Reddit - wallstreetbets

[Bazza]

A Redditor found a brilliant way to beat Robinhood's GameStop restrictions

https://apple.news/AS-VpVUDIS6eQ_GEKOFT4Kw

[Bazza]

The GameStop bubble isn't a revolt against Wall Street

https://apple.news/AjWGtnUeGSwK_LWy-itm3LQ

 

”or the realization of Occupy Wall Street.”

 

Nice way to put it. Main Street is occupying Wall Street. 

[Steve]

Mark Cuban Presents A "Little Trick" For Creating The Mother Of All Short Squeezes

"Here's a little trick: everyone who is long GME should instruct their broker tomorrow to make their shares not lendable."

 

Here's his full thread from Twitter:

 

"Lets talk $GME shorts vs De-Fi. When someone shorts a stock that is already heavily shorted, they have to pay a fee to borrow that stock. In the case of $GME that fee has been hovering around 30% this week. Shorts have to pay (Price x .30)/360 per day. In DeFi that's a 30% APY.

 

For RH Traders that own $GME that money, as best I can tell, is held in street name. Which means that 30% APR goes 100pct to @RobinhoodApp 😬😬😬. Imagine if you pooled your crypto and the platform was getting 30% APY and didn't pay all but fees to you ? What would happen ?

 

This is one more way that Wall St takes advantage of the little guy. If you are moving from RH, look to see if you can find some place that allows you to hold the shares and lend them in YOUR name, so you get the Yield (Yield Farming in stocks !). Not all will allow it.

 

But if they do, one trick that I have been on both sides of is to lend out stock to shorts at a high APY and then call back my shares, which forces the short to cover. Now if #WSB did this en masse, it would be the mother of all short squeezes .

 

The beauty of what has happened with #WSB is that Wall street is learning an expensive lesson that The Way Things Have Always Been Done is not How Things Should Be Done. There is power in numbers working together. Buy and Trade Together can be a whole lot more powerful than old-school buy and hold. I'm not saying HOLDing stocks is bad. It can be great and have the same impact as HOLDing crypto. And the same principals even apply. The number of shares outstanding and their growth is comparable to coins mined (without the algorithmic control).

 

If small trades can work together and share information together the power to move stock pricing moves quickly from the analyst on Wall Street to the people working together. There is one VERY IMPORTANT caveat. No amount of trading together can keep a bad company in business."

 

 

So it seems that the longer people can hang on to the stock, the more the hedge funds that shorted this stock bleed.

 

And if they make their shares non-lendable, then those who borrowed it to short it must immediately buy it back at current prices. Ouch.

 

The algos must be burning up their processors trying to figure out a way out of this for their masters.

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Bazza said:

Suggested film title: The Wolves of Main Street. 

 

Out of rep, but I love it.

 

It's not really accurate, though: the guy who first pointed out the problem and who rounded up the info for the rest of us to see was, in fact, a professional investor, _and_ started it off by buying something on the order of a half million bucks or so.  Also, I am not blind:  there is no doubt in my mind that he will, at some point,bail out at least some of that stock (if he hasn't already) and break even _at the worst_, even if he decides to let the rest of it ride into the ground.  I also suspect that he's going to pull out more than enough to make a profit: he's a professional, and let's face it: manipulation of pricing is exactly how they make the money.  For all I know, he's just found a novel way to do it.

 

The thing is, at this point-- if everyone else involved holds, it can still work.  I'd like to think that he's going to ride it down, too, but Dude-- how much money must you already have if you can afford to toss a half mill on the fire?  I think it blew up bigger than he expected (which is going to be _great_ for him, if he does pull out and sell), with the upshot that it has become big enough that it doesn't need him anymore.

 

 

[Steve]

It looks like someone bought billboard space on Time Square.

 

I guess anyone can do it, which I didn't know before. Here's a link.

 

It's not expensive, and it could be fun, especially if someone catches it on camera and it goes viral.

[Bazza]

 

[Bazza]

2 hours ago, Steve said:

“No amount of trading together can keep a bad company in business."

