This seems to be the sentiment of a lot of people, but the SEC has in fact prosecuted hedge fund managers for just this tactic in the past. It is generally hard to prosecute because smart hedge fund managers don't leave a paper trail and leave a trail of plausible deniability.

But in this case, people are literally admitting "Yes, I would like to engage in your proposed felony." Even manipulation aside... conspiracy itself is a crime. I don't think conspiracies suddenly become legal just because they were very large.

The key distinction AFAICT is that r/WSB isn't commanding people to buy, nor does it have any assets of its own. This is just a stochastic result of mania and individual investors doing what they believe to be in their best interest.

A conspiracy doesn't require one organiser to command the others, any willing participant is just as guilty. Which is why it is hard to prosecute, you need to prove intent. And it seems that it is exactly what those guys documented on reddit.

> r/WSB isn't commanding people to buy

ehhhhhh... I've seen plenty of BUY BUY BUY posts. Unless I'm missing your point. I understand what WSB isn't a corporation or entity in and of itself, but it is still a (somewhat) organised group of uh... "investors".

Cramer says buy buy buy almost every day on his show during lighting round. Is that manipulation too?

But aren’t there plenty of “BUY BUY BUY” posts that result in nothing? My understanding prior to this was that r/WSB was typically a lot of hot air being blown around trying to drum up enthusiasm. No different than your uncle saying at the table “I’ve invested in... and it’s going sky high!”

The bar to qualify this random association of people as organized seems pretty high.

Yeah absolutely, this is one of the few shots that landed, but it was still a very obvious shot.

I qualified "organised" with "somewhat", because nothing in this kind of place is ever really organised, but I mean just look at what they've done. You couldn't do this with a fully disorganised group.

True... except they don’t call themselves investors. They relish using terms like autists, degenerates. Basically they enjoy sending across a message more than making a fortune today.. it’s like a cult

What you call(legal) conspiracy requires that a crime is planned (slightly different from common usage of the word). So what wsb did would only be conspiracy if they planned a crime.

>I don't think conspiracies suddenly become legal just because they were very large.

in theory you're right. The practice though says differently- the mass conspiracy and violation of medalion laws (Uber) and zoning laws (AirBnb) got treated as new phenomenon - "sharing economy" - instead of RICO because it was that massive and coordinated.

There is also another aspect here. The huge short interest on GME was most probably naked (illegal) in significant part, and those huge shorts were probably made in order to drive the price down (market manipulation, illegal). So, these crooks wouldn't have been caught with their pants down if SEC was doing its job and wasn't allowing (by lax enforcement at least) all these shenanigans to their hedge fund buddies. In that situation SEC suddenly becoming a crusader against market manipulation and going after WSB retail investors would look a lot like selective enforcement and a regulatory capture by the crooks.

Yes. Because u/TigBitties_450 is someone the SEC can track and prosecute. The anonymity of the reddit forum Just exposed a gigantic loophole that was suddenly shot into the spotlight. The jig is up.

- ISPs generally keep your IP logged for 6-18 months.

- Reddit has your IPs logged for 100 days.

- The SEC knows all financial transactions.

Shouldn't be too hard to triangulate u/TigBitties_450 if he actually did any trading on the stock.

Haha. U/TigBitties_450 and 500K others just bought 1 to 10 shares of GME, does the SEC see it as good use of their resources? If they are going to be fined it should be proportional to what hedge funds and banks get fined for similar transgressions.

They should take this in the chin as a massive failing on their part to regulate the market just like they did in '08 aftermath when trillions of dollars and the world economy crated because of those same banks and hedge funds.

Isn't conspiracy a kind of secret agreement?

Someone else committing a crime isn't really a defense to one's own crime though.

No, but if a law is applied inconsistently it raises questions about whether 1) the law is sensible 2) the regulatory system is unbiased. Pointing to such inconsistencies is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Resolving those inconsistencies in the law because of uneven enforcement would come quite a long time after the fact. But as the law stands now, this is probably illegal. I doubt anyone will be prosecuted for it, though.

I am not white washing hedge fund managers, but any hedge fund manager that would put in writing in an auditable system that he is considering manufacturing a short squeeze to hurt specific investors and went ahead and did it would have a tough time in court. No one with half a brain would do that (not that in recent history there hasn't been a handful of sub-half-brain bankers who documented their misdeeds in writing).

Yeah, but if you're Bill Ackman you can do it on front of millions of people on CNBC.

"During the epic verbal battle between Icahn and Ackman that was televised on CNBC in January, Icahn predicted that Ackman’s Herbalife investment could produce the “mother of all short squeezes.” Shortly after that incident, it became clear that Icahn had taken a big position in Herbalife’s stock. He has since expanded that position, bought 16.5% of the outstanding shares and gotten two representatives on Herbalife’s board."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2013/07/22/carl-ica...