The Stock Market

This is pretty freaky:
https://www.ft.com/content/2542af81-9e93-4d05-a0b9-26c0f6aab6f3

Apparently you can just amass positions equivalent to 5 or 10% of a company's stock via swaps and never report it? And major investment banks are fine with giving you tons of leverage to do it, until it blows up and a single hedge fund's implosion causes 30% drops in multiple large stocks?

Stock market is totally having a normal one right now

What the hell? https://t.co/92RWejK16A pic.twitter.com/hgzLMhrpN4

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) April 15, 2021

there is something very weird going on with that one that is probably not at all indicative of the wider market. I don't know if it is a form of money laundering or what, but I can't imagine it's a bunch of retail investors running up the price. It trades less than 400 shares per day.

lol this is one of my favorite stock descriptions ever

Hometown International, Inc., through its subsidiary, Your Hometown Deli Limited Liability Company, operates a delicatessen store under the Your Hometown Deli brand name in the United States. Its Your Hometown Deli store provides sandwiches; soups; salads, including made-to-order green salads, prepared pasta, potato, chicken, and various wet salads; deli meats/cheeses; hot/cold drinks; fresh breads/rolls; breakfast products, such as pastries, bagels, and toast; yogurt; and small retail items for cooking, baking, and home use, as well as coffee, tea, and other hot and cold beverages. The company was incorporated in 2014 and is based in Woodstown, New Jersey.

Please do not think for one minute this reflects badly on the security of those stock mutual funds in your 401K. Pretty please. With sugar on top.

sounds like a mafia front posing as a public company

xp, Oh certainly not -- but there are dozens of SPACs that are like 60% as ridiculous as that. I think the point is more that there isn't a lot of evidence of oversight.

What do you guys think of something like VIAC, which had it price destroyed to one hedge fund dumping it?
The business hasn't really changed much, meaning it's seriously undervalued right now or it's still pumped too high due to current market exuberance. Still higher than it was in Jan/Feb '20. The company has remained profitable regardless.

FWIW, I just listened to this: https://open.spotify.com/show/1te7oSFyRVekxMBJUSethH?si=sbeWrWYnR4iZo_apx0LkUw which was v interesting on greensill, credit suisse, and archegos among other things, and the guy made a pretty good case for VIAC being a slowly dying business.

There are usually a lot of profits to be squeezed from a slowly dying business. Look at what vulture capitalists are doing to the newspaper industry. The question is whether those remaining profits can translate into a higher share price. Probably not.

link between price and profits seems a lot more tenuous these days anyway, so it's about a good a dice roll as a lot of other things.

How to get rich in 3 easy steps:
1) Steal hotel soap
2) Invest savings in S&P
3) Become millionaire pic.twitter.com/GSQBsopb6z

— TikTok Investors (@TikTokInvestors) May 17, 2021

very good account

oh, fintok.

it did turn out that GME was a safehaven stock.

I got out on AMC months ago... if I illogically held, I would've quadrupled+ my money! Too late to get back in now.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/2/22465198/amc-meme-stock-popcorn-wsb

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22555337/E24_NrSWYAAhODE.jpg

The thing that interests me about the meme stocks (so far) is that they are companies in a consumer-friendly line of business. Yes there's speculative mania or whatever but why shouldn't individual investors with money to splash around go long on video game retailers, movie theaters, and a fairly stable big box survivor? Why not get people to bet in favor of like, normal companies that sell normal products that people like to normal people? Nobody's gonna meme Exxon.

BB is kind of a weird one (maybe it's the ticker), but the rest were way shorted. BBBY ran last time to almost $60 that one friday in Jan. It's all the same tickers again.

what a time 2 b alive pic.twitter.com/UxIa5lIv7Q

— Liz Franczak (@liz_franczak) June 2, 2021

Just the voice of uneducated, frustrated disgust: if the stock market managed a baseball team, they'd pinch-hit for Mike Trout in the 4th inning because he grounded out in the 2nd.

("Uneducated" as in illiterate about monetary matters.)

Oof, those meme stocks a few posts up, then vs. now. ^^

Everything I hate about the stock market summed up in a single headline on CNN today: "Stocks tumble after better-than-expected jobs report."

I understand the dynamic: more jobs = inflation = stocks tumble. It's still intuitively bizarre.

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/zfj761/recently_discovered_the_majority_of_my_parents/