# Anyone holding GME shares?



## KneesUp (27 Jan 2021)

I've just seen this story on the BBC about Gamestop - it's shares were massively shorted (traders betting on them falling in value) but that hasn't happened and now there seems not enought actual shares available for shorters to exit their positions. Meaning they have to buy, but those holding the shares don't have to sell, so the price is going up further and further. It's apparently over 100% shorted meaning some shares will have to be bought more than once - so no-one really seems to know where the price will peak, or what the endgame will be. I think that's right - it's how I understand it anyway. It seems to being pitted as an era-defining moment where David gets one over on Goliath.


*It's a battle between Wall Street pros and upstart investors using social media platforms like Reddit. And at the moment, the upstarts have the upper hand.*
At the centre of the tussle is a US video games bricks and mortar retailer called Gamestop, arguably something of a relic in a world moving online.
Shares in the business rocketed again on Wednesday, up 116% at the start of trading in New York. That's on top of a 92% jump on Tuesday, and takes gains in the last week well above 300%.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55817918

A good time to buy shares was last week, but looking on reddit, people are still buying them and still holding them and still maintaining that any price that is under $1000 is a bargain. Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts (or shares they want to sell me cheap!)


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## Once a Wheeler (27 Jan 2021)

Remember one of the often-cited tests for a bubble about to burst and wipe out its participants: 'This time it's different.'
It isn't.


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## KneesUp (27 Jan 2021)

Once a Wheeler said:


> Remember one of the often-cited tests for a bubble about to burst and wipe out its participants: 'This time it's different.'
> It isn't.


True - but if you can jump just before the ship explodes ... :-)

Big if.

I'm enjoying watching.


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## Eziemnaik (27 Jan 2021)

Itz LOLZ
There are voices to stop trading for 30 days
I hope before that WSB can take out some more victims


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## Eziemnaik (27 Jan 2021)

When Ickan was long on Herbalife (watch the doc) it is all legal
When common folk do it it is not


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## slowmotion (28 Jan 2021)

It was quite fun seeing the hedgies whining about how it wasn't fair being beaten at their own scam by a bunch of bedroom amateurs.


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## slowmotion (28 Jan 2021)

Here's someone talking sense about it......

_U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, long critical of Wall Street, called on regulators to take action.

“For years, the same hedge funds, private equity firms, and wealthy investors dismayed by the GameStop trades have treated the stock market like their own personal casino while everyone else pays the price,” Warren said on Twitter.

“It’s long past time for the SEC and other financial regulators to wake up and do their jobs.”_


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## Eziemnaik (28 Jan 2021)

Breaking News:
- wall street, disgusted with outside trading taking place shuts down communication platform
- SEC is pleading with redditers to stop, as it may cause Hedge Fund CEOs to have to sell their yachts and helicopters to cover losses
- White House is looking at prohibition of trading for unprofessionals with worth less than 10 000000$


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## slowmotion (28 Jan 2021)

Blimey! Somebody rocked the boat.


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## Once a Wheeler (28 Jan 2021)

KneesUp said:


> True - but if you can jump just before the ship explodes ... :-) Big if. I'm enjoying watching.


From today's edition of Shares magazine, talking about the US market:
Echoes of the South Sea Bubble of the 1720s are hard to ignore. Put simply, speculation in assets such as penny stocks and SPACs [Special Purpose Acquisition Companies] has reached levels rarely seen in the past and only seen in the final stages of a stock market bubble, where higher prices are sustained not by fundamentals but by faith that a ‘greater fool’ will pay an even higher price.​If, as often happens, the UK follows the US, you may have a gala performance to watch.


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## Eziemnaik (28 Jan 2021)

Higher prices haven't been sustained by fundamentals since at least 2008


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## KneesUp (28 Jan 2021)

It'll be interesting to see what the regulatory authorities will do - it very much seems to me like they shouldn't let any stock get over 100% shorted.

When VW was (briefly) the most expensive company in the world because of a short-squeeze on it's stock, it was by best estimates, 80% shorted. GME is, by best estimates, 130 to 140% shorted.

I think a big difference was VW stock was largely held by one family so if they weren't selling, the price kept rising. Obviously GME is held by many people, but the feeling from reading forums is that - generally - people are holding because they can see that it will just keep rising because the shorts have to cover, and if the go bankrupt, the central bank will have to take over and so on - it could end up with a bailout like in 2008 except this time the money will go to small bedroom investors, not the big corporates. That would make me smile.


