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GME Short Squeeze What Comes Next Part 3
GME Short Squeeze What Comes Next Part 3 Hello all, Before I begin I would like to address something I have been encountering on my posts in the comments section. I keep receiving some hate concerning my opinions and I want to be crystal clear that they are just that; opinions. I also want everyone to know that is is meant to be a dialog. I am not trying to pump this stock because truthfully, this goes far beyond us retail investors at this point. What I want is a dialog between all sides to examine this truly fascinating phenomenon that is occurring. I would also like to clarify something, I am not a bagholder. I do currently hold bags because I own 336 shares at a $194.34 cost basis, however, that total amount is house money that was used from my profits on the first go around. I also understand some people are tired of hearing about this because it's the same regurgitated form of someone else's post as it keeps circulating in an attempt to retain hype and drive future buying; this is not what this post is about. As investors and individuals involved in the world of finance, this situation should absolutely intrigue us whether or not we are involved. I am here to present my logic on the situation but encourage healthy discussion and debate. This brings me to my first claim. This is not over. Now, I am not claiming that a squeeze will still occur, I am simply claiming it is not over, for better or for worse. Several things need to take place for this to be completely over, at which point I will either post my gains or my losses from the adventure. When I say "it" I am referring to this entire phenomenon, not one short squeeze. I do not think these events, "it", is over. This is largely due to retail and institutional purchasing not really changing all that much since we found the bottom and established support at a staggering $60. This support was lost today and found new support at $50. There was very interesting ATH action and I'm not sure what to make of it. Millions of bag holders (not just WSB) are still holding and in fact, averaging down, thereby purchasing more. These same bag holders are absolutely refusing to sell for such massive losses and in turn are becoming long term investors on the stock if another squeeze isn't to occur. People are picking up speculative positions in the off-chance of another squeeze. Others are determining this as a fair value for the company, not fundamentally, but based on the future prospects of Ryan Cohen and team. Finally, it is nowhere near leaving the global stage with important upcoming dates that we will discuss later. To examine why it isn't over let's look at both sides of the argument:
Bulls claim it's not over for many reasons that you can find in the hundreds of other bullish posts, so I won't bore you with those details. My argument on the bull side is more along the lines of what I listed above.
Bears claim it is over because there was a 2250% price increase over the course of two weeks, therefore this must be a short squeeze.
I think we can all agree, bear or bull, that something happened. A 2250% increase certainly isn't nothing. The question is...what? I see several possibilities and would like to discuss them in the comments.
The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze.
The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze, but the price increase was mainly hype and gamma squeezes.
The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes.
Some combination of the above 3.
First, the data: Based on morningstar the short interest is showing 78.46%. Now, I think the website is having some issues storing cookies because it will show the outdated 226% unless you open it up in incognito. Market watch is showing 41.95% This spread is interesting for sure, my thoughts are some of these calculations are including "synthetic longs" introduced by S3. It is extremely possible to manipulate these numbers via illegal methods and even legal methods using options. Please see this SEC document to explain how this would work. I am not trying to convince anyone to fit my narrative, but these things occur far more commonly than one would expect. The reasoning is because the fines for committing the crime are far less costly than letting the event take place. Please see FINRA's website for the long, and frequent list of fines being dealt out due to manipulation. A common culprit? Lying about short volume. Let's use the absolute worst case scenario being reported of 41.95%, which mind you is still extremely high for one stock: The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze What's interesting here is even if the shorts 100% covered all of their positions, they very well could have shorted on the way back down. Why wouldn't you? It would be insane to not open a short position when this hit nearly $500 especially if you lost half of your companies money; what better way to get it back? For the remainder of this thesis, I will be assuming that some of the short positions that exist are newly opened positions at a higher price unless someone has a counter-claim as to why that wouldn't be possible/probable. That would mean 226% was covered on the way up and another 41.95% was reopened on the way back down. Based on the volume and price changes throughout the past two weeks this simply doesn't pass the math check. The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze. Again, using 41.95% this is highly likely and the most reasonable case. Some, probably the worst positions, were covered on the way up. I think this is precisely what happened, we had some partial shorts covering but for the most part it was gamma squeezes, hype, and FOMO whereby the price started climbing so rapidly it became smarter for the shorts to just wait out the bubble than to actually cover all of their positions. Again, we fall into