Key sentence about GameStop trading. 

[Bazza]

 

[Steve]

Has the Robinhood exodus begun?

 

A petition to remove Robinhood from the Apple app store for violating terms of service.

[Starlord]

If there's a bustle in your Hedge Fund, then be alarmed now.

[Bazza]

Looks like silver is the next one. 

[Steve]

6 hours ago, Bazza said:

Looks like silver is the next one. 

 

Yes, there was a tremendous amount of buying happening Friday. There is fear of what the opening brings Monday morning.

 

There is a shortage of physical silver right now, so prices could go through the roof over the next few months.

[Duke Bushido]

The media has been saying all day that the crunch is over, or the worst part has past, and even that the GME stock problem has been closed out.

 

I'd like to say that they are being fed this misinformation, but honestly: they _know_ how to double-check.

 

For what it's worth, none of those things are true.

 

 

[TrickstaPriest]

I'm not even involved and this whole incident drove me off Robinhood

[Steve]

10 hours ago, Bazza said:

Looks like silver is the next one. 

 

I checked the wallstreetbets reddit, and it looks like they aren't the ones behind that one.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l9runf/the_silver_squeeze_is_a_hedgefund_coordinated/

[Old Man]

If nothing else, this entire episode has been extremely educational.  When faced with the same strategies that they themselves have employed for decades, the hedge funds:

• Launched a coordinated media campaign
• Publicly smeared Redditors and retail investors
• Began a disinformation campaign across all corporate media ("The positions have been closed", etc.)
• Secured $1B in additional funds from investors for Robinhood (in a matter of days)
• Sold off numerous other blue chip stocks to cover the shorts
• Blamed Reddit for the selloff
• Doxxed Redditors and their families
• Started a false flag silver "short squeeze" to generate more cash to cover the shorts

All so they can make their annual addition to their yacht collection I guess.  What's next?  Hit squads?  Did 2020 actually end, or is it December 63rd?

[Bazza]

2 hours ago, Steve said:

I checked the wallstreetbets reddit, and it looks like they aren't the ones behind that one.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l9runf/the_silver_squeeze_is_a_hedgefund_coordinated/

 

Fair enough. The tweet i saw earlier looked like it was affiliated with WSB which suggested they were going after silver next. 

 

2 hours ago, Old Man said:

Did 2020 actually end, or is it December 63rd?

 

No, we are in 2020+1. Still at least 8 more years to go.  

[Tom Cowan]

so how long till the short sellers start yelling 'it was a pump and dump scam'

[Steve]

Robinhood seems to be immolating right before our eyes.

 

Robinhood seeks another billion dollars this week after burning through four billion dollars last week.

[Duke Bushido]

Tell them to skip Starbucks and avocado toast.   If they skip two-hundred millions Starbucks and a hundred forty-eight million avocado toasts, they should be billionaires in no time.

 

Or they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps.  Or they can learn fiscal responsibility and make sound investments.  And don't eat out so much-- that once-a-month sub sandwich is just much for the fiscally-minded

 

All of these things _must_  work, because it's what they've been telling the rest of us for generations.

 

Back on track though:  Melvin Capital has a way out, and it might work:  

 

The rumor they started a few days ago seems to be working:  The began panic spreading a rumor that they were short on silver and that there is a silver shortage (there may actually be one coming, but right now, there isn't.  Seriously: I'm a metal buyer, for Pete's sake, and right now it's harder to get steel than it is to get silver.  No; not a joke).  Lots of people who think along the lines of "silver is always a good investment (and right now, steel is likely the better one, at least short term, but I'm not the guy you want to take advice from)" are starting to buy silver in droves.

 

Worse, those well-meaning folks who want to help put the bind on Melvin Capital, upon hearing the rumors that Melvin is also shorting silver (seriously-- you can't even _do_ that, because we haven't dug it all up yet!), and being unable to buy GME are instead trying to buy up silver in a hurry.  If you check the portfolio, Melvin is _long_ on silver, having been long before all this started, and having done some dealings to increase their holdings on that even as they started the rumor.

