AMC cinema chain saved / Reddit memes the stock market

[Andrew Reid]

Is the internet about to crash the markets?

https://www.eoshd.com/news/amc-cinema-chain-saved-by-reddit-meme-stock-trading-is-the-internet-about-to-crash-the-markets/

Or do the people stand to win big?

Answers on a postcard..

PS - I have bought some DOGEcoin. WOOF!

[Robert Collins]

As a former investment banker I guess I am the bad guy in all this.

But seriously the odd burps from financial markets arent going to change anything - the rich will get richer and well everyone else will simply have to get by.... The Hamptons may not be a defensible position but revolutions were never created on gambling sites on the internet. Enjoy the fun while it lasts...

Kind of reminds me of The Hunger Games....

[Andrew Reid]

I get the feeling this is different. Coordinated, targeted action. I foresee... trouble.

[Robert Collins]

16 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

I get the feeling this is different. Coordinated, targeted action. I foresee... trouble.

Trouble? Wow lets start a revolution betting on Dogecoin....

Look I think our society suffers from very deep inherent problems - specifically the ever increasing inequalities between rich and poor and to less extent the young and the old....

Marx wrote about this over 100 years ago and predicted revolution with the rich being the first ones in front of the firing squad.

The reality is that people have simply been distracted (much like in The Hunger Games) by TV, by the internet and I guess ultimately by speculating on worthless stocks and cryptos where effectively they are swapping this rubbish amongst themselves. Dystopian it is. Trouble it is not....

[Andrew Reid]

Happy to see these guys lose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Capital

And there is no excuse for illegal behaviour by the financial establishment and funds - 

Also this is a great explainer of the week, for people only just reading up on it (like me)...

https://imgur.com/a/DCCpuZA

 

[Andrew Reid]

2 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

Trouble? Wow lets start a revolution betting on Dogecoin....

It is a revolution, 100%. Internet users are controlling the market.

Bitcoin is worth $27,000 today. Are you saying that buying at the start of the global recognition of the currency is pointless? Tell that to the millionaires it created. Cryptocurrency is absolutely a revolution and a disruptive technology.

2 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

Look I think our society suffers from very deep inherent problems - specifically the ever increasing inequalities between rich and poor and to less extent the young and the old....

100% agree

2 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

Marx wrote about this over 100 years ago and predicted revolution with the rich being the first ones in front of the firing squad.

The reality is that people have simply been distracted (much like in The Hunger Games) by TV, by the internet and I guess ultimately by speculating on worthless stocks and cryptos where effectively they are swapping this rubbish amongst themselves. Dystopian it is. Trouble it is not....

I thought speculating on worthless stocks was the job of short sellers and hedge funds...

[Robert Collins]

1 minute ago, Andrew Reid said:

It is a revolution, 100%. Internet users are controlling the market.

Bitcoin is worth $27,000 today. Are you saying that buying at the start of the global recognition of the currency is pointless? Tell that to the millionaires it created. Cryptocurrency is absolutely a revolution and a disruptive technology.

100% agree

I thought speculating on worthless stocks was the job of short sellers and hedge funds...

The largest investment I have in the world today is bitcoin and it has made me several million dollars (well I guess it would if I sold them). I also believe in the revolution that bitcoin 'could' create...

But there is a quantum difference between bitcoin and dogecoin (which was designed to be worthless).

Look at the end of the day if you are arguing about the price of shit ....you are simply arguing about the price of shit. Yes you can all agree that the price of shit should be higher and screw the odd hedge fund but at the end of the day all you are left with is pile of shit....

[ND64]

Inequality of wealth is not the problem. Its inequality of rules! 

[ND64]

7 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

But there is a quantum difference between bitcoin and dogecoin (which was designed to be worthless)

Everything can be worthless. We don't price gold based on unique specifications of its atoms. We as buyers and sellers have an agreement that these elements worth this much, or don't. If you could buy a sandwich with a piece of rock, that would be money. So a statement like "designed to be worthless" is meaningless. 

