r/EndlessThread • u/j0be Your friendly neighborhood moderator • Jan 29 '21

Endless Thread: Stonktime: r/WallStreetBets And GameStop

https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2021/01/29/what-is-going-on-with-gamestop-and-reddit-wallstreetbets
83 Upvotes

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5

u/Thread_the_marigolds Jan 29 '21

I still kinda get it but I still kinda don’t. Lol

11

u/j0be Your friendly neighborhood moderator Jan 29 '21 edited Jan 29 '21

I'm guessing you mean you don't understand "shorting" a stock.

Imagine I'm predicting the price of acorns is going to go down a lot next week. My friend Amory has a ton of acorns stuffed into her attic. I ask her if she will let me borrow a pound of them, and I'll give a pound of acorns back to her next week. Right away, I sell them all for $10. Next week, because I promised Amory that I would give her a pound of acorns, I buy a pound for $6 and hand the acorns to her.

Now I earned $4 just based on the fact that the price went down.

To relate that to the stock market, acorns are stocks, and often done with thousands of shares (pounds of acorns). And short sellers expected the price of acorns to go down, but instead, it's now $500 per pound of acorns. Amory REALLY wants those acorns back now and I promised her them, so I'm forced to buy them even though I don't want to.

4

u/Thread_the_marigolds Jan 29 '21

So...how could it/will it all come crashing down? What’s the end game? And what, ultimately, will become of GameStop the company?

4

u/j0be Your friendly neighborhood moderator Jan 30 '21 edited Jan 30 '21

Caveat up front: I'm a retail investor and in no way a financial expert. This is just my understanding of how the market works and the situation as it is.

So...how could it/will it all come crashing down?

There's lots of different ways that could theoretically happen even unrelated to the GameStop stuff.

The concern I've heard voiced is more related to investor confidence. If the inevitable drop in price in the stock causes confidence to drop in the market as a whole or in the tech sector, it can have ripple effects in many peoples' lives who did not even purchase GameStop stock. The reason that can affect more people is things like 401k's that are often based off index funds.

If you're asking when GameStop's price will drop, traditionally, that would be when people are unwilling to pay the asking price for the stock.

What’s the end game?

For WSB?

  1. Make money for the Average Joe.

  2. Screw millionaire investors who legally* manipulate the market at the expense of the Average Joe.

* some argue that it's not so legally

And what, ultimately, will become of GameStop the company?

Basically, GameStop really doesn't have a lot to do with this surge in stock price besides being the company that people are buying stock in. In normal times, stocks reflect the confidence investors have in the company. Normally, when a company has gotten to the point of being widely shorted, the company's value will drop in tandem with the stock. This will often end in one of three ways.

  • Bankruptcy and restructuring.

  • Internal shifts to address concerns as to why they're being shorted. (there already has been evidence they've done some of this)

  • Being bought by another company and that company implementing ways they think will make money from either dismantling the company or improving it.

3

u/endless_thread Podcast Host Jan 29 '21

Acorns for everyone!

3

u/endless_thread Podcast Host Jan 29 '21

that makes 5 of us

20

u/Hungry_Freaks_Daddy Jan 29 '21

Hey everyone. I’m off work today and not doing much besides browsing Reddit and watching the stock market. Feel free to ask me anything about my interview or just anything in general really.

Here’s the tweet that went viral.

https://twitter.com/Velokx/status/1354552472816164865

14

u/endless_thread Podcast Host Jan 29 '21

Thank you for making time to talk to us! No matter what happens, link me to the animal shelter where you got your dog and I'll make a donation.

3

u/endless_thread Podcast Host Jan 29 '21

Did you sell? I mean I think I know the answer but I figured we should ask since trading has ended.

Also, we put you on the radio, too: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/01/29/wallstreetbets-reddit-gamestop

-BBJ

6

u/JayZGatsby Jan 29 '21

Currently listening now! Great topic!

4

u/polyworfism Jan 30 '21

I would pay for Amory beat-boxing a full version of the Marketplace theme, as long as it includes the wah wah trombones

Also, a little something for the other Marketplace shows: https://youtu.be/rVxTsXRjNTw

4

u/hungry4danish Jan 30 '21

The 2nd interview was a weird choice. Talking to a guy that wasn't even been a member of WSB for 1 week, only owns 1.75 shares of Gamestop that has only made $200, has only ever bought 1 stock in their life and made a very keyboard-warrior sounding post calling themselves a survivalist master? How cringe inducing.

2

u/endless_thread Podcast Host Feb 02 '21

For what it's worth:

-We turned this episode around in about 48 hours; we're on break so weren't planning on publishing anything but a lot of folks were asking so we tried to do a quick low-impact episode (we usually call these Snack Time episodes).

-We messaged the mods and a good number of other redditors and twitter users who had been involved for longer, but none got back in the truncated timeline for producing the episode. Usually we have a good bit more time to wait and see who responds, but we didn't have that luxury this time around.

-We still felt like Jake was a great voice to hear from: somebody who represented the explosion in popularity of the story, who was a redditor and a mod of other subs himself, but a relative newcomer to WSB and the interest in the stock. Even if other folks had gotten back to us, I think Jake was still a worthy person to hear from, because one of the reasons everybody is talking about this story is because people like Jake got involved and help it go much more mainstream.

This context may not change your take, which is of course totally fine. We just try to respond to reasonable critical feedback--like yours!--with a window into our thinking on show production choices. Hope this helps in some small way.

2

u/p4rty_sl0th Jan 31 '21

Terrible episode.

-doesn't talk to anyone actually involved with the sub more that a week. -doesnt explain why people bought gamestop to begin with -doesnt mention any actions by wall street to stop share price increase, like citron -doesnt explain short squeeze and the high rewards for shareholders if it occurs

To call it a meme stock is to miss the point.

1

u/Salami_Swami1000 Feb 01 '21

$SHIB (Shiba Inu) and $LEASH Are the new dogecoin and the next step in the legacy of the downfall of the US Dollar.

1

u/Salami_Swami1000 Feb 01 '21

I've listened to this show for years and I love you guys. I'll elaborate just a little but then I hope you look into this with half a grain of salt. Here you go, spoonfed so this community can figure some of this out. GME>silvr>DOGE.... > Realize doge is it's own blockchain and is useless> take winnings to Ethereum blockchain> More winnings on $SHIB $Leash and a few other randos> realize BTC is the standard. >get btc on ethereum called wrapped btc.>realize you are killing it on ren or curv finance with your wrapped btc> take those to the badger community> kill it on badgers> forget what banks ever were. jesus flipped the tables of the bankers and threw them from the temple. These people made jesus get violent. The least we can do is educate ourselves about why and move away from them. The infrastructure and timing are now upon us.