Merged Wall Street Bets subreddit / Too late to buy Gamestop stock?

[rdwight]

Is what i see accurate in that gme stock is still shorted 137%.. Kind of feels like as one shark backs off another is willing to take the plunge. If a large number of shorts have to be settled on Friday, how long can can the bleeding last for those thatbare forced to settle then?

If the volume of sellers isnt large enough for a single day fix, I would live to see how wild it would get next week as the price grows. If the initial reasoning for the squeeze, ie over shorted percentage remains, what exactly stops thid from cycling weekly if enough investors control the volume to stop short positions to exit easily?

 

[Modified]

If the initial reasoning for the squeeze, ie over shorted percentage remains, what exactly stops thid from cycling weekly if enough investors control the volume to stop short positions to exit easily?

Total cost. The higher it gets, the more it will take to resist the shorts. Also, the newer shorts are probably well hedged and wont need to cover - they'll do well unless the price remains stable.

 

[a_unique_person]

Is it too late for me to buy Game Stop shares?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-28/gamestop-reddit-users-on-wallstreetbets-explained/13097982

Since January 1, despite no real change in the underlying business, GameStop's share price has surged 1,915 per cent (from $US17.25 to $US347.51).
It has now become clear that the surge in demand for GameStop stock has been driven by an enthusiastic bunch of individual investors, many of whom hang out on the subreddit r/WallStreetBets.
The excited masses are following their 'king'

WallStreetBets is a place where users post their stock holdings and talk about their trades.
A year ago, a user by the name of Deep ******* Value (DFV) posted a screenshot of a position he had taken in GameStop.
He had spent about $US50,000 on stock in his initial investment.

"This dude should sell now," another user wrote in response.
​

"[Eight-five per cent] of wallstreet thinks [GameStop are] gonna miss earnings and so does earnings whispers. Plus either way [they're] gonna be negative earnings for first time. That ship is sinking."
DFV didn't seem phased: "Damn thanks for the advice."
Since then, and increasingly in the past few weeks, DFV has been posting his ever-more-valuable position — and demonstrating his uncanny foresight. (Deep ******* Value has yet to respond to an ABC request for comment.)
The subreddit is now electrified.
As the stock price rose dramatically, driven by other users wanting a piece of the action, there were desperate calls for regular updates from DFV, now being referred to as "king".
By mid-January, DFV's position was worth $5.7 million.

Reddit punters take on Wall Street. Will this end in tears?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

But this seems more like an act of activism rather than investment. There is a very good chance that current buyers know they won't get their money back out, but they are buying stock or options just to screw the shorts. I know many people put $500 or more into political campaigns last year and I can see that sort of person putting a similarly amount into this as a way to voice their dissatisfaction with the powers that be.

It is more of a form of speech than a form of investment at this point.

I'm seeing a lot of both. Especially for late buyers, the risk is super high. The price will crash eventually, and if these later buyers are too slow on the selloff, they're going to lose basically everything.

Some are, like you say, buying it as a form of activism. A suicide bombing of the short-sellers, knowing that the shorted hedge funds will lose a lot more. They seem willing to lose whatever they put in.

But I'm definitely seeing a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon because it appears to be a money-printing machine. I'm seeing tons of people bragging about paper gains and getting ecstatic, but not seeing much evidence of anyone actually cashing out and securing those gains. It's not real money until it's out of the market, but I'm seeing a lot of bragging about numbers on screens.

I think we're going to see a lot of stories about people that were up tens of thousands of dollars that missed their opportunity to cash out and are now negative.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Almost assuredly yes. Late comers to get rich schemes, historically speaking, are the ones most likely to get fleeced.

 

[TragicMonkey]

One of my personal rules is that if I'm hearing about a stock in the news that means it's already too late to do anything about it.

 

[Cavemonster]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-28/gamestop-reddit-users-on-wallstreetbets-explained/13097982





Reddit punters take on Wall Street. Will this end in tears?

It's too late to buy shares if your goal is to make money and not lose it.

If you'd like to be part of an effort to make some hedge fund ******** lose a lot more money, you can still jump in.

 

[Cavemonster]

Generally speaking no, the low and middle class cannot invest in hedge funds.

As I understand it though, institutional pensions DO invest in hedge funds. Maybe more heavily than is healthy. And the people hit when pension funds are depleted are not the 1%.

Although I don't know enough about this to know whether pensions would be invested particularly in funds that were shorting Gamestop.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I checked the options for Gamestop

https://www.barchart.com/stocks/quotes/GME/options?expiration=2023-01-20-m

Looks like options expire every Friday for that stock.

Short sellers might be taking it in the shorts.

I am rooting for Gamestock and the little guys, no guts to put any money on the line.

If I wouldn't buy Apple at 400, Gamestop is a no go, I'll stick to mutual funds.

Why is what your position rooting for gamestop and the short sellers are not? Bankruptcy might be the best thing for them.

