[HN Gopher] Day Trader Army Loses All the Money It Made in Meme-...
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       Day Trader Army Loses All the Money It Made in Meme-Stock Era
        
       Author : lalaland1125
       Score  : 91 points
       Date   : 2022-05-09 21:21 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
        
       | givemeethekeys wrote:
       | Not all. Not yet.
        
       | tester756 wrote:
       | We've detected unusual activity from your computer network
       | 
       | To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not
       | a robot.
       | 
       | lol.
       | 
       | and it doesn't even work, I'm in infinite loop
        
         | soneca wrote:
         | Tried to pass three times and couldn't. It just reset to the
         | initial state
        
         | wsinks wrote:
         | Same, just validating you. I even recorded it with quicktime.
        
         | arthurcolle wrote:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31319924
        
         | jonny_eh wrote:
         | It's a bad link, the correct one:
         | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-08/day-trade...
        
         | stuaxo wrote:
         | Same here, that's 5 minutes saved in my day I guess.
        
       | chrisseaton wrote:
       | GME is still up 20x isn't it? Someone who invested in that meme
       | stock won't have lost anything. I wouldn't mind those returns.
        
         | zmgsabst wrote:
         | AMC is up 3x if you bought it before the meme frenzy (Dec 20)
         | -- and 20% from where I bought it during the meme frenzy (Apr
         | 21).
         | 
         | S&P500 is up 25% if you bought it before the meme frenzy and
         | 33% if you bought in April, like I did.
         | 
         | People who spotted it early are still _well_ ahead of S &P500
         | -- and honestly, I wouldn't be mad at 20% vs 33% returns...
         | because that meme frenzy saved AMC.
         | 
         | Of course, I sold when it was 5-6x what I paid for it... so
         | that's far and away my best performing stock of 2021.
        
       | adders wrote:
       | Wrong link, should be
       | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-08/day-trade...
       | instead of
       | https://www.bloomberg.com/tosv2.html?vid=&uuid=0ba7046d-cfde...
        
         | jonny_eh wrote:
         | Pretty revealing that a HN post can make to the front page with
         | a broken link.
        
           | gpm wrote:
           | The original link works (for me), it just directs me through
           | a captcha first. That's not a broken link by the usual
           | meaning of the phrase, it doesn't mean people weren't reading
           | the post...
        
             | knorker wrote:
             | Directed me to a captcha too. It's just that the captcha
             | didn't work and "please try again".
        
               | Havoc wrote:
               | Yeah broken here too
        
           | fragmede wrote:
           | Or is it intentionally broken, as a ploy to hurt Bloomberg's
           | bot detection algorithm.
        
             | lalaland1125 wrote:
             | Nope, just a dumb accident. I think Bloomberg redirected me
             | right before I copied the URL from the address bar ...
             | 
             | Is there any way to easily fix the link?
        
           | natly wrote:
           | Are you implying people don't read the body of the article or
           | that there's bot interference? (I can imagine either could be
           | true.)
        
             | hammock wrote:
             | The former. I for one happily upvote a submission before
             | reading it, to keep it on the front page which is so
             | fragilely ephemeral for new submissions, so I can read the
             | article and then come back to (hopefully) some good
             | comments from others in the thread.
        
           | planarhobbit wrote:
        
         | lalaland1125 wrote:
         | @dang, can you do us a favor and fix the link? I don't seem to
         | be able to fix it myself.
        
       | Someone1234 wrote:
       | VTI is down 13.5% in the last three months, didn't non-meme/non-
       | day traders also lose a lot of their gains for the previous
       | 12-months? This seems like bait for those who were predisposed to
       | believe this anyway.
        
         | twblalock wrote:
         | Based on today's prices, VTI is about where it was in February
         | 2021 and if you'd bought and held before then, you'd have made
         | gains.
         | 
         | But that's not really the point: the question is, who performed
         | better?
         | 
         | At this point, as the article shows, the meme and day traders
         | have underperformed the boring buy-and-hold index investors.
        
