“Imagine what you could accomplish if only you used your powers for good” — A Father’s Saying
Like so many other people, I heard about the GameStop saga through the popular media because I only really go on Reddit when there’s something juicy. Unlike most people, I don’t have cable, and rely on public media for most of my news, so I learned about the GameStop saga primarily from NPR’s program MarketPlace, whose analysis and insight I cannot recommend highly enough.
The Story is compelling: Individual investors and regular people, through the power of collective communication and teamwork are actively working to take money and power away from hedge funds and those who are actively working to take money and power away from the people. This David and Goliath type story is part of what fueled the Occupy Wall Street Movement, but instead of pitching tents in NYC like idiots, a strange assortment of characters have gotten together online and decided that the best way to beat the big banks is to throw actual money at them like retards. Which is how they put it. Also the first and last time I’ll put it that way, because I think this community could do a lot more if it were more inclusive and less negative. The sentiment: “Hold to $420.69 or I’ll fuck your mom I swear” may be compelling for some, but it’s not a great fit for everyone. I’ll stop dadding.
After most of the hype died down from the first run, I couldn’t help but wonder if this might happen again. After all, if it’s just a bunch of people getting together on Reddit, why couldn’t they get together again when the conditions are right?
This morning, when I heard the stock had risen by ~60%, I figured I’d throw enough money into it that I’d feel the loss, but it wouldn’t bankrupt me. As an independent writer, that was 2 shares about an hour before the market opened. Despite not even looking at the r/wallstreetbets subreddit yet (I knew it would be a rabbit hole!), I knew instinctively that I had just strapped myself to a rocket, and was appropriately giddy/nervous/excited.
The subreddit hypes this thing to a whole new level!
Those guys (and they seem to be pretty overwhelmingly masculino-types) are AMPED on their #low-key #revolution, but mostly about getting and loving MONEY(!!!) calling themselves apes, eating their bananas and lookin for them TENDIES! Everyone is encouraged to buy and hold: that diamonds are made with pressure. There is a constant flood of diamond emojis and diamond-hand references, and we are all literally going to get rich today guys!!!
Truth be told, I got into this for the same reason any other middle age white guy gets into the stock market: I want new toys and can’t afford them. Specifically, I want new skis, or at least enough money to rent skis and buy a lift ticket once like the independent writer I am. But, ya know, what if … and before you know it, I’m envisioning chicken nugget decals on my new Salomons after this stock goes TO THE MOON!!! Then I was hooked; a little scared, but I liked it … I bought a couple more shares because ya never know, and watched the forum.
And watched Twitter, and some Youtube videos, and the subreddit … constantly, the subreddit refreshes. It is addictive. We are definitely getting them tendies! We just gotta buy and hold; just wait for Power Hour!!
I decided to play the edges: sell a bit at 170, buy it back at 165; the big boys do it, why can’t I? Long story short, I got a bit over-exuberant and overlooked the fact that I had told the thing to sell one more share than I meant to. It was for a decent price around 170, but something locked up, and the money is no longer available to trade.
This could easily be a conspiracy to keep me from trading, but really, it’s probably because I did a bunch of trades that I normally don’t do, transferred money this morning to do it, and any part of it may have been wonky enough to trigger some warning somewhere; either way, it’s probably for the best that people like me can’t just go in and do whatever we think we want while actually doing other things; that’s not a nanny state so much as reasonable boundaries that tbh, I appreciate. Either way, I only had one share at about two o’clock, which I guess is the start of #POWERHOUR(?)
Much-touted throughout the day, the magical time when the rocket ship would go #tothemoon! In the endless refreshing, I noticed many people posting some kind of countdown to power hour. I think it’s the last hour or trading? Maybe a bit of post-market? As the day progressed, the subreddit chatter turned to different forms of “Maybe we just need to wait until after market close?”
As the stock rocked down and up through the afternoon, it became apparent that the movement of the stock and the chatter from Social Media weren’t all that connected. There seemed to be an up-tick near the time Michael J Burry tweeted something cryptic about lockdowns, or? And mentioned #gme. Mostly, the stock rose and dipped, reddit and twitter users reacted, and the secret, I’d bet, lies in the volume of trading, which had been more insane than the subredit.
When I checked at 2:30, there had been about 120 million trades of GME stock, which is many times the normal flow of stock back and forth. Like I was saying before, and like many people know already, the big boys play the edges, happy to make trades with large numbers of shares very quickly and often through algorithmic trading that’s faster at playing the market than humans can be. I was trying to do a crude version of this, but I know the house always wins, and I’m glad they locked up my money — I probably would have lost it.
At the same time, chatter has turned to the number of people short selling #GME stock, which seems to be peaking again, making a run on the stock now a great time to squeeze hedge funds as they offer higher and higher prices in order to get out of contracts that expected the stock to tank. If the stock goes higher, the hedge funds and short sellers lose money, and “the people” win, especially now, and there’s only one tiny problem.
If all these so-called regular folks like me have bought and are holding, while institutional traders are playing with the shares they own already, I don’t see where the new money is going to come from.
In order to squeeze the short sellers, individual investors will need to pour a lot of money into buying shares of the stock to get the price to rise. With the kind of volume this stock is seeing today, even buying a million shares is less than one percent of shares that have moved, and that percentage keeps getting lower. With so little free capital to put into new shares, I don’t expect to get my money back on the one share I still hold unless there are substantial reinforcements coming in with a lot of cash to buy GME.
Maybe Elon will step in and save the common man like so many seem to hope, but I like to remember that the house always wins in the end, so only go into a casino with what you can afford to lose. Expect to have a good time — to see a good show, be horrified and amused, but expect to lose your money. I’ll hodl for now, and who knows — if enough money goes into the stock from individuals, some interesting things could happen. If nothing else, it’s been a wildly entertaining thing to watch, and I do like this stock.
