what happened today was a joke – if you believe in true free market, you can’t be down with a large number of brokerages rigging the game for their institutional clients.
Anyone who wilfully engaged in unfair market manipulation should face the existing regulatory consequences (if it can be proven). This could apply to insiders on both the way up and way down.
But there is no way to prove that every market participant had the sole intent of making money. Obviously, may did.
But some might have rationally viewed the foreseeable loss as the ‘cost’ of achieving some other objective: personal entertainment or advertising a social issue.
I am not saying this to agree or disagree with the people pumping up this stock. Merely pointing out that you have to put yourself in their shoes to understand their motivation, before assuming their goals are the same as yours (to make money).
There is nothing wrong with shorts. The problem is naked short selling which these hedge funds do. The hoodies are taking advantage of the corruption of the markets. The online brokerage firms all went down this morning, how convenient for the funds to cover. Look what they did to First Majestic today. They halted the stock for the funds to cover their large short positions. We don’t need more regulations, just enforce the ones we have. Start jailing the big guys on Wall Street, fines imposed are just pocket change to them. Go get’em wallstreetbets!
@#84 TurnerNation
Proof once again that there were far too many Starbucks selling grossly overpriced coffee that tasted like overburnt coffee beans strained through a hobo’s dirty underwear.
My sympathies to the soon to be unemployed, over educated, tattooed, pierced, mohawked, indebted barista’s that worked their way up from bean counter to bean pourer…..
As for Starbucks?
Good riddance.
Probably the best greater fool article I’ve read in a year.
GME lost 45% of its value in a single day. Yeah, big win for the kids. – Garth
The Kids got killed today pretty easy seeing that coming. Some of the most excessive markets every. Makes Nortel boom days look pretty chill.
A good chance these markets roll over hard. Sentiment supports it. I sold $200,000 in my gambling account last week. A bird in hand…..
BIS launches second green bond fund for central banks
Press release | 25 January 2021
https://www.bis.org/press/p210125.htm
#89 – exactly. I was talking with a buddy last night about how this ends and we both agreed big money will find a way to intervene. There was no way they were going to let this thing ride.
And, sure enough, Robinhood, TD and others shut down the option to buy the stock. I didn’t expect that, but literally the minute that happened the stock took a dump. Very clearly as coordinated effort to manipulate the stock price. But for a cynic, this was to be expected. Play stupid games win stupid prizes. And the “free market” wins again.
#74 Howard on 01.28.21 at 4:28 pm
#55 Faron on 01.28.21 at 4:18 pm
Vix for silver — VXSLV — spiked more than 100% today indicating that the options on silver futures are winding up massively. Price up, volatility up is a huge warning sign, but doesn’t mean the price will drop. May explode tomorrow. My understanding is that, if enough calls are purchased, any rise in the underlying will become magnified by option sellers needing to purchase the underlying to hedge which helps drive the price up in a positive feedback especially if trading in the underlying is relatively thin otherwise. I don’t think institutions are short silver as much as dealing silver options. But, the effect is roughly the same — creating a need to buy the underlying to hedge the position. This is amplified by the relative scarcity of physical silver which is why WSB is aiming their sights there — the physical silver market is illiquid.
I don’t think energy (here meaning O+G) is that shorted either on oil as a commodity nor the corps. XOM for example has a 1% short interest. But, yeah, if commodity future markets can be squeezed, that has real world ramifications and that’s a problem when if affects those who have no intention of being part of the market.
You and I are in agreement that some things shouldn’t be subject to speculation i.e. housing. The ramifications extend to people who had zero intent to play in the market (renters, people buying a first home etc.) and that’s just wrong.
…..and it’s mummy and daddy’s fault or better yet, those darn boomers for letting this happen to us. (Que the whining and public outcry for more CERB funds to cover losses).
Doesn’t matter the generation, you can’t cure greed and you can’t fix stupid.
I dunno who the clown was buying GME at $470 but in 1.5hrs a $340 haircut ensued hahahahahah
How smart are they now!?
Slow and steady for me… don’t need to get rich quick, just need to get rich.
Why do you think they have that attitude Garth?
Central banks have been cheating and printing money
and inflating the cost of hard assets for years.
Money for nothing….it didn’t start with hoodies.
The “hoodies” are angery because they watched their parents loose their house in the 2008 recession that was caused by Wall Street flagarent betters. Wall Street was bailed out ,but their parents were not and paid their price. Now, with social media avaliable, many retail investors can out perform traditional financial analysts. The shorted volume of stocks of GME was about 150% of the avaliable for sale. It was a sucker setup by the greedy hedge funds that the retail investors just took advantage of. Eventually, the hedge funder cried for help, and the exchanges complied by halting trading.
So, the kids can sell but not buy.
There’s the proof the system is corrupt.
And it tells the peons to stay in the caste system to which they belong.
We need class actions to bring down the incestuous Boomer insider dealing market apparatus that is now preventing trading to further protect and enable the elites.
Any law firms listening?
I personally think this Robin Hood style of trading is a lot bigger deal than the system is willing to admit.
The decisions most non veteran day traders makes is directly correlated to how much skin he has in the game, relative to his net worth. If his net worth $ 2,000K and he plays with $200K he will make certain decisions.
If the same dude is playing with $20K or $2K instead, he will make much different decisions, again (even though he shouldn’t)
Robin hood ends much of the emotional part of the equation.
One amateur day trader with $ 100K in the market, is going to be more risk adverse than one hundred amateur day traders, with a $ 1K in the market. This is the advantage of the Robin Hood gang. Much smaller investments, lead to much less emotionally driven trading decisions (not to mention social media support) that has traditionally been the Achilles heel to their success and what makes them for cannon fodder for the institutional traders.
I think the kids are realizing, they have the numbers to shake the system, at its very foundation.
It’s not really new to millennials or Gen Z either. They have already lived the 1st parabolic move and crash in bitcoin and marijuana stocks. I think something else is going on. Unlike the last 10 years, we’re seeing more and more investors entering the market. More investors are embracing risk than ever before (because there are more of them). This could go on for some time.
Well yes, I agree that this stupidity must stop.
This markets are not normal and anyone with even a pea-sized brain should in my opinion at this point get out of this casino and wait in cash or cash-like instruments, short term government bonds for this to normalize (which might mean a 2000 style blowup)
Greed is everywhere and this never ends well.
In the second quarter, high-frequency trading firms paid $180 million to buy Robinhood’s online trading customers’ order flow. Is this really a business-model that should be allowed?
I think this a worthwhile read on how we got here:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/pandemic-villains-robinhood
As always “Follow the money”.
RobinHood – free – but there are costs. Where’s the money? It’s path is there somewhere. And, it’ll have been making millions for someone.
Who made out like bandits selling GME? Follow the money.
The kids thinking that they are “sticking it to the man” don’t understand that the world is a nasty place, and maybe they are the target, with a bit of collateral damage to a hedge fund…
Blocking trades so the Hedge Funds and Wholesale Brokers could cover their bets (and double down at a more favorable number) is not free market capitalism. It’s the complete opposite. Wall Street is closer in practice to the CCP’s form of Communism than it is to Capitalism these days. Zero value is created through these financial games. It’s unfettered greed backstopped by the Feds printing press. Now that it has crossed the partisan political divide who knows where this goes. Just wait until the alt-left and alt-right team up and take to the streets. You can only keep the plebs down for so long before a violent uprising happens.
Garth, like it or not, you are completely out of touch here….dangerously so. The vibe on the street is 180 degrees from you. Rush gets it…..you don’t.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/rush-limbaugh-gamestop-story-mirrors-politics-elites-attempt-regular-people-benefiting
Being out of sync with Rush has been my long-standing dream. Thank you. – Garth
We love you Garth, but it was weird to address only a fraction of the story when the weirder details were already out when you posted.
Even if you are just giving smart money advice by acknowledging the danger of this youthful nihilism and excess, and calling these kids dumb – which the majority who will be left holding the bag are – it seems giving a nod to the backroom deals protecting the hedge funds from their own obviously poor free-market choices would be normal, no? Even if it’s just to explain how we should be potentially ready for abrupt rule changes because the economic system is also a political system?
That said, if you are just waiting for tomorrow for more details to shake out before talking on it then fair enough.
As Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun!” The GamesStock mania is nothing new. It reminds me of the 17th-century Dutch Tulip Mania. Google it kids! All manias since then have ended the same way. COLLAPSE!
The ones who bought early and got out near the top will think they are geniuses. Their hubris and greed will cause them to try to do it again. That is what greed does to you. The next time they will lose. The casino always wins in the long run.
I am amazed that some think it OK for some hedge funds guys to get together at lunch and collude to short some company into bankruptcy and ruin.
They get some small investor push back and they can’t handle a fair fight. They need some guys to third man in on their behalf.
They a bunch of bullies with bloody nose.
It’s all wack in the stonk-market.
Garth, completely share your view on how this can be problematic for the integrity and health of efficient financial markets.
I however completely disagree with your view on Tesla – I don’t think you grasp they will be producing+delivering excess of 5M cars/year by 2025 surpassing Apple in Revenue and that’s just the beginning… let’s not forget the inevitable autonomous vehicles/robotaxis, energy storage and batteries which collectively could top vehicle sales…let alone the potential cherries on top a la auto insurance, HVAC, etc.
99.99% conviction, Happy to wager :)
#40 wet nose, warm heart on 01.28.21 at 3:02 pm
Robinhood was in cahoots with the sheriff all along. Ha. Long rebellion.
My informal survey has revealed who the happiest people are: people living on a gov subsidy with/without a part time job and no aspirations of greatness. To the welfare bum, I salute you. You have found ‘the way’. Everyone else is destroying the planet with their unfulfilled wants.
————————————————————————-
Tell me more about your survey. I’ve come to a similar conclusion, but identified an even more exclusive club: those who have achieved financial success young then realize the welfare bums have it right, so take a hybrid approach of forgoing materialistic ambitions while still maintaining a purpose with a fulfilling job, PT or FT, maximize government benefits, and keep the previously made money in the bank growing.
Currently in the transition phase and wanting the benifit of your research. TIA.
#76 SoggyShorts on 01.28.21 at 4:32 pm
#44 SunShowers on 01.28.21 at 3:14 pm
I didn’t throw any money into the $GME fire, but I wish I had. Even if I lost it all, it would have been worth it to watch those hedge funds suffer even more.
********************
Ah yes, the noble communist:
“It’s OK if I’m up to my knees in crap as long as that guy is up to his neck! In fact, I wish I could jump in up to my neck in order to push him under!”
So much better than trying to pull yourself out. /sarc
*****************************************
Exactly. People would rather dismantle success than learn how to become successful themselves.
I recall John Crosbie once saying something like:
“Canadians are like a pot full of boiling lobsters, the one at the bottom trying to pull the ones at the top down.”
#82 Guelph Guru on 01.28.21 at 4:39 pm
An empty mind is a devil’s workshop.
Get all these young something productive to do.
***************************************
Well put, I see this play out on the retirement side of life as well.
#58 kenyon Sinclair on 01.27.21 at 4:45 pm
Why would anyone drink Merlot?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(This is actually on topic, Garth. re: sentiment)
There is nothing wrong with Merlot.. according to the comments on youtube.
https://youtu.be/KXXDC5FarhE
It is said that the movie Sideways completely destroyed Merlot sales after its release.