 

[rdwight]

Total cost. The higher it gets, the more it will take to resist the shorts. Also, the newer shorts are probably well hedged and wont need to cover - they'll do well unless the price remains stable.

Oh i get that. But when 140% are shorted, there simply arent enough shares from what i would think to quickly close out a position. The largest shareholders are porbably not allowed to sell in any large volumes so constant sale from retail should be necessary.

The thing is, i dont see a reason the market cant remain irrational for longer thab shorts can afford it. Say price doubles on friday when shorts close positons, remains that way mon and tues as multiple day volume is needed. I see no reason price would have to drop beyond 200 or 300 on wednesday, and the shorts arr on the line again for a run up on friday.

Not exactly experienced or knowledgable on this, but when the underlying reasoning for why this isnhappening remains, i dont see the incentives to get out until that is fixed.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Short answer: if you want to make money, yes it's too late.

Long answer: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1354517067240771584.html

Teal deer: greedy bastards stuck their dick in a vice and it's still affordable to turn the crank.

[ETA] Actually, it may be too late for that as well. I'm starting to see stories of brokerages and trading apps disabling further buys of Gamestop.

 

[timhau]

I think we're going to see a lot of stories about people that were up tens of thousands of dollars that missed their opportunity to cash out and are now negative.

Yup. I'm kot going to shed a tear for the funds on the wrong side of a short squeeze. You take a risk, and sometimes it bites you in the ass.

I'm also not going to have any sympathy for the market trolls or followers of market trolls who lose their shirt. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

 

[Cavemonster]

Fun update, apparently a number of trading apps are not allowing users to buy GME.

 

[Suddenly]

I cannot see any possible legislation in the USA prohibiting a group of people getting together and exhorting others to buy shares in a company, that would not obviously fall afoul of 1st amendment protections.

Eta: and if they did, how on earth would it be written so that social media sites can't... But pundits like Jim Cramer can tell you what stocks to buy?

Simple. They write a somewhat vague law and only enforce it selectively against people who make trouble for those in power and who lack the resources to make enforcing that law against them unpleasant for law enforcement.

This is how law works, with occasional exception.

 

[theprestige]

I checked the options for Gamestop

https://www.barchart.com/stocks/quotes/GME/options?expiration=2023-01-20-m

Looks like options expire every Friday for that stock.

Short sellers might be taking it in the shorts.

I am rooting for Gamestock and the little guys, no guts to put any money on the line.

If I wouldn't buy Apple at 400, Gamestop is a no go, I'll stick to mutual funds.

"Rooting for Gamestop" is an interesting position to take.

I'm still thinking about the ethics of short-selling, but I'm pretty sure Gamestop isn't worth rooting for. Could you tell us a little bit more about what that position means to you?

 

[Suddenly]

As I understand it though, institutional pensions DO invest in hedge funds. Maybe more heavily than is healthy. And the people hit when pension funds are depleted are not the 1%.

Although I don't know enough about this to know whether pensions would be invested particularly in funds that were shorting Gamestop.

They do a fair job of creating human shields. Every time some greedy jerks take a bath (this, Madoff, etc.) there is always someone pointing out that the home for the poor or some pension fund loses out.

The idea that the risk of pension investment at all falls on the pensioners is the problem. It is almost impossible to live without getting sucked into this floating crap game of a financial system so we all have to root for the markets to not crash even though we get crumbs when they don't.

Meanwhile they suck more and more out of society by demanding laws that help them externalize cost and risk, eroding labor protections, etc.

 

[Suddenly]

"Rooting for Gamestop" is an interesting position to take.

I'm still thinking about the ethics of short-selling, but I'm pretty sure Gamestop isn't worth rooting for. Could you tell us a little bit more about what that position means to you?

Buggywhip, Inc. Good riddance, except...

Human shields again. Think of the people this will throw out of work in a bad economy and a shoddy at best social safety net.

Get the risk away from the workers and pensioners and on the people who are reaping the profits and who cares what these schmucks do.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I'm still thinking about the ethics of short-selling, but I'm pretty sure Gamestop isn't worth rooting for.

If you really are "still thinking" about the ethics of short selling, consider what kind of insufferable chodes these hedgefund jerks had to have been to make people root for Gamestop. Getting bitten this hard by the consequences of their market shenanigans has been a long time coming.

The only ethical dilemma here is whether it would be a net good to pause trading to keep people from throwing their money away, even if it also keeps the hedge funds from going under. The flip side, pausing trading to keep the hedge funds from going under because losing everything on a bad bet is only supposed to happen to the poors, is obviously unethical.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Human shields again.

Even beyond this one, specific incident I wonder how many companies really could function without any low level employees at all but keep them around for, as you say, "human shield" purposes.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

No matter how you look at this, one thing is clear: there is precious little connect between the performance of a company and its share price.