 

So again: I am _not_ the guy to take advice from, but it's not too terribly difficult to learn how to read some of the reports: if you want in on putting a choke hold on Wall Street Plunderers, don't jump at every rumor you hear: verify it.

 

Remember: every time a billionaire cries, a child gets a meal.

 

 

[Badger]

On 1/31/2021 at 10:13 PM, Duke Bushido said:

The media has been saying all day that the crunch is over, or the worst part has past, and even that the GME stock problem has been closed out.

 

I'd like to say that they are being fed this misinformation, but honestly: they _know_ how to double-check.

 

For what it's worth, none of those things are true.

 

 

The media double checking?

 

That is so adorable.🤔

[Old Man]

The latest speculation is that the hedgies* can't unwind their positions because... the stock doesn't exist.  Naked shorts have been illegal since 2008, but hedge funds operate in the shadows, and naked shorts there would not be visible until they were called in.  This allows borrowing more shares than exist, which is great as long as the company being bought goes bankrupt and no one ever reconciles the books.  But if there's a short squeeze, all the illegal naked shorts would become visible to the SEC, and people go to jail.** 

 

 

* Lol I learned a new word today.

 

** As if Wall Street types would ever go to jail, but you get my meaning.

[Bazza]

Hedgies are long on The Justice System. 

[TrickstaPriest]

16 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

The rumor they started a few days ago seems to be working:  The began panic spreading a rumor that they were short on silver and that there is a silver shortage (there may actually be one coming, but right now, there isn't.  Seriously: I'm a metal buyer, for Pete's sake, and right now it's harder to get steel than it is to get silver.  No; not a joke).  Lots of people who think along the lines of "silver is always a good investment (and right now, steel is likely the better one, at least short term, but I'm not the guy you want to take advice from)" are starting to buy silver in droves.

 

 

Really?  How do you 'buy' metal?

[Duke Bushido]

16 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Really?  How do you 'buy' metal?

 

The short version is:  my job is two jobs.  Ironically, the economy being what it is, I also have a second job. 

 

My primary job:  I work at a plant that builds portable buildings.  I am a part time equipment operator because, owing to my background, I am the best heavy-equipment operator they have on staff.  It gets weirder that all found that out by accident: it's not the job I applied for; it's something I offered to help with when I had slow spots in my day and they had a couple of operators out at the same time.  Don't sweat it: I get additional compensation for that, and I rather enjoy doing it, as it's "brain calming" work.

 

The other part of my job is inventory management, to include commodities buying.  The guy I work for owns more than business-- well, lots of them actually, but let's focus on the ones that use commodities.  Commodities being things like wood, oil, metals, PCV, and other high-volume brand-doesn't-really-matter, distilled from raw materials (except PVC: no idea how that falls into "commodities") and hundreds of other things.

 

Obviously, I don't by them all; just the ones needed for the owner's companies to use.

 

I have to track the commodities market, constantly shop for new vendors, vet them, negotiate contracts (yes: I am a professional shopper.  My wife is a bit jealous, until I remind her what I'm shopping for.     )

 

This is a gross over-simplification, as it omits the yelling, screaming, firing, and other personnel management. (as an aside: I don't relish the firing, except during this whole "stop the steal" crap:  that brought at lot of previously-unnoticed racism to start simmering, and led to mass terminations that, no lie, I enjoyed the hell out of.  Morale hasn't been higher since before Corona).

 

If I may make one more aside, related to negotiating contracts:

 

My immediate boss is the Heir Apparent- the owner's son-- and I swear, not only is he a third my age, he's the most intelligent kid I've met in years, and he's a damned good, upstanding guy.  His father is the same way, and these guys are, in total honesty, the only reason I actually considered taking this job when my now-boss first approached me with the offer.