Sentiment goes viral, like Starling murmuration.
@#107 Millenial Delusionist
“We need class actions to bring down the incestuous Boomer insider dealing market apparatus that is now preventing trading to further protect and enable the elites.”
++++
Have you told your parents how you feel about Boomers on your daily forays up from the basement to eat your meals?
#115 cramar on 01.28.21 at 5:29 pm
As Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun!”
————
Solomon said a lot of things… many relating to promiscuity, the old horndog.
#115 cramar
Ill repeat READ “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” first published in 1841. Priceless! Can fix stupid.
Garth you must have read this? I did 20 years ago.
#111 Another Deckchair on 01.28.21 at 5:23 pm
As always “Follow the money”.
Good idea, let’s follow the money.
The hedge fund with the most naked short positions on $GME is Melvin Capital. They were taken to the cleaners. Lost billions. However, they were given a $2.75b bailout by another securities firm: Citadel Securities.
Who are Citadel Securities? They represent about 60% of Robinhood’s revenue via payments for order flow. Robinhood harvests personal data and trading requests from their customers and sells it to Citadel, who then executes the trades and then uses that information for their own marketing purposes. Kind of like Facebook.
So Citadel (a securities company), who represents the majority of Robinhood’s revenue, told Robinhood (a broker) to stop selling shares of $GME, $AMC, $NOK, $BB, etc to customers, because of Citadel’s exposure to shorts on these stocks.
That is literally market manipulation.
Did you miss the reforms that followed the US housing crash? Try to keep up. – Garth
———————————————————-
No disrespect Garth, but what reforms? 2020/2021 is shaping up to be another 2008/2009; you say it yourself everyday on this blog! Real-estate is bonkers! So many are not playing by the rules.
I am a big fan of what the hoodies are doing now. Banks were bailed out causing massive upheaval to so many. One or two were jailed for it. Stick it to the shorters and off shore bank accounts holders.
Yes, the market needs more regulation, but in general most people who work in finance generate very limited value for society and are grossly overpaid for what they do.
#107 Millennial Realist on 01.28.21 at 5:16 pm
We need class actions to bring down the incestuous Boomer insider dealing market apparatus that is now preventing trading to further protect and enable the elites.
Any law firms listening?
*********************
Accept the way things are Millenial
Embrace the lack of change or get run over by it.
“The stock market is not a casino” yet Tesla’s value in the marketplace is greater than all the car manufacturers in the world. Come on man!
I am not a baker. My mother tried to teach me but I was never happy with flour and yeast never mind pounding the dough. So in her honor I baked bread (bread maker) and muffins today.
I did did good. She did not waste her time on me. Today was a very good day on the markets for me. Looks like I was lucky to sell BB when I did. I am still figuring what to buy.
I am interested in industrial batteries. So far, no luck. I do like zair but knowing my history… Many losers before scoring a winner.
The Financial system will survive this. Much “Hoody wealth” will not.
It seems every generation has to learn about financial bubbles the hard way.
Hypocrisy at its highest point. It is ok for hedge funds to short but not ok for retailers to long.
Prelude to a stock market crash.
Yup, the hoodies “stuck it to the man”, except that hedge funds generally don’t hold outsized naked positions. Consider if Melvin were hedged with Call Options of varying durations. Then the huge runup in the stock would actually make their position stronger.
When this invariably turns and the herd stampedes for the exits they can close out their hedges for a profit.
When the stock invariably undershoots fair value they will make Billion$ on the shorts.
This could be huge for them, or if they are naked and had to close their short positions at a huge loss then too bad for them. It’s the market.
#25 some guy on 01.28.21 at 2:38 pm
It’s funny to see people “moralizing” the GME movement like it’s some righteous stand against capitalism. The movement is fueled by one emotion and that is greed.
—————-
I thought the hallmark of Capitalism is Greed.
Someone once said “Greed is Good”.
The stock markets are the playgrounds of the greedy.
Curious, if hoodies had been short 145% float and hedges were long and had them on the run? Citadel(short)owns Robin Hood(long)…Citadel cutting $800,000.00 checks for speeches..
Revolutionary, what does it mean?
Somehow the socialists are able to bamboozle you to lose focus. They spend other people’s money until it’s all gone.
The “rich” CEO’s in Canada take home a billion. The socialists get you to focus on that.
The total public service wage bill is 40 billion and they are overpaid by 25% considering our economy and how easily those workers can be replaced. That’s 10 billion dollars. Somehow these clowns hone in on your naïveté/stupidity to have you concerned about 1 billion instead of the obvious 10 billion.
Give your head a shake the next time you wake up in the morning and smell the coffee.
Socialists are not your friends.
They don’t rest until they take it all and put everyone into poverty except them and their family members.
Like Chavez they do it all with a clean conscience as they are there “for the people”.
Killing you with kindness.
Proud to be Canadian.
Seems like a 2-sided coin. The 2010 flash crash was caused by a big sell then panic by HFTs, and what do they do, put in circuit breakers to protect the groups taking advantage of other people. HFT should be banned, but nope, makes the exchanges too much money.
Any significant increase in the volume of day traders is going to lead to this type of behavior – groups of people knowing that with enough buying power you can force stock prices up or down. It works both ways, the flash crash was an opportunity for people who recognized it for what it was, so was last March and the Wuhan crash. When I see BB hitting $30, my instinct isn`t buy, buy, buy. Well, maybe buy some puts!.
Kilt.
It’s really too bad you skipped over the most important part of the GME story. The original Reddit post was all based in deep understanding of the company’s value and that there were 140% more short bets than actual stock.
Good Blog Garth.
Right on the money.
I will say this, if Netflix “Spycraft” is even half accurate and if BIG G wants to lay a hurt on these smartphone hoodie gunslingers…they are going to be in for a big surprise and a whole lot of pain.
PS:
Most my meagre investment in ETFs just some fun money in single stocks which I have to say so far horseshoes up my derriere as to how well they are doing. I like ETFs, it would take the hoodies a lot to bring one of them down, or up. Another good reason to have your investments in them.
Garth,
If I may notice, very few posts, if any, share your opinion. Did it occur to you that you might be wrong.
These Robinhood kids are actually saving capitalism.
it’s all fun and games until the SEC gets involved
#113 jim on 01.28.21 at 5:25 pm
Garth, like it or not, you are completely out of touch here….dangerously so. The vibe on the street is 180 degrees from you. Rush gets it…..you don’t.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/rush-limbaugh-gamestop-story-mirrors-politics-elites-attempt-regular-people-benefiting
Being out of sync with Rush has been my long-standing dream. Thank you. – Garth
***************************
I love how Rush is a guy worth over half a Billion dollars talking about the elites vs regular people.
In my day we used to go outside and get some exercise.
BB
Could the whole thing be fixed with a minimum holding period? If you buy a stock/etf/mf/etc, you need to hold it for 30 days (or whatever). Too naive? It sure would cut out a ton of shenanigans.
“The rabble at the bottom learned what a Ponzi scheme is. Redditers may end up investigated for market manipulation, especially those insiders who lit the fuse.”
I agree with most of what you posted, Garth, but I don’t get who you are concerned with and about. Ponzi schemes have a “Ponzi”. As far as I can tell, this was silly herd behaviour. Trying to pin it on a single instigator or nefarious character is a bit tinfoil-hat-ish and definitely not based on any evidence I am aware of.
If we are worried about protecting idiots from wasting their money, then fine, I can get on board with that. Stop letting poor people and unsophisticated investors buy options.
If you are implying that there is some secret insider at GameStop that got on Reddit and orchestrated this, I haven’t seen any evidence of that. I suspect that GameStop insiders are just as bewildered about this as you are.
It is just a frightening emergent behaviour that happens when 4 million people with pocket money jump onto the same bandwagon. Another example of the madness of crowds. And we either need to decide to let people make stupid decisions, or we need to protect them from themselves. But let’s not try to fabricate a villain where none exist.
“What have Reddit and the Hoodies proven? Yup, that more regs are needed.”
I am not sure I can envision what new regs could prevent this sort of thing without having other limiting side effects. It might be best to just let Darwin sort it out like he does with every other bubble. The cost of education is not cheap in the real world.
Also I am not sure I understand what happened with Robinhood. Sure, people were reporting a notice that said they could not buy GME, but was that an outright ban or was it due to margin reasons?
Brokers are not obligated to extend any particular amount of margin. Instead what they do is look at how much equity you have in your account, then apply some fancy equations involving volatility (similar to a value at risk calculation), and extend an amount of margin that they believe they will be able to mostly cover if they are forced to liquidate your positions because you won’t answer the phone and post more margin when things go wrong.
So, when the volatility goes to 100% the margin requirement goes to 100%. You have to use only your own money if you want to trade. It doesn’t matter if your current stocks are well in the money, they aren’t going to lend you any money to buy more. That might have been all that happened here.
As for WallStreetBets, well, there are already rules on the books against “market manipulation” that letter writers and chat commenters have to be very careful of when they post. Intentionally inciting a stock price manipulation is already illegal although I am not sure the exact laws. But if you go out there and purchase some shares and then post something along the lines of “hey everybody, let’s all buy GME because it’s going way up!” with the intention of then selling at a profit, you can get in deep doo-doo. This was a big problem in penny shares for a long time. This is also why if you want Doug Casey’s specific share recommendations you have to be a paid subscriber. If he starts dropping share names in public he could get in a lot of trouble.
And I wouldn’t worry too much about the hedge funds. There may be one or two that had an outsized position in GME that they weren’t able to close, but for the most part they are called “hedge funds” for a reason. They will just sell off some of their long Tesla position to meet margin and ride this thing through. This may be why the 5 day chart of the Dow is down roughly corresponding in time to this craziness.
Anyway, I am sure in one year’s time, maybe sooner, we will look back on this and add it to the long list of bubbles that have occurred like Bre-X. And like Bre-X, it is going to be the retail investors that get left holding the bag, not Doug Casey’s subscribers. It’ll be interesting to see what he has to say about it, I am sure he’ll mention it. I’m sure he at no point ever advised going long GME either, and would not do so now. But I am mind reading, maybe he did.
How was the GameStop stock permitted to be leveraged at 140% of it’s capacity? Those Hedging might justify the leverage, but then the value of their leverage needs to be tied to a collateral that has value. The Hedge Funds bit more than they could chew. And there’s a lot of chatter happening now. Things will not be the same going forward. I think that there might be big changes coming.
https://twitter.com/AlderLaneeggs/status/1354784345785942017
Sounds about right.
Sam Rogers : The real question is: who are we selling this to?
John Tuld : The same people we’ve been selling it to for the last two years, and whoelse ever would buy it.
Sam Rogers : But John, if you do this, you will kill the market for years. It’s over.
[John nods grimly]
Sam Rogers : And you’re selling something that you *know* has no value.
John Tuld : We are selling to willing buyers at the current fair market price.
[Sam lowers his gaze]
John Tuld : So that we may survive.
Sam Rogers : You would never sell anything to any of those people ever again.
John Tuld : I understand.
Sam Rogers : Do you?
John Tuld : Do *you*?
John Tuld : [pounding on the desk] This is it! I’m telling you this is it!