         | timr wrote:
         | The whole market is down, but when you consider that (for
         | example) Netflix is down >70% from November 2021, it's a
         | different level of drop.
         | 
         | It's sort of impressive that GME is still holding out at around
         | $100, however...
        
       | Yhippa wrote:
       | We have no idea who the bagholders are and who got out in time.
        
         | commandlinefan wrote:
         | The bagholders are the ones who weren't naive enough to cash
         | out as soon as this became national news.
        
           | Ekaros wrote:
           | Now big question is where the smart cash is going? Real
           | estate? Seems to be kinda in bubble too? Or might it make
           | sense to be on the market?
        
             | testfoobar wrote:
             | Check out energy YTD.
        
               | short_sells_poo wrote:
               | Hint, smart money is buying puts on energy...
        
               | paulmd wrote:
               | makes sense, if you think the bottom's gonna fall out of
               | the economy, energy usage usually goes with it.
        
               | slig wrote:
               | Are they buying anything at this moment?
        
             | dmead wrote:
             | The bond market no?
        
       | paxys wrote:
       | Let's not pretend institutional investors are doing much better.
       | Look at ARKK or any of the VC funds that are heavily invested in
       | startups having down rounds. And putting your 401k into "safe"
       | investments during that period wouldn't have yielded much better
       | results.
        
         | ushakov wrote:
         | exactly
         | 
         | meme stocks are just a segment of a market, more riskier one of
         | course, but still a part of the market
         | 
         | if you were looking at DOW or S&500 for past couple months it's
         | nothing but losses
        
           | twblalock wrote:
           | > if you were looking at DOW or S&500 for past couple days
           | it's nothing but losses
           | 
           | So? The article is about the past 2 years, not the past 2
           | days.
           | 
           | You could pick any short time period in the past few years
           | that would make meme investors look good compared to the
           | total market. But if you zoom out to a two year period, it's
           | clear the meme investors underperformed.
        
         | lalaland1125 wrote:
         | The point of the article is that they compare the meme stocks
         | to the stock market as a whole. And the meme stocks are doing
         | much worse.
        
       | tapland wrote:
       | This link might work:
       | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-08/day-trade...
        
       | lvl102 wrote:
       | Market is dramatically down but big tech earnings still very
       | strong. I don't think this is the end of the story.
        
       | twblalock wrote:
       | The last few years was a perfect storm of stupidity:
       | 
       | - The Fed juicing the market (and not stopping when it should
       | have, dismissing inflation concerns as transitory, etc.)
       | 
       | - Covid stimulus going to people who didn't need it
       | 
       | - People spending that stimulus money to invest (often for the
       | first time) on zero-fee platforms like Robin Hood
       | 
       | - Meme stock investors intentionally manipulating stock prices to
       | cause them to diverge from the underlying value of the company
       | 
       | Despite all of that, people who bought and held a total market or
       | S&P 500 index fund in 2020 have still made gains.
        
         | testfoobar wrote:
         | Add one more: 0DTE options and gamma squeezes.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | dannyw wrote:
         | Most importantly, the Fed Put that has been supporting markets
         | since 2008 is unravelling.
        
         | vuciv1 wrote:
         | Eh, I got into the meme stocks, cashed out, and paid off my
         | student loans. So, not everyone is stupid for it!
        
         | giantg2 wrote:
         | "People spending that stimulus money to invest (often for the
         | first time) on zero-fee platforms like Robin Hood"
         | 
         | You mean people gambling and trading. Very few people engaging
         | in these activities are really investing.
        
         | funstuff007 wrote:
         | - The Fed juicing the market (and not stopping when it should
         | have, dismissing inflation concerns as transitory, etc.)
         | 
         | This in my mind is the key reason we as a society did not solve
         | the pandemic quickly. If the investor class felt the same pain
         | everyone else did, they'd be throwing their resources towards
         | moving forward rather than re-locating to Palm Beach and
         | complaining about the Northeast.
        
         | usui wrote:
         | Let's not forget to add the huge NFT/Web3 craze last year to
         | the list. That is what, personally, signaled to me, stupidity.
        
