Yossarian wrote:

equinox_code wrote:

it's just a place where all life's aspiring cheaters face off against each other to see who can leverage the most unearnt wealth off the backs of others?

The stock market is, in theory, a reasonable thing to have. Allowing companies to raise capital by selling shares is no bad thing, if people can buy shares then they need to have the ability to sell them too, the stock market is a place to do that. The existence of a stock market isn’t the issue so much as how it’s used.

Also agree with this. The stock market can be a useful tool for securing investment in businesses, but in it's current form it is just completely open to abuse by those with the power to buy and sell a lot of stock. This wasn't a problem in the past when it was only the wealthy who could do it and when "normal" people couldnt just trade from their phone on an app they got off the store and before people realised that together, their collective piecemeal purchase of stock is actually a significant force on the market prior to this week's events. 

The WSB subreddit is now looking for other companies who are heavily shorted so they can do the same thing again, although it won't be on the same scale as gamestop as that was far and away the most over shorted stock on the market.

Yes, they have analysts do things like warn against buying stock in "Company X" or get articles published saying "Company X declining sales". So the other people holding the stock start selling it and people also buy less of the stock and the price goes down because no one is buying it.

We can see this happening on TV right now. Analysts all coming on to talk about how Melvin's position is covered, and how this is a big bubble that could burst at any second, how WSB has ties to the alt-right, how WSB investors don't know what they are doing, how dangerous the WSB "interference" is to the market stability, how the SEC are going to investigate WSB and get it shut down, etc. are all statements that would encourage people holding GME stock to sell it. If there is a surplus in stock available to buy because loads of people sell it, the price of the stock comes down and the losses Melvin will incur when they have to buy back the stock they borrowed are reduced.

The fact trading sites are stopping buys is such salty behaviour. Both RobinHood and Trading212, and maybe eToro.

I really don't know.  Tinfoil hat suggests they're being pressured by investors who've an interest in not seeing Melvin fold.

Trading212 says 'Due to BUY restrictions placed by our intemediary and every major execution venue worldwide, GameStop will be placed in close-only mode.  New BUY positions can't be initiated, existing ones can be reduced or closed.'

The hedgefunds arent using those sites, the regular joe shmoe buyers are. 

Essentially Robinhood et al. are now preventing their users from buying more GME stocks. This means that when stocks do become available, users on those platforms cannot buy them. Which is most of the people trying to fuck up the hedge fund. 

You can still buy direct through brokers websites and stuff, but if you're trading on the other platforms, you essentially can only sell stocks in GME at the moment, it fucking reeks of meddling to try and save the hedgefund from getting crushed as far as people who using the platforms are involved.

I will probably give some form of small trading a go at some point off the back off this since I could probably stick a couple of hundred quid in and just do baby trades to try and see what it's all about. I signed up with IG earlier but it's very scary and is asking me if I wanted to setup an ISA and then wanted to know my national insurance number and shit and I got scared, sounds too serious for me right now. 

Gamestop seems extremely risky to buy now unless you are already in.

I started to put in savings into something called fidelity - my idea is to work it long term but in <year it’s made more in savings than a bank ISA. I would definitely suggest it if there was an amount of money you would be happy to never see again.

Ah for fucks sake, it dropped down to 132, and I tried to buy some only to have to fill in some fucking form, and now it's gone over 200, and will probably keep shooting up as everyone that was locked out buys more.

monkey wrote:

Can someone explain to me how hedge funds drive down the price for a stock they’ve shorted? I’ve seen repeated references to them doing this before WSB got involved.

They aren’t supposed too. 
But there’s nothing stopping them. 
So, they borrow stock then, in this case the fund put out videos saying the stock was shit and overpriced.
Confidence in the stock drops, other people sell a lot of it and the price goes down as people try to offload it for whatever they can.

It’s also worth noting I don’t think hedge funds pay tax in the US. 
The tax is applied to the individuals gains instead so the beneficiaries just move it around a bit to avoid it.

I have now encountered this form. I think I'll just move the money over into my Vanguard fund, and do the form for future use.

People are saying this is a final short attempt to encourage panic selling and that this is like the VW short where it fell by 100% and then had a massive slingshot upwards.

Wild.

Fucks sake, its nearly 300 now.

It's a wild ride for sure. Lots of apparently big names calling out Robin Hood on twitter. Loads of calls going into HFSC about it.

People shouting hold the line, diamond hands.

Shenanigans.

Are GameStop able to issue new shares? Or is that a long process? If they are, that would enable them to bank some decent cash.