24 Replies to “An Informative and Entertaining Explanation of the Gamestop Saga”

  1. Nice explanation….
    Zero Fks given to the Hedge Funds.
    After 2008, bail ins of billions taxpayer dollars…looks good on any number of them.

    To the Redditeers..???
    I salute you all..!!

  2. It is wonderful Capitalism when push them down, hedge founders are destroying small businesses and buying into New Green Deal Solar Systems and Bird Chopping Wind Fans, with their billions of Romney back door dollars. Millions of jobs lost, and Millions of dollars gained from taxes written off.
    ‘”But’ “‘ Oh Hell No'”
    The Pleabs can’t be using the Internet to figure out their Algorithms and take 15 Billion from the Monopolized Money Laundry Runners.
    They should be Impeached from the Stock Market and Lynched…
    And the funniest thing is that a smart computer hacker probably figured it all out on his $300 Dell desktop and $100 Xl Internet Modem,
    And even funnier than that, The Biden administration does not have a clue what the hell they are talking about??
    Bhah

  3. For those who prefer to read, this one goes a little deeper than the ones I had previously linked, and gets into why Robin Hood had to end trading before they put themselves out of business: they had to make good on the stocks they had “borrowed” against to allow new sales, and couldn’t “borrow” any more for current stock purchases.

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

    1. Thanks C_Miner. This was the first explanation I’ve gotten (and I’ve read and listened to a few) about why someone holding stock would allow someone else to “borrow” their stock (sometimes even without fees or commissions) specifically in order to drive the value of those stocks down. If I understand it correctly, the brokerage who holds the stocks has the ability to do so, with or without the original holder’s knowledge or consent. What a racket!

      1. If you own shares held with a brokerage, they are in “street” mode at your brokerage. If you don’t have a sell order in on those particular shares, the brokerage can “use” your shares for their own account. Own shares and don’t want your shares used for the brokerage’s account, put a sell order in on them several (or more ) dollars above what the price is today. You can keep the sell order for 30 days (the maximum), then renew it.
        I spent most of Friday attempting to buy some stock I already own at prices somewhat lower of what the price was the day before. “Some of the functionality on this page is temporarily unavailable. We’re working fast to resolve this. Please try logging in again shortly.” Or the damned website was unavailable. Everyone except Questrade in Canada was playing that game.

        1. Some companies allow individual investors to directly own their stock. An agency handles the account, but the shares are in the name of those individuals. Often, these are part of a dividend re-investment plan (DRIP).

          One can buy more stock by re-investing the dividends or by making contributions to those plans. However, in order to sell them, one has to transfer them to an investment dealer.

          After surviving Black Monday 1987, I learned to simply hold my nose and ride out the storm. There’s no point in panicking as I can’t do much about it, anyway. Besides, I probably won’t be quick enough to make any good deals with all the backlog.

          There’ll still be plenty of bargains out there when it’s all over. Like the line from the chorus of the song The Gambler says, there’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing’s done.

          1. “hold my nose and ride out the storm.”
            I was buying in 1987. Did that in 2008, too. Bought on the way down and up. Picked up bank shares at 2/3 off, for one. Sold off later.
            This time I’d sold off a chunk the prior year and waited, then started buying. This time, it wasn’t natural and you could tell. I still have a good sized cash float. I track it all on an Excel graph. The peak today looks like the pre-COVID peak. Pretty much identical. That’s why I have cash in the bank. I only buy stuff that pays me to wait. And some of these stocks crash and burn regularly. TELUS was one. They crashed to $9 once, for a while. Sold them later in the $60 range. They’re $25-26 this week. I’d be solidifying energy stock holdings, despite Joe or Blackie Talk. Oil and gold together. History. Inflation’s coming and I expect a revisit of those 20.5% mortgage rates. This time Kan-eh-duh doesn’t produce any wealth to offset things.
            I just love it when politicos go on about “green” crap and how petroleum/petrochemical stocks are passe. The “New Carbon Free Economy” Seen any solar farm tractors out there, or electric airplanes? You wanna eat? What, bugs? Bark or seaweed? Forget that trip to Floreedah in winter, Tronna. You won’t be able to afford the exchange rate. Besides, every breath you take = CO2. Even more so if they bury or burn your carcass.

          2. I inherited my father’s Telus shares. I’m keeping them for the foreseeable future as he set them up in a way with his broker so that the dividends were re-invested. If the share price goes down, I can buy more.

            I’ve got a diversified portfolio which includes pipelines and renewables, the latter through Brookfield, which I bought when it was still called Brascan.

  4. Robinhood should go under for what it did but I have no sympathy for anyone in this game because the so called good guys that “showed” the hedge funds what was what are simply pump and dumpers (the other side of large short sellers). The little guys, if they haven’t already sold and taken profits might have trouble selling grossly overvalued stock because every seller has to find a buyer and vice versa. These guys are traders not investors. The madness of crowds carries with it no moral standing. Tesla has a market cap of 1.25 million per car produced while GM has a market cap of 12 grand per vehicle. Hedge funds have gone broke shorting Tesla which would, if successful, have brought the valuation back to sanity.

    Thanks to the Fed and other central bankers (and stimulus ad infinitum) this game will continue until it pops sometime in the next year or two when all of a sudden there are no more buyers at anywhere near the current prices.

    1. I doubt it. The Fed has repeatedly stated they will make sure pensions stay good. Did you know the Fed are now actively selling volatility and buying ETFs? As well as buying non-investment grade corporate debt?

      The Boomers (the most ugly, spoiled, gutless generation in our history) will not allow their retirement plans to be interfered with by uncomfortable realities.