Robinhood stepping over to the other side.
Proof that everyone has their price.
Maybe it’s also time to reign in short sellers
“Hoodies” are a collective algorithem supported by bodily fluids. Instead of machine trading piracy and hedge fund legal thef we are used to, we now have thousands of “Baby Driver thuggery”.
Each side is morally matched to each other. The symmetry is simply poetic.
Watch for a stock market rupture tommorrow, and a colossal loss of market trust if this goes on much farther.
Ban naked shorting …the stock market has been rigged for Wall Street for years. Good for Redditers to squash the hedgies. I love it.
#28 Elon Fanboy on 01.28.21 at 2:46 pm
“ Two-thirds of the investors end up losing money, since the equities that are inflated inevitably plop, leaving the last ones in stranded. It’s not investing. It’s rolling the dice.”
So what? Let them do it…that’s the whole concept of an open free market.
Basically retail investors had the rules changed on them today to try and save these greedy unethical hedge funds who shorted a company by 123%.
————————————————
As I explained above, margin requirements change every day, and can go to 100%. When a stock that has traded at $20 for a long time suddenly goes to $200 the computers get cranky. They won’t lend you money on that gain.
Conversely, they will try and close out the shorts or demand margin, which actually makes the problem worse. It’s why its called a “short squeeze”.
But if you want to participate in a short squeeze, you need to know when to exit. Once the dust settles these gains are not going to stick. It’s back to my theories on notional wealth. None of these GME gains are money until you sell.
@#134 Ponzies presumption
“Someone once said “Greed is Good”.
The stock markets are the playgrounds of the greedy.
+++++
“Greed is Good”, Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s movie, Wall St.
“Stock Markets are the playgrounds of the greedy.”
I guess thats why you come to a financial blog?
For advice on how to become comfortably rich in retirement?
Or is it just self flagellation?
#133 Rico
Good post; most of us know this, but it does bring a small smile to my face, although temporary, that many shorters got there asses kicked by hoodies.. They deserve it!! :)
@#142 Soggy
“I love how Rush is a guy worth over half a Billion dollars talking about the elites vs regular people.”
++++
Well, the idiots believed Trump …. so what the hell.
The hoodies recognized an error in the hedge fund’s game plan – all that shorting left them 100% vulnerable to a mass buyback event. No sympathy here, they should have known better and they will pay.
Having said that, trading is a zero sum game. At a certain point after warrants have expired tomorrow, there will be a run to the exits on GME.
The poor shmoe who paid $480 for GME this morning is going to discover they’ve been had, just in a different version of the game.
Garth…This is not investing. It’s not a revolution…
————-
NO – this is investing and revolution.
Sorry, Today I disagree with you. What they did wrong – nothing! Did same like other investors – buy and sell.
This is UBERISATION in investing. New reality! Now came time for investing. They just used technology opportunity to do it faster without diagram, analysis etc.
When started Uber – nobody (or not too much bodies) believed in future this service. Month ago I talk with guy who taxi driver for 10 years. And he told me that his business completely dead and explained why. Sad story for him! Same Airnb. Nothing special – just business which helping people to save money.
In GameStop situation investors make money in different to tradional way. What is wrong?
https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/27/22253251/discord-bans-the-r-wallstreetbets-serverhttps://www.theverge.com/2021/1/27/22253251/discord-bans-the-r-wallstreetbets-server
It is ridiculous to ban GameStop server:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/27/22253251/discord-bans-the-r-wallstreetbets-server
HA_HA_HA! They will use another server. That’s it.
You can’t ban Internet or new ideas.
Why, for instance, nobody ban Tesla shares. Similar story just different time growing.
Why RobinHood not banned?
—-
Garth… But a lot of Hoodies don’t actually know much about the companies or the currencies. They focus on the ticker symbol and push the buy button….
—
Garth again, in my opinion – this is new reality. Why they need to know all of that. Guy who using his car for Uber – don’t know anything about taxi business. RE owner who use his apartment for Airnb – same don’t know anything about hotel business. BUT people who using they servis – happy.
Same here – who care that 95% young investors will lost money. This is they choice.
Hrm… an uncharacteristically tone deaf post from you, Garth. Why focus on morality of the situation, regulators going after Redditors, pretending that this has anything to do with investing? Why pretend that retail speculators don’t know that they may lose it all on this trade?
This is just retail speculators catching sophisticated institutional speculators on a weak play. If anything, it should help build confidence in efficient markets and it should show that market trading/speculating is very democratic for all of the participants.
Now, what should raise concern, and what should grab attention of regulators, is everything the posters above already listed:
– possibility to short companies beyond the number of total existing shares
– brokerages blocking buy orders but not sell orders
– CNBC taking down as many copies of interview with Chamath Palihapitiya on copyright claim as they could
If that’s what regulators will investigate, then it’s fantastic and I fully agree with – they definitely should.
#24 T-Rev expressed it much more eloquently than I can.
You said it yourself, this is nothing new, so let’s enjoy the show. Now that Trump is out, where else are we going to get this level of drama? :)
@#113 jim on 01.28.21 at 5:25 pm
Garth, like it or not, you are completely out of touch here….dangerously so. The vibe on the street is 180 degrees from you. Rush gets it…..you don’t.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/rush-limbaugh-gamestop-story-mirrors-politics-elites-attempt-regular-people-benefiting
Being out of sync with Rush has been my long-standing dream. Thank you. – Garth
–
just when I thought this comments section couldn’t go any further into the swamp someone quotes Rush-Fn-limbaugh lol.
carry on.
All stock market investing is gambling. There’s no real skill involved on the part of the investor, just a knowledge of how to work the system; unless they’re skilled at getting solid information that others don’t have and that’s called insider trading. Even trying to evaluate trends and make predictions is little more than “counting cards”. Trying to “time the market”, trying to identify trends, guessing at what some upcoming legislation might be; all are nothing more than guessing and therefore gambling. The only way to take the gamble out of the equation is to have solid insider knowledge. So don’t let people tell you that stock market investing is truly investing where as buying precious metals or Bitcoin is just gambling; it’s ALL gambling.
I get all the inderlying ramifications and consequences…but still LMAO at certain aspects of the hypocrisy. Each action has a equal and opposite reaction. Human nature repeats.
Bloomberg news is seemingly suffering from episodes of Schizophrenia.
Vaccine not rolling out as planned….now countries are competing for the scraps until new supplies become avaliable.
I didn’t buy BreX …but bought Vengold…made a lot of money overnight…invested it and lost it all 2 weeks after…good lesson. I think i still have 1000 shares of African Sky Communications.
Can i still claim the loss in my next tax return.? lol
Here we go again, traveling down the same road in modern digs.
Could the tppic of the day be a potential black swan?
Remember 2008-2009? How many CEO”s got million dollar bonuses?
I liked this post but was surprised that I didn’t see “tendies” mentioned once. It’s not David vs Goliath for the hoodies, it’s all about the tendies. And yachts.
Garth, for all we know maybe it was someone short who couldn’t bare the pain any longer who closed his position at $500 by buying back shares from a Reddit seller who bought down lower. If so, it’s victory for the Reddit Rebels.
“GME lost 45% of its value in a single day. Yeah, big win for the kids. – Garth”
———-
Who’d a thunk it. Share price drops when millions of retail traders suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them and can’t buy those shares….
Btw, it’s back up to opening levels in afterhours trading.
Tomorrow is gonna be lit. What stunts will we see Wall St pull?
#145
Trying to pin it on a single instigator or nefarious character is a bit tinfoil-hat-ish and definitely not based on any evidence I am aware of.
===
I think some random person will be blamed just to scare others, like in this case: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/sep/11/minnesota-woman-songs-illegally-downloaded.
#96 Axehead on 01.28.21 at 4:59 pm
Probably the best greater fool article I’ve read in a year.
And the comments this evening are some of the best ever too! I love both sides of the argument.
I’m running out of popcorn.
Allot to catch up on here at the moment. Next thought. With some, if not most major shorts now closed and yes, some new ones being opened, for the most part aren’t robin hooders now just running the price up on themselves? Stealing from the poorest and giving to the poor?
@#163 DON on 01.28.21 at 7:32 pm
Could the tppic of the day be a potential black swan?
++
I think you may be on to something, Don.
A revealing 48 hours and this post equally revealing…
Where is Felix so I can cuddle up with him and pet the cats?
Jag
Anyone wanting to make a mint tomorrow will be well advised to take a short position in $Gamestop$ at market opening, especially if you missed the free money today.
Fear has now gripped the tiny millennial brains… The ones with a few grains of grey matter chickened out today and took their lumps, wisely so. The stubborn ones will get a shellaquing like none other tomorrow.
Expect $37 share price by end of day tomorrow since not even Robin Hoodies would be silly to risk holding a position over the weekend.
Shucks, it was nothing… Just buy me a beer with the proceeds when this shiite show is over!
Wall Street teaches them to balance a portfolio by selling winners and buying losers. They’re doing what they were taught.
So gme situation is different than other stocks. A similar thing happened to vw stock in 2008. The hedge funds borrowed more stock than the company had resulting in short squeeze. This situation is like a prisoner dilemma, if no sells then price offered goes up until someone sell then it drops. Just shows the dangers of individual stocks. The people on Reddit some don’t understand the companies or technology but believe in the companies. Very scary.etf and diversity is the way. Individual stocks are subject to bad management, criminal activity, or technology. See nortel, brex, blackberry, etc
Garth, the stocks crashed because the platforms stopped any of the traders from opening new positions in the stocks they wanted to buy. You support this?
“Come mothers and fathers (or just old rich guys) throughout the land, and don’t criticize what ya can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command, and the times they are a changin'”
No doubt the hoodies are going to be hammered, but let’s be honest, those rules do not impact institutional corruption and manipulation.
#38 clayton604 on 01.28.21 at 3:00 pm
Shame on you Garth,
You completely skipped over the fact that the hedge funds have put themselves in an untenable position, by shorting 140% of the float and writing uncovered calls which they now cannot fulfill. They got greedy.. boo hoo.. they are supposed to be the smart guys in the room.
The simple fact is that few smart kids beat the adults, at the adults game, with the adults rules.. and now these smart hedge fund guys are crying foul… now we need regulators to “save them from themselves..”
You are ignoring the fact that these people are freely willing to pay $500 to stick it to the Hedge Fund, knowing full well that they wont see that money back. Some would call this FU money.. its not like they have mortgage payments to make.
_ – – –
What a childish attitude.
Nobody is “sticking to the man” because “the man” is in the middle of this:
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/01/gamestop-shares-dark-pools-owned-by-goldman-sachs-jpmorgan-ubs-et-al-have-made-tens-of-thousands-of-trades/
If you really want to enjoy the corruption of the markets, and maybe scare yourself, spend a while browsing this site. And yes it is very reputable
#64 Reich’isms on 01.28.21 at 4:12 pm
So let me get this straight: Redditors rallying GameStop is market manipulation, but hedge fund billionaires shorting a stock is just an investment strategy?
Believing an asset will fall is not equal to making an asset rise. – Garth
———————————————————————-
So GARTH how is it not equal?
The end goal is the same… PROFITS.
But what you have failed to explain or recognize is what “shorting” a company stock does to the company.
