The Movement, Explained

This is a different kind of mission from Pointman. This time, we are talking about financial strength and fortitude. The current events on Wall Street are very very significant. I personally don’t trade much, and I don’t have positions in any of these companies, but this is a catastrophe for the 99% and we all are responsible for understanding and acting. A few friends of mine who do not know finance asked me to explain it to them, and I know they aren’t the only ones. I’m writing it down here to share with everyone who wants to learn more. I want to be on the right side of history, and I want to protect our rights. We are being robbed in plain sight. “This is class warfare”.

We all understand the most basic component of the stock market. Buy some stock at some price.

If the price goes up, you make money!

If the price goes down, you lose money!

When you buy a stock, you are betting the price will go up. That's why you bought it. You have no guarantee of the outcome but, for whatever reason, you believe the reward of owning the stock if it goes up is greater than the risk of the money lost if the stock goes down. So you decide to make the bet.

This is called gambling. 

This gambling — buying and selling — happens millions of times a day. The stock market is a giant international gambling arena, an epic poker game that never stops.

Just as you can bet on the price of a stock going up, you can also bet on the price of a stock going down. You might think a company has bad financials, or you just don't like the company for whatever reason.

This is calling short selling a stock.

You BUY a stock to bet the price will go up. 

You SHORT a stock to bet the price will go down. 

Shorting might not be common for the average investor, but it is big business for all the fat cats on wall streets. Big companies like hedge funds short stocks just as much as they buy stocks. 

So, GameStop.

A hedge fund decided to short sell a ton of GameStop stock. They had their reasons, maybe it was even a financially sound position.

But a group of people on reddit called /r/WallStreetBets decided they wanted to bet against the bet against GameStop. So they collaborated and started buying GameStop stock.

They used an online forum to generate support for a floundering company. Then support grew and grew and grew. As far as I know, everything is and was 100% legal.

As the GameStop stock continues to climb astronomically, the hedge fund that shorted GameStop gets more and more fucked. In fact they were even bailed out by other finance companies and that money was incinerated.

What's even more ironic is the hedge fund that originally SHORTED GameStop was forced to BUY GameStop to mitigate the loss to their positions. 

As a reminder, it is illegal to trade on private information that is not available to the market at large. The GameStop phenomenon is a mass online transparent collaboration. This rally and enthusiasm is happening with a few other companies as well. To reiterate, as far as I know, this is and was 100% legal. 

Some people have become very very rich. But that is not why this is important. 

This is a unique moment in time.

It shows that stock price is a measure of perception and zeitgeist, not company performance. It is shows people that the stock market is not intrinsically righteous, or fundamentally good, or inordinately bad.

It shows the stock market is just a big poker game. If you play well, and are lucky, you can make money. Simple as that. It's important to see the world as it is, rather than you think it should be. 

But that is not the reason why we need to care about what is happening. This is an exceptional cultural moment and, depending on how this shakes out, might bring in a new world order. Or a revolt. It is definitely already a movement.

What happened is the hedge funds went to the regulators to complain.

All of the sudden, when the little guy wins and they lose, even just a bit, they go crying to mommy and daddy. 

The problem is they succeeded. Discord.com shut down the /r/WallStreetBets server, and Robinhood.com has disabled trading for GameStop. Lots of other developments too. Too many to list, but they are all consistent with fair player disenfranchisement.

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE

These Reddit users are participating in the poker game, just like everyone else. They do not have any special information and they are not doing anything illegal.

The big players, who have the all the advantages and have already benefited orders of magnitude more than anyone else over decades, showed they are willing to play as long as they win, and will play unfairly or shut the game down if they lose. FUCK THEM.

No tech company, no hedge fund, and no governing body can be allowed to disenfranchise the right to participate in the stock market if the players are acting within the law. This is the first amendment. That right cannot be removed or restricted just because some ultra rich people decided it should be done.

The movement is about holding these companies and organizations accountable.

READ UP, DEFEND YOUR RIGHTS, JOIN THE MOVEMENT.