The Biden administration is about to face a fundamental test of values within days

[Sympthsical]

The Game Stop stock story is more than just a bunch of Millennials having fun on social media to stick it to Wall Street.

Wall Street is now striking back. It is trying to prevent "retail" traders (i.e. individuals and not the hedge funds and giant institutions) from buying or selling stock because they're about to lose billions.

Hedge funds shorted Game Stop, hoping to drive it into bankruptcy and make a profit on it. Sound like Bain Capital to you? Because it is just like that.

Now, trading apps and institutions like RobinHood and Ameritrade are preventing your Average Joe from trading the stock. However, the hedge funds and institutions are allowed to trade, and they are allowed to do so after hours even (you and I could not do this).

Wall Street could not stand regular people playing their games - and winning! -so now they are trying to outright rob people by using every lever in the system to manipulate and control what happens.

Watch what the MSM says. We will know whose side they are on. If every story you see is how awful it all is that Reddit is messing with stocks, you'll have at least a hunch they aren't on your side.

But more importantly, let's see how the Biden administration and Secretary Yellen respond. There is an opportunity here to let the billionaire class who treats Wall Street as a casino twist. AOC is already calling for hearings. I have been incredibly positive on Biden's tenure so far. Everything is pretty damn good, if you ask me. So now, we're about see how they're going to handle one hell of a cranky, predatory financial class who thought we served them.

It's a test. Let's see if they pass. I have decent optimism here, but keep an eye on it. It'll mean quite a bit about what we can expect for the next four years.

[Thekaspervote]

1. Sheldon Whitehouse says there will be an investigation

[Sympthsical]

4. Of whom?

Do you have a link/source? I'm really interested in what he said, but google isn't turning up anything.

[Turin_C3PO]

19. Sherrod Brown

said something similar and it sounded like he was for investigating the hedge funds, not the Redditers. So far, so good.

[elleng]

6. Good, I'm with him and AOC.

[Glamrock]

2. K n R

Well said!

[ansible]

3. They're gonna get bailed out, can't let those poor billionaire hedgefunds go broke

Meanwhile we won't get any new stimulus either now that interest has waned on getting more funds out for the average person.

[MyNameGoesHere]

5. The money that everyone is playing around with

Only belongs to hedge fund people? Or are there real humans attached to this one up fuckery?

[frazzled]

7. Two wrongs don't make a right

Both sides need reining in. Driving up the prices on a totally worthless company like Game Stock was not cute, and it will still nosedive into failure. Betting against a company that has been on the verge of obsolescence and failure for years was logical. The losses that those analysts incurred are not just hitting them, but all the pensioners on behalf of whom they were working. The little guys, you know.

It’s true that Wall Street’s practices need more oversight and regulation. That doesn’t mean that these jokesters should be able to play their pranks with wild abandon.

Our whole retirement depends on the analysts at TIAA-CREFF managing the hard-earned dollars we invested with some dignity. If they got screwed in this, so did a lot of teachers.

[BlueTsunami2018]

10. Why shouldn't regular people be able to play the game?

They don’t like that someone used the rules against them and so they want to change the rules so only they can screw everyone.

Fuck them. I wish I got in on it. My apprentice told me about it on Monday, he made $15k this week and cashed out. Fifteen grand in three days.

[Sympthsical]

12. And where was the will to act in '08 and beyond?

Hedge funds have been playing these sorts of games for a long time. Suddenly average people are getting in on it, and it's all, "Wait! Something must be done!"

Nah. There's no both sides here. The robber barons got swindled by their own grift. And now the government needs to act to save them from it happening again. Who cared what happened to everyone else before that.

Game Stop employs 50,000 people. The man responsible for chewy.com bought in at 13% and is now on the board. People want to see if it can survive in the digital age. He could be the one to do it.

The hedges wanted to drive it into the earth, the human cost be damned. Profit to be made.

Now others are making profit and keeping the company alive. Can't have that. Not at the cost of the billionaires.

Honestly, please. Sometimes regular folks ought to win one. If the government clamps down now, on this, they lose a lot of credibility. It will reinforce the notion the game is absolutely rigged against us.

[fishwax]

16. but the thing that drove the stock up was the short sellers

It wasn't really redditors driving the price of the stock up--it was the short sellers who got so overconfident in their position against the company that they created a shortage of the stock itself. If your funds (and mine) at TIAA-CREF got screwed as a result, it's on the people who made the bad bet against gamestop (which wasn't really a fundamentally bad company anyway). The people who bought (rather than shorting it) at 5 bucks or 10 bucks obviously made a good bet. (The people getting in when it was shooting through triple digits, on the other hand, may be less successful when the dust clears, depending on when they get out.)

[Demsrule86]

17. Why shouldn't regular people play that game. They are only doing what the Hedgers do.

I think no one should be allowed to bet on stocks but if giant companies can run companies into the ground doing so the little guy can go after their companies...good for the Reddit day traders...hope they sue the shit out of those who won't live up to their agreement in trading stock for the average guy.

[DeminPennswoods]

8. Maybe the time has come to create a market

that is specifically designed strictly for betting on stocks. Investors wouldn't actually get to buy/sell stocks, just bet on them. This would take the casino aspect out of the current stock markets and allow companies to operate without worrying about the prospect of their stock being subjected to this and other kinds of manipulation.

[FakeNoose]

11. Absolutely agreed

No politics involved here, it's just the sensible thing to do.

[The Mouth]

20. Investopedia has a great simulation

Fun and free

https://www.investopedia.com/simulator/

[Bev54]

9. I hope there is an investigation and there should be a stop to short trading, it is the real problem

I understand why RobinHood and Ameritrade stopped allowing trades, they are open to massive lawsuits if they continued. They would be the unintentional losers in it all. But it is time to stop these Hedge Funds controlling the success or failure of business just for their profits.

[Disaffected]

13. One reform needed is curbs, or elimination of,

short selling and, especially "naked" short selling.

I'm not aware of any redeeming features these practices have for the economy or finance in general. They only seem to exist so entities like hedge funds can game and manipulate the stock markets. One result is struggling companies might be driven out of business when they may otherwise recover.

What useful purpose do they serve??

[Sympthsical]

14. My question is, where were the regulators?

Why did it take a subreddit to notice and exploit it? And it wasn't a secret. This behavior with Game Stop stock has been noted since at least 2019.

No one at the SEC so much as lifted a finger.

That's troubling.

[Disaffected]

15. The regulators seem to have been missing

for years. Where where they when abominations like credit default swaps, other sketchy financial derivatives and the gold plated turds sold as junk bond packages were crapping on the markets (around 2008)? Not to mention the more common forms of market manipulation such as pump & dump, wash trading, etc.

[Sympthsical]

18. Billionaires weren't losing money. Once they did, we bailed them out

Shame about all those . . . little people who lost everything. But, whatkinyado?

[The Mouth]

21. Short sellers suck

The more they get hurt, the better.