OT: Game Stop

[Knicks411]

In a word, stonks.

You forgot to add the rocket ship emojii.

 

[bozophobe]

Yeah, they're hawking stonks over on Seeking Alpha. The Motley Fool guys will probably get wind of it at some point.

 

[NateW]

Annnnd... that ended quickly.

AOC coming in hot from the top rope on Teddy Traitor.

uNItY!

 

[OttoinGrotto]

You forgot to add the rocket ship emojii.

 

[City of Cuse]

If your goal is long-term/retirement income, you could do what millions have always done, but nobody here seems to - focus on income, rather than the "nest egg." There are very safe companies that pay dividends, and some raise them every year at a pace that exceeds annual inflation. Some Canadian banks have been paying dividends, uninterrupted, for over 100 years.

The key is to reinvest, to get that compounding machine going. Some call it SWAN investing (sleep well at night). No fretting over price drop or crashes - instead, those are buying opportunities, because you're getting a temporarily higher yield on cost, you see. Just keep track of your companies, and both your dividend and (over time) your stock prices will gain, too.

Don't get greedy and chase very high yields, but some high yielders are pretty safe. AT&T is around 7.2%, and they are paying down some of their huge debt. Apple would have been great several years ago for me, when they were yielding 2.6%. They have hiked that dividend 6 to 14 % a year or so, so it would be yielding about 5% a year now, and rising.

My faves? REIT (STOR, WPC,O), pharm (JNJ, BMS, PFE, ABBV), Canadian banks (TD, BMO, BNS), data (IRM), consumer (VFC, PEP, SNA, SBUX PG), various finance (MAIN, BEN, AFL, PRU, TROW), energy (SO), European exposure (NOK, UL), and so forth.

Some focus on dividend growth more (I would if I was younger). Others want to ride Tesla and AMD and Shopify and Amazon up some more. Not for me, but I won't lie and say I don't look for the next big one now and then, heh.

Lots of good ones in there. I will always have a spot in my heart for sbux. That has kept my portfolio going for many years and a couple splits.

 

[bpo57]

lol too funny.

The best thing about this week is I finally have friends and family ask me about what is going on that have had zero interest in the market before.

My barber who’s a big sports bettor and casino buff wants me to help set up his own retail account. The more regular people who get into the market the better and healthier it is for the market overall.

And also the more likely it signals a near term market top.

 

[bpo57]

The narrative this week was little guys vs the hedge funds. Definitely truth to that and good to see some of these shorts get smoked. But there were plenty of professional investors piling on by going long. When you see 50K blocks on the tape going by at $350 a share ($17.5 million) that's not Roaring Kitty from WSB. In fact I read a stat that retail investors were net sellers of GME on the week. Hedge funds looking to exploit a short squeeze is not a new phenomenon.

 

[Niastri]

If your goal is long-term/retirement income, you could do what millions have always done, but nobody here seems to - focus on income, rather than the "nest egg." There are very safe companies that pay dividends, and some raise them every year at a pace that exceeds annual inflation. Some Canadian banks have been paying dividends, uninterrupted, for over 100 years.

The key is to reinvest, to get that compounding machine going. Some call it SWAN investing (sleep well at night). No fretting over price drop or crashes - instead, those are buying opportunities, because you're getting a temporarily higher yield on cost, you see. Just keep track of your companies, and both your dividend and (over time) your stock prices will gain, too.

Don't get greedy and chase very high yields, but some high yielders are pretty safe. AT&T is around 7.2%, and they are paying down some of their huge debt. Apple would have been great several years ago for me, when they were yielding 2.6%. They have hiked that dividend 6 to 14 % a year or so, so it would be yielding about 5% a year now, and rising.

My faves? REIT (STOR, WPC,O), pharm (JNJ, BMS, PFE, ABBV), Canadian banks (TD, BMO, BNS), data (IRM), consumer (VFC, PEP, SNA, SBUX PG), various finance (MAIN, BEN, AFL, PRU, TROW), energy (SO), European exposure (NOK, UL), and so forth.

Some focus on dividend growth more (I would if I was younger). Others want to ride Tesla and AMD and Shopify and Amazon up some more. Not for me, but I won't lie and say I don't look for the next big one now and then, heh.