a "what-if" scenario regarding shorting on the way back down. The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes. This scenario does not pass the math check using the 41.95% figure. If the data is being manipulated then this becomes very interesting because if some of the worst positions are still open then that means all of these HF's losses that were reported were strictly interest and they are simply waiting this out for as long as it takes making back their losses on their newly opened short positions in t $300-$400 range. Sadly, this puts us in the guessing range yet again. We can do the math and see it's possible this scenario exists, however, we would be comparing it against losses reported by the entities that were being squeezed. There are way to many what-if's for me to me consider this a possibility, but I can't write it off completely. Some combination of the above 3. Truthfully, this isn't worth examining just yet. There would be far to many "what-if's" to address, this is something that could be address at the later dates that we will get to shortly. Now, I've heard it a lot regarding the 02/09 data. "It's two weeks old". Well, that is always the case. The FINRA short data is always two weeks old and suggesting that we can't pull any information from it at all is asinine. Where it gets quite murky, is the data includes 01/27 information. This was a day unlike any other in this saga. I will take this moment to address the following upcoming catalysts and when I truly think this will be done; one way or the other. Today's data 02/09, was very important because if it showed an extremely low percentage then we know shorts have exited and did not re-enter and this is completely done. Given the data does not reflect that, we now must turn to several events that could act as catalysts for either a further squeeze or a complete shutdown. 02/19 - In my last post, I discussed the Failure To Deliver (FTD) conundrum. I do need some help figuring out the exact expiration date. From here "The close-out requirement states that a participant of a clearing agency needs to take immediate action to close 4 out a fail to deliver position in a threshold security that has persisted for 13 consecutive settlement days by purchasing securities of like kind and quantity." The exact date is slightly irrelevant because I highly doubt all of these FTD's are going to deliver on the same exact day. This site, while it isn't an official channel seems to be doing a good job of tracking data. If you want to learn more about FTD's and the implications there please visit that site or review my last post which has links to follow for further reading. 02/18 - Keith Gill aka u/DeepFuckingValue will testify before congress and RH CEO Vladimir will be attending. This can go several ways which can lead to an SEC trading halt on GameStop or with evidence that proves foul play occurred. Who knows? It will certainly be interesting and I don't even to speculate on the market reaction to this even because it could go a ton of different ways; it will be an important date nonetheless 02/24 - The next FINRA short interest information will be made readily available to the public. This will be far more interesting and helpful information because it won't include the insane volatility of January, but it will also highlight the newest short positions. This data will help further drive where I think this is all going to end. It's possible that shorts opened new positions at $50 thinking it was going back to $12. Let's not speculate too much here either, it's just another dataset that will bring light to the direction this is headed. 03/25 - GameStop ER. This is big too for several reasons. First, this will include the console sales cycle which historically has done well for GameStop. A typical buy the hype, sell the news event. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts leading up to this ER, maybe people won't even touch GME leading up to then due to the recent volatility, but if they do, and if there is still a lot of short interest, this too could force shorts to begin covering. Another critical part of this ER is Ryan Cohen. This will be the first time this new board addresses the public with their plans for the future and for the first time since this entire adventure began, the "dying brick and mortar" narrative will finally begin to change in the public eye. That is still the common misconception regarding GameStop, that it is a dying brick and mortar retailer where nothing has changed. This hasn't been the case for around 6 months now, but this will be the first time it is publicly address. The headlines surrounding GameStop's future plans will be very interesting to read and the markets reaction will be far more interesting. I have been asked a lot what my PT is and when I expect the squeeze to happen, but let me be clear. Very seldom do squeezes "just happen". In fact, short squeezes are far more common than one would think, they just typically happen over months, if not years and the shorts cover on dips so you don't even notice it's happening. In order to force a squeeze, you need to hold a decent amount of shorts underwater. Soon one will crack and start closing their position, this leads to a series of shorts closing their positions skyrocketing the price until more and more shorts need to cover. This is rare. I hope this narrative of purchasing heavily shorted companies comes to a close soon because a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money simply buying up companies because they are heavily bet against. Catalysts and massive changes need to occur like overhauling your entire business as is the case with GameStop. Normally, shorts will close their positions one at a time, covering on dips and you don't even notice it's happening. In times where you see a price rise of seemingly no news could very well be shorts closing their positions because their