It subdues the stock price and therefore keeps investors away which hinders the companies ability to raise capital.
Gamestop employees 35,000 people at an avg. wage of $11hr.
While hedge fund shorters stand to gain BILLIONS in profits and multi-million dollar bonuses for a few.
So now where’s your UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR cops?
I do not think it is over for a while yet, Garth. I invested a small amount in Bed Bath and Beyond a year or so ago based on fundamentals and the new management team that had previously rescued Target. It just so happens that BBBY is one of the heavily shorted stocks on the market, and yesterday the reddit crowd went nuts, driving valuations through the ceiling. Today, it gave back all of yesterday’s gains, with the kids being shut out from adding to yesterday’s loony tunes. Then, just before markets closed, the kids were allowed to buy again, and lo and behold, BBBY is going way up in AH trading.
I watch, bemused, having taken out my costs and a tidy profit prior to the shenanigans. If the kids force another short squeeze, I’m sitting prettier than a lotus on the pond at the Taj Mahal, but it’s BBBYs money, not mine in my remaining position. So, I just make popcorn, kick back, and watch to see where this insanity is going. Strange days indeed. Most peculiar, mama!
“The stock market is not a casino” – Garth
Something really smells of BS around here today.
1995 KITCHENER ST VANCOUVER V5L 2W6
Area-Jurisdiction-Roll: 09-200-014-611-253-85-0000
2020 assesment – $1,665,400
just sold – $2.615 (ask was 2.198, took a week)
mouldy old bung. lot value only. smashed 2017 local record of 2.2m for a 50footer.
will be snapped up as 4x units of undertemined quality at 1.5-6m each.
bad side of town! bring extra cash for street parking.
Someone has to be blamed for all this… I know… it has to be Trump! His base was acting unruly again!
“GREEDY SHEEP”
OH because none of those exist on wall street.
Let me guess – they all donate their fat salaries and 7,8 figure bonuses to the poor communities across the country right.
Who you trying to fool?
I don’t recognize a lot of commenters on here today. Looks like the majority of rich people who frequent the comment section of this pathetic blog have put their keyboards away.
In turn, it seems the moisters and left wing wing nuts are filling up the comments section instead. Not a lot of support here today for your arguments Garth.
I thought they put a lot of limits on trading now as of this morning – probably to trigger the drop.
#183 Ken
The only one saying that is you.. a Trump supporter. Figures…
When hedge fund billionaires move markets, they get huge bonuses.
When ordinary Americans move market, they get shut down by Wall Street.
The system is rigged.
Check CNN now, great discussion coming up on Cuomo about this whole matter.
“Securities trading rules exist for a reason. To curtail fraud, cheating, criminality and unethical behaviour, of course.”
Low interest rates + leverage = ?
“What is going on? For example, when five to 15 hedge funds are in trouble, all down 10-40% each in less than 30 days and they command $100B or so of AUM (assets under management) – that´s NOT the problem. The problem is – they are levered about 10-1. So these fellows actually control $1T of assets. “
“
This heard stock story is no different than the housing market buyers that inflate prices of homes in Canada beyond of what their real value is. It is the same game different field. Pyramid scheme in the making…
The above is very true…
What happened to these companies with their stock so high? Did they hire more workers? Did they open more stores? Acquire other businesses? Seems they just continued as they had before.
This, I think, is the question at the core of the hoodie wall street grievance.
#153 Nonplused on 01.28.21 at 7:10 pm
#28 Elon Fanboy on 01.28.21 at 2:46 pm
—
Based on what I’ve read, Nonplused has it closest to correct. Essentially, the plumbing that sits between retail trading platforms and the actual exchanges requires a certain degree of liquidity to protect the participants during the transaction. When the stock is trading across a range of $110 to $500 at a volume of tens of millions of shares, it was impossible for Robinhood to put up that liquidity to enable those trades to go through. Essentially, when the stock price dropped to $110, Robinhood became temporarily illiquid. Robinhood was too small for the amount of flow. A bigger named trading platform with something like TD or GS behind it wouldn’t have had this problem. So, ironically, the big wallstreet houses would have been able to support continued play. Robinhood failed to foresee a day like today and is getting hammered for that failure. As they should.
Here’s the thread I found that describes what may have happened with Robinhood.
https://twitter.com/QuisitiveInvest/status/1354889390519181318
Mark Cuban was onto it early:
https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1354798465994338304
Robinhood had to tap its credit lines hard today which is supporting evidence.
Meanwhile, Elon has been more than happy to jump onto the “it’s rigged” bandwagon with tweets that are sheer idiocy. I guess he’s happy to point the finger away from his own failing company after reporting some lackluster results yesterday. That being Tesla.
This is just further evidence to me that the internet is completely broken.
#25 some guy on 01.28.21 at 2:38 pm
It’s funny to see people “moralizing” the GME movement like it’s some righteous stand against capitalism. The movement is fueled by one emotion and that is greed.
******
Silly person… Everyone knows there’s two emotions, and it’s much stronger than greed!
Just read the reddit thread…lots of piss off, disenfranchised kids that feel like they have nothing to lose and have a bone to pick with Wall Street. They say this age group is are more collaborative and principled to ideals. I hope they stick to their guns…..
The TSX could have a negative year in 2021. I don’t think many in the investment community are expecting this.
Garth you sound like the boomers on cnbc!
Bear raids arent new, your just upset retail traders made a buck. And thats the key word, TRADE. People aren’t making a long term investment on fundamentals, they are trading. We know that’s not what your outfit does but I’m sure Ryan has some gme personally even if he won’t admit it to you.
The illegal naked shorting of 140% of the float and the blocking of buying to force a liquidation (and make money for the shorts) is what needs to be investigated. Leave the retail trader alone.
Lastly, there were 200,000,000 orders in one day at 300/shr and that wasn’t retail alone. It makes a nice soundbite but this was a shot across the bow from big money players.
#105 R on 01.28.21 at 5:13 pm
The “hoodies” are angery because they watched their parents loose their house in the 2008 recession that was caused by Wall Street flagarent betters. Wall Street was bailed out ,but their parents were not and paid their price.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The banker’s bailout could have come in the form of the government bailing out the homeowners who in turn would have bailed out the banks, but no, everything went directly to the banks and the little guys were ruined. Of course, that’s the way it is designed to work, exclusively for the benefit of those who run the whole rigged system.
This racket has been around since people started trading.
The ancient Romans coined the phrase Caveat Emptor.
Nothing new, as Garth says.
Or, if you don’t speak Latin, here’s an English saying “If it looks to be too good, it probably is”.
I must have an opinion in here somewhere….
Oh yeah! Every day is Friday when you don’t ever know what day it is!
I’m sure glad my OAS/CPP lifestyle has long proven to be sustainable without input from my money. That might become more important sooner than later.
Night night Folks.
The only thing more delicious than MAGA tears right now are the tears of hedge funds who got clobbered by the peasantry.
These bigwigs had become so accustomed to getting their way that they were actually shocked that the little people managed to cause them discomfort.
voting machines maybe
voting machine wars
ES&S -claiming they sue to keep competitors honest.”
======================
https://www.dcreport.org/2021/01/28/electronic-voting-as-doubts-mount-es-s-fights-critics/
Scientists said to buy cheaper, safer voter machines. SCarolina spent $51M on these instead
Dr. Duncan Buell.
Since the state invested in its first electronic voting computers in 2004, Buell, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of South Carolina, has studied the performance of the technology in the region. He is one of only a couple of South Carolinians who belong to the Election Verification Network, a group of interdisciplinary voting experts from around the country, and serves on the Richland County Board of Voter Registration and Elections.
So when he discovered that a panel of five people with limited technical expertise had been entrusted to choose the new technology that S.C. voters would use for many elections to come, Buell asked to present his knowledge at one of the group’s meetings in 2019, which were coordinated in part by the State Election Commission (SEC). He was added, then mysteriously taken off the agenda, he says.
Read more here: https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/election/article246806162.html#storylink=cpy
By Chiara Eisner
November 01, 2020 05:00 AM, Updated November 01, 2020 10:40 AM
Read more here: https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/election/article246806162.html#storylink=cpy
Most articles I have read at least gave merit to the GME initiative (I cannot speak for the other stocks in the list).
Regardless of the fundamentals of the stock, it was over 120% shorted, which emphasized this situation.
From my point of view this looks more like a crowd-sourced arbitrage strategy than anything.
Hmmm, I am disappointed by this post. I somewhat expected more elaborate arguments from both perspectives (redditors and the hedge funds) and explaining why they’re right or wrong.
Instead the post has a condescending tone without explaining why aside from the “kiddos” remark.
Everywhere I look, the TV is explaining how a group of (kids), people got together to make a company stock go up. Too bad, that they don’t explain how the same tricks, (blowing a bubble), was used by the big boys for the last 10 years using printed money and making a fortune.
One question – please answer honestly.
Should the SEC allow over 100% of a stocks float to be short?
In my opinion, that is both manipulation and greed.
You know, I learnt allot from my first big mistake, years ago. Tuscany Drilling, lost my shirt on that.
Ate a lot of crow. Had much apologizing to my wife. Spent the last 7 years building back trust and my portfolio. Slow and steady with a bit of luck thrown in.
I take the odd risk still, sometimes when it looks like a good bet, but they are small ones, and I use a spreadsheet.
So I followed this GME thing, I read WSB too, am a Gen-X’r not a boring boomer. OK
And after a bit of DD, they are on to something, but there is no free money or is there? Heck I bought up 50 shares monday at $80. Well, holy cow what an entertaining ride! WoW- Drama, non-stop halts, politics etc. Plus I get to tell my kids I yolo’d gamestonk and stuck it to the man (maybe). Just the one time anyways.
So thanks to having a plan, and trailing stops, limit orders, I am sitting at 350% gain in cash and I still have 17 shares. Individually priced from nuts to infinity & beyond. All my other limit orders priced from what I though was reasonable to extreme greed – where triggered. What will happen tomorrow I have no idea. But I might learn something new from this.. or maybe I could borrow those lyrics from Eminem.
Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment
Would you capture it, or just let it slip?
#198 Catalyst
You get it! But I think it was a shot against the bows on both sides. Now, everything has changed! These kiddos will find another way. They are only playing the same game as the uppas with much less to lose under these current times..
On this blog yesterday we were awash in comments like, “Stick it to the man!!,” and “Bring the big boys to their knees,”
—————————————————————–
Looks like the majority agree…….
Last time I checked the rich were getting richer and the poor suffering more.
Are you naive enough to think this can go on forever?
https://twitter.com/LinaSeiche/status/1354956274048192528/photo/1
Very good, albeit brief, discussion just now on CNN about GameStop, Robinhood and what just happened.
Cuomo (hardly some left wing radical) summarized it brilliantly:
The establishment shutdown today of people trying to counter the hedge funds et al is, basically –
“Rules for Thee, But Not for Me”
The rich get their way, everyone else is screwed. Exactly what we’ve seen in the Boomer-dominated era since the 1970s.
And so we witness more clearly than ever, the total hypocrisy, and the coming revolution, of the status quo financial world.
Garth, if you do not see this, and understand what this means, it is time to retire and enjoy your memories.
My generation does NOT accept this rigging of the rules to support generational and class privilege.