It's unfortunate that this well thought it post has one like and the one liner saying "stonks" got five.

 

[Forza Azzurri]

I think (emphasis on think) that none of the customer assets, even margin ones, can be used as collateral. So whatever the dollar amount RH needs to post to satisfy the clearing brokers, it has to be totally separate from any of the customer assets, margin or not. Again. I think.

Also wanted to say. I know RH is the headliner here, but they werent the only brokerage to restrict trading in some of the meme stocks

No, that isn't what I was saying. I wasn't saying that margined customer assets can be posted as collateral to DTCC.

What I was unsure about was, if RH is shut down and goes under, a la Lehman Bros, do margined assets become part of the general asset pool that can be used to satisfy creditors or are they ring-fenced.

I don't know the answer to that question.

 

[Orangezoo]

Never knew we had so many Wall Street experts on the board. We just might have the players to finish the dome if we needed to.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

 

[Todoubled23]

If Merrick Garland is what he says he is then they will be.
The SEC can connect the dots in minutes.

Citadel takes 70% of all retail order flow. Only broker not taking payment for flow is fidelity. Sec is a joke. They wont go after citadel and 2sig etc.

 

[Orangezoo]

At the end of the day there are successful strategies for every household that has the capital to do so. There is a lot of good advice for whether you speculate/day trade, like to dabble in options, futures or margin trading or even if you prefer an income based approach as previously mentioned. Maybe even you prefer some combination of the above.

This whole fiasco though has painted a picture of the realities of the low end retail investor paired with the massive scale of HFs, high dollar/volume day traders and in general the wealthier household. You can't build wealth at the time intervals of the wealthy ( I presume we have some in that company here given the complexity of the discussion) when you are on the low end retail side. So thus here we have something like RH who can play both sides but provides access to advanced tools for small retail folks who have no clue how to map out an options trading strategy beyond what reddit tells them. So what to they do? They try to emulate how the game is played at the whale level by throwing 90 pct of their annual income into a speculative push.

We can point the finger but there is a bigger problem here and that is that the markets are made for the middle to upper class. There really needs to be more literacy wealth education for the retail trader. I've worked around financial literacy for those folks praying to make a million for 15 years. There is far too little for them out there and that needs to change. Their education will hurt the HFs and day traders that trade ahead of them and make a market that effectively ensures low end retail can lose a lot if uneducated. I hope this shines a light on this as much as the back and forth tug of war.

 

[Knicks411]

No, that isn't what I was saying. I wasn't saying that margined customer assets can be posted as collateral to DTCC.

What I was unsure about was, if RH is shut down and goes under, a la Lehman Bros, do margined assets become part of the general asset pool that can be used to satisfy creditors or are they ring-fenced.

I don't know the answer to that question.

Yeah I realized what you were saying after I hit send.

I would imagine they can be used to satisfy creditors? Lot of "I thinks" and "I imagine" with stuff this week though

 

[bpo57]

I would think (haha) margined assets would be liquidated to satisfy the credit extended to purchase those assets. To the extend there is a surplus that would go to the person who bought the stock. If a deficit then that would mean the broker (RH) would seek repayment of the balance from their customer who bought the stock.

 

[Forza Azzurri]

Yeah I realized what you were saying after I hit send.

I would imagine they can be used to satisfy creditors? Lot of "I thinks" and "I imagine" with stuff this week though

Yes, trying to remember back to the rehypothecated assets at Lehman and whether the same scenario would apply here even though it was prime brokerage then vs retail brokerage today...not sure if same rules would apply...

But what seems more likely to me is that this scenario, rather than the conspiracy theory espoused by jack-a$$ clickbait media types (Portnoy) and jack-a$$ clickbait politicians (AOC & Cruz) and subsequently embraced by the conspiracy-loving public, including this board, is more likely to be the truth.

Now, could there be a parallel course where Cohen and Griffin pressured RH independently to do this? Possible. I would think that such pressure could be prosecutable so, if they did, it had to be a question of financial life or death. Feasible? Yes. Likely? IMHO. No.