research led them to realize this company is on the road to recovery. I digress. Given the most recent data and the multiple upcoming catalysts I am still very bullish on a GME short squeeze. My post from quite some time ago illustrated the importance of catalysts regarding a short squeeze, this is still very much the case. The first run was interrupted and the second run won't happen with magic, it requires a catalyst. Another post was titled For those who do not understand the inevitable GME short squeeze, was at the time "inevitable" because math. That is no longer the case. It is no longer inevitable but it is still possible. I want to be clear: This is not nearly as close to a sure thing as it once was and it depends on a lot of different factors. One of the largest is the people. Granted, a lot of what's happening now is in the hands of institutions but millions of retailers holding their positions to the grave certainly helps the institutional buyers have more faith in their play to continue a squeeze. SO WHAT DO I THINK I think shorts certainly covered some of their positions, but not all. I also firmly believe a significant amount of short positions were opened on the way back down by both HF's and individuals. Some certainly positioned high, but based on sentiment, it appears a lot of people think GME is fairly valued around $20 (which I disagree with but let's use that for the time being). That would mean shorts would have no problem opening positions at 100,70,60, even $50. 42% is still very high which means a squeeze is inevitable so long as the company continues in a positive path. However, squeezes typically aren't as abrupt as people think. They are actually quite common, in fact another position I'm heavily invested in is SPCE and they have been going through a squeeze for several weeks and will continue to squeeze so long as news continues to be positive. How would we get an abrupt short squeeze? A massive bull run. The new shorts that entered at lower levels wouldn't be too hard to catch, however, they are probably low volume, so when they buy to close, it won't be large enough volumes for massive peaks, but a bull run very well could lead to these lower tiered shorts closing, triggering a gamma squeeze. If gamma squeezes are made week over week then shorts at the higher end would have two options:
Close early and take profits
Wait it out because they are positioned so well that interest means nothing and they don't think there is any hope of us rising to those levels.
In the first case, them closing early would be a nice short squeeze to probably several hundred dollars, but it wouldn't break $1000. To break $1000 we would need a big bull run to catch the shorts, trigger gamma squeezes, and keep momentum until they are caught and underwater. This is highly unlikely unless there is another global sentiment. NOTE: ALL OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS I AM MAKING ARE BASED ON THE 42% REPORTING. IF IT IS IN FACT 78% THEN THE POSSIBILITY IS TREMENDOUSLY INCREASED FOR THESE THINGS TO HAPPEN. SO WHEN DOES IT ALL END My though is if by the end of March these catalysts were not enough to reignite the hype and squeeze, then it will essentially be over except in the case of a few circumstances:
A VW/Porche moment occurs where a large buyer picks up a large portion of the company.
Some other currently unknown catalyst appears seemingly out of thin air
The data was in fact manipulated. Regardless of what the data says, if the shorts did in fact lie about their short int to take the fine over being squeezed, then they will be squeezed regardless.
It is quite possible, that these catalysts and moments aren't enough to force a squeeze anymore especially if the shorts have repositioned really well. I will retain the mindset that this fateful January 2021 was not a short squeeze. However, that does not mean it will ever actually happen. SO WHAT IS YOUR PLAY HOOMAN? Well, I am long on GME which is why I didn't mind hopping back in even at outrageous prices. I will continue averaging down and don't plan on selling for quite some time, probably several years. The reason for this is I believe in Cohen and his team to turn this into something unexpected and I imagine an eventual ROI. Once this is all said and done and I think either the shorts truly have covered or they simply got away with it (Beginning of April), I will be posting my DD for GME as a long play regardless of the squeeze mechanics. Thank you all for joining me on this wild journey. I hope we can discuss some of these points in the comments like adults and truly try to grasp this wild situation we are all in. There are extremes on both sides from "get over it, the squeeze happened" to a cult like mentality on the other extreme. I hope through discussion we can find the moderate approach and further understand the market mechanics at play. Thanks for your time WARNING: Until the squeeze business is over for good, this is a very volatile and risky play. Joining now for the hope of a potential round 2 squeeze should only be done in a speculative manner with money you are willing to lose. This is more akin to a gamble than it is investing. I think the current market price is fair given the future prospects of the company but do your own DD, I will not be releasing any until this squeeze is put to rest. TL;DR: I am still bullish on this scenario even at 42%, if it really is 78% then I am extremely bullish. There are a plethora of upcoming catalysts that could reignite the squeeze but even if none are powerful enough, with Cohen's new direction we could expect good news for quite some time forcing shorts to exit on a more spread out timeline. Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I do not wish to sway your opinion in either direction. I simply seek to examine this interesting and volatile situation via crowd sourcing. What you do with your money is entirely up to you.