To everyone out there still profiting from the financial ‘norms’:
Be part of the change.
Or be crushed by what is about to happen.
@Faton Re: 10 Doug t on 01.28.21 at 2:16 pm
I just like the utter chaos it provides
—
Liking “utter chaos” is an extremely naive and entitled thing to say. It’s only through very careful, deliberate, thoughtful human action that Canadians have what we have. “Utter chaos” can rip this apart in the blink of an eye. You should not cheer for it.
******************
Sorry, rip what apart?
It’s just another fad that will go bust like all the others. I’ll stick to my bore you to tears strategy of buying good quality stocks and ETFs whenever they go on sale. Nothing else to see here, move on folks.
Remember when US Senators got a briefing about the coronavirus before the public did, and sold off tons of assets before the market tanked and faced zero repercussions or regulations?
And then Reddit made one stock into a meme and now they are talking about restructuring the whole market?
#61 ConfusedMill on 01.28.21 at 3:58 pm
Thanks for the write up covering this Garth. As one of those mills ive been following this close, and know of a few jumped on the bandwagon without any knowledge, thinking it goes up, and they’ll sell high, no thought. A good chunk liked seeing it being stuck to “the man”, and letting the hedge funds take a huge hit. When hosing is expensive, job security is low, and you’re not in a good place due to the pandemic, you just want to see the world burn, and I can totally understand it. I’m not going to be surprised to see more of this happening now.
****************
I get what you are saying and no doubt you are right. France had a high unemployment rate prior to the virus. Youth unemployment has been brewing for a while and the flood of those retiring has slowed.
The Reddit Game Stop Mindless Feckless Generation is The Trudeau Generation. Look at the parallels between Trudeaus government style all about photo ops and stupid fad boners that vanish in a puff of social media smoke as soon as he loses focus or another mirror is needed when adult problems arise. POOF. Childlike investment, childlike government. Maybe we need to bring spanking back.
Trudeau vanishes from sight as thousands die amid an abrogation of responsibility just as life gets real hard. Can you imagine if Churchill had just vanished when our men were on the beach at Dunkirk. Can you imagine a population more desperate for leadership than Canada?
We need a general, a real tough minded field Marshall grown up who doesn’t run at the first indication that the Grey Poupon ( a spicy metaphor for grandiose photo ops Trudeau thrives on) has all but run out? Trudeaus method of pontificating on how we “ should just accept it and move on) is killing Canadians by the thousands every day.
Children are supposed to gambol ( not gamble) in the sunshine, but with a the world at war we need the adults to band together, as we do in wartime, and fight for day our children might play again. This is no time for hopeless dreams and obfuscation Justin, please take your ball and go home.
There is no vaccine for Canadians and Justin Trudeau is the sole cause for the lack of it.
I worry about the damage this event and resulting stories on the news and social media will do to those who are already skittish about investing.
….this has the potential to drive millions more people into GIC, high interest chequjng accounts and “Better to invest everything in real estate”…Much safer.
Potentially sucks for your message Garth.
Although I generally think you are brilliant, witty, and informative, this post was disturbing and elitist.
In particular, let’s examine this comment: “Look what happened yesterday to those kids who bought GME at $500 a pop overnight. The smart money bailed. The stock crashed, gyrated and shocked.”
What you failed to mention was that the ONLY REASON the stock dropped today is because Robinhood (the trading platform for the “little guy”) ended trading in GME, which was followed by TDAmeritrade, Interactive Brokers, etc., WHILE HEDGE FUNDS (which you describe as “Smart Money”) were able to get out of their disastrous shorts. And why was this allowed, because Melvin Capital got killed on Wed and needed a bailout from it hedgy friends at Citadel and Steve Cohen (another member of the “smart money” crowd). Since Melvin Capital had naked shorts, the loses were monumental. But in order to limit the losses, the Robinhood gang were cut off at the knees. In other words, Wall Street tycoons could trade stock, but little guys couldn’t.
This inequality is exactly the reason people hate Wall Street, since it is game where the hedge funds win and the little guy loses. But this time might be different since many of the democrats in Congress, and even conservatives like Ted Cruz, agree that the Robinhood and other brokerages need to be investigated. The playing field must be made level.
Oh, and one more thing, GME is up sharply in this evening’s overnight trading … tomorrow the “smart money” crowd may be just a little poorer. Let them eat cake.
Garth, the last time I had Rush Limbaugh on Sirius Radio
out in the barn my Cows Stopped Producing Milk.
Garth,
You always say that Canadians have so little financial assets and only rely on housing. They watch the markets like to today and see the rules get changed mid game and they see that the game is rigged.
Imagine a big REIT getting the housing market to stop, only letting people sell their property to them at a greatly reduced price. They would not be allowed to purchase real estate at all until the REIT got their positions covered, seems fair right, how a free market should be run.
@JAG
The system is in a delicated house of cards position or at the least very fragile one. Wouldn’t take a big black swan event to tip things in a negative direction and set up the cascading change of events. And we thought all the crazy would disappear with Trump.
Very, very ugly.
Ban short selling; especially naked short selling.
hmmmph,,,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd10x8LiuBc
This is the most patronizing post I’ve seen yet. Garth you are missing the big picture. This is about the injustice of robinhood and other exchanges disallowing purchasing whilst allowing selling. How have you not seen that on the news? How is this fractionalized version of the story what you are posting?
>Inspiration struck so I had to write something.
Zoolander 3. Script update.
Prime Minister Zoolander reeling from the costly loss of the SuknBlow Pipeline drowns his sorrows in tastefully expensive wine. Still fancily dressed, he falls into his bed muttering under his breath:
PM Zoolander: “No Joe, pipeline go… No, Joe, pipeline go…”
But alas, PM Zoolander’s sleep gives him no rest as he feverishly falls into a spirited dream…
PM Zoolander is seen in a house which is spinning, spinning in a tornado. He looks out a window terrified at the chaos.
The house quickly falls to the ground and lands with a crash.
PM Zoolander steps out of the house to see himself surrounded by midget politicians: congressmen and senators, male and female, staring shocked at him. The midget politicians, the munchkins of the mind, point to the striped-stockinged legs sticking out from under the house.
Munchkin Politicians: “The Wicked Witch of East New York, Queens! The house fell on her!”
The striped-stockinged legs curl up under house.
PM Zoolander stares at them in awe as they stare back at him in awe.
“GME lost 45% of its value in a single day. Yeah, big win for the kids. – Garth”
Sorry for the double post, but go check after hours trading. The clearing houses lifted their probably illegal boycott on buying but not selling and the stock is up 60%.
The Gamergate nerds (Alt Right before rebranding of Alt Right as White Supremacists) have morphed into Gamestop Hoodies. Seven years ago these nerds were playing war games in their parents basement. Now they are playing Wall Street games with real money. Still in their parents basement. But comes a time when you need money to get girls & stuff. They’ve made their play & thy name is gold.That means the right wing of the populist camp. Soon the Wall Street bonuses come out. It’ll be epic. Trumpists (rebranded Demagogues by the Never Trumpers) will be able to crawl out from their rocks. Demagogues, Hoodies allied with Progressives. Pink turbans & big wide beautiful Spanish eyes aren’t that hard to take. Even up the odds. Howl at the Party of Davos.
People, this all started over a year ago. Like a play in three acts we are now witnessing the third. Encore to follow and many, many derivative plays to follow given the popularity of this one.
Citadel is a hedge fund that owns Melvin Capital Management.
Melvin is a GME short seller that is predicted to lose billions.
Citadel also owns the Robinhood app.
Which banned retail investors from purchasing a number of stocks earlier today…including $GME.
Which led to huge increases in after hours GME purchases in Canada and Europe that are going on as I type this at 9pm PST.
We will soon find out but for now it looks like a Reddit user known as Potato-In-My-Ass might have forced Citadel into obvious and visible (and blatant) market manipulation.
I can hardly wait for the US media to somehow link this to antifa and/or BLM.
I lost confidence in my ability to understand the market when the Fed raised Interest rates by 25 basis points two years ago, and the market had a cow…Then back to printing, and easing, and praying.
I do have to echo Garth’s concern, though, as with no Income for Seniors, and Pension funds, if the Market is Depreciated and becomes Untrustworthy, where does that leave, many in the system. Regular members.
I am confused why people are acting as if those who bought GME at $200 or $250 or $375 are naïve sheep being misled. On the Reddit forum it seems abundantly clear that everyone knows this is unsustainable long term as references and links to the VW short squeeze are in basically every comment thread and commenters openly discuss the fallout after the pop. Furthermore, part of the (admittedly concerning) allure of WSB is the “loss porn”, where people post pictures of their massive one day losses on reckless gambles. Playing roulette with the market is all part of the weird subculture of the place and they revel in it. Most of these young people trading GME have lived through their parents losing jobs and homes in the GFC, so they most definitely know that when bubbles pop it hurts. Some of the above comments describe what is happening as a pump-and-dump scheme. Is it really a pump-and-dump if everyone knows the floor will drop out from underneath them and are consciously choosing to play chicken with it?
“They’re able to do what Occupy Wall Street was never able to do,” “The little guy figured out a different way around it, which was, well, if you can’t beat them, join them.”
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/rebelling-against-1-hoarding-wealth-reddit-users-on-gamespot-s-rise-2359692?pfrom=home-ndtv_topstories
Here’s an explanation. Nope, not “the man” sticking it to the little guy. Robinhood simply couldn’t put up the cash needed to meet the rules. A better capitalized brokerage wouldn’t have had this problem.
https://threader.app/thread/1354952686165225478
@#210 Millenial Delusionist
“Be part of the change.
Or be crushed by what is about to happen.”
++++
Does that mean your have to take your clothes out of the Dryer and fold them yourself?
The horror……the…….horror……..
@#210 Millenial Illusionist
I’ve also heard that after you pack your parents off to the “home”….
You can sell their assets and move to China where….for a small fee….they will wipe your bum for you AND tell you if you have Covid or not.
A bargain at twice the price in my book!
Send us a postcard……
GME may be worth $1B, but Melvin is $20B + $2.75B. Melvin made a greedy but fatal bet and hook himself to this. WSB is here to show they don’t like hedge fund shorting and manipulating with their power, and they caught this fish. When pulling out from water, at least $22.75B will be redistributed.
This is not investing. There’s no need to look at fundamentals or momentum.
The investors for a poor/rigged fund pay the price. They are also too greedy to pick a fund that pays too well.
#193 Faron on 01.28.21 at 9:13 pm
I agree with your analysis. I missed the inter-broker liquidity problem that you highlight but that I think was also a factor. When Robinhood wants to place an order for so many shares at such a price with Citadel they have to post credit. So it probably isn’t a coincidence that now that they have drawn down some $200,000,000 in available credit they can start limited trading again tomorrow.
Another thought that just crossed my mind: I’ve seen these short squeezes before, but usually the squeeze is started by another big institution calling “bullshit”. So the 140% short float might have got somebody with deep pockets attention. The WallStreetBets thing might just be cover. You alluded to institutional involvement as well but I wonder if they started it.
Gold up
Bitcoin up
Housing up 17%
Interest rates down to .25%
Vaccines down
China’s economy up
Canadian money printing up 12%
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/disease/playing-with-causes/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
#204 Decel on 01.28.21 at 9:48 pm
Most articles I have read at least gave merit to the GME initiative (I cannot speak for the other stocks in the list).