 Negotiating contracts / resolving vendor issues-- mostly holding them responsible for their mistakes.  One of our metal vendors is...  well, for lack of a better term, he's a.. partial vendor...?   The owner also owns an interest in this particular company (long story), so he likes to use them for a lot of our finish work, at least until we can get our own coil finishing plant up and running (a long dream that is slowly getting closer to realization).  So I buy the metal,--

 

oh, sorry, TP:  The short answer is "I pick up the phone and order it."  The longer answer is tracking the metal market, the distribution, the pricing as it moves from refinement (I really don't want to learn and don't need to know anything before that; let the miners and the refiners worry about that) onto the market, see what different selling groups have been been getting, check quality reports and feedback (the internet is _filled_ with specialty forums, after all), and see what different importers have been getting-- I try to focus on the earliest sales, as these are typically lower: supply is high, and demand is usually just a bit low while buyers wait to see what the market will be "set" at by those first few sales and how long they take to start moving.

 

From there, it's a matter of seeing _who_ bought the stuff I need, and following it down to people who produces the products I need (seriously: lumber is way easier than metal, but that market is just _wrecked_ right now; the official story is Covid, but a few months ago everyone was caught with huge stockpiles all the while decrying shortages to keep the price inflated.  Dicks. ).

 

Once I have that information, I can start contacting and negotiating.  Granted, I don't _have_ to track it back that far, but there is a reason that I do:  I am in a _much_ better negotiating position when I can straight-up tell them to within a dollar or two a ton just what they paid for the material.  I won't lie:  I actually sort of enjoy the abrupt stop in conversation when I'm dealing with someone I haven't dealt with before.

 

The of course is arranging trucking, etc, for those companies that do not have trucks or provide shipping, but that's like anyone else shopping for shipping deals.

 

Yes; it's a _lot_ of time (I think I mentioned my day job can run easily seventy hours a week and more?  Now you know why), and it's tedious as hell, but it's not complicated.  Well, the keeping all this information straight and current; that's actually it's own special aggravation.    That's the part you're getting paid for when you buy commodities, I think, and I don't think you can ever really be paid enough for that monster headache.     To be fair, after the first couple of years, you sort of have a flow chart and spreadsheets, which makes drilling down to routinely profitable sources easy enough, and you really only have to check with "everyone" quarterly, just to see if anything has shifted.  Sometimes it does, and you scoop up what you can, but eventually your "regulars" will catch the adjustment and you spend a month or two dealing with them again.

 

Anyway, that's the really simple answer as to how it's done.

 

Back to the digression:

 

The finishing company that we throw most of our coil stamping and cutting at-- for the siding; we use other companies for steel studs, hat channel, boxes, etc--

 

They have a _horrible_ material handling team, and it _shows_.  Every time a truck is unloaded (which I prefer to do myself, if only because-- well, it's not bragging; really it's not, but I am verifiably better on the lift trucks and tractors than the guys that actually do it, and once the steel (or aluminum) is finished into stacks of siding, it's insane: it's insanely easy to damage it, and it's insanely difficult to handle at our current plant (we have another one built; the guys are training on the equipment on fridays):  nothing like taking a two-ton stack of thirty-foot wide siding down a sixteen-foot wide dirt lane between two buildings to get the heart pumping; I assure you.   )

 

At any rate, I also do something that the previous unloaders have apparently never actually done:  I _check_ the material, particularly damageable material.  This particular company has _never_ shipped anything to us that wasn't, to varying degrees, damaged during the loading processes.  I will climb the truck, cane and all, on occasion, and inspect the material before getting the left equipment anywhere near it.  Lots of pictures of damage _and_ any obvious causes of the damage.  Then unload, then more pictures, close-ups, etc.

 

At any rate, I am a real stickler with these guys because they are using _our coils_!  Coils that I have spent a month sourcing and shipping to them, for them to finish (Yes: I can consistently buy coils cheaper than they can because their owner has hired a purchasing team who is content to keep making the same calls to the same guys without actually researching the market and seeing what else is out there.  Sad, ain't it?  For the record, it's this kind of sloppiness that I think kept the guy I work for from buying deeper into this company.)