For ALL THOSE WHO MISSED ON GME, LOST MONEY OR BAGHOLDING...THIS IS THE ENDGAME 🚀
ALL CREDIT GOES TO u/hooman_or_whatever GME Short Squeeze What Comes Next Part 3 Hello all, Before I begin I would like to address something I have been encountering on my posts in the comments section. I keep receiving some hate concerning my opinions and I want to be crystal clear that they are just that; opinions. I also want everyone to know that is is meant to be a dialog. I am not trying to pump this stock because truthfully, this goes far beyond us retail investors at this point. What I want is a dialog between all sides to examine this truly fascinating phenomenon that is occurring. I would also like to clarify something, I am not a bagholder. I do currently hold bags because I own 336 shares at a $194.34 cost basis, however, that total amount is house money that was used from my profits on the first go around. I also understand some people are tired of hearing about this because it's the same regurgitated form of someone else's post as it keeps circulating in an attempt to retain hype and drive future buying; this is not what this post is about. As investors and individuals involved in the world of finance, this situation should absolutely intrigue us whether or not we are involved. I am here to present my logic on the situation but encourage healthy discussion and debate. This brings me to my first claim. This is not over. Now, I am not claiming that a squeeze will still occur, I am simply claiming it is not over, for better or for worse. Several things need to take place for this to be completely over, at which point I will either post my gains or my losses from the adventure. When I say "it" I am referring to this entire phenomenon, not one short squeeze. I do not think these events, "it", is over. This is largely due to retail and institutional purchasing not really changing all that much since we found the bottom and established support at a staggering $60. This support was lost today and found new support at $50. There was very interesting ATH action and I'm not sure what to make of it. Millions of bag holders (not just WSB) are still holding and in fact, averaging down, thereby purchasing more. These same bag holders are absolutely refusing to sell for such massive losses and in turn are becoming long term investors on the stock if another squeeze isn't to occur. People are picking up speculative positions in the off-chance of another squeeze. Others are determining this as a fair value for the company, not fundamentally, but based on the future prospects of Ryan Cohen and team. Finally, it is nowhere near leaving the global stage with important upcoming dates that we will discuss later. To examine why it isn't over let's look at both sides of the argument:
Bulls claim it's not over for many reasons that you can find in the hundreds of other bullish posts, so I won't bore you with those details. My argument on the bull side is more along the lines of what I listed above.
Bears claim it is over because there was a 2250% price increase over the course of two weeks, therefore this must be a short squeeze.
I think we can all agree, bear or bull, that something happened. A 2250% increase certainly isn't nothing. The question is...what? I see several possibilities and would like to discuss them in the comments.
The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze.
The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze, but the price increase was mainly hype and gamma squeezes.
The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes.
Some combination of the above 3.
First, the data: Based on morningstar the short interest is showing 78.46%. Now, I think the website is having some issues storing cookies because it will show the outdated 226% unless you open it up in incognito. Market watch is showing 41.95% This spread is interesting for sure, my thoughts are some of these calculations are including "synthetic longs" introduced by S3. It is extremely possible to manipulate these numbers via illegal methods and even legal methods using options. Please see this SEC document to explain how this would work. I am not trying to convince anyone to fit my narrative, but these things occur far more commonly than one would expect. The reasoning is because the fines for committing the crime are far less costly than letting the event take place. Please see FINRA's website for the long, and frequent list of fines being dealt out due to manipulation. A common culprit? Lying about short volume. Let's use the absolute worst case scenario being reported of 41.95%, which mind you is still extremely high for one stock: The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze What's interesting here is even if the shorts 100% covered all of their positions, they very well could have shorted on the way back down. Why wouldn't you? It would be insane to not open a short position when this hit nearly $500 especially if you lost half of your companies money; what better way to get it back? For the remainder of this thesis, I will be assuming that some of the short positions that exist are newly opened positions at a higher price unless someone has a counter-claim as to why that wouldn't be possible/probable. That would mean 226% was covered on the way up and another 41.95% was reopened on the way back down. Based on the volume and price changes throughout the past two weeks this simply doesn't pass the math check. The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze. Again, using 41.95% this is highly likely and the most reasonable case. Some, probably the worst positions, were covered on the way up. I think this is precisely what happened, we had some partial shorts covering but for the most part it was gamma squeezes, hype, and FOMO whereby the price started climbing so rapidly it became smarter for the shorts to just wait out the bubble than to actually cover all of their positions. Again, we fall into a "what-if" scenario regarding shorting on the way back down. The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes. This scenario does not pass the math check using the 41.95% figure. If the data is being manipulated then this becomes very interesting because if some of the worst positions are still open then that means all of these HF's losses that were reported were strictly interest