What a week, sorry for my lack of posting, have in a tiny way been getting involved and making enough money for a couple of decent takeaways.
Getting involved in what you ask?
Well, in the most 2021 story yet, Trumpism came to the US markets and just like in politics, make a big splash before getting punched. Maybe he story is not quite finished, but this week has seen the top and blow-off.
What happened? Well, a canny bunch of retail investors saw that in the US to stocks #GME, #AMC, were being shorted over 100% (hedge funds selling shares, buying them, then selling them again to create double short positions). The retail group started going long, 'to fight the hedgies' A meme developed, thousands of retail investors (now led on by very easy access to the market from phone apps like Reddit), joined in and the Hedge funds were in trouble. The price was rocketing by 100's of percent and they were short. So they had to buy too and the share exploded up over 500% and more.
Of course, the hedgies then started complain to the regulator, but also the trading apps were in trouble, they did not have the cash collateral to clear their trades (takes 3 days for the 'instant' retail deposits to clear for them). So they limited buying, this, together with hedge funds clearing their shorts at a big loss, meant the buying pressure started falling and so down to earth came #GME.
Then yesterday one of the 'leaders' - WallStreetbets - a nicely anonymous twitter handle to go with the current zeitgeist, started pushing a little known crypto currency- Dogecoin. This promptly went up 800% but has also fallen back already.
Rampers and irrational booms are not unusual, the dotcom bubble many will remember and also, strangely, the frenzied period in 2009 are the market bottom of the Great Recession. Now lots of people are sat at home, with unused disposable income and gameified trading apps - it is a recipe for fun and the huxters to let rip. Of course if also exposes the Hedge Funds et al who are at the same game, but to me, that is hardly new information. However, for some millennials, that idea they are not investing but trying to take down hedge funds has a moral appeal - very smart move by the huxters, it has worked a treat.
I guess they have a few more pump and dumps in them and it will be over...