 

When there is damage, I do three things:  First, I demonstrate the damage, the cause, and detail suggestions on how to prevent it going forward.  I do that for every company; the only thing special about these guys are just how frequent and pervasive the damage is, and the fact that they do nothing to change it.  On that subject--

 

After about six months of this (we get two, sometimes three trucks a week from these guys) I got an e-mail from the "head material handler" of this company.  In summation, it said "my name is X, and I am the head of material handling.  More importantly, I am in charge of the guys who load your truck, and I always make sure to load your trucks personally."

 

I understand that: I make a point to unload his trucks personally, just because of all the "damage material" that no one before me could get to the bottom of: when the guys went to use it, it was damaged, and that was that.  Problematically, since we have a sign out front with a little clown holding a stick that says "you must be at least this stupid to hand metal siding," they'd use it anyway, meaning an eventual tear-down and rebuild of the whole stupid thing-- that's a _lot_ of money being set on fire.

 

He continued:

"I am a professional, and I take my job very seriously.  I make sure that there are no mistakes, and that everything is undamaged, stacked correctly, and matches your order perfectly.  In fact, I have just finished loading your truck, and it is leaving first thing tomorrow.  I want you to know that I don't know where this damage is coming from, or why you insist that it is because the material is stacked badly or loaded on the wrong pallets--"

 

Uhm, because both of those are true, and as a former truck driver, I can tell you that the wild claims you make about what happens to your material on a strapped load 'because of the truck drivers' is a complete fantasy

 

"but I don't make mistakes.  I triple check everything.  Also, I can see from here two pallets that have your name on them.  They must have gotten left off the truck somehow.  I don't know how."

 

You folks don't know me.  You _think_ you know me, and some of you might know _enough_ of me to know that it took me a long, long, _long_ time to stop laughing-- out loud; literally out loud, to the point that the two sales ladies up front came back to ask me what was wrong with me. 

 

I showed them the e-mail, and their jaws dropped.

 

 

So yeah; no doubt about it.  I forwarded it to every single contact I had within that company.  It was a sheer joy.  I was polite though: I gave it a tl;dr prologue:

 

"This is your guy saying 'I am such a perfectionist that only I will load your trucks.  Also, I am a moron.'"

 

The _next day_ we have a "Vice-President-by-Marriage" (nothing like marrying the owner's daughter, especially if you've failed out of every job you've ever had before ) from that company sitting in my boss's (the Heir Apparent) office.  I came in from the plant entrance, so neither of them have seen me.  I head to my desk, but VPbM is loud and obnoxious (part of his employment retainment problem, no doubt) and I hear bits of the conversation-- they're discussing my heavy pushback on damage-- and I hear "...and I don't _care_ who this Duke guy is, but he's going to wreck the relationship we have had for nearly forty years!  He's an @ssh@le!  He's a straight-up @ssh@le!  You need to do something about him!"

 

"I did.  I hired him."

 

Long pause.

 

"Dad has been nice, patient, understanding with you people for nearly forty years.  I've been doing it since I was a teenager.  It's not working.  The problems don't get fixed.  I hired an @ssh@le.  We needed an @ssh@le to help deal with the other @ssh@les.  I have a weaponized, professional @ssh@le, and if he only has one job at this place, it's to fix my problems with you, or find me someone else who can do what you guys are supposed to be doing."

 

 

I knew at that moment that this is the job I will work until I die. 

 

I had cards printed:

 

Duke Oliver              Company X

Inventory                  Phone 1

Purchasing                Phone 2

Professional @ssh@le

Cell                             Fax

 

 

I give them out to vendors who stop by to try to bully us into worse positions.

 

 

 

Anyway, the other two things I do when the metal siding comes in damage from these guys:

 

Demand free reforming.  They are using _our_ coil, after all, and have no problems beating the crap out of it.

I also track the footage of the damage, do a little math to get the total weight of damage of the various coils (different sizes have different costs), and send them a bill for the damaged portions of material that we can cut down and still use the remaining sections.

 

 

Well, that went off the rails rather quickly. Sorry, I've been doing a lot of this from home the past few days, and I really needed a de-stress exercise.