What r/wsb is doing is fundamentally no different than hedge funds. Wall Street constantly makes trades that move the market, and nobody bats an eye.

Now when it's some self deprecating band of screaming mad lads beat hedge fund managers at their own game, suddenly it's foul play and the free market must be regulated. Doubly so if they are loud and make stupidly idiotic trades that go against the grain of any financial wisdom passed out in the past century and win out big time - how dare they?!

PS: They haven't sold their positions, and I'm sure by the time they expire some of them will definitely have won big time.

PPS: I also like to think of the man or woman who had some shares sitting in the account that they got from working for Gamestop a couple of decades ago, thinking it was worthless now. Until some dumbasses on the internet went and skyrocketed their net worth for no apparent reason other than for shits and giggles.

You have fallen victim to propaganda by wall street billionaire vultures. This is not a bubble. This is a high stakes market movement speculation game that billionaire vulture short sellers are playing. They just got careless and lazy and got caught in money losing position. Now, these billionaire vultures are crying and whining to the government to help them with bailouts and change the rules in the middle of the game.

WSB is playing the game fair and square. It's the billionaires that's been short selling and manipulating the markets that got caught with their pants down.

WSB is squeezing the greed out of billionaire vulture short sellers, which has gotten so brazen that they have painted themselves into a corner. Usually, they get away with these kind of shenanigans. But this time, someone who knew the game saw the positions and realized that other player had the edge using a winning strategy. All they have to do is drive the price higher and short sellers have to buy at whatever price to cover their positions.

Think of it like this, someone has to buy an item that you have, at any price. What price would you charge?

Genuine question: If you believe AMC and / or Gamestop is a failing business model, why is shorting the stock bad? (NOTE I am not well read on what's happening, other than the gist)

This sounds like an aristocratic response to a revolution. I don’t mean this as dismissive, I mean that clearly there are enough people dissatisfied with the status quo that they are taking measures surprising to those satisfied with the status quo.

I think you are talking about a subject that's completely out of your depth. WSB has always been about greed and making profit.

The so called revolution is just a halo that they attached to themselves so they can all look like heros. From an economic perspective, what they did is irresponsible and dangerous.

I agree with most of what OP said. It's just that some facts are harder to swallow in the current political climate of poor = good and rich = evil.

If what WSB did was irresponsible and dangerous, then all of Wall Street is irresponsible and dangerous.

That's the point here. The only difference is that regular people made money this time.

Mostly done by one hedge fund but it's easy to jump on the band wagon to overgeneralize and criticize the entire Wall Street.

You are essentially proving my point..

So it's nihilism all the way down. I suppose then that shutting this trade down to protect the hedge fund is morally equivocal to letting them lose their shirts.

You make a compelling point why I shouldn’t care about Wall Street hedge funds, you are right they form financial bubbles, you’re right it harms participants, the economy, and are specifically designed to bankrupt companies.

Unfortunately even if I don’t participate in these games, my tax money is used to bail them out when they lose.

> my tax money is used to bail them out when they lose.

I squirted coffee through my nostrils with laughter when I read this. True dat.

The people participating in a supposedly free market hurts the economy?

Violent? Violent? do you know what that word means?

How is pointing out that the Stock Market is broken a bad idea?

Not trying to disagree at all. But you are describing the French Revolution, and there are lots of people who think great of it (not me)...

I was under the impression that the historical consensus is that it was an important stepping stone to building modern civilization and granting people the rights they enjoy today, but it was an absolute disaster for everyone who participated in the revolution itself.

Well, both things are compatible.