The Nation's Financial Condition

[Farfromgeneva]

I'll pm you.

[Farfromgeneva]

Still no cattle little man?

[kramerica.inc]

I'll pm you.

Ok, Chief.
Just don't let me keep you from your big banking job, and earning all that cheddar!

[Farfromgeneva]

Never made that claim fu**face.

[kramerica.inc]

Never made that claim fu**face.

This is gold. You haven't disappointed.

[Farfromgeneva]

Glad I can entertain. You did it again. Pissed me off like I should give a crap about you. Great job. Hope that makes you proud and we can write it on your tombstone that you’re goal isn’t to relate to other people but to make them unhappy and you are successful. You’ve earned a spot in the Belarusian teenager troll hall of fame now!

Funny thing is all you had to do is say, “hey that wasn’t clear, mind explains a few bits of that so I could understand” but instead went into disrespectful POS mode. Would’ve been happy to clarify to anyone.

[NoLeft]

Article in today's Washington Post by former Governor Mitch Daniels:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

[Farfromgeneva]

Was a big fan of Mitch Daniels and even hoped he could win the primary when he ran (08 or 12?) but no name recognition. Seemed like a consummate professional attitude but not professional politician as he proved by bowing out to run Purdue (ironically Purdue just dropped their solid if not highly ranked MBA program in 2020 permanently).

[Farfromgeneva]

My 401k was up 17% in 2020.

Thank you Trump, indeed.

That is right about where my wife and I wound up. Should we blame dump for our good fortune? I'm expecting triple the return out of a POTUS Biden administration. Is it right for Joltin Joe to write an EO demanding 30% returns on all 401Ks?

Biden Supporters red in the face:

"But, BUT, BUUUUT- YOU ARE SOOO GREEDY! THAT IS NOT A SIGN OF A HEALTHY ECONOMY!!!!!!!!"

More brilliant analysis. Where can I sign up for that class in macroeconomics? Carnival in rural florida?

It all becomes relative. When your portfolio is doing well in spite of all the carnage around us, you begin to believe you have weathered the worst of the storm.

Honestly, do tell me if the current activity in the markets does remind you of how you play CRAPS in a casino? and that you are okay with your nest egg possibly being affected at some point by all of the GAMBLING currently underway in the markets

This is the end result of 0% rate policy by the Federal Reserve and related monetary explosion (increase in supply of money in the country, they put out a beige book where it's referred to generally as M1). The Fed wanted people to move out the risk curve and then somewhere earlier this decade became beholden to the stock market whether becasue of a lack of any fiscal prudence and activity addressing the long term concerns or becuase they were weak in moments of declining equity valuations. Everyone is going to take "yo's" eventually. There's no play to living in the corridor and compounding. I talk to some macro fund managers and they're all barbelled with home run/moon shots and low return low risk investments and hate everything in the middle. Used to be you could hace CDs, savings accounts, some stocks and bonds with modest risk and if you do it with promotions and raises at the job while delevering (mortgage mainly) that was a path. Can't compund any income now and need 20% returns to offset returnless cash and cash equivalents.

Point being this shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever and likely to get worse. Thing is the gov't (congress) is likely to create all these rules and regulations around the noise and miss the point that the Fed is at zero for all but a handful of quarters over the last decade (and still pay freaking banks for interest in excess reserves held at the federal reserve - the fed is making negative carry in nominal terms on money they are printing!) and a large part of it is the lack of action by congress on the fiscal side that's got us here. The rules will distort in some new way and cause new problems that future politicians will try to fix while never solving our effective insolvency (we would be an insolvent country if we weren't the reserve currency for the world) via the appropriate, long term fiscal actions.

[kramerica.inc]

I heard it is also TDAmeritrade and Schwab...not just Robinhood.

https://twitter.com/nofomo3/status/1354 ... 40578?s=21

[Farfromgeneva]

Thought this was interesting, I'm sure someone will accuse me of being whatever, don't give a care. Just talked to a small fund mgr (less than $100MM) and there's a whole HF movement into Silver, rumors are that some are trying to hit limits and even a rumor that they're going after Barclay's solvency. Know next to nothing about precious metals, but apparently London had to halt trading in physical silver at some point today. Almost like a war is going on now, or at least the fast money (hedge fund or any investor who isn't holding for longer term any positions) community is on the warpath suddenly.