         | arinlen wrote:
         | > - Covid stimulus going to people who didn't need it
         | 
         | Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's
         | COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close to the ideal way
         | to actually address people's potential needs.
         | 
         | > - People spending that stimulus money to invest (often for
         | the first time) on zero-fee platforms like Robin Hood
         | 
         | What's exactly the problem? Aren't people free to spend their
         | own money any way they feel like it? Or are we now held
         | accountable by a righteous capitalism police to determine if an
         | expense we make is kosher?
         | 
         | > - Meme stock investors intentionally manipulating stock
         | prices to cause them to diverge from the underlying value of
         | the company
         | 
         | What's exactly the problem? I mean, who are you to tell what's
         | the "underlying value" of something, specially in a free market
         | economy?
         | 
         | It seems to me that worst case scenario the people spending
         | their money on stocks are only gambling their own money, and
         | best case scenario they profit from their own investment.
        
           | JoeyBananas wrote:
           | I never needed/wanted covid stimulus money, but it was
           | practically jammed down my pockets by force when I did my
           | taxes.
        
           | agensaequivocum wrote:
           | I bought my wife a handgun and myself an AK-47 with the last
           | one. I certainly needed the weapons but not the check.
        
           | emerged wrote:
           | I lost two jobs directly due to COVID and got $0 "stimulus"
           | while my sister was employed the entire time and got an
           | absurd amount of free money.
           | 
           | It wasn't a stimulus. It wasn't COVID related either. It was
           | income redistribution. I might respect it to some extent if
           | people called it what it was.
        
             | spookthesunset wrote:
             | > It was income redistribution.
             | 
             | And in the end it was redistribution from the lower to the
             | upper class. The last two years were the biggest wealth
             | transfer in history. And "wealth" is so much more than just
             | money... we absolutely screwed our kids in a way that will
             | impact them for quite some time.
        
           | deltree7 wrote:
           | The second stimulus was a disaster.
           | 
           | It has led to an unprecedented sticky-inflation that can only
           | be brought down by inducing a recession.
           | 
           | It's not that there were warned by prominent economists
           | https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/inflation-larry-
           | summ...
        
           | twblalock wrote:
           | > It seems to me that worst case scenario the people spending
           | their money on stocks are only gambling their own money, and
           | best case scenario they profit from their own investment.
           | 
           | A lot of people got swept up in the hype and got left holding
           | the bag after the initial set of meme investors made their
           | money and got out.
        
           | CalRobert wrote:
           | I generally favour the way covid stimulus went but I suppose
           | the argument would be that if it's going to people who are
           | using it to buy GME maybe they didn't actually need it.
           | 
           | Whether it _should_ only have gone to those who needed it, or
           | just to everyone, is another question.
        
           | PragmaticPulp wrote:
           | > Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's
           | COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close to the ideal
           | way to actually address people's potential needs.
           | 
           | I have a number of friends in the
           | contracting/remodeling/construction industry. Demand for
           | their services skyrocketed during COVID while they were all
           | simultaneously working with their accountants to maximize
           | their take from the COVID PPP program.
           | 
           | Huge quantities of COVID money were pumped into companies
           | that absolutely did not need it, and that's not even counting
           | the massive volume of fraudulent claims. The COVID Paycheck
           | Protection Program was supposed to shore up companies that
           | would otherwise have to fire employees, but AFAICT nothing
           | really stopped highly profitable companies from also
           | collecting the money.
        
             | arinlen wrote:
             | > Huge quantities of COVID money were pumped into companies
             | that absolutely did not need it (...)
             | 
             | Since when is revenue and profit dictated by anyone's sense
             | of fairness? That's an awfully moralistic and judgemental
             | take on everyone else's needs and desires.
             | 
             | Sadly this blend of judgemental view of everyone's money
             | already hit small things like buying groceries. Damn the
             | have-nots for generating inflation by actually stocking on
             | the decent food that the well-to-do used to buy.
             | 
             | Do you see any problem in anyone spending their own money
             | in any way they'd like?
        