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## nickyboy (28 Jan 2021)

Availability of Option trades allow the Reddit/Wall Street Bets retail investors to leverage their positions and compete with the Hedge Funds. They've won on Gamestop as Funds are having to exit their short positions and take huge losses in the process. However, fundamentally on Gamestop, there are a bunch of new retail holders in at a price waaaay beyond any logical valuation. That'll eventually unravel as Gamestop can't pay divis at a rate to support the share price. People will get bored when there is no more price action due to shorters having closed their positions and they will move on. Price will tank

However, this has shown what committed retail investors can do. There are the beginnings of something similar on ASX (Australia's main Stock Exchange) where Reddit investors are starting to up their option trades on heavily shorted stocks. For sure, I expect that Hedge Funds will be uber cautious about taking extreme short positions, at least for now


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## BrumJim (28 Jan 2021)

KneesUp said:


> I think a big difference was VW stock was largely held by one family so if they weren't selling, the price kept rising. Obviously GME is held by many people, but the feeling from reading forums is that - generally - people are holding because they can see that it will just keep rising because the shorts have to cover, and if the go bankrupt, the central bank will have to take over and so on - it could end up with a bailout like in 2008 except this time the money will go to small bedroom investors, not the big corporates. That would make me smile.



I will be really, really annoyed if there is a bailout. No excuse this time.


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## BrumJim (28 Jan 2021)

nickyboy said:


> However, this has shown what committed retail investors can do. There are the beginnings of something similar on ASX (Australia's main Stock Exchange) where Reddit investors are starting to up their option trades on heavily shorted stocks. For sure, I expect that Hedge Funds will be uber cautious about taking extreme short positions, at least for now



Hoping that money doesn't talk, and the regulatory authorities conclude that it is up to Hedge Funds to manage their risks, not a requirement for laws, regulation or mandatory restrictions.


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## Eziemnaik (28 Jan 2021)

Wall Street Bros are talking about silver....
Watch it's price


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## Eziemnaik (28 Jan 2021)




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## nickyboy (28 Jan 2021)

BrumJim said:


> Hoping that money doesn't talk, and the regulatory authorities conclude that it is up to Hedge Funds to manage their risks, not a requirement for laws, regulation or mandatory restrictions.


It won't get regulated, at least not for the forseeable. What will happen, like you say, is the Hedge Funds will learn a lesson and manage their risk more effectively. That means spreading their short positions around more. What it also means is that they will be employing people whose only job is to monitor Subreddits like WallStreetBets and assess the mood there. They will use this an input in to their short position decisions.
It will be a dangerous game for small investors to try to short squeeze another company. The Hedge Funds will be ready. If the investors fail to raise the price with their option trades then they stand to lose a fortune.


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## KneesUp (28 Jan 2021)

nickyboy said:


> It won't get regulated, at least not for the forseeable. What will happen, like you say, is the Hedge Funds will learn a lesson and manage their risk more effectively. That means spreading their short positions around more. What it also means is that they will be employing people whose only job is to monitor Subreddits like WallStreetBets and assess the mood there. They will use this an input in to their short position decisions.
> It will be a dangerous game for small investors to try to short squeeze another company. The Hedge Funds will be ready. If the investors fail to raise the price with their option trades then they stand to lose a fortune.


And it will settle down until all the people that lost their bonuses over this retire wealthy at 40, and are replaced by people who haven't learned from history, and so in 10 years or so it will happen again. VW was 2008.


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## slowmotion (28 Jan 2021)

Blimey! It's not a stock for the faint-hearted. The share price is all over the place.....

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=G...1611868326739&scso=_pigTYJ_nNpGhgAaXlJzgBg7:0


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## KneesUp (28 Jan 2021)

slowmotion said:


> Blimey! It's not a stock for the faint-hearted. The share price is all over the place.....
> 
> https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=G...1611868326739&scso=_pigTYJ_nNpGhgAaXlJzgBg7:0


It’s pretty volatile. Lots of possibly underhand tactics used today apparently including deflating the price when retail investors were locked out of buying in what could be seen as an attempt to panic shareholders onto selling. Over half of today’s losses look like they have been cleared in after hours trading and the shorts still aren’t cleared. Should be an interesting watch again tomorrow. A lot of the American redditors are not in it for the money they’re in it for revenge on the shorters and are saying they would rather lose their investment completely rather than sell.


