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GME stock and shortsellers (out of main)

Discussion in 'TSLA Investor Discussions' started by Electroman, Jan 23, 2021.

  1. Boomer19

    Boomer19 Active Member

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  2. Bet TSLA

    Bet TSLA Active Member

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    I'm curious as to why I should believe these numbers. Do you have any idea where they come from? how they are derived? how accurate they have proven to be when tested against "ground truth"? what penalty there is for making a "mistake" in reporting data?

    And of course there is always the question as to whether there are subtleties in the definitions, so that the numbers we are seeing may not represent what we think they do.
     
  3. TheTalkingMule

    TheTalkingMule Distributed Energy Enthusiast

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    It's my understanding that NYSE/S3 short interest numbers are essentially arbitrary. The official FINRA biweekly update is more accurate in totality, but is still purely voluntary. From what I hear, the penalty for submitting a false short interest figure is $149k. Not a bad deal if it helps save you $149M.

    A lot of the confusion is generally in the "short interest" denominator because "the available float" can be open to interpretation. For GME short interest was something like 21.4M shares a few weeks ago, that translated to anywhere from 79% to 30% "short interest", depending on how you want to define the float.

    The most rational approximation I've seen for the true GME float is ~26M shares, so you can take the FINRA number of shares shorted and divide that by 26M to get a decent figure. That's if the hedge funds are reporting their real position, which......why would they?

    My premise is that people do what's in their interest, therefore true short interest is unlikely to be the 79% reported Feb9 or the 61% reported Wednesday night. Certainly feels more like 80-130%, but Bloom berg told me "they all covered" so who knows. :rolleyes:
     
  4. MP3Mike

    MP3Mike Well-Known Member

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    The numbers are from the NYSE, but they don't provide them for free like NASDAQ does. I think the number of shares shorted is accurate, and it matches what eventually shows up on other sites like Yahoo. The % of float is a whole different story since every site/source uses a different estimate for the float. (I think Yahoo uses Morningstar's estimate, which has a really small float for GME, so I think the ORTEX number is likely more accurate. I think they get their float estimate from FactSet, which is what S3 uses as well.)
     
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  5. UnknownSoldier

    UnknownSoldier Unknown Member

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    Today's reminder that any law for crime punished by a fine means that the law is only meant to apply to poor people.
     
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  6. Artful Dodger

    Artful Dodger "Ducimus, lit"

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    Gamestop $GME is NOT covered in the recent move to suspend trading of certain equities:

    SEC.gov | SEC Suspends Trading in Multiple Issuers Based on Social Media and Trading Activity

    The SEC suspended trading in the securities of:
    • Bebida Beverage Co. (BBDA)
    • Blue Sphere Corporation (BLSP)
    • Ehouse Global Inc. (EHOS)
    • Eventure Interactive Inc. (EVTI)
    • Eyes on the Go Inc. (AXCG)
    • Green Energy Enterprises Inc. (GYOG)
    • Helix Wind Corp. (HLXW)
    • International Power Group Ltd. (IPWG)
    • Marani Brands Inc. (MRIB)
    • MediaTechnics Corp. (MEDT)
    • Net Talk.com Inc. (NTLK)
    • Patten Energy Solutions Group Inc. (PTTN)
    • PTA Holdings Inc. (PTAH)
    • Universal Apparel & Textile Company (DKGR), and
    • Wisdom Homes of America Inc. (WOFA)
    Good for Gamestop. Good for r/WSBs. :D

    Cheers!
     
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  7. ZsoZso

    ZsoZso Supporting Member

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    Interesting, no AMC or BB either.
     
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  8. printf42

    printf42 Active Member

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    They are slow boiling frogs, they intentionally miss those meme stocks in their first move, so their motivation and legality won’t be questioned.

    Later when it’s truly needed, they will shoot their real targets and says this is not a targeted attack, same has been done before to protect “investors”.

    Don’t forget what SEC stands for.
     
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  9. UnknownSoldier

    UnknownSoldier Unknown Member

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    Shortseller Enrichment Commission
    S Elon's C
     
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  10. TheTalkingMule

    TheTalkingMule Distributed Energy Enthusiast

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  11. adiggs

    adiggs Active Member

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    Interesting that their press release only talks about market manipulation in the upwards direction. They had an easy chance to talk about stepping in where there is evidence of market manipulation designed to take advantage of investors by driving the price of shares down (or into bankruptcy).

    I am one of the folks that thinks of our good friends at the SEC as the Shortseller Enrichment Commission. That any member of society can hold such a view of an important regulatory body, much less enough people for it to be meme-worthy, should be viewed by all members of society, whether a politician or not, as ... bad. For society, not just active investors. It's an indicator that rule of law is breaking down.
     
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  12. TheTalkingMule

    TheTalkingMule Distributed Energy Enthusiast

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    • Informative x 3
  13. JRP3

    JRP3 Hyperactive Member

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    IBKR CEO tells his version of the story.

