> there is this narrative that the little guy is finally sticking it to the big bad hedge funds. In reality there is probably very little truth to this.
Which part has little truth to it?
The big hedge funds are apparently losing money (billions!) on Gamestop, unless that's being mis-reported. Some of the "little guys" (reddit people) definitely were a part of the reason for that.
The big hedge funds are apparently losing money (billions!)
A few hedge funds (of different sizes) are indeed losing billions. A few other hedge funds have taken the opposite side of this bet and are making money. The vast majority of hedge funds have no position in this stock and are completely unaffected.
In addition a bunch of HFT shops and similar making a lot money off the volatility and order flow all this has caused.
I mean, some hedge funds are making money, sure. But the point is that, collectively, billions of wealth have so far been transferred from institutional investors to regular investors.
But the point is that, collectively, billions of wealth have so far been transferred from institutional investors to regular investors.
Perhaps, but for every dollar that gets transferred to a small handful of regular investor, I suspect at least 10, if not a 100, is probably being transferred to different institutional investors.
I just don't buy the Wall Street vs The People narrative. This is Wall Street vs Wall Street with The People picking up scraps from the battle field and hoping they don't get stepped on.
Also, how much of that has been realised vs just being paper gains/losses? I'm not convinced the original hedge fund shorters have really closed out all their positions at a loss. Or maybe they've closed out some of their shorts at a loss, then entered the short again at a higher point and are now poised to make even more money on the (inevitable) way down.
Conversely, a few investors that bought cheap might have made huge returns - if they sold at inflated prices (passing the hot potato to the next greater fool). If they didn't sell, then the paper gains will vanish.
Not it hasn’t. Retails hasn’t yet sold and the market doesn’t have the demand to hold sell off at the current price. The billions paid by hedgefunds went as pure profit to the big FIs like blackrock. When all this done and financial disclosures come out. The winners will be the big financial firms who have already made their money selling stocks at this inflated price.
A Korean fund made a billion dollars on a 12 million dollar GmE investment and they were only the 7th largest holder of GME shares. The wsb narrative of this sticking it to Wall Street is just false.
I personally think it’s a narrative propped up intentionally by wsb insiders for their own gain. This is just a modern distributed boiler room. Retail traders always pay in those scenarios.
> it’s a narrative propped up intentionally by wsb insiders for their own gain.
Yes, in particularly the passionate pleas to buy in more and HODL, stick it to the man, stick it to the evil shorts. While enabling the early longs to cash out profitably.
>> The big hedge funds are apparently losing money
Some are losing money. But that is nothing new. Hedge funds die every day ... on paper. But which brokerage houses are going under? Other hedge funds are doing fine, likely profiting on this. The fact that a few are held out as victims sounds, to me, like the other funds just stoking the panic. I don't see any non-paper houses closing over this. This is Gamestop, not the mortgage crisis.
> The big hedge funds are apparently losing money (billions!) on Gamestop, unless that's being mis-reported.
There are thousands of hedge funds, just because a handful have been caught with their trousers round their ankles doesn’t mean the others aren’t profiting from current volatility.
That retail is behind a massive short squeeze that is solely responsible for these moves. At this point shorts from significantly lower levels have almost certainly been covered, if for no other reason out of simple necessity. At this point what started as a short squeeze has ballooned into a false narrative that retail is sticking it to shorts when in reality it’s almost certainly HFT traders pushing this stock up and down by now. Retail simply doesn’t have enough cash to move a stock like this especially when by their own admission they aren’t selling any shares!
(Disclaimer I do NOT know what I'm talking about, just repeating what I saw on Twitter)
It seems like they've all closed their shorts already, most of them did on like day 2 I believe.
In addition, other hedge funds have been on the winning side of this trade. Some of the orders for GME last few days have been absolutely massive, not coming from retail.
I believe the statements were worded in such a way to try to make people believe that the short squeeze was no longer in play, but the short interest in fact never changed and maybe even went up. I believe they were also worded in a way to be technically correct (for example if they had multiple short positions, e.g. naked short calls, if they "closed their short position" that could mean they chose their smallest/cheapest short position to close and it would be technically correct).
The data doesn't back up the broader (and presumably intended) interpretation of their statements.
In my (inexpert) opinion THAT is the definition of market manipulation.
> I believe the statements were worded in such a way to try to make people believe that the short squeeze was no longer in play, but the short interest in fact never changed and maybe even went up.
I've seen this "claim" all over the internet. It's not true. The statements released by Melvin Capital were unambiguous and of course short interest on Gamestop is going to go up when it surges to such high prices.
"the hedge fund’s manager told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin."
So this is completely based on a phone call and Melvin Capital can just claim that Andrew Sorkin misunderstood them.
There's no public statement from Melvin Capital, which makes me suspect that they were indeed just trying to manipulate public perception, they could have just not talked to journalists about their positions, which is their official policy.
Who do you think is selling GME shares to retail investors for dollars on the penny?
This whole thing is disgusting. Once the euphoria had subsided, people will realize that the hedge funds have come out as bandits, having traded nickles for dollar bills.
Two hedge funds isn’t “the big hedge funds”. A lot more people are going to make money not by taking the right position, but because they are the market, and they get paid whenever a ton of retail investors decide to come in and buy GME based on memes.
Which part has little truth to it?
The big hedge funds are apparently losing money (billions!) on Gamestop, unless that's being mis-reported. Some of the "little guys" (reddit people) definitely were a part of the reason for that.