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## IanSmithCSE (29 Jan 2021)

Good morning,

I have mixed feelings on this as when the private individuals start losing money a lot of them will start to whine that it's not fair.

Back in 2015 the Swiss Franc was revalued and a lot of people who were not serious investors were using leverage, (effectively trading with borrowed money) to trade currency.

I appreciate that the current Gamestop situation is different in detail, but the principle that many private gamblers/investors whine when they lose money isn't, many end up saying that "They didn't understand ......" or "It's not fair because...".

These currency traders lost a lot of money because people were telling them how easy it was and it was,...... until it wasn't.

Leverage is nasty and over the year's it availability has been cut back, but the idea is that if you have £100 and the Swiss Franc normally trades plus or minus 10% you could notionally buy £1,000 worth of Swiss Francs from a trading platform because your £100 covers the likely losses.

Note that you never actually buy the currency, just enter into a contract with a trading platform.

But, and there is a big but, once your £100 no longer covers the theoretical loss if you sold now, you have to immediately deposit enough money with the trading platform to cover this current paper loss. If you don't your position is closed and you are forced to take the paper loss as a real loss and you owe the difference.

A lot of private investors didn't understand this so when the Franc went from 1.2 Euros to 0.8 and then back to around 1.0 they lost a lot of money and even drove one of the providers, Alpari, out of business as so many individual defaulted on their debts.

You have £100, you buy £1,000 worth of Swiss Francs which lose a third of their value, £333, not only have you lost all of your £100 but you also owe £233, many private investor claimed they didn't realise this and it wasn't fair. But they were happy to take profits from this leverage.

We are starting to see this complaining that it not fair https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55837519 with Gamestop. Everybody knew what they were doing when they bought Gamestop shares in the last few days, they were trying to play the system and that must have risks. "Someone told me that it was easy money and it wasn't, that's not fair"

Bye

Ian


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## Eziemnaik (29 Jan 2021)

What is not fair is a provider shutting down access to trade for the unwashed masses while keeping it open for the enlightened and educated hedge funds
What is not fair is the hedge fund paying 800 000$ in speach fees to the secretary of tresury and aforementioned secretary to be expected to regulate the hedge fund
What is not fair is presumption that the unwashed rabble does not know what they are doing, where in fact many of them do


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## Eziemnaik (29 Jan 2021)

Well, at least dogecoin solves all of this!


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## Beebo (29 Jan 2021)

IanSmithCSE said:


> Good morning,
> 
> I have mixed feelings on this as when the private individuals start losing money a lot of them will start to whine that it's not fair.
> 
> ...


I don’t think they are complaining because they lost money, they knew what they were doing and it worked for a short time, until the market was shut down. They are complaining about that.

I agree that it will eventually become a problem as the bubble will collapse and the ones holding the stock at that point will suffer. The sensible ones will have sold early.

I couldn’t care less about the institutional short sellers.


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## nickyboy (29 Jan 2021)

Eziemnaik said:


> What is not fair is a provider shutting down access to trade for the unwashed masses while keeping it open for the enlightened and educated hedge funds
> What is not fair is the hedge fund paying 800 000$ in speach fees to the secretary of tresury and aforementioned secretary to be expected to regulate the hedge fund
> What is not fair is presumption that the unwashed rabble does not know what they are doing, where in fact many of them do


You understand the capital requirements placed on Market Makers and the impact on these of heavy Option put trades?

1) Investor buys out of market options to buy GME from a Market Maker. Say current price is 10, Option is at 15. Price of option is 1
2) MM makes the trade. The share has a Delta (volatility index) of 25. This means they buy 25 GME shares in the market at 10 to hedge their risk on selling the option
3) Then if volatility increases (to say Delta 40) they buy a further 15 GME shares 

The above takes huge capital if Options trade heavily. More capital than a lot of MMs have. Hence they closed down the trade as they were breaching. Citadel Capital (who back up Robinhood) were in that situation

However there is a suggestion that Citadel reloaded their GME shorts before telling Robinhood to stop trading GME 🤔


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## Eziemnaik (29 Jan 2021)

As per CEO of RobinHood there is absolutely no problem of liquidity


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## IanSmithCSE (29 Jan 2021)

Good morning,



Beebo said:


> I don’t think they are complaining because they lost money, they knew what they were doing and it worked for a short time, until the market was shut down. They are complaining about that.
> ....