 

[Todoubled23]

Retail traders on reddit are hilarious. Taking all the credit for the run up. Combined reddit users worldwide couldn't sniff the butt of these whales in stocks that have been there for generations. When they falsely claimed to be the new kings of the stock market big boys simply reposition another short. Hilarious reddit users are delusional.

Check out some of the darkpool flow from the big boys.

 

[Oakland]

It's unfortunate that this well thought it post has one like and the one liner saying "stonks" got five.

Funny, I've read a lot of military history and don't remember seeing the word 'stonk', now I see it by reading a stock thread on a basketball board.

 

[bpo57]

Retail traders on reddit are hilarious. Taking all the credit for the run up. Combined reddit users worldwide couldn't sniff the butt of these whales in stocks that have been there for generations. When they falsely claimed to be the new kings of the stock market big boys simply reposition another short. Hilarious reddit users are delusional.

Check out some of the darkpool flow from the big boys.

Of course it's a mismatch but this week some of the big boys got carried off the field. And there is no doubt that the reddit bros had a hand in it. The overall effect was to help take the market down as numerous hedge funds had to sell stocks (many of the market favorites) they owned in order to cover some of their short positions.

 

[Forza Azzurri]

Retail traders on reddit are hilarious. Taking all the credit for the run up. Combined reddit users worldwide couldn't sniff the butt of these whales in stocks that have been there for generations. When they falsely claimed to be the new kings of the stock market big boys simply reposition another short. Hilarious reddit users are delusional.

Check out some of the darkpool flow from the big boys.

No, but they did get it started, and that has never happened before.

 

[Todoubled23]

Of course it's a mismatch but this week some of the big boys got carried off the field. And there is no doubt that the reddit bros had a hand in it. The overall effect was to help take the market down as numerous hedge funds had to sell stocks (many of the market favorites) they owned in order to cover some of their short positions.

Citadel and 72 had little problems giving Melvin almost $3B, new shorts will continue to pile in too. A whole lot of shorts with cost basis 350+ no reason to cover. Funny too, JPM is the private backer for a lot of these hedge funds and were heavily involved this last week in darkpool trading of GME. These tutes will dump on the disadvantaged retail trader when the time comes.

 

[bpo57]

Citadel and 72 had little problems giving Melvin almost $3B, new shorts will continue to pile in too. A whole lot of shorts with cost basis 350+ no reason to cover. Funny too, JPM is the private backer for a lot of these hedge funds and were heavily involved this last week in darkpool trading of GME. These tutes will dump on the disadvantaged retail trader when the time comes.

Melvin lost 30% ytd and several other hedge funds got burned as well. Andrew Left of Citron announced he will no longer publish short sale recommendations. This was a fairly momentous week. Somehow you seem to feel otherwise.

 

[Todoubled23]

Melvin lost 30% ytd and several other hedge funds got burned as well. Andrew Left of Citron announced he will no longer publish short sale recommendations. This was a fairly momentous week. Somehow you seem to feel otherwise.

Some bears definitely got torched and rightfully so naked shorting phantom shares that only expedited a failing companies downfall that is almost inevitable. Melvin's made 40-45% annually with over a billion aum for many years. Citadel and 72 won't let them bleed out. It was a momentous week no doubt, but institutional players are the ones propping it up for now, not retail. And you know when tutes dump they take no prisoners. Bear flag after bear flag for weeks or months on end.

 

[Arangeman]

I've been following wallstreetbets almost a year now. There are certainly some pump and dump/foreign agents at work, but there are also really solid investors that know their stuff.

The best thing about it is you have to post proof of your position. You can find out who knows what they are talking about vs who doesn't pretty quick.

Once this GME stuff goes away, jump back on there in 3 months to find some fun positions.

I do agree though, don't invest in that stuff unless it is money you are okay with losing.

The thread is so heavily inundated now I don’t know how you can figure out who is legit.

 

[Todoubled23]

T

The thread is so heavily inundated now I don’t know how you can figure out who is legit.

Yolo guy Deep*****value is Keith Gill.
I'd be careful. Things could get spicy here. I'm looking for a retest for a backside short position.

Unlike the media portrayal of Keith as mainly an average guy, unsophisticated investor type. His FINRA broker check stats tell a very different story. I smell securities fraud.