[helium]

AMC is owned by a huge Chinese conglomerate; it's not a beleaguered cineaste endeavor run by idealistic capitalists....  And while Melvin Capital can eat shit, there are other hedge funds benefiting enormously from the reddit activity; meanwhile, the retail investors who bought high will almost certainly lose money in the end.

Whether short-selling is in itself evil (selling stock is evil, but buying stock isn't?) is another question, though it is true that Gamestop was shorted something like 140%, another indicator of the "financialization" of the economy, where the rentier classes perform no productive activities, beyond manipulating markets and exploiting differentials.

[Roman Koenigshofer]

Those 150 bucks are better invested in Bitcoin. Check out the book "The Bitcoin Standard".

[Andrew Reid]

7 hours ago, helium said:

AMC is owned by a huge Chinese conglomerate; it's not a beleaguered cineaste endeavor run by idealistic capitalists....  And while Melvin Capital can eat shit, there are other hedge funds benefiting enormously from the reddit activity; meanwhile, the retail investors who bought high will almost certainly lose money in the end.

Whether short-selling is in itself evil (selling stock is evil, but buying stock isn't?) is another question, though it is true that Gamestop was shorted something like 140%, another indicator of the "financialization" of the economy, where the rentier classes perform no productive activities, beyond manipulating markets and exploiting differentials.

The reddit group is essentially a decentralised democratic hedge fund mostly of normal people, not the rich and mostly not professional traders. Big difference. If AMC's stock rises like Gamespot a lot of people keep their jobs in the cinema business, and a lot of people on Reddit land a huge blow on wall street.

I think most people's $100 is worth it to make the moral point and damage the wall street short seller business permanent basis.

I would gladly pay $100 to fuck Melvin Capital.

It is not an investment.

It's a moral issue, and a punt. A gamble, to see if it works.

A lot of people coming at it from wrong angle. The fact it doesn't make any kind of responsible financial sense is a moot point. People should definitely not see it as an investment or a short term way to make money for personal gain. That way you get a massive bubble and a lot of people lose their money.

The $150 I put into DOGEcoin is a long term gamble. I'll forget about it and see if DOGEcoin hits the news headlines in 5 years or even 10. Or even longer. If not, what have I lost? Not much really.

I do agree that if you want an investment (i.e. less risky and stupid) Bitcoin is the better option but it's still very volatile with an uncertain future compared to a sensible portfolio of stocks and shares selected for you by pros.

PS - For those in the UK who want to buy Gamespot shares I recommend the online challenger bank app Revolut. Easy and simple.

[Video Hummus]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

It's a moral issue, and a punt. A gamble, to see if it works.

It's a $100+ middle finger that many people happily parted with.

20 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

But seriously the odd burps from financial markets arent going to change anything - the rich will get richer and well everyone else will simply have to get by.... The Hamptons may not be a defensible position but revolutions were never created on gambling sites on the internet. Enjoy the fun while it lasts...

Kind of reminds me of The Hunger Games....

This is a depressing cynical viewpoint and actually points to the core of the current problems in this world. Maybe if everybody was a little less cynical, a little less jaded, a little less full of themselves, a little more joyful the world would be a vastly better place; 100% money back guaranteed it would.

[Andrew Reid]

20 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

But there is a quantum difference between bitcoin and dogecoin (which was designed to be worthless).

Look at the end of the day if you are arguing about the price of shit ....you are simply arguing about the price of shit.

Actually look into the technical differences. Bitcoin is capped, has a maximum number of coins that can ever exist without the protocols being rewritten. Dogecoin is uncapped, but has a 5 billion coin mining limit per year to prevent inflation. Demand for cryptocurrencies only has to increase 5% a year for Dogecoin's value to maintain or increase. Supply and demand.

Bitcoin is slow. Transaction rate is very limited. It works best as a commodity, not a VISA replacement for use in supermarkets (unless you're willing to wait hours for your payment to go through). And yet, existing banks cannot create a rival cryptocurrency. Here is a pretty good take on why. https://hackernoon.com/about-bitcoin-what-altcoins-and-shitcoins-dont-seem-to-get-rs53323w

[Robert Collins]

9 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

It's a $100+ middle finger that many people happily parted with.