I disagree that they knew what they were doing because many appear to have made the assumption that they would be able to buy and sell entirely at a time of their choosing.

Anyone with experience knows that this will not necessarily be the case in very unusual circumstances.

I am not saying that I would have predicted that a particular platform would have done what say Robinhood did, but Robinhood only restricted buying not selling and their explanation will either be believed or not depending upon an individual's world view. :-)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuCcchMOsKE&ab_channel=CNBCTelevision


I have made mistakes, I still have shares in NMC that were worth a significant amount when they were suspended, I had incorrectly underestimated the level of fraud going on in NMC and I had read the Muddy Waters report. Yes I am pretty ... off about this because the auditor took huge fees and missed over $6 billion dollars of off balance sheet debt.

The moderators might decide to take this link down, http://iansmithcse.co.uk/BSD/STH/ShortTermHold.aspx it is a serious discussion on short term holding and I include it as an indication that I am not just trolling. :-)

Bye

Ian


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## Beebo (29 Jan 2021)

IanSmithCSE said:


> I am not saying that I would have predicted that a particular platform would have done what say Robinhood did, but Robinhood only restricted buying not selling and their explanation will either be believed or not depending upon an individual's world view. :-)
> 
> View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuCcchMOsKE&ab_channel=CNBCTelevision



I’m know nothing about this. so here’s a stupid question. 
How can yourestrict Buying but not Selling. 
Who are they selling too?

The whole thing stinks. It just seems like the big boys have got angry because the little boys turned up on their pitch and beat them.


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## nickyboy (29 Jan 2021)

Eziemnaik said:


> As per CEO of RobinHood there is absolutely no problem of liquidity


It's a bit confusing. On one had he says the reason they won't allow buying of some stocks is due to SEC Capital Requirements and monies that have to be deposited with Clearing Houses. On the other hand he says there are no liquidity problems

These two things appear to contradict one another. 

Anyway, all interesting stuff

@RobinHood which is the Twitter of the Nottingham-based Robin Hood Society blew up yesterday with GME investors spending profits on arrows and felt hats for the bantz


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## IanSmithCSE (29 Jan 2021)

Good morning,



Beebo said:


> I’m know nothing about this. so here’s a stupid question.
> How can yourestrict Buying but not Selling.
> Who are they selling too?
> 
> The whole thing stinks. It just seems like the big boys have got angry because the little boys turned up on their pitch and beat them.



Most publicly available shares are traded on large stock exchange similar to the London Stock Exchange in England or the New York or NASDAQ in the USA.

Retail investors, in general and there are exceptions, can not get access to this exchange they create an account with a third party who is financially big enough and stable enough to be trusted and that third party buys and sells on the exchange on behalf of the retail customer.

So if you buy shares via say Robinhood, Robinhood can say we are only allowing sells because most of the retail world will be buying via other third parties and the institutional investors have direct access to the exchange.

There are of course a lot of grey areas.

Bye

Ian


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## BrumJim (29 Jan 2021)

I think a Certain Society needs to look at selling some share-trading-Lincoln-green style merchandising!


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## nickyboy (29 Jan 2021)

BrumJim said:


> I think a Certain Society needs to look at selling some share-trading-Lincoln-green style merchandising!


Hey, what a great idea!


nickyboy said:


> @RobinHood which is the Twitter of the Nottingham-based Robin Hood Society blew up yesterday with GME investors spending profits on arrows and felt hats for the bantz


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## Drago (29 Jan 2021)

Deliberately consipiring to manipulate stock values by 'legal' means or otherwise is illegal on both sides of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, this lot have been making their plans on a public forum and their names and faces are plastered all over social media, and it is now being suggested that it won't be long before they get dropped on very hard.

Individually doing what they did is one thing. Planning a co-ordinated mass action with a view to manipulate the stock values is entirely another, whether they personally intended to profit from it or not (and, funnilly enough, many of them did profit quite grandly) and I fear their exceitment at having supposedly given Wall Street a bloody nose is going to backfire spectacularly. Don't do it kids.


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## Eziemnaik (29 Jan 2021)

Drago said:


> Deliberately consipiring to manipulate stock values by 'legal' means or otherwise is illegal on both sides of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, this lot have been making their plans on a public forum and their names and faces are plastered all over social media, and it is now being suggested that it won't be long before they get dropped on very hard.
> 
> Individually doing what they did is one thing. Planning a co-ordinated mass action with a view to manipulate the stock values is entirely another, whether they personally intended to profit from it or not (and, funnilly enough, many of them did profit quite grandly) and I fear their exceitment at having supposedly given Wall Street a bloody nose is going to backfire spectacularly. Don't do it kids.