Regardless of the fundamentals of the stock, it was over 120% shorted, which emphasized this situation.
From my point of view this looks more like a crowd-sourced arbitrage strategy than anything.
Hmmm, I am disappointed by this post. I somewhat expected more elaborate arguments from both perspectives (redditors and the hedge funds) and explaining why they’re right or wrong.
Instead the post has a condescending tone without explaining why aside from the “kiddos” remark.
—————-
Chris Cuomo interviewed Robin Hood’s Vlad Tenev and
Wallstreetbets Jaime Rogozinski today.
The hoodies are forgetting who makes the rules, enforces them and profits from them in the financial world. Hint- they’re are the same. They can occasionally chip away but no substantial effect will be allowed to be made. This is why smart gamblers get into finance positions…on the right side of the bet at last.
They say this age group is are more collaborative and principled to ideals. I hope they stick to their guns…..
———————
this.
they are not even starting to think about giving up. this is going to get bigger. could see 1000 as dumb as it sounds.
just look at bitcoin, there is a sucker born every 0.02 seconds. btw btc just jumped 5000 in 30 min on nothing but an elon tweet.
#142 SoggyShorts on 01.28.21 at 6:37 pm
I love how Rush is a guy worth over half a Billion dollars talking about the elites vs regular people.
—————————————
So what?
Is there a salary or wealth cutoff beyond which one is not allowed, according to you, to sympathize with the working class or advocate for their interests?
Are non-veterans (for example) allowed to advocate for veterans?
#140 Dr on 01.28.21 at 6:36 pm
Garth,
If I may notice, very few posts, if any, share your opinion. Did it occur to you that you might be wrong.
===========================
So, um, truth is determined by how many people believe something, is that it? Well at least you’ve identified the problem…
The petty envy and bitterness on display has always existed but man, it’s at new levels these days. Apparently one’s feelings of wealth and self-worth are only relative to every other loser. Kinda sad. Big downside to all the fake online community.
I find it all a bit foreign, this blaming everyone and everything else for what happens in one’s own life. I don’t see how that works well for anyone, but /shrug.
But the sheer level of entitlement it takes for people living in CANADA of all places to become burn-it-down nihilists is almost impossible to comprehend.
I’m hoping it’s just garden-variety stupidity. But as the goddess recently commented: “25 years ago we were cloning sheep. Today we have to try and convince people the earth isn’t flat.”
Buy hey, buying opportunities will present on the broader markets in the short term if confidence dips, so…every cloud!
Very, very important details missing here.. The share price didn’t just fall because it got too high. The brokers, in a coordinated fashion, changed the rules mid game.. As usual. Mid morning, they stopped allowing customers to buy these tickers. In many cases they force liquidated the positions in clients accounts. They deliberately crashed these stocks to allow their hedge fund clients to cover their shorts. And before you jump in and tell me I don’t understand, let me assure you that I most definitely do.. Ive been in this industry full time for over 20 years.
This time around, the kids actually beat the hedgies at their own game, and they could have bankrupted them without the little bailout. They were short 140% of $GME float, which is so shockingly stupid, it’s almost criminal.
Anyhow, yes $GME is garbage.. Yes the mills would eventually be crushed on it, yes $DOGE is a joke.. It’s just that we shouldn’t miss the real story from yesterday. It was a bailout, yet again, of idiotic establishment types who can’t see the writing on the wall. They aren’t that special, their bailouts won’t continue forever, and people are getting pissed.
Robinhood ran out of capital to settle trades. Keep your pants on. No conspiracy. – Garth
#227 Ustabe on 01.29.21 at 12:15 am
We will soon find out but for now it looks like a Reddit user known as Potato-In-My-Ass might have forced Citadel into obvious and visible (and blatant) market manipulation.
————-
The evidence was planted.
Can you imagine losing the war to someone called Potato-In-My-Ass? The ignominy!
In court, a good lawyer would use the term over and over to embarass Citadel. The huge, wealthy and powerful Citadel legal team arrayed against 24 year old Potato-In-My-Ass, definitely wearing a man bun and biking in to the courthouse each day.
Oh my God, stop the world from turning! The Oligarchs and their extremely wealth hedge funds are loosing money. This is not supposed to happen!! It is supposed to be Socialism for the Oligarchs and brutal Capitalism for the peasants. Time to change the rules. Bring in the SEC, call Congress into action. They taught the peasants a lesson when the elected Trump and they will teach them a lesson for upsetting their rigged stock markets. Bring in the Cossack!!
#227 Ustabe on 01.29.21 at 12:15 am
We will soon find out but for now it looks like a Reddit user known as Potato-In-My-Ass might have forced Citadel into obvious and visible (and blatant) market manipulation.
————-
The evidence was planted.
Can you imagine losing your company to someone called Potato-In-My-Ass? The ignominy!
In court, a good lawyer would use the term over and over to embarass Citadel. The huge, wealthy and powerful Citadel legal team arrayed against 24 year old Potato-In-My-Ass, wearing a man bun and biking in to the courthouse each day.
@#241 BillyBob on 01.29.21 at 5:48 am
Brilliant post, BillyBob. I could not agree more. And this is the legacy of so many people living so dependently on social media platforms and the like.
I did not expect the longs to rally back and have to admire their whole ‘damn the torpedos’ attitude. But I’m always a fan of unrest and panicked prey.
So much fun. Can’t wait for the market open. No predictions, just anticipation.
Proving yet again that no generation holds the moral high ground and that greed rules.
Cynicism…is good.
WSB – Reddit — Wow! From under 1 million subs a couple of days ago …to almost 6 million today.
6 million people from all over the globe bringing you real time information arbitrage – commentary, humour, links, CNBC bashing. You’re INSIDE the GME casino.
These guys KNOW the dice are loaded & the cards are marked. They’ve been under constant cyber attack— from cutting their lines of communication (Discord & Reddit threads) to being screwed over by their trading platforms.
Find a LIVE thread to get in on the action. What a party! If you don’t see a ” just now ” beside the commentor’s name… you are NOT on a live thread.** And keep reloading the page.** The comments come in at a rate of 100 K per hour at their peak.
Here’s a current live thread :
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7ptxi/daily_discussion_thread_for_january_29_2021/
I’m addicted. And probably going to dive even deeper into the rabbit hole with the link below – (Stream Chat on the right & video game options to your left ladies & gentlemen)… PLUS Discord Audio :
STOCK WATCH PARTY — WALL STREET BETS Radio Debate On Retail Trading! — 24 HOUR STOCK DISCUSSION — BATTLE OF GME
https://www.twitch.tv/officialstrakerak
I think its called a double standard.
Maybe we should all step out of the market for a few months. See how the institutions like that. Isnt it buy and hold little guy that keeps things stable. Thats what they are afraid of. Maybe ill join wall street bets and suggest it
So let me get this straight: When the government taxes corporations it’s tyranny, but when Wall Street stops Americans from trading stocks it’s just business?
Good morning! This is much better than a soap or reality show! Todays episode is going to be awesome.
I see robby is being recapitalized and opening trading, why would other platforms restricted trading, other than having the same capitalization issue?
I’m late to the chat submissions and doubt that few read this, but I honestly do not see any difference in the guys pumping up stocks online and the hedge fund guys who recommended shorting the stock. Both are advertising their thoughts, intentions, and do so with the plan of making money. There were, no doubt, hoards of fools who jumped on the short position too, in response to the hedge fund’s moves. I’m not a guy who’s against the man, nor am I a guy who is against the retail players. Let the market be free.
Take Tesla. Do I think that Tesla is overvalued? Based on current sales, it is easy to think this way; however based on potential, it could seriously be undervalued. If I bought it, high or low, that should be my choice.
I think Potato in my Ass should be renamed Green with envy.
The 60 second attention span of the internet crowd should guarantee that this will be a nonevent in a few weeks as the social warrior fruit flies drift on over to the next bowl of food.
And the rich get richer :)
Look at precious metals pre-market. Today will be very interesting. As I stated in a post above, I do not envy the bullion banks with their massive silver short positions right now.
I also predict that this blog post will get 400+ comments.
This must end. It has dominated our society for far too long. The establishment elites are the enemy of our future.
If we need to build more jails for these crooks, let’s do it.
Oh grow up. – Garth
GARTH getting the shake down today.
Guess he has no poor struggling friends or family.
Or he’s never grown up or even spent a week in the projects of a US or Canadian large city to see what it’s like trying to survive in the bottom 1% of a 1st world country.
I grew up in Detroit for quite sometime.
I’ve seen more guns drawn than you’ve seen wine bottle openers in action.
Poor, struggling financially illiterate daytraders manipulating stocks and distorting markets for effortless profits? I cry for you. – Garth
Hoodies didn’t move the market. This is part of the attacks in this current WW3. Financial hits. Now they are coming for the silver markets. Watch for new harsh regulation. Hey those troops still are in Washington DC – Martial Law Lite. And a bunch of rednecks cause this?
That two hits were on backbone communication stocks, NOK and BB should raise some hairs.
Are we being conditioned? At once the only access to markets for most – retail brokers – forbade people from buying, selling – transacting commerce. Without the mark? Maybe, next time.
Remember, in this New System every system designed to protect us has been turned against us. Your neighbours are now snitches. Police criminalize you.
“Health care” no longer offers preventative and elective surgeries and procedures.
Politicians trample Charter rights, shutter business and force onto the coming UBI.
Schools traumatize children using obscene CV protocols, jail-like and isolation.
You want to believe Bats and Hoodies created this new global slave system? No way it was YEARS in the making and expertly rolled out that week in March ’20.
‘Keep your rent’ was the first salvo.
…..
In the 80s this same market manipulation game played out with Junk Bonds:
https://www.amazon.ca/Barbarians-Gate-Fall-RJR-Nabisco/dp/0061655554
The fight to control RJR Nabisco during October and November of 1988 was more than just the largest takeover in Wall Street history. Marked by brazen displays of ego not seen in American business for decades, it became the high point of a new gilded age, and its repercussions are still being felt.
https://www.amazon.ca/Predators-Ball-Burnham-JunkBond-Raiders/dp/0140120904
The Predators’ Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the JunkBond Raider
Silver market cornered – before my time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday
Silver Thursday was an event that occurred in the United States silver commodity markets on Thursday, March 27, 1980, following the attempt by brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt, William Herbert Hunt and Lamar Hunt to corner the silver market. A subsequent steep fall in silver prices led to panic on commodity and futures exchanges.
Love these kamikazee traders! FINALLY – Some action & ENERGY after a year of lockdown nothingness.
The live threads aren’t anything like they were a couple of days ago. Tons of bots, infiltrators, & they’re moderating the living hell out of them now. But still better entertainment than anything else going. Pandemic? What pandemic. World Economic Forum with communist Xi Jinping as keynote speaker? Pfft.
Even sanctimonious Sorkin , who worships at the feet of Davos/WEF, has been pulled into the GME vortex.