               | jallen_dot_dev wrote:
               | If the PPP was intended to help struggling businesses,
               | but your business wasn't actually struggling due to the
               | pandemic, then you didn't need it. It has nothing to do
               | with fairness.
               | 
               | > Do you see any problem in anyone spending their own
               | money in any way they'd like?
               | 
               | "How dare you tell the bank robber to return the money he
               | stole. Who are you to tell him how to spend his own
               | money? That's awfully moralistic and judgmental of you."
        
               | PragmaticPulp wrote:
               | I was referring to PPP loans from the government that
               | were forgiven: https://www.sba.gov/funding-
               | programs/loans/covid-19-relief-o...
               | 
               | These were supposed to keep at-risk companies from
               | failing when the economy crashed, but then the economy
               | _didn 't_ crash and instead it was just a huge government
               | handout of free money to most companies.
        
               | TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
               | Not just companies; megachurches, antivax orgs, even a
               | Jan 6 rioter got a PPP loan. The most egregious examples
               | are starting to be brought to justice:
               | https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-convicted-27-million-
               | ppp-...
        
               | majormajor wrote:
               | I think you're putting too much weight on "did the
               | economy crash" here. As in, "wow, the economy didn't
               | crash, we shouldn't have done anything" aka "wow, Y2K
               | didn't ruin everything, we shouldn't have updated all
               | that code" or "we didn't get hacked, why did we bother
               | applying security updates" or similar.
               | 
               | "We want to prevent the economy from crashing hard and
               | long" is how I'd phrase motivations. Certain sectors did
               | crash immediately, and yet the overall blast radius
               | wasn't very large and a lot of stuff bounced back
               | immediately.
               | 
               | That seems like a great success.
               | 
               | Loans being forgiven to generously even for companies
               | that did NOT see a sustained dip in demand, on the other
               | hand, is a more targeted specific problem, and a lesson
               | to learn. But if you learn too broad a lesson like
               | "stimulus is dumb" then you just drive yourself back off
               | a difference cliff next time something exceptional
               | happens.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | A better lesson to learn is that shutting down major
               | sectors of the economy was dumb. It was a total
               | overreaction, and proved to be completely ineffective in
               | controlling the pandemic. If politicians hasn't done that
               | then there wouldn't have been a risk of an economic crash
               | in the first place.
        
               | majormajor wrote:
               | > If politicians hasn't done that then there wouldn't
               | have been a risk of an economic crash in the first place.
               | 
               | This is naive and ignores the real sequence of events.
               | 
               | Things like conferences were getting canceled before the
               | first official government actions in the US. Groceries
               | were being hoarded. People were paying attention to
               | events. The government sticking its head in the sand or
               | just repeating "everything is fine, stay calm" messages
               | wouldn't have prevented any impact.
               | 
               |  _Uncertainty_ is an economic killer. And if you remember
               | early on, that uncertainty also led to a lot less
               | controversy over the canceled events and restrictions
               | than arose later. (Though in retrospect, even many
               | "paranoid" estimates back then were far less than a
               | million US deaths...)
               | 
               | Some level of stimulus was almost certain to be necessary
               | regardless of official Covid actions in March 2020 unless
               | you wanted to just let those companies and workers drown
               | as people _chose_ to change their behavior.
               | 
               | (The "restrictions should've been loosened earlier"
               | argument is a much more reasonable one, but IMO still
               | ignores how much of this was already local by winter of
               | 2020, and also that at that point the initial economic
               | damage was done.)
               | 
               | (That's before getting into the recklessness of assuming
               | _future_ severe novel diseases won 't be _even more
               | deadly_ on limited early data...)
        
               | aaomidi wrote:
               | Just reminder that if you know any abusers, report it to
               | the DoJ.
               | 
               | These people who bought homes and shit with ppp are going
               | to go to prison. I hope at least.
        
               | dkasper wrote:
               | And now recession seems to be here and they will probably
               | get bailed out again.
        
               | spamizbad wrote:
               | Small business owners are a very powerful political
               | force. If you are handing out checks to regular people
               | (their employees) You basically have to give them
               | something or they will wreck you.
        