     
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  14. TheTalkingMule

    TheTalkingMule Distributed Energy Enthusiast

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    This IB guy always struck me as a fairly straightforward broker, much more so than shady Robinhood. Glad to see he's got a rational point of view, and though technically on the wrong side of this, probably the least at fault. Great to see someone openly call for logical regulation.

    As for the video....

    I live how no one bothers to simply point at Melvin as the problem. And they didn't even touch on Citadel as the MM being WAY too cozy with the shorts they service.

    To call this mess a conflict of interest is insulting is laughable, it's an entirely rigged system.

    For the life of me I still can't understand how these guys who are allowed to do all this don't gave literally all the money in the world. How can you lose money when it's heads I win, tails it's a draw?
     
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  15. TheTalkingMule

    TheTalkingMule Distributed Energy Enthusiast

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    I have to say I'm more than a little disappointed the TMC community didn't jump on this story more aggressively considering it's EXACTLY what we've been dealing with for 10 years now. In the video above we have a broker admitting that shorts not only have all the advantage in the world, but also MUST be prioritized within the system that's been put in place by MMs and is regulated by the SEC. In an investment with theoretically unlimited loss potential, they are actually capped at 50%(or whatever keeps them from being able to pay).

    We whine about the Shortz Enrichment Committee, but here we have a direct example of the system bailing out shorts and we're not furious? People here seem to be much happier pointing the finger at Reddit investors as if they weren't within their rights to buy equities and options that are freely available to anyone. So what if the underlying company is considered to be worth far less? It's still exactly the same story.

    Watch the video @JRP3 was kind enough to post, and look back at all the media coverage from that week that was clearly just pasted from hedge fund emails to the editors. This is precisely the complicit nonsense we've been complaining about with TSLA over the years. It's nice that everyone's now a comfortable Teslanaire, but the problem still exists. The same people are still stealing billions from retail investors.

    I brought up the idea of targeted cooperative options buying to induce short squeezing years ago as an attempt to fight back against the shadiest hedge funds. Alas the TSLA float was always considered way too large to impact, but here we have an instance where they're already stuck! Short interest is clearly hovering around 100% of the actual float, and with all the calls on top of that it's about 300%. Today. Retail can jump in here with options and mild share buying to have a huge impact. Melvin may be 1/2 gone, but they've been replaced by a multitude of other shorts.

    Why aren't we as a group more militantly supportive of this plan? I think if some of the older posters were still here they would be.

    On a side note.....here's a random Reddit post that 50% made sense to me. He feels there are deep pocketed hedge funds playing the squeeze side of this from $40 looking to set a timebomb for another squeeze. Makes sense in theory, but there's no way to confirm. Just more indication that none of this would be problem if the SEC would just do their job and make shorting completely transparent. Tell me what you think, if you feel like reading this mess......

    https://www.reddit.com/r/GME/comments/ltua0n/endgame_dd_how_last_weeks_actions_all_come/

    (here's come vintage psychotic ranting for ya @jhm !)
     
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  16. winfield100

    winfield100 Supporting Member

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    That was quite a rant.
    (didn't realize Cramers "how to cheat the system" keeps getting taken down)
    Of course the game is rigged, it's always rigged.
    It looks loike most will be revealed by quardruple witchin' day around 3/19
    ( my son in law and both daughters are very minor diamond HODL;s hands of GME and TSLA)
     
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  17. winfield100

    winfield100 Supporting Member

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    except only spends a miniscule amount of time on short interest being reported 2x a month, instead of daily.
    Why not try that?
     
  18. JRP3

    JRP3 Hyperactive Member

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    It's not up to him to change the rules.
     
  19. winfield100

    winfield100 Supporting Member

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    i know. it has bothered me for years about short interest being able to be hidden so much.
    but, the game is rigged after all

    If he could have only emphasized it though, like SEC or somebody, doing a rule change
    I expect S3 would not like that, among others
     
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  20. TheTalkingMule

    TheTalkingMule Distributed Energy Enthusiast

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    Cancelled my sell order at $420.69 and am now targeting $694.20 out of spite. Have a buy order in for $300 Mar19 calls at half the opening price from this morning should we dip again before Friday.

    I'm a little hesitant to redouble-down late next week if there's another push back toward $40. We shall see. Would likely just buy a few calls to lever up rather than buy shares. IMO a dive back down to $50 this week or next is essentially free money. Buy <$50, sell >$70.

    Next short interest "report" is Tuesday the 9th after close, leaving the remainder of that week as potentially a good time to buy calls. Tomorrow(3/2) at close is the due date for hedgies to voluntarily disclose their short position for this two week period. It'll be interesting to see if we climb tomorrow and then crash Wed/Thurs on renewed shorting. Maybe I'll sell at $150 and buy back at $105.

    Clearly hedge funds are taking advantage of this situation. Their logical move is to ride the predictable wild swings and not even care if there's a squeeze. Might as well ride along until short interest is something south of 50%(in reality).
     
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