This is a depressing cynical viewpoint and actually points to the core of the current problems in this world. Maybe if everybody was a little less cynical, a little less jaded, a little less full of themselves, a little more joyful the world would be a vastly better place; 100% money back guaranteed it would.

On the other hand, destroying your own wealth, to try destroying a hedge fund (Melvin Capital) because you believe they are destroying other people is a life affirming virtuous circle?

Revenge trading is simply a destructive circle and I 100% guarantee you wont get your money back!!

[Video Hummus]

6 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

On the other hand, destroying your own wealth, to try destroying a hedge fund (Melvin Capital) because you believe they are destroying other people is a life affirming virtuous circle?

Revenge trading is simply a destructive circle and I 100% guarantee you wont get your money back!!

A few hundred thousand people throwing $100 into a hat is not wealth to many people. I didn’t say it was life affirming. I simply said people are doing it as a form of protest now. And the reaction of some of these certain hedge fund people just affirms why people have disgust for their behavior and their actions and more people pile on.

And probably a lot of people doing this are victims of these same hedge fund and Wall Street types that wiped out many families wealth in 2008. So I can understand their emotions and cause. So you could say it’s revenge with low risk and good rewards that seem to be paying out.

If you read my post more deeply you would realize that I was advocating for  some self-realization dose applied equally for all.

[helium]

A "depressingly cynical viewpoint" (see above) is exactly what reality demands.  Anything less is factually incorrect or wanton self-delusion.   For those who regard Robinhood -- at least in its idealized form -- as the great equalizer, think again.  Robinhood, you'll recall, doesn't charge brokerage fees.  How then does it make money?

Well, it sells your data -- your purchases, sales, hedges -- to (you guessed it) hedge funds BEFORE your trades are executed. 

"Given that Robinhood is playing a central role in retail investors pumping dark horse stocks, it’s worth examining once again how it makes money: namely, by selling users’ trades to other large firms before they’re actually executed. Those firms make money by effectively seeing what the retail investors on Robinhood are going to do before they actually do it, and acting accordingly. Those firms are basically buying information that then informs their own trades."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjpnz5/robinhoods-customers-are-hedge-funds-like-citadel-its-users-are-the-product

 

Granted, this didn't work out so well for Melvin Capital -- you can't instantly correct a huge short position -- but others did profit.

[zerocool22]

Could we do this every week when a hedge fund decides to short? 

[EduPortas]

7 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Could we do this every week when a hedge fund decides to short? 

You could. But then hedge funds will start to make money off of other hedge funds betting who will go down each week. Same with stocks. They will bet upwards in price, not downwards as per usual.

It's basically just a huge casino.

[Video Hummus]

10 hours ago, helium said:

A "depressingly cynical viewpoint" (see above) is exactly what reality demands.  Anything less is factually incorrect or wanton self-delusion.   For those who regard Robinhood -- at least in its idealized form -- as the great equalizer, think again.  Robinhood, you'll recall, doesn't charge brokerage fees.  How then does it make money?

Well, it sells your data -- your purchases, sales, hedges -- to (you guessed it) hedge funds BEFORE your trades are executed. 

"Given that Robinhood is playing a central role in retail investors pumping dark horse stocks, it’s worth examining once again how it makes money: namely, by selling users’ trades to other large firms before they’re actually executed. Those firms make money by effectively seeing what the retail investors on Robinhood are going to do before they actually do it, and acting accordingly. Those firms are basically buying information that then informs their own trades."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjpnz5/robinhoods-customers-are-hedge-funds-like-citadel-its-users-are-the-product

 

Granted, this didn't work out so well for Melvin Capital -- you can't instantly correct a huge short position -- but others did profit.

And Robinhood fucked up too and showed their bare ass for all to see. So not only was the actions of hedge funds exposed to the masses in a meaningful way but also the twisted web of factions inside wall street which I predict will take hurt Robinhood's business.

Suddenly trying to take the high road has become factually incorrect and wanton self-delusion. Okay then.... I think we can advocate for a better reality and existence without this kind of unnecessary burden.