Basically what we have here is a bunch of rich guys getting upset because someone new came to town and beat them at their own game - with their own ball, on their own court.
If you haven’t been following, WallStreetBets banned together and started buying stocks that hedge funds have been heavily shorting. These are struggling older companies with low volume, high short float (up to 140% at times which is criminal in itself), and low market caps. The most popular one has been GameStop $GME but others include Bed Bath and Beyond $BBBY, AMC Entertainment $AMC, BlackBerry Ltd. $BB.
What happens is when all these people start buying the stock, the price goes up and causes the funds with short positions to hold or sell out and lose money. One fund even got a bailout or capital infusion from other funds to keep liquidity.
The one reason I’m so upset, (or passionate) about this, is because you have these funds whining and complaining retail investors made them the target for once. These funds are crying foul when the whole system they created and play in screws the retail person over. They get touched and flop on the ground worse than Neymar, crying to the exchange leaders and discord servers to shut them down and halt trading.
Like Trump or not, what 2016, the internet and social media brought in was the ability for the little guy to get ahead. A way that the little guy can send a middle finger to Washington, San Francisco and New York.
The elite get to write the rules and play an easy game, while the rest of us have to fight and crawl for yield and growth just to stay even.
Some are calling into question whether this is all ethical or not. Ethical? How ethical is it to have 140% short float? or use CNBC as your money faucet, or chat it up over three martin lunches on Wall Street, or claim cheating when you get bailed out for your mistakes and we’re left holding the bag on yours, or using your influence to halt trading, or keep trading fee’s high until just a year ago, or write accreditation laws preventing us to angel invest, or use your accounting tricks to hack your way to a billion dollar bonus (no that’s not exaggerated)?
Two things, if you want a recap of what’s going on Saagar Enjeti had an awesome recap and discussion in this clip - it’s very well done and explains the whole thing. Also, if you can find Chamath’s appearance on CNBC The Halftime Report today, it was very good too. Explaining much of how I and other ‘retail investors’ feel.