Some of the WSB comments are hilarious. Here’s a guy who wants to buy more GME shares but has to send some hitmen into a video game to kill his girlfriend before she’ll let him have the money :
“Girlfriend will only let me buy more GME under 1 condition
I’ve pretty much used up all of my personal savings to buy GME the past couple of days. I want to buy more but that would require for me to dip into our joint account that we are building up for our wedding
She will only let me use our shared savings to buy more GME every 10 deaths on Valorant.
Please bombard her or do whatever is necessary to make her die more in game. We have $40k in the account and I want to go full retard today and yolo everything for more GME.
She’s streaming on twitch as WanderlustEmmy she needs more deaths for the cause! ”
And, Sail Away, was this you ?
“I called the Robinhood customer support to ask about what to do with the GME and BB stocks…
They said: “PLEASE HOLD”.”
I’m not saying that it’s right, or moral, or even legal, but it really is kind of fun to watch David screw over Goliath while playing by Goliath’s own rules.
It’s a classic literary plot line.
It’s partly revenge, partly karma, partly schadenfreude.
The weak peons rise up en masse to out manipulate the manipulators.
The satisfaction is intense, but short lived.
Like a hit of crack cocaine, or an even worse drug, like sugar.
Fun while it lasts, but sooner than later, the satisfaction reverts to the original misery and despair that preceded it.
The hoodies definitely got one over on the evil empire.
Ultimately, the evil empire will prevail, and beat the hoodies back into the submissive oblivion from which they came.
Wall street can take the hit. It has deep pockets, the backing of the deep state, and staying power.
Hoodies have stim cheques that are going to disappear soon.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
My money is on the long game: Wall Street.
Slow and steady.
Up she goes.
So true:
Robert Reich
@RBReich
Jan 27
If Redditors rallying GameStop is unacceptable market manipulation, what would you call it when greedy Wall Street bankers gambled away our entire economy in 2008 and faced no consequences?
Was picking up some veggie wraps at Freshii about a month ago and noticed a line up out-side a store next door called GameStop.
Asked one of my boy’s what this was and he said it’s a store for gamers that they liked.
Andrew Left of Citron covered his short position early in GME cause he saw the lights of the freight train coming.
He did the same thing a few months ago with JMIA (African amazon)where he talked up the short side then went long after online investor backlash.
Don’t know how this ends but it appears there isn’t enough shares in existance in order for shorts to cover.
This very smart 74 year old Paleo Boomer nails it:
Robert Reich
@RBReich
14h
I’m old enough to remember when Wall Street gambling nearly toppled our entire economy but not one major executive ever went to jail for it.
#255 crowdedelevatorfartz on 01.29.21 at 8:47 am
I think Potato in my Ass should be renamed Green with envy.
The 60 second attention span of the internet crowd should guarantee that this will be a nonevent in a few weeks as the social warrior fruit flies drift on over to the next bowl of food.
And the rich get richer :)
———————————-
Your most out of touch comment yet. And given that you practically live here, that’s saying something. It’s like you’re sneering and hoping they lose everything just because they’re young.
Social warriors? Actually, it seems to be mostly working class young people on the political right that are doing this, though given the volume it appears that some deep pockets have climbed aboard. So-called SJWs have made common cause because it’s a clear-cut case of Wall Street telling retail investors “Rules for thee but not for me”. This is the rare time that Left and Right can agree.
Why are you siding with corrupt elites and against true free markets?
I guess the Green with Envy backlash was inevitable.
They have been told “you’re special” from day one.
Coddled, protected, helicopter parented, and now that they are alllll growed up………
They have, to their horror discovered .
It’s a cold cruel world out their and they arent “special”.
To be successful means actually having to work for it.
Shock of shocks, you dont start at the top and make 200k per year.
Angry, frustrated and realizing they will have to , eventually, leave the basement, work at a job for 40 years, and then, hopefully , retire in some sort of comfortable life, without mommy still cooking their meals and doing their laundry ….. I guess I’d be angry too.
Reality is a cold slap in the face.
But the Trudeau and AOC socially correct, political empowerment pimps have promised them the future will be nicer to them and their ilk.
Silly kid-dults, still dont realize they’re being played ….
And the rich get richer…. :)
Also known as Hari-Kiri, or Seppuku.
Honourable, but fatal.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1999/03/why-do-japanese-commit-hara-kiri.html
#248 Sail Away on 01.29.21 at 7:46 am
I did not expect the longs to rally back and have to admire their whole ‘damn the torpedos’ attitude. But I’m always a fan of unrest and panicked prey.
So much fun. Can’t wait for the market open. No predictions, just anticipation.
—————————————-
That’s where I’m at. No matter what side you are on, this is good stuff.
#257 …The establishment elites are the enemy of our future…
Oh grow up. – Garth
_______
I get what you’re saying Garth, but we need to look deeper to understand the reason for the sentiment, the reason that Trump has 70 million followers. The wealth divide, racial divide, etc. is a real problem. Especially in the U.S. but in Canada as well. People have lost hope and that’s not sustainable.
Where is the Expert Sailo?
Maybe he lost his “Shorts”
#265 Howard on 01.29.21 at 9:40 am
Your most out of touch comment yet. And given that you practically live here, that’s saying something. It’s like you’re sneering and hoping they lose everything just because they’re young.
=============================
So, um, risking “losing everything” is somehow to be rewarded?
Takes praising stupidity to new heights. Youth has nothing to do with it. The “fight the power” message is romantic, but doesn’t even reflect reality except in the fevered minds of the Reditters.
If the “diamond hands” think their student loans are crushing, wait till they find out just how expensive education REALLY is.
Jon Stewart
@jon_actual
18h
This is bullshit. The Redditors aren’t cheating, they’re joining a party Wall Street insiders have been enjoying for years. Don’t shut them down…maybe sue them for copyright infringement instead!!
We’ve learned nothing from 2008.
Love
StewBeef
4:15 PM · Jan 28, 2021·Twitter Web App
____
Garth, reconsider your position.
You are just about to jump the shark, and seem to be oblivious about that.
#68 Faron on 01.28.21 at 4:18 pm
A warning on water futures:
One WSB thread is aimed at squeezing silver so that big banks are forced to take possession of physical silver. Silver is scarce, so this would drive up the silver price massively.
Now think of the same thing happening with the water futures market that now exists in California. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where people who need water can’t afford it because of market manipulation. That would, again, have real and undesirable consequences. I think all of this is demonstrating how much of a train wreck equity markets and derivative markets can be and how the train wrecks never directly benefit the least wealthy. Maybe there is substantial secondary benefit, but that effect is lost on all who witness twisted market events like what is unfolding now.
==================================
Agreed. There’s clearly something wrong with these markets when they are so susceptible to manipulation by speculators. Speaking of the GFC, let’s not forget that one of the things that led up to it was a huge speculative bubble in oil prices. Remember oil going for like USD$170/bbl? Were those prices justified by fundamentals? Did that speculation provide any benefits to the vast majority of people, countries, economies?
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/29/elon-musks-tweets-are-moving-markets.html
It looks like someone took over the duty after elections.
@#265 Howard the endless poster
“Why are you siding with corrupt elites and against true free markets?”
++++
Isnt it obvious.
Because the rich get richer….. :)
And all your whining, bitching and moaning wont change that.
As the 10th rule of acquisition states;
” My profit is your loss”
I’m also able to work and post simultaneously ….. its called multitasking. …but it also helps that I own and manage the same profitable company
:)
re:#257 CRUSH WALL STREET NOW! on 01.29.21 at 9:06 am
This must end. It has dominated our society for far too long. The establishment elites are the enemy of our future.
If we need to build more jails for these crooks, let’s do it.
====
Wall Street just needs some tweaking of regulations, that’ll fix things and the market will do the rest.
As far as clueless day traders, there may need some regs to prevent self-harm.
Unfortunately, Politicians create the rules and they likely won’t regulate themselves. Rules were too loose so Mike Duffy (senate) could spend wildly and it was ‘all within the rules’ they made for themselves.
#271 BillyBob on 01.29.21 at 10:32 am
#265 Howard on 01.29.21 at 9:40 am
Your most out of touch comment yet. And given that you practically live here, that’s saying something. It’s like you’re sneering and hoping they lose everything just because they’re young.
=============================
So, um, risking “losing everything” is somehow to be rewarded?
Takes praising stupidity to new heights. Youth has nothing to do with it. The “fight the power” message is romantic, but doesn’t even reflect reality except in the fevered minds of the Reditters.
If the “diamond hands” think their student loans are crushing, wait till they find out just how expensive education REALLY is.
————————————–
Who’s rewarding them? They are risking their own money and will win or lose depending on how well they control their emotions, just like all traders.
Do you even understand the topic at hand? Because it doesn’t seem like it.
Retail investors should have the same opportunity to play the market as hedge funds and other elites. Several brokerages rigged the game by permitting sales of GME and AMC shares but not purchases, thereby bailing out hedge funds from their risky extreme short positions.
Are you for rigged markets or free markets?
#270 Ponzius Pilatus on 01.29.21 at 10:30 am
Where is the Expert Sailo?
Maybe he lost his “Shorts”
————-
Good pun.
But nope, derivatives are not my game. Warren and Charlie said it’s not worth the hassle.
I am long Tesla and Blackberry, and have been for years. Just picked up a whack of Fairfax prefs and a bit of their stock yesterday.
@Robert Ash, post#229:
Yes every now and then the market, as you say, has a cow. Great, I love cows, and when the market has one I go on a buying blitz. Speaking of cows, when that happens I fire up the barby and cook up some tasty burgers.
With the news of line 5 maybe going the way of K-XL, I found it somehow prophetic that I had decided to build myself a little wood burner during Christmas holidays to experiment with as part of my cost/tax reduction plans.
I’m sure we’ll still get whatever fuel we need in Ontario – but the cost will certainly reflect the difficulty in getting it over here. Not to mention all the job losses we’ll suffer.
I wonder if the Libs are starting to regret all their support for pipeline protesters and railway blockers yet? Bet Trudeau didn’t see this one coming eh? Kinda makes it hard to say anything in opposition to canning Line 5 doesn’t it? Let’s vote ’em in again boyz, maybe he’ll just ban home heating altogether for the sake of the environment.
Anyway, I’m sure all those happy new 2020 home buyers here in Ontario got plenty left in the Kitty to pay a little more for – well, pretty much everything (if liquid fuel costs rise). Maybe Trudeau will give us some handout cash if folks have trouble paying their heating bill.
I’m going to expand the wood burning thing if I can. I am still experimenting with the rocket stove and taking notes – progress is being made, and plans are hatching. Last night was near 20 below, and the RS was kicking out some brutal heat, likely over 900 deg F on the Bell top, and red hot steel on the combustion chamber.
I may end up with two of these babies next winter if Trudeau does what I expect him to do about Line 5 (ie. nothing).
Why isn’t Robinhood publicly traded?
This is what happens when you increase the liquidity in circulation and have a bunch of disgruntled kids who cannot afford anything with.
Goodness, the boomers get ever so upset when young folks score a rare win, don’t they? Pretty sad attitude for the only generation to have life easier than both their parents and their kids.
After yesterday’s gain I am giving back. I need to be wary – good times don’t last forever. I need to be smart. Anyway, Gung Ho.
