Stocks and Trading Thread - Channeling your inner Mono

[Josquius]

I was posting about this a few months ago; the stock market is ridiculous. A self-contained economy with little bearing on the reality for the majority.

It has long left its simple roots of investing in a business that you have confidence in doing well. So much of it is now people trading bits of paper back and forth, some winning some losing. Impacts on the actual companies involved being very abstract and related to the potential to sell more bits of paper rather than any direct income from selling a stock for $100 vs $50. Its understandable that it would go ever higher and higher in this situation.

As I said however a key problem is that there's no easy and more productive way to invest your money. When you've confidence stocks (and property)= earnings, then there's no incentive to invest in things that might actually have useful effects beyond the market, like some guy in your town starting up a new brewery or the like.

We really need something to make it a viable alternative to put money towards useful needs. Even if the potential earnings are lower, if you can be fairly sure you won't lose, it could be a winner with many.

[Tamas]

Nice interview on this:

https://youtu.be/1iYh_mc26SU?t=538

[Admiral Yi]

Changed my mind.  Bought 1 February 5 GME put @35.

[Josquius]

I bought 3 GME at the start of the week. Just sold 1, so I'm in profit for the lot, won't be losing anything. Now I can relax with the other 2 and see what happens.

[Sheilbh]

After de-listing some of the stocks RobinHood has been flooded with 1 star reviews and now looks like this in the App store:


A bit like in the Stock Exchange, most appstores have rules and will de-list apps if they fall below a certain rating.

[alfred russel]

Changed my mind.  Bought 1 February 5 GME put @35.

How much did you pay?

Seems like almost no chance of it going under $35 a share in a week.

I was looking at a 1 year put with a strike price of $300 and the cost was $240. The universe is pricing in a collapse but I can only place short orders with Ally and Fidelity and neither will take the order.

[Habbaku]

I bought 3 GME at the start of the week. Just sold 1, so I'm in profit for the lot, won't be losing anything. Now I can relax with the other 2 and see what happens.

You should sell them and enjoy your profits and never do this again.

[Admiral Yi]

How much did you pay?

Seems like almost no chance of it going under $35 a share in a week.

I was looking at a 1 year put with a strike price of $300 and the cost was $240. The universe is pricing in a collapse but I can only place short orders with Ally and Fidelity and neither will take the order.

$210.

I agree about tiny chance of dropping to $35.  But as long as the share price drops I can cash out the put at a profit.  (Just before I posted Etrade was showing an option price of $2.69) And I didn't want to bet a lot of money, so I had to go pretty far down the chain to get a relatively cheap option.

[DGuller]

I bought 3 GME at the start of the week. Just sold 1, so I'm in profit for the lot, won't be losing anything. Now I can relax with the other 2 and see what happens.

The old "playing with the house's money" thinking again.  If you're not willing to buy 2 GME right now, then you should probably not be keeping them either.

[Grey Fox]

Man, I would burn all of this down. Stupid Capitalism.

[Admiral Yi]

You should sell them and enjoy your profits and never do this again.

I thought you were in GME.

[DGuller]

Man, I would burn all of this down. Stupid Capitalism.

This whole saga does make one question to what extent the stock market is just a casino for the rich that gives no positive contribution to society.  It definitely seems like a huge waste to have a whole bunch of really smart people trying to figure out how to one-up each other on some option squeeze play rather than put their talents to something that would make the world a better place, such as researching cure for cancer.

[Admiral Yi]

I wonder if Etrade just turned off GME trading.  Not showing bid/offer.

[Sheilbh]

Man, I would burn all of this down. Stupid Capitalism.

This whole saga does make one question to what extent the stock market is just a casino for the rich that gives no positive contribution to society.  It definitely seems like a huge waste to have a whole bunch of really smart people trying to figure out how to one-up each other on some option squeeze play rather than put their talents to something that would make the world a better place, such as researching cure for cancer.

Or even its function as an efficent market of shares in companies that are in some way linked to or understood in some way to reflect the value of that company. It does make you think what is the purpose of a stock market and is it meeting it's simpler classic purpose of a source of capital. I mean is there a better way to use the capital that's backing these more exotic investments and should we be looking at that?

It is striking that this little event does seem to cast more of a mood on this stuff than various government steps to ban or restrict it.

[Josquius]

I bought 3 GME at the start of the week. Just sold 1, so I'm in profit for the lot, won't be losing anything. Now I can relax with the other 2 and see what happens.

The old "playing with the house's money" thinking again.  If you're not willing to buy 2 GME right now, then you should probably not be keeping them either.

At the moment it looks like I probably should have sold all yes.  But meh, I'm conservative with losses and liberal with gains, I'm not a gambler and not expecting to make it big with stocks (as seen from the very small amount put in to begin with. In hindsight its tempting to regret not throwing in 10k and earning big) and if I miss out on £500 its unfortunate but not going to impact my finances much.
The manipulation going on by the trading platforms does seem to have ruined the projections. Nonetheless that's hindsight, had no way to know back then that I was selling near the top, and lets see how things work out, Friday does still stand as a day when all those options expire. Regular people may be locked out but there's more than regular people looking in on this now.