             | chrischen wrote:
             | I agree with you they targeted small businesses pretty
             | heavily with stimulus, and probably a lot of fraud
             | occurred. While some of that money made it in the form of
             | bonuses to employees, I bet a lot of it was soaked up by
             | the frothy stock market.
        
             | vmception wrote:
             | I'll also chip in to say this was by design
             | 
             | I have 0 or negative AGI while sometimes having gross
             | income/earnings/gains in the millions I got auto-sent
             | several stimulus checks of the max size, because Congress
             | wrote it based on having an "AGI of $75000 and lower" or
             | similar number. AGI is after most tax deductions
             | 
             | Back to the by design part, the primary goal was to keep
             | velocity in the economy high, and that means getting it to
             | people with a high spend
             | 
             | Fairness is not a factor at all
             | 
             | Our economy works from velocity not whether one has money.
             | Hoarding is worse than spending, not saying that poorer
             | people would hoard just how its not a factor. It was
             | designed to make maximum spending
             | 
             | Someone prewrote it for congress they knew what they were
             | doing while congress was just scared
        
             | BoiledCabbage wrote:
             | > Huge quantities of COVID money were pumped into companies
             | that absolutely did not need it, and that's not even
             | counting the massive volume of fraudulent claims. The COVID
             | Paycheck Protection Program was supposed to shore up
             | companies that would otherwise have to fire employees, but
             | AFAICT nothing really stopped highly profitable companies
             | from also collecting the money.
             | 
             | And this was by design. The administration at the the time
             | explicilty pushed for there to be no oversight at all on
             | this. The opposition party at the time said it's just
             | setting things up for fraud and corruption, but it was
             | desired to have no oversight. Not even after the funds had
             | been released (if you wanted to make an argument that
             | upfront oversight would have slowed down the distribution).
             | 
             | The administration both fired the inspectors general that
             | would oversee the program, and passed laws to prevent
             | transparency into the program. It was fairly controversial
             | at the time, but now mostly lost in the haze of 2020
             | lockdowns.
             | 
             | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/15/inspecto
             | r...
             | 
             | https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/16/taxpayers
             | -...
        
             | renewiltord wrote:
             | It's fine. We needed a sensitive intervention, not a
             | specific one. And given the time constraints, those two
             | were definitely in opposition. The administration made the
             | right choice.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | giantg2 wrote:
           | "Could you please elaborate? I think the way the US did it's
           | COVID stimulus was outstanding and very close to the ideal
           | way to actually address people's potential needs."
           | 
           | Many of the people who got the stimulus checks didn't need
           | them. Same with the advanced child tax credits (increases
           | spending when it looks like you have more money). This was
           | true for myself and many coworkers. There were others who
           | needed it. It was far from perfect though.
           | 
           | "What's exactly the problem? Aren't people free to spend
           | their own money any way they feel like it?"
           | 
           | Yes they are free to do that. It causes problems when there's
           | a disconnect between value and price. Many of the activities
           | were trading or gambling, which are not beneficial. That
           | gambling affects prices and the market, thus affecting
           | others.
           | 
           | Think about what happens when's there's a rush on a bank. A
           | bunch of people acting stupidly in large numbers can create a
           | negative environment for everyone else.
        
           | prepend wrote:
           | Examples I witnessed are friends who never lost their job got
           | like an extra $8k (couple working with two kids). So they
           | bought stuff with it.
           | 
           | I have multiple friends in tech who switched to remote and
           | literally used the extra stimulus cash to trade with
           | Robinhood and crypto.
           | 
           | I doubt this is representative. But people making $100k who
           | ended up saving money from no longer needing to commute did
           | not need thousands of dollars in stimulus. Of course, it was
           | neat getting the money, but it resulted in a lot of extra
           | cash.
           | 
           | Comically, I also have friends who just paid down debt and
           | didn't buy anything.
           | 
           | But my anecdotes are lucky in that I didn't know anyone who
           | lost their job or got seriously ill.
        
             | jameshart wrote:
             | If someone got a stimulus check they didn't need, and put
             | it all in GME, then it seems like everything has worked out
             | great.
             | 
             | Someone who did want the money (enough that they were
             | willing to sell some GME stock to get to) got the money
             | instead.
             | 
             | And now the person who didn't need the money hasn't got any
             | money.
             | 
             | Justice served?
        