[holmes435]

Thought this was interesting, I'm sure someone will accuse me of being whatever, don't give a care. Just talked to a small fund mgr (less than $100MM) and there's a whole HF movement into Silver, rumors are that some are trying to hit limits and even a rumor that they're going after Barclay's solvency. Know next to nothing about precious metals, but apparently London had to halt trading in physical silver at some point today. Almost like a war is going on now, or at least the fast money (hedge fund or any investor who isn't holding for longer term any positions) community is on the warpath suddenly.

From yesterday:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets ... lv_silver/

[Farfromgeneva]

Sounds like the Hunt Brothers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Bunker_Hunt

Silver manipulation
Main article: Silver Thursday
Beginning in the early 1970s, Hunt and his brothers William Herbert and Lamar began accumulating large amounts of silver. By 1979, they had nearly cornered the global market.[9] In the last nine months of 1979, the brothers profited by an estimated US$2-4 billion in silver speculation, with estimated silver holdings of 100 million troy ounces (3,100 t).[10]

Primarily because of the Hunt brothers' accumulation of the precious metal, prices of silver futures contracts and silver bullion rose from $11 an ounce in September 1979 to $50 an ounce in January 1980. Silver prices ultimately collapsed to below $11 an ounce two months later.[11] The largest single-day drop in the price of silver occurred on "Silver Thursday".[2] In February 1985 the Hunt brothers were charged "with manipulating and attempting to manipulate the prices of silver futures contracts and silver bullion during 1979 and 1980" by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).[2]

In September 1988 the Hunt brothers filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code largely due to lawsuits incurred as a result of their silver speculation.[2]

In 1989, in a settlement with the CFTC, Nelson Bunker Hunt was fined $10 million and banned from trading in the commodity markets as a result of civil charges of conspiring to manipulate the silver market.[2] This fine was in addition to a multimillion-dollar settlement to pay back taxes, fines and interest to the Internal Revenue Service for the same period. His brother William Herbert Hunt made a similar settlement.[2]

[foreverlax]

Better things are possible@InternetHippo
8 hours ago
This may be controversial but I’m starting to think there’s one set of rules for rich people and another for everyone else

The "rules" are the same, the application of those rules is another issue.

What the rich have that the rest of us don't - access to the best information. What is happening on Reddit, in this short squeeze is not about information but in your face collusion.

[wgdsr]

Better things are possible@InternetHippo
8 hours ago
This may be controversial but I’m starting to think there’s one set of rules for rich people and another for everyone else

The "rules" are the same, the application of those rules is another issue.

What the rich have that the rest of us don't - access to the best information. What is happening on Reddit, in this short squeeze is not about information but in your face collusion.

any specific law violated? and we're sure this isn't happening in similar form on the other side of the trade not just for this/these 100+% short positions, but all manner of others?

is high frequency collusion?

edit to add: looks like facebook and reddit have closed down the chat groups. so no worries anymore.

those guys can do what they want, they're private companies. learn how to code.

[MDlaxfan76]

Better things are possible@InternetHippo
8 hours ago
This may be controversial but I’m starting to think there’s one set of rules for rich people and another for everyone else

The "rules" are the same, the application of those rules is another issue.

What the rich have that the rest of us don't - access to the best information. What is happening on Reddit, in this short squeeze is not about information but in your face collusion.

any specific law violated? and we're sure this isn't happening in similar form on the other side of the trade not just for this/these 100+% short positions, but all manner of others?

is high frequency collusion?

edit to add: looks like facebook and reddit have closed down the chat groups. so no worries anymore.

those guys can do what they want, they're private companies. learn how to code.

Pretty sure, yes absolutely against the law.
Gonna be tougher to prosecute, however, unless get to a ring leader.

It's also fair to say that such collusive market manipulation happens too much by the big guys and isn't prosecuted nearly vigorously enough. Turnabout.

High frequency per se isn't collusion, though there could be implicit signaling...ala the airlines case.

But hey, I'm just a guy with a keyboard, not a securities litigator!

[holmes435]

any specific law violated?

Yes, there are a lot of different specific laws you can break depending on the market manipulation scheme.

and we're sure this isn't happening in similar form on the other side of the trade not just for this/these 100+% short positions, but all manner of others?

is high frequency collusion?

edit to add: looks like facebook and reddit have closed down the chat groups. so no worries anymore.

those guys can do what they want, they're private companies. learn how to code.

We're not talking about facebook or reddit, we're talking about hedge funds and companies not allowing retail investors to simply buy a share of a stock among other potentially illegal activities.

SEC Says It’s Probing Market Mania for Potential Misconduct

The SEC leadership added that the agency “will closely review actions taken by regulated entities that may disadvantage investors or otherwise unduly inhibit their ability to trade certain securities.”