A recurring idea here is that the markets are “unfair” because they’re rigged. Well OF COURSE they’re rigged. They’re strongly rigged in favour of the disciplined investor who goes on a buying blitz when stocks and equity ETFs are on sale, like they were in March of last year or December 2018. They’re rigged because those same people will trim their equity exposure when equities are high, like right now, and buy more fixed income assets. If those stocks and equity ETFs don’t go up, they’re still like the gift that keeps on giving and pay out dividends. And now for the punch line. If you buy these equities when they are on sale, your yield is higher. Awesome, let’s have MORE rigged markets!
Trying to unload my AMC and UNFI shares as I write. Sold the last of my BB this morning.
I’ve been following this occasionally on reddit over the last month and definitely wouldn’t want to be betting against the people on wsb. They are gamblers and are quite willing to lose everything in exchange for attention on the internet. They regularly post “loss porn” ie bragging about how much money they lost on day trading. Game stop is a perfect storm, it has name recognition for the people who frequent reddit (they were probably the key demographic for it) so it can easily be a meme stock choice. Some of these self proclaimed idiots will never sell their stocks in gamestop. The dip yesterday was literally caused by the inability for retail investers to purchase more gme stocks.
Personally I don’t have the stomach for gambling so this is not an opinion based on having anything invested in gme myself, but it seems like the firms who have heavily shorted the stock will have to buy some of the stocks at a very high price because owning gme to some of these “investers” is like owning a cool pair of shoes you can show to your friends online.
#275 crowdedelevatorfartz on 01.29.21 at 10:56 am
@#265 Howard the endless poster
“Why are you siding with corrupt elites and against true free markets?”
++++
Isnt it obvious.
Because the rich get richer….. :)
And all your whining, bitching and moaning wont change that.
As the 10th rule of acquisition states;
” My profit is your loss”
I’m also able to work and post simultaneously ….. its called multitasking. …but it also helps that I own and manage the same profitable company
:)
———————————
Since when are you rich? I thought you sold your Vancouver home in 2010 and have been bitter about it ever since?
And cue the pleas for more regulations of wall street as the tiptoeing becomes leaps towards communism… All because millenials are jealous of the success of others…
What would it take for Game Stop to issue more stock? Seems like that would be in the business’ best interest – they could turn around their business with new capital.
Big organized hedge fund got taken down by a decentralized one. This is a skewed version of SRI, the goal is not to make money it’s for a principle. Robinhood makes money selling their orders to Citadel for them to front run. They got what they deserve.
Also a neat example of game theory with all the Hoodies working together.
#277 Howard on 01.29.21 at 10:59 am
Who’s rewarding them? They are risking their own money and will win or lose depending on how well they control their emotions, just like all traders.
Do you even understand the topic at hand? Because it doesn’t seem like it.
Retail investors should have the same opportunity to play the market as hedge funds and other elites. Several brokerages rigged the game by permitting sales of GME and AMC shares but not purchases, thereby bailing out hedge funds from their risky extreme short positions.
Are you for rigged markets or free markets?
============================
If risking money you can’t afford to lose isn’t somewhere on the spectrum of stupidity, then I don’t know what is. Boasting about losing your rent money isn’t noble or courageous. Just stupid.
“Retail investors should have the same opportunity to play the market as hedge funds and other elites. ”
Why should people using a free product expect the same thing as a paid version? Are we really that far into socialist la-la land where things should be free “just because”?
I’m a retail investor. I never lost access to buying or selling anything whatsoever. Because I pay for my trades. RH, TD, IBKR Lite are like Facebook and Instagram – the people using them “for free” don’t seem to realize the control they give up for their “freedom”.
So when you pit “retail” against “institutional”, I’m one of the former you are apparently championing. Thanks but I don’t need your support, bugger off.
But I think they’re getting a handle on it now.
Get a copy of Adbusters and really see what the Hoodies want to do – I’d throw a thousand into their next stock move just to push them forward -RATM
#277 Howard on 01.29.21 at 10:59 am
#271 BillyBob on 01.29.21 at 10:32 am
#265 Howard on 01.29.21 at 9:40 am
Who’s rewarding them? They are risking their own money and will win or lose depending on how well they control their emotions, just like all traders.
———
Control their emotions???
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Most (I did not say all) of these “traders” are pissing themselves with panic while the sweat pours down their back soaking their shorts as they see their meagre savings disappear.
Control their emotions. =P Thanks for the good belly laugh.
Hi Garth,
What a beautiful Friday morning. The Bunny has always been a good millennial girl, but if the time comes to stand against corrupt politicians who indoctrinate us through their lying media, you can bet I will be there. Bunnies can bite hard.
Now, is there an app to get rid of Trudeau?
#280 IHCTD9 on 01.29.21 at 11:11 am
likely over 900 deg F on the Bell top, and red hot steel on the combustion chamber.
—
Curious, what kind of steel do you use? At those temps, I’d think oxidation is going to be rampant. Maybe advanced models can use a ceramic pipe? Thoughts?
#280 IHCTD9 on 01.29.21 at 11:11 am
With the news of line 5 maybe going the way of K-XL, I found it somehow prophetic that I had decided to build myself a little wood burner during Christmas holidays to experiment with as part of my cost/tax reduction plans.
I wonder if the Libs are starting to regret all their support for pipeline protesters and railway blockers yet? Bet Trudeau didn’t see this one coming eh? Kinda makes it hard to say anything in opposition to canning Line 5 doesn’t it?
————-
The funny thing about chickens is that eventually, they always come home to roost.
#292 BillyBob on 01.29.21 at 1:12 pm
How do you know what percentage of these young traders are risking life-damaging amounts of money? Did you ask them all? I’m sure some are as you describe, but others will manage to restrain themselves and take profits. There also seem to be some well-moneyed players getting in on this. I don’t know why you’re getting so hysterical about what risks they take with their money. They won’t be the ones getting bailed out. Were you this pissed off at financial elites whose actions crashed the global economy 13 years ago and who, unlike these Redditers, DID get bailed out?
I don’t consider it a valid point that Robinhood being a free service should therefore be able to rig the market, however it is certainly true that their Terms and Conditions include a clause that allow them to shut down trades (not sure if the clause mentions that the shut down might be uni-directional though). Now that the Redditers are seeking alternate platforms as a result, Robinhood probably won’t be able to survive much longer unless it starts charging fees.
Ah, so much fun. Finally something interesting. A bunch of adult-children on all sides playing a game they take so very seriously.
Go shorts! Go hoodies!
Haha
#295 Blog Bunny on 01.29.21 at 1:25 pm
Hi Garth,
What a beautiful Friday morning. The Bunny has always been a good millennial girl, but if the time comes to stand against corrupt politicians who indoctrinate us through their lying media, you can bet I will be there. Bunnies can bite hard.
Now, is there an app to get rid of Trudeau?
//////////////////
Blog Bunny I picture you as a young Jaguar.
#296 Faron on 01.29.21 at 1:31 pm
Curious, what kind of steel do you use? At those temps, I’d think oxidation is going to be rampant. Maybe advanced models can use a ceramic pipe? Thoughts?
____
You’re right, huge temps and lots of oxygen means the combustion chamber and internal riser won’t last more than a couple years. The bell will last forever though as it does not see any O2 and rarely goes north of 600 except at the top.
This one is a cheapie just to play with, but if I like it and want to have one around, I will build a new one. The new one would have the combustion chamber and riser lined internally with 1″ thick ceramic mat, and then inside that, a stainless plate set up to protect the (expensive) mat from mechanical damage.
The one I am running now is all mild steel. The bell is an old water tank I stripped down (14 ga wall thickness), the riser is a 4.5″OD .250″ wall HSS, and the combustion chamber is a 8″ x 6″ x .375″ rectangular HSS.
#297 Sail Away on 01.29.21 at 1:36 pm
#280 IHCTD9 on 01.29.21 at 11:11 am
With the news of line 5 maybe going the way of K-XL, I found it somehow prophetic that I had decided to build myself a little wood burner during Christmas holidays to experiment with as part of my cost/tax reduction plans.
I wonder if the Libs are starting to regret all their support for pipeline protesters and railway blockers yet? Bet Trudeau didn’t see this one coming eh? Kinda makes it hard to say anything in opposition to canning Line 5 doesn’t it?
————-
The funny thing about chickens is that eventually, they always come home to roost.
___
Indeed. And what happens if all these pipeline products subsequently get shipped by rail – and 5 or 6 guys decide to sit on the tracks again?
#297 Sail Away on 01.29.21 at 1:36 pm
#280 IHCTD9 on 01.29.21 at 11:11 am
The funny thing about chickens is that eventually, they always come home to roost.
—
Not if the chickens [Kenney way out of his depth] get eaten by a fox [global oil trade and geopolitics] or at least stepped on by a clumsy elephant [Biden/’murca].
To that end [clumsy elephant] I read an interesting analysis of a potential tail risk wherein pro-green regulation front-runs the real demand for fuels resulting in energy disruption and a pot hole in the economic road. I disagree with those here who say green energy can’t eventually be dominant, but I agree that a too-rapid roll out could lead to vulnerabilities not unlike RH’s illiquidity problem of yore.
#302 IHCTD9 on 01.29.21 at 2:17 pm
Indeed. And what happens if all these pipeline products subsequently get shipped by rail – and 5 or 6 guys decide to sit on the tracks again?
———-
You’ll have a lot of company around the rocket stove. Heck, you could go into business.
In New Zealand, Parks burns coal in their hiking cabin stoves, so we started doing the same since there’s coal laying all over some of our beaches. That beautiful black smoke belching out the chimney equates to pure, cozy bliss.
Bet you could melt your rocket stove with a couple buckets of coal.
#302 IHCTD9 on 01.29.21 at 2:17 pm
#297 Sail Away on 01.29.21 at 1:36 pm
#280 IHCTD9 on 01.29.21 at 11:11 am
With the news of line 5 maybe going the way of K-XL, I found it somehow prophetic that I had decided to build myself a little wood burner during Christmas holidays to experiment with as part of my cost/tax reduction plans.
I wonder if the Libs are starting to regret all their support for pipeline protesters and railway blockers yet? Bet Trudeau didn’t see this one coming eh? Kinda makes it hard to say anything in opposition to canning Line 5 doesn’t it?
————-
The funny thing about chickens is that eventually, they always come home to roost.
___
Indeed. And what happens if all these pipeline products subsequently get shipped by rail – and 5 or 6 guys decide to sit on the tracks again?
ZZZZZZZZ
Hope the barges can handle the increased transportation of dangerous goods too. Can’t cross the bridge or tunnel with that… given Mégantic. A railcar full of crude would fall into that category, would it not?
#295 ‘Blog Bunny’ – yes, there IS an app for getting rid of Trudeau. It’s called ‘voting’:)
Exactly.
Same old, same old story: Fraudsters who know how to pump the vaccuous masses into doing their bidding, then watch them fall over the cliff as they fill their pockets.
And what of the capital gains on these transactions. Does anyone besides the Robinhood nincompoop and the companies he’s pushing?
Indeed, those that think they are are sticking it to “the man” are about to take it in the behind from their very own.
So foolhardy, is this comments section. Are there no other consequences to cheering on the implosion of Wall Street, other than satisfying your own jealousy? I imagine it wouldn’t be long before we were living a daily nightmare of the movie, The Purge. Yeah – a whole lotta fun that would be. *facepalm*