             | eherot wrote:
             | I feel it's worth pointing out that saving people from
             | financial ruin was only part of the intent of the PPP
             | legislation. The main point of a "stimulus" is to stimulate
             | the economy. If your friend received money and then spent
             | it on something, the legislation essentially worked as
             | intended.
        
               | prepend wrote:
               | It certainly stimulated GameStop stock.
               | 
               | I think the criticism is that the stimulus worked too
               | well and we're suffering inflation and whatnot now.
        
               | adra wrote:
               | Inflation is hitting most countries aggressively now. The
               | US may actually be on the conservative end of inflation
               | which may have been buffered using government
               | subsidies/influence, but the net takeaway is the rapid
               | expansion in the world can't be explained by simply
               | looking at the US's free-money-keep-buying scheme.
        
               | gowld wrote:
               | The PPP was the Paycheck Protection Plan.
               | 
               | It was not sold as a stimulus, it was to allow businesss
               | to pay furloughed employees (in a bizarre ill-thought-out
               | privately-run unemployment insurance scheme) to continue
               | to pay ongoing expenses.
               | 
               | What didn't make sense, of course, is what those people
               | were supposed to be buying, since the reason they were
               | furloughed was because.... people weren't buying things,
               | because of lockdowns and such. Hence, inflation when
               | aggregate $ exceeded stuff worth buying.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | SilasX wrote:
               | If they spent the extra money on secondary-market
               | financial investment (like stocks or crypto), propping up
               | asset prices, then that seems like it goes against the
               | stimulus that the program wanted, which was to keep
               | steady sales for otherwise reliable businesses.
        
             | arinlen wrote:
             | > Examples I witnessed are friends who never lost their job
             | got like an extra $8k (couple working with two kids). So
             | they bought stuff with it.
             | 
             | And what's wrong with that? Aren't we talking about an
             | economic stimulus program? What do you think is the whole
             | point of an economic stimulus program, other than
             | stimulating the economy?
        
               | prepend wrote:
               | What's wrong with it is a few things:
               | 
               | 1) there could have been more money for people who
               | actually needed it and were negatively impacted by losing
               | their job or getting sick or whatnot
               | 
               | 2) buying lots of "luxury" items drove up inflation. This
               | is bad for a whole slew of reasons we are seeing now.
               | 
               | If we wanted to stimulate the economy, we could have done
               | it in more effective ways that didn't hose us.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | harambae wrote:
           | > Could you please elaborate?
           | 
           | College students who weren't planning to have any income
           | anyway before Covid hit. And that's at least still a
           | relatively "legitimate" payout compared to the screw-ups like
           | sending money to prisoners [0].
           | 
           | But really both cases are massively massively dwarfed by
           | anyone who could fog a mirror starting an LLC and getting
           | $40k to $250k of PPP money. I personally know a couple people
           | who should go to jail for this (but probably won't even have
           | to repay the money, let alone repay with interest, let alone
           | get in trouble).
           | 
           | [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/04/05/go
           | ver...
        
             | jjoonathan wrote:
             | Why do the dollar amounts always go
             | Inappropriate QE >> PPP Grants >> Stimulus Check for
             | undeserving person
             | 
             | but the reporting happens in proportion / order
             | Stimulus Check for undeserving person  >>  PPP Grants   >>
             | Inappropriate QE
             | 
             | ? It's a rhetorical question, we all know why, but we don't
             | have to repeat these choices in this thread.
        
               | tmp_anon_22 wrote:
               | Reminds me of water conservation focusing on personal use
               | versus industrial agriculture in the middle of literal
               | deserts. Or the output of a Toyota Camry versus a
               | container ship.
        