      1. The Boomers (the most ugly, spoiled, gutless generation in our history)

        I’m a boomer. Yup, I was spoiled and gutless. I guess having to suffer through that idiot Pierre Trudeau’s NEP made me that way. There’s nothing like losing one’s prime working years to make one shiftless, is there? Yeah, surviving during much of that time off dole cheques because there weren’t any jobs for people like me made me soft and spineless, didn’t it?

        I know I’m not the only one on SDA who went through those times. I guess I have a lot of company.

        I’m assuming you’re a millennial or a Gen-whatever. It must make you feel good to have a generation of people like me to blame for your shortcomings and failures. I know what I’m talking about because I had a lot of students in your age group.

        1. BA, How right you are. Blaming others seems to be a long standing meme. Blame Harper, Blame Trump, or Bush, blame anyone, but avoid peering into a mirror. I worked my whole damn life, and never once collected welfare, and retired early at…71, yeah it’s all our faults.

      2. I’m a Boomer. What’s your mortgage at today, 12.5% or 20.5%? On a salary of $1500? Did you need 25% down, or the bank thumbed their nose at you, or did they bend over and kiss your azz, like today? How about doing it single? My retirement plan is self financed, every dime, most of it after tax money. When Capital Gains were taxed by Blackie’s Poppa, at 75%. What’s yours….Gov’t financed? Ever have .Gov legislate you out of a job? You don’t use petroleum products to wear, get around, heat your abode, place of work, grow your food? Got a degree, what kind? STEM? You don’t sound like anyone with a trade and definitely someone who won’t move to where work is.
        EI/UIC, CPP, OAS were put in place when I was 12, voting age was 21. You getting CERB or any other “bailout money”? Previous downturns when I was your age, well you’re on your own. You got nothing.

        1. Nicely stated PO. I could not have said it so well, or so graciously, and you covered many more bases than I thought of, so Thanks.

        2. Well said PO. Over to you, BSDM, how much of the price of something do you have to pay at time of signing before you get to use the physical object? Phone? Car? House? What do you actually, physically own with no payments remaining?

          I suspect that I’m younger than the other respondents to your post, but remember mom and dad talking about the trade-offs they could make when the mortgage was up to about 20%. It’s amazing how long that old F100 and bronco could be kept running.

          Some of those of us who enjoy living in the golden age of the last couple of decades recognize that golden ages cannot last. And blaming those who built the affluence when the affluence are fools, and don’t recognize what would be needed to bring the affluence back.

        3. Yup. We went through similar circumstances at about the same time.

          We endured PET’s inflation and his NEP. I survived much of the 1980s off dole cheques and that wasn’t by choice. I wanted to work and earn money, but there weren’t many engineering jobs available during that time.

          Eventually I did find something and I can safely say that the government got back all that pogey money, and then some, through the income tax I paid.

          1. I never was without a job….resources, mostly. I worked both sides of the tracks, oil and gas and mining. Back and forth, during the PET years and later. And I went to where the jobs were. I posted about it before. I have a STEM degree.
            If you enjoy your work, even if you have to change your “work”, you’ll never be without a job. Attitude is everything. And you don’t really have to have a STEM degree. Just be marketable and be the best at what you do.
            Best job I ever had (plus job satisfaction) was owning my own company and working contract. A “One Man Company”. Chief cook and bottle washer. Am I rich? What’s ‘rich’? No debt and I don’t worry about where the next meal comes from, plus a roof over my head I own. A happy partner. I guess I’m rich.

            Get rich slow. Borrow to invest and not in junk. Deduct the interest costs. Never get saddled with a debt cost that exceeds your monthly paycheck. “Save Your Money”. Learn how and “Cheat (legally) the Tax Man”. Taking a tax course is de rigueur. And if you do own your own company (wear all the hats) you can take a mortgage from your company, for your house, even just a part of it and pay the interest costs once a year. Take a dividend and use the dividend to pay your “co. mortgage” back once a year. Paying yourself. Get a good accountant, or better yet YOU be the accountant. I was for my company. Cue that tax course and get the manual. Only got audited once and when they were done .Gov owed me. That was fun!

          2. If you enjoy your work, even if you have to change your “work”, you’ll never be without a job.

            Unfortunately, that’s not how employers saw it.

            Take just any job just to pay your bills? You’re not committed to your profession or you’re not trying hard enough to find something suitable.

            Holding out for something more suitable? You’re a snob, thinking that jobs for which aren’t “perfect” or “ideal” are too good for you.

            Get laid off a lot or take a number of short-term jobs? You’re unstable.

            I heard the last one from a certain manager, someone who wasn’t even in the country during much of the 1980s and, so, had no direct experience with what went on back then.

  5. Democratization of economies made the peasants prosperous. Oligarchs were making piles of dough so they were tolerated.
    Now the outsiders are outflanking the insiders, who (likely) called in a statist marker, so the rumour goes, with apparent evidence.
    Once more, well connected big businesses like Twitter insulate themselves from the risk of their stupid business decisions.
    Like the last US federal election, somebody has to “change the rules” to where they don’t exist, like counting illegal ballots.
    They will win. If they can do it fairly, well fine. But when their hegemony is disturbed or threatened, the leviathan is unleashed.

    Welcome to the big crunch of liberalism’s big bang, despite enabling free prosperous societies, is now supplanted by the neo-royalty of snobbish and craven media, arts and collectivists. What liberalism was founded to combat has been reasserted.

    Fat, happy, stupid, poorer, shut in and up, soon in mortal danger. Progressivism. Taxation. Inflation. War.
    When the final nail in the coffin of liberty is driven in, I get to say I told you so, because I did.

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