I’m sure there’s a good way for me to place a bet, not that it will go up or down, but just that it will be volatile. That’s the sure ticket!
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I bought a fractional share for a buck in solidarity. Don’t care what happens to it just want to see them send the message that the markets aren’t theirs (the big firms) or at least shouldn’t be.
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Originally the idea was that short-selling would smooth out the spikes and bubbles caused by irrationally optimistic buyers. And maybe ferret out fraud, eg the [Muddy Waters Sino Forest case](OSC releases long-awaited decision in Sino-Forest case
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That was actually super helpful, thank you 
. Financial shenaniganry is not my forte, hehe.
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Yes. The options market is essentially buying and selling a form of time-limited insurance for or against the movement of a stock. Now imagine all the permutations of buying or selling insurance for up or down movements in a price and now you can see how the options market is complex and mystifying. … And prone to occasional bouts of complete pandemonium, like what is happening today.
As @Papasan would say: the stock market is totally irrational RIGHT NOW.
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I’m a bit surprised trading has not been halted today. Circuit breaker time.
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There’s still 20 minutes left. LOL
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The absurdity of capitalism laid bare both in the attack against people fighting short selling and the fact everyone takes financial markets seriously.
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Every financial instrument is based in some drunk rich guys in the 1700’s betting on everything possible.
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You’re right, but at the same time, you’re wrong. Brokerage firms have risk analysis groups that put the brakes on the infinite; they are crunching the numbers against the infinite greed, and screaming “stop” when the unfortunate math shows there is a risk of a trading firm going kablooey, and all the money (future, real, i.o.u.s, funny colored Monopoly bills) going poof. It’s okay if the other guy gets screwed, it’s bad if you get screwed, it’s real bad if everyone, everywhere gets screwed at the same time.
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And for every option that is bought, someone has to offer it for sale, the two connected by the options clearing corp, the OCC in Chicago, via your broker.
And if you are using a platform like Robinhood or Tastyworks, or a big dog like Merrill or JP Morgan, you are also subject to local rules around liquidity, since most of them float you extra buying power and they take risks themselves for every transaction and assignment.
For example, you might vehemently wish to short Gamestop, but your platform cannot close the transaction, find a buyer, or they have unilaterally suspended trading of that specific underlying, like they finally did this afternoon. It’s much easier to buy or sell a naked security than it is to execute an option trade or short sale.
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it seems reductive to lump every The Donald or Gamergate reddit user with WSB. There is not that much overlap. Reddit is a big place. Most of those political idiots have left for snowflake havens like gab and Parler and ruqqus or r/conservative etc. I never see gamer gate posts and rare is the political comment on wsb. They’re there to make money.
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Billions has jumped the shark.
Bailed out by the public? Ha, I think not! That would be choosing the winners.
Have they no bootstraps?
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Blockquote it seems reductive to lump every The Donald or Gamergate reddit user with WSB. There is not that much overlap. Reddit is a big place. Most of those political idiots have left for snowflake havens like gab and Parler and ruqqus or r/conservative etc. I never see gamer gate posts and rare is the political comment on wsb. They’re there to make money.
On WSB I’m sure isn’t that kind of content generally. I spend a lot of my time over on Reddit: and I’m not saying I have any data for overlap of users or accounts or that I have even spent any time on WSB other than popping by a few times a year, but the the nihilistic feeding frenzy I’ve been seeing on WSB during this I don’t see most of the time, and the last two places I saw it was for GamerGate and /r/the_donald. Same vibe, energy and tactics.
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