When clients trade, especially on margin, they use the broker’s mmoney to play. Imagine a client buys 100 shares of GameStop for $400 a share, using $20,000 of his own money and borrowing $20,000 from Robinhood. If the stock drops from $400 to $120 (as it did on Jan. 29, the clients position may be sold for $12,000 due to the margin violation, leaving Robinhood trying to collect an unsecured $8,000 debt from “u/Thicc_ladies_PM_Me.”
Good luck.. Multiply this by hundreds or thousands of similar clients. Option trading is worse because the leverage is greater.
We should be compiling links of sources claiming WSB is for silver Discussion
We’re not. Plain and simple. Anyone who frequents WSB knows this.
This means whatever media source is indicating this to be the case is a sellout and their credibility should be in serious question since they either
1) don’t do their due diligence, or
2) are okay with getting their strings pulled to be used as tools by the wealthy to manipulate masses.
If there was any doubt of these hedge fund’s influence and manipulate, this whole “WSB going silver” just put that conspiracy theory to rest and only does more to confirm that the game has always been rigged against the average person.
Edit: You know what would be AMAZING?? This was an idea already thrown out there, but if the mods could use twitter (and by pinning a statement on this subreddit) to invalidate the silver BS… That would be SUCH a great fucking move. Maybe a message like “There is no sentiment among WSB members to buy SLV stock and the little that exists is under scrutiny of WSB members”. That would just slam the door on any sources propagating that false information and call them out on their BS (because it’s just so obviously untrue). It would also make it clear for those checking the credibility of this fake news that the silver hype is a fabrication by variables outside of WSB and inform them of how convenient it is for hedge funds if people pulled from GME, and supported a stock they own massive shares of.
This goes without saying that I’m holding GME till the very end. Given how the media and some brokerages have gotten involved (and in a not so subtle way that benefits the hedge funds), it’s not even about the money anymore. And that’s coming from someone with student loans who stands to profit by exiting right now. Money comes and goes, but getting to witness firsthand just how rigged the system is and knowing who’s involved in keeping people in line is just something you can’t put a price tag on.
SEC is searching for a 13-year with a Robin Hood account (Scapegoating)
I'm hearing rumors the SEC is searching for a 13-year with a RH account.
Have to protect the integrity of the markets from sharks and ruthless operators. https://t.co/9gLZOKOMu8
— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) January 29, 2021
This is how Wall Street thinks the Reddit-fueled GameStop trade unravels
- Shares of GameStop, the video game retailer, have climbed more than 900% since the start of the year after members of the Reddit community WallStreetBets banded together in an effort to push the stock higher.
- At some point, the thinking goes, shares of GameStop will stop climbing, either because most of the shorts have given up and are no longer forced into buying the stock to cover losing positions or because brokers or U.S. market regulators intervene.
The war between hedge funds and retail investors over shares of GameStop has one logical conclusion, according to executives and traders of a major Wall Street firm.
Shares of GameStop, the video game retailer, have climbed more than 900% since the start of the year after members of the Reddit community WallStreetBets banded together in an effort to push the stock higher.
The campaign pushed a stock worth $19 at the start of the year to as high as $482.85 on Thursday. Gains by retail investors have come at the expense of sophisticated investors like Melvin Capital and Citron Research, which were forced to close out their short positions as the stock rose in what’s known as a short squeeze.
WATCH NOWAt some point, the thinking goes, shares of GameStop will stop climbing, either because most of the shorts have given up and are no longer forced into buying the stock to cover losing positions or because brokers or U.S. market regulators intervene.
At that point, human nature kicks in: Retail investors will watch as their paper profits evaporate, and the natural impulse will be to sell, according to the executives, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak frankly. Latecomers to the party will sell in fear, contributing to a stampede for the exits and a drop in the shares, they added. The same forces that helped the stock catapult higher will contribute to a rapid decline.
It’s possible we got an early sign of what the unraveling will look like. Shares of GameStop fell for the first time in six trading sessions on Thursday, tumbling 44% after Robinhood and Interactive Brokers restricted activity in GameStop and some other heavily shorted stocks.
Still, there is no telling when a true unwinding will occur or how long it will take. The shares were rebounding sharply in Friday’s premarket, up another 80% to $332 a share, after Robinhood reversed course and said it would allow limited purchases of the stock.
Despite costing hedge funds billions of dollars, GameStop remains one of the most shorted stocks in the market, according to FactSet data. More than 120% of GameStop’s available shares have been borrowed, down from about 140% earlier in the month.
“Typically a short squeeze ends with a sharp sell-off, but there are buyers in waiting, often those covering shorts,” said CC Lagator, co-founder of brokerage Options AI. “That can provide temporary support in a stock that’s unwinding a short squeeze.”
If retail investors get burned in the GameStop trade, it’s likely the Securities and Exchange Commission will step in to prevent similar scenarios from occurring, according to another Wall Street source. Gary Gensler, President Joe Biden’s pick for SEC head, has a reputation for tough enforcement.
“The hedge funds are big boys, they know how the game is played,” said the banker, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “When the little guy gets hurt, that’s when Washington gets involved. We’ll have an SEC leader who is much more activist.”
Bubbles in stocks including GameStop are just the latest sign of unusual activity in markets since the coronavirus pandemic struck, forcing central banks to unleash trillions of dollars in support for economies around the world.
Early on in the crisis, a collapse in demand resulted in negative oil prices for the first time in history. Equities and other asset classes rapidly recovered, thanks to central banks, and have since hit record after record, leading to eye-popping valuations despite high unemployment and a rising death toll. Bitcoin prices surged from around $6,000 at the start of the pandemic to as high as $41,000 this month.
Now, with millions of Redditors wielding free trading apps, full saving accounts and not much else to do, it’s possible that there is a new playbook for fast gains in the stock market.
“Is this a new platform for investors to make decisions, does it even the playing field?” said Mark Williams, a Boston University finance lecturer and former Federal Reserve examiner. “You could argue that what happened with Reddit is them putting the shorts on check, and that’s a positive.”
Robinhood’s move Thursday to limit the ability of its users to bid up GameStop and other companies targeted by Reddit investors drew bipartisan criticism from lawmakers who claimed that the brokerage was favoring big institutional traders over small investors.
“I do sense there’s a double standard here,” said a former Goldman Sachs trader who now works for a technology firm. “Put it this way, if Goldman Sachs were doing this, it would be called `arbitrage’.”