             | arinlen wrote:
             | > College students who weren't planning to have any income
             | anyway before Covid hit. And that's at least still a
             | relatively "legitimate" payout compared to the screw-ups
             | like sending money to prisoners [0].
             | 
             | Where exactly do you see a problem with that? To put it
             | differently, do you feel it's better to arbitrarily
             | discriminate against elements of your society with a
             | program intended to actually help everyone everywhere?
             | 
             | More importantly, what leads you to believe that the goal
             | of the COVID stimulus was to help individuals instead of
             | society as a whole? Think about it for a second. In a
             | moment in time where circumstances were leading to an
             | unprecedented economic crunch, wouldn't a bottom-up
             | consumer side stimulus help economy stay afloat?
        
               | harambae wrote:
               | Because college students yolo-ing on Gamestop options
               | isn't especially productive for society.
               | 
               | But, as I said, my bigger issue is the massive PPP fraud.
               | And my issue with massive fraud on the scale of hundreds
               | of billions of dollars is that the US is already deeply
               | in debt.
               | 
               | And my issue with the nation being deeply in debt is that
               | future generations will have to pay for the profligate
               | spending of this one, which I find immoral.
        
         | dalbasal wrote:
         | The first and second point kind of cross each other.
         | 
         | Stimulus to _people who need it (to spend)_ is inflationary.
         | Stimulus to those who don 't need it inflates stock prices.
        
         | BoiledCabbage wrote:
         | > - Covid stimulus going to people who didn't need it
         | 
         | From the stimulus the worst of the offenses by far happend in
         | the PPP for small business. It was absoutely shameful.
         | 
         | While there was of course waste in the direct treasury payments
         | to citizens, they get way overrepresented compared to what
         | happened in the PPP. It's the same human nature of: If a big
         | company gets 100M of our taxes for no reason, people grumble a
         | bit, but if their next door neighboor gets an extra $100 and
         | they don't, you never hear the end of it.
         | 
         | The PPP was rife with waste, but by design you'll hear way more
         | media and people complain about the co-worker they know of or
         | cousin that spent $1000 on trading cards.
        
           | pm90 wrote:
           | If it kept businesses alive it was probably worth it. Small
           | businesses take a long time to establish themselves but can
           | be snuffed out pretty quickly. Many of my friends with such
           | businesses barely made it and the PPP loans were _crucial_ in
           | getting them through the pandemic.
        
           | runnerup wrote:
           | The purpose of the "stimulus" funds wasn't to give what was
           | needed to the people who needed it. The purpose was to smooth
           | out the economic whiplash. We knew there would be an enormous
           | temporary dip in demand, but that structurally (long term)
           | we'd still need all our businesses and couldn't really afford
           | for them to go bankrupt.
           | 
           | The money was supposed to be given to those who could spend
           | it, to help keep all our small/medium/large businesses as
           | healthy as possible.
        
           | ganoushoreilly wrote:
           | A startup I worked with that raised 20+ million in late 2019
           | filed for ppp and got 600k+. They didn't need it but all they
           | had to do was say Covid had impacted them, when truth be told
           | it impacted all of us. It was a waste of tax payer dollars. I
           | just hope the businesses that truly needed it were able to
           | get it.
        
             | skrtskrt wrote:
             | the local immigrant mom and pop shops that needed it I'm
             | sure had a hell of a time navigating the paperwork, not to
             | mention trusting the government and banking system to take
             | care of forgiving the loan when all the conditions were
             | met.
        
       | jokoon wrote:
       | Why is there meme only in the title?
        
       | tiahura wrote:
       | Have they?
       | 
       | GME is still 200% higher then when the "short squeeze" began.
        
         | harambae wrote:
         | GME is in a league of its own, now having a cult-like following
         | around the prospect of a "Mother of all short squeezes" (MOASS)
         | at some indeterminate point in the future.
         | 
         | (I'm avoiding using excessively loaded terminology like "QAnon
         | of finance" but I really can't think of a fairer way to
         | describe it than a cult at this point.)
        
           | ummonk wrote:
           | It's not necessarily irrational, if you treat GME shares as
           | collectables rather than investments in a profit-making
           | business.
        
       | candyman wrote:
       | I hope it's finally over. For a while the market was driven by
       | factors that I can't analyze or understand using my traditional
       | financial frameworks. It's now back to a point where my tools
       | work again. It's like all my instruments just read "Tilt" for the
       | last three years. Now I get readings!
        