[wgdsr]

any specific law violated?

Yes, there are a lot of different specific laws you can break depending on the market manipulation scheme.

and we're sure this isn't happening in similar form on the other side of the trade not just for this/these 100+% short positions, but all manner of others?

is high frequency collusion?

edit to add: looks like facebook and reddit have closed down the chat groups. so no worries anymore.

those guys can do what they want, they're private companies. learn how to code.

We're not talking about facebook or reddit, we're talking about hedge funds and companies not allowing retail investors to simply buy a share of a stock among other potentially illegal activities.

SEC Says It’s Probing Market Mania for Potential Misconduct

The SEC leadership added that the agency “will closely review actions taken by regulated entities that may disadvantage investors or otherwise unduly inhibit their ability to trade certain securities.”

well, they are in the
conversation now.

my question was related to the post by foreverlax. i thought he was saying the reddit chat room guys are "guilty" of collusion. maybe i got that wrong?

i had not seen any proof that there was any collusion between the institutions. just some connections and smoke. the robinhood founder was on last night and he didn't provide any details, but he alluded to capital requirements and regulations to explain their action. they got an infusion overnight. and he said there was no connections made to hedge or other entities. tbd. maybe they'll get his phone and email records.

as with every story, some aspects/players become the focus and others glossed over. schwab, td ameritrade, interactive (and a number of other b/d's, the day before robinhood) all did the same. those guys are all larger? what's their excuse?

[youthathletics]

SEC Says It’s Probing Market Mania for Potential Misconduct

The SEC leadership added that the agency “will closely review actions taken by regulated entities that may disadvantage investors or otherwise unduly inhibit their ability to trade certain securities.”

So really, that is code for the Hedge guys, we got your back, give us a a bit of time and we'll straighten this out....just let the dust settle. Oh yea, we got Maxine Waters helping is congress, between her and her banking husband we'll all be good in no time.

Seems this latest debacle may very well be the crescendo that puts the clamps on being ambushed 'digitally', enough so, that they need to put up a 'wall' around what they let in and let out on digital trades.

[foreverlax]

Better things are possible@InternetHippo
8 hours ago
This may be controversial but I’m starting to think there’s one set of rules for rich people and another for everyone else

The "rules" are the same, the application of those rules is another issue.

What the rich have that the rest of us don't - access to the best information. What is happening on Reddit, in this short squeeze is not about information but in your face collusion.

any specific law violated? so far, none that I am aware of, for any of the parties involved.

and we're sure this isn't happening in similar form on the other side of the trade not just for this/these 100+% short positions, but all manner of others? Chuckle...not sure if that is a yes or no. I do know, back when I used to trade muni bonds, the more people you talked to, the more you knew about how the market was pricing bonds..all the "vig" was inbedded in the price. i.e. yield.

We would buy it at a 6.1% ($99)yield and sell it to you at 6.0% ($100). No retail investor knew if you bought them at 7% ($90) or 5% ($110)...they just cared about their 6%. Those guys would hang up on you if you showed them 5.9% ($101)...cuz the Alex Brown guy showed them 6%.

Now price and information is free.

Fact remains, there are those who know more than the rest of us know...they get what they want wholesale, or better, based on how good you are as a customer. Makes sense, the bigger client at Goldman sees the best deals...the best deals Goldman keeps for themselves.

is high frequency collusion? In this setting, I see collusion as a group of speculators, using various methods, to influence price direction. By high frequency - do you mean high speed or frequency of trades?

edit to add: looks like facebook and reddit have closed down the chat groups. so no worries anymore. So far I see this as all within the rules/laws...Robinhood tried to reduce their exposure in several "high risk" stocks.

Every trade settles - buy and seller. Sometimes a party cant deliver and he gets sold out. Sometimes a bunch of folks get jammed up, which can jam up "Robinhood", rinse/wash/repeat....hello a real Black Swan.

those guys can do what they want, they're private companies. learn how to code. A-greed.

There is some unemployed Stanford Phd in Quant who saw the imbalance in "GME" and understood the power of "Reddit". End of the day -

-The hedge funds that were short and got blown up and learned a for real lesson.
- The hedge fund investing in both the hedge fund that had the short position and Robinhood learned a lesson.
- "Robinhood" is learning on the fly...
- the kids sitting in their sweats thinking they're smart have not learned the lesson that will come.
- the smart MotherTruckers who have deep pockets, they are the lions that come in after the hyenas have worked their a$$es off...they eat their fill and the rest can split up whatever is left.