By your logic CNBC and Bloomberg are guilty of stock manipulation when they signal buy and sell


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## Eziemnaik (29 Jan 2021)

View: https://twitter.com/verge/status/1354949524700205066?s=20

Solidarity among the elites


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## Drago (29 Jan 2021)

Eziemnaik said:


> By your logic CNBC and Bloomberg are guilty of stock manipulation when they signal buy and sell


Its not my logic, its the law.

And if you don't believe me you can ask the Financial Conduct Authority, who have just now announced that they are investigating whether the group conspired to deliberately inflate the share price, which is a crime in both jurisdictions.

At face value, certainly if the tabloid reporting is to be believed, not only have they done so, but they've done much of their plotting on a public forum.

Oops!


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## Milkfloat (29 Jan 2021)

I am very much on the side of the small investor here, although if they get burnt within the rules it is their own fault. What I do have a problem with is protecting the shorting hedge funds who have been manipulating the markets for years, making huge profits and stiffing the small investor. Changing the rules to suit the big boys midway through all this and cutting off the small investor just to protect the hedge funds sits very uneasy with me and can only reduce confidence in the system in overall.


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## Eziemnaik (29 Jan 2021)

Drago said:


> Its not my logic, its the law.
> 
> And if you don't believe me you can ask the Financial Conduct Authority, who have just now announced that they are investigating whether the group conspired to deliberately inflate the share price, which is a crime in both jurisdictions.
> 
> ...


Even if they did I am very excited to see these headlines:
TiTiEz69 and 420bigDhaddy charged with stock manipulation
STONKSrulez becomes a whistleblower

On a side note, it just shows the law is for small people


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## nickyboy (29 Jan 2021)

Drago said:


> Its not my logic, its the law.
> 
> And if you don't believe me you can ask the Financial Conduct Authority, who have just now announced that they are investigating whether the group conspired to deliberately inflate the share price, which is a crime in both jurisdictions.
> 
> ...


Zero chance of any proceedings against them. Political suicide by whoever instigates it. No appetite amongst US general public to prosecute ordinary folk who have, as a one off, managed to get one over on Hedge Fund managers. 
Just have a look at the broad swathe of politicians calling out Robin Hood yesterday


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## KneesUp (29 Jan 2021)

Quite the rollercoaster in the first 75 minutes ....


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## Beebo (29 Jan 2021)

The short sellers had positions on over 100% of the issue shares. 
How can it be legal to short more than the total value of a company. 
That’s why it all went nuts in the scramble to buy shares as there weren’t enough to meet their obligations.


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## KneesUp (29 Jan 2021)

Beebo said:


> The short sellers had positions on over 100% of the issue shares.
> How can it be legal to short more than the total value of a company.
> That’s why it all went nuts in the scramble to buy shares as there weren’t enough to meet their obligations.


It's still going nuts - this dip is engineered - hardly anyone is selling shares according to reddit


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## RoadRider400 (29 Jan 2021)

Eziemnaik said:


> Higher prices haven't been sustained by fundamentals since at least 2008


I doubt think many of those buying in have even read the fundamentals.

IMO it certainly isnt an appealing investment based on the current market cap. If you are buying in purely to join in trying to get one over on a hedge fund, then I suppose that might be appealing to some. Good luck to anybody wanting to sell if everybody else decides to get out at the same time.


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## Eziemnaik (29 Jan 2021)

Of course it is not worth 400$. It may not be even worth 100$. But it is not a zombie company either.
Apparently M.Burry made a killing, he had a long position since last year


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## KneesUp (25 Feb 2021)

Looks like it might all be kicking off again over at GME


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## Eziemnaik (25 Feb 2021)

Peak bubble


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## TheDoctor (25 Feb 2021)

What on Earth is going on?
Last year I carefully managed not to sell Airbus shares before Corona hit and the value went from 150 to 50, didn't buy AO, Zoom, Ocado or Tesla, didn't buy Airbus shares before they went from 50 to 90 when the first vaccines came out, missed the GME fiasco last month and now it's doing it again!
OTOH, 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunities are happening every few weeks ATM. This time next year, Rodders...


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