Mathmatical Moron tries to understand the Stock Market

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'Outside my wheelhouse' doesn't even begin to describe what I see presented in front of me here. I ain't no Stock trader, trading analyst or anything of the sort. I posses none of the perquisites to get involved in such, not least of all basic knowledge and/or interest. So when it comes to what the going-ons at Wall Street mean, I have no earthly idea and they might as well all be talking moon language to me, however, this is showing up on my blog anyway and there must be a reason for that, no? Well that's because this whole situation does have a tangential link towards the world of gaming, and given that it's one of the most important stories to come out of this sort of thing in forever, I find that irresistible. Wall Street is mildly fascinating as this sort of overarching entity that seems to indirectly and confusingly influence the way we live our lives, and when that entity gets challenged, by Memers no less, how could I not talk about it?

Now I should probably continue but first I should mention, I have no idea if we can really trace this all the way back to Memers. By now a lot of people who really have an axe to grind have entered the discussion and for all I know it was them that got the ball rolling in the first place, but all I know is that I became aware of the situation through the Memeing angle. All I heard was a bunch of people talking about Gamestop Stock and thought, "Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time". The last I heard, and I thought I'd ever hear, from Gamestop was in relation to Reggie coming over to try and work his magic, but I didn't except anything to actually come of that. And as far as I can tell nothing really has. That is, unless, Reggie managed to sprinkle his fairy dust over Wallstreetbets and set this whole thing in motion. (But that would be magical market manipulation, so I'm going to assume he didn't.)

So although I'm sure you all either already know the situation or are capable of getting a much more indepth explanation elsewhere, (which I highly encourage) I apparently have a fetish for introductions, so here we go. As far as I can tell, the situation started when someone noticed how pitifully low the Gamestop stock was, in relation to how it's a brick and mortar retail store in a world that's heading increasingly digital by the minute. Now at this point I don't know if it was public knowledge about the hedge funds and their short selling operations, but I do know there was a push of the Reddit page 'Wallstreetbets' in order to flood the stocks for Gamestop. Now when I first heard it explained to me there was the meme angle of this, the company was obviously heading off a cliff but if enough momentum was thrown their direction then it might encourage normal investors to spot the trend and assume something big was coming without doing any basic research themselves. (Which, as far as I can tell, happened.)

 

And so, in the way of miracles; Gamestop became one of the most heavily traded stocks of the week and managed to shoot up, I'm told, 1000% percent. Which is just a stupid amount to climb. Now does this mean that the business itself is any less screwed? I don't know. Again, stocks and their relation to the real world is some sort of eldritch Arcanum that I struggle to untangle, but it certainly made enemies quite quickly. I heard of one 'old establishment' source who scoffed at the idea and offered to hold a live stream teaching these 'kiddies' about the basics of portfolio assessment, only for the Gamestop momentum to barrel into hyperspace and send those guys retreating with their tail between their legs. This was just normal people, operating through easy-access commission free traders such as 'Robinhood', who were sticking it to the stuffy coats who've sneered at them for what feels like decades. (But especially the last 13 years, if you're picking up what I'm putting down.)

However, there is a much more impactful, and hilarious, angle to all this and that is the Hedge fund guys. Oh lord this is where the story gets interesting. Again, total moron to all these financial terms so I've had them explained and reexplained to me through several sources, so I think it goes something like this. These guys are ultra rich scumbags who have a scheme, known as 'Short Selling', wherein they borrow stocks and sell them off, betting on the stock to lose value so that they can then buy it back and return that stock with a profit. It's a scummy system which forms a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, because not only does it rely on the failings of a company but it encourages anyone who recognises it happening to stay away from that stock, because richer people than you want that stock to go down. And it's these people that really caught the bad end of this whole situation.

Because, you see, when they borrow the stocks they are legally obligated to return them, thus if some sort of shenanigans happen in between the selling and rebuying of them, such as a surprise 1000% increase in value, well- let's just say there's going to be a lot of very unhappy billionaires by the end of the day. (And isn't that all anybody wants for Christmas; unhappy billionaires?) These are the sorts of people that relish in the financial death of entire companies, so you can imagine how much everyone started to pile on once it was realised that Gamestop was once such stock undergoing Short selling. I'm talking about even guys like Elon Musk throwing their weight behind the matter, because these are the parasites that literally have no one's best interest to mind except for themselves. These would also be the same folk that you see going on the news in order to demonise the grassroutes rebellion against them by claiming everything from how these people are uninformed morons, (Which, given the volume of people involved, is statically likely to be true for some folk, not entirely sure how that helps their situation though. You got duped by morons; what does that make you?) and even entirely baseless accusations of market manipulation.

That last one is ironic. Especially given that on the tailend of this whole back and forth, which has turned some of the Wallstreetsbets folk into millionaires off the back of these Wall street goons, (Good on them) there has occurred a little situation which some folk, though not myself for legal reasons, have described as overwhelming textbook market manipulation. Now full disclosure, I don't know the letter of the law in this matter and given I'm in no way involved it doesn't really matter all that much to me, all I know is that it's incredibly revealing how things played out. Yes, by now you likely know; one key commission-less broker that a lot of the Wallstreetbets people were using, Robinhood, ended up cancelling the ability to buy Gamestop Stock (As well as other classically bad-bet stocks which had started to gain attention in this wave of retail rebellion) so that it can only be sold now. Thus forcing the stock to go down. Hmm... I wonder why they did that? Could it be because of 'system overload' like they claim, or maybe because of their own financial ties to the Hedge funds involved in the scheme? Your guess is as good as mine...

So yes, at the end of the day we've got a potential meme that started as 'Huh, I wonder what happens if we drive Gamestop stocks up', which has turned into a spitting match against the traditional dragons of finance and I can't help but applaud from the side-lines. As an uninvolved and entirely confused observer, I find all of this has the air of something incredibly important to it, and I wonder what real life actual movement might be inspired by, at least somewhere along the way, a bunch of gamers. (Just more evidence that gamers are some of the least passive consumers out there and I love it) Heck, even famed 'Among Us' streamer AOC is getting involved on the side of the underdogs, who knows where this momentum will lead us? And, of course, the US stock exchange effects us across the pond, and I'm sure those across the world, so this could be the start of something... I don't want to say magical... but at least new. Or maybe it'll all amount to nothing and just be more evidence, as if we needed anyway after the timeless philosophy by Lemar, that 'There ain't no justice in the world'.