       | brian_herman wrote:
       | It doesn't matter how much money we lose there will always be
       | more people to fill in our ranks.
        
       | mastazi wrote:
       | EDIT I was wrong, it was because of this
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31320075
       | 
       | I get this in an infinite loop:
       | 
       | > We've detected unusual activity from your computer network > To
       | continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a
       | robot.
       | 
       | i'm assuming it could either be because they are blocking
       | browsers with anti-fingerprinting or because they are blocking
       | all international connections (I'm in Australia), if it's the
       | latter, I wonder how long it will take before they realise they
       | are losing readers LOL. (If it's the former, good riddance)
        
       | candyman wrote:
       | It's like the last three years all my instruments said "tilt" and
       | none of my traditional financial analysis tools were worth a
       | damn. Now I am getting readings and things are working again.
       | Hope it stays this way. I expect we may overshoot on the downside
       | but that's typical.
        
       | lalaland1125 wrote:
       | Archive link: https://archive.ph/7WJws
        
       | ttyp3 wrote:
       | I think we've heard this story before.
        
       | blahblarblar wrote:
       | In a bull market it's too hard to tell if you are a genius or
       | taking a random walk on a rising tide. Most think they are the
       | former.
        
       | coldcode wrote:
       | I can't the article it puts up some BS unusual activity warning.
        
       | throwaway67743 wrote:
       | Nope, excluding android users from their site entirely now.
       | Supply archive.is instead of linking to ridiculous URL
        
       | ushakov wrote:
       | do you buy, sell or hold?
       | 
       | personally, i'm a little spooked
        
         | LaserDiscMan wrote:
         | In terms of indexes, I find this chart quite comforting myself:
         | https://www.ftportfolios.com/Common/ContentFileLoader.aspx?C...
        
         | marvin wrote:
         | I'm not touching my portfolio. I might rebalance it at some
         | point. 50% global index funds, 16% emerging markets/global
         | small cap/nordics. The whole point of passive investing is you
         | make a philosophical decision not to get spooked when people
         | get spooked.
         | 
         | On the side of this, I also have a couple of single-company
         | bets I made many years ago and won't adjust further.
         | 
         | I expect to be underwater for a couple of years, anything
         | better than that would be a pleasant surprise.
         | 
         | A good time to increase the contributions.
        
         | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
         | I... am not sure, but having seen similar movies before, I
         | think given that we have an election year, any real pain that
         | needs to happen will not happen prior to elections despite
         | Powell's posturing.
         | 
         | It is mildly annoying that this heuristic works so well..
        
       | MrStonedOne wrote:
        
       | sgarrity wrote:
       | So many animations, huge blocking ads, and scrolling videos. The
       | reading experience on the Bloomberg.com site was so poor that I
       | lost my retirement savings.
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | Holding onto losing stocks gets worse after every 5% drop, you
       | will think every time:bounce. By the 3-4th drop you'd be down
       | like 40%. By this time you'd think it's down 40% it will bounce
       | which it does 10% but then the 5% drops are back and the cycle
       | continues till what's called capitulation.
        
       | VWWHFSfQ wrote:
       | Meme stocks or not, for the most part don't day traders always
       | lose money? I read Malkiel's book and that seemed to be the point
       | anyway.
        
         | alfalfasprout wrote:
         | Not really. Quite a few don't. It's much harder, on average, to
         | make consistent returns trading actively than investing
         | passively in the market as a whole though.
        
           | FabHK wrote:
           | So how do you identify whether it is luck or not?
           | 
           | Quite a few people win in the casino.
        
             | marvin wrote:
             | I postulate that it's practically equivalent to determine
             | whether someone succeeds through luck or skill, and
             | actually succeeding through skill. And also that succeeding
             | through skill is possible.
        
         | jmcgough wrote:
         | I think he was arguing against "chartists", people who try to
         | read a random walk like they could tea leaves. But IMO most day
         | traders are essentially doing that and aren't going to beat
         | beta returns from the market unless they get lucky.
        
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