and they are simply waiting this out for as long as it takes making back their losses on their newly opened short positions in t $300-$400 range. Sadly, this puts us in the guessing range yet again. We can do the math and see it's possible this scenario exists, however, we would be comparing it against losses reported by the entities that were being squeezed. There are way to many what-if's for me to me consider this a possibility, but I can't write it off completely. Some combination of the above 3. Truthfully, this isn't worth examining just yet. There would be far to many "what-if's" to address, this is something that could be address at the later dates that we will get to shortly. Now, I've heard it a lot regarding the 02/09 data. "It's two weeks old". Well, that is always the case. The FINRA short data is always two weeks old and suggesting that we can't pull any information from it at all is asinine. Where it gets quite murky, is the data includes 01/27 information. This was a day unlike any other in this saga. I will take this moment to address the following upcoming catalysts and when I truly think this will be done; one way or the other. Today's data 02/09, was very important because if it showed an extremely low percentage then we know shorts have exited and did not re-enter and this is completely done. Given the data does not reflect that, we now must turn to several events that could act as catalysts for either a further squeeze or a complete shutdown. 02/19 - In my last post, I discussed the Failure To Deliver (FTD) conundrum. I do need some help figuring out the exact expiration date. From here "The close-out requirement states that a participant of a clearing agency needs to take immediate action to close 4 out a fail to deliver position in a threshold security that has persisted for 13 consecutive settlement days by purchasing securities of like kind and quantity." The exact date is slightly irrelevant because I highly doubt all of these FTD's are going to deliver on the same exact day. This site, while it isn't an official channel seems to be doing a good job of tracking data. If you want to learn more about FTD's and the implications there please visit that site or review my last post which has links to follow for further reading. 02/18 - Keith Gill aka u/DeepFuckingValue will testify before congress and RH CEO Vladimir will be attending. This can go several ways which can lead to an SEC trading halt on GameStop or with evidence that proves foul play occurred. Who knows? It will certainly be interesting and I don't even to speculate on the market reaction to this even because it could go a ton of different ways; it will be an important date nonetheless 02/24 - The next FINRA short interest information will be made readily available to the public. This will be far more interesting and helpful information because it won't include the insane volatility of January, but it will also highlight the newest short positions. This data will help further drive where I think this is all going to end. It's possible that shorts opened new positions at $50 thinking it was going back to $12. Let's not speculate too much here either, it's just another dataset that will bring light to the direction this is headed. 03/25 - GameStop ER. This is big too for several reasons. First, this will include the console sales cycle which historically has done well for GameStop. A typical buy the hype, sell the news event. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts leading up to this ER, maybe people won't even touch GME leading up to then due to the recent volatility, but if they do, and if there is still a lot of short interest, this too could force shorts to begin covering. Another critical part of this ER is Ryan Cohen. This will be the first time this new board addresses the public with their plans for the future and for the first time since this entire adventure began, the "dying brick and mortar" narrative will finally begin to change in the public eye. That is still the common misconception regarding GameStop, that it is a dying brick and mortar retailer where nothing has changed. This hasn't been the case for around 6 months now, but this will be the first time it is publicly address. The headlines surrounding GameStop's future plans will be very interesting to read and the markets reaction will be far more interesting. I have been asked a lot what my PT is and when I expect the squeeze to happen, but let me be clear. Very seldom do squeezes "just happen". In fact, short squeezes are far more common than one would think, they just typically happen over months, if not years and the shorts cover on dips so you don't even notice it's happening. In order to force a squeeze, you need to hold a decent amount of shorts underwater. Soon one will crack and start closing their position, this leads to a series of shorts closing their positions skyrocketing the price until more and more shorts need to cover. This is rare. I hope this narrative of purchasing heavily shorted companies comes to a close soon because a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money simply buying up companies because they are heavily bet against. Catalysts and massive changes need to occur like overhauling your entire business as is the case with GameStop. Normally, shorts will close their positions one at a time, covering on dips and you don't even notice it's happening. In times where you see a price rise of seemingly no news could very well be shorts closing their positions because their research led them to realize this company is on the road to recovery. I digress. Given the most recent data and the multiple upcoming catalysts I am still very bullish on a GME short squeeze. My post from quite some time ago illustrated the importance of catalysts regarding a short squeeze, this is still very much the case. The first run was interrupted and the second run won't happen with magic, it requires a catalyst. Another post was titled For those who do not understand the inevitable GME short squeeze, was at the time "inevitable" because math. That is no longer the case. It is no longer inevitable but it is still possible. I want to be clear: This is not nearly as close to a sure thing as it once was and it depends on a lot of different factors. One of the largest is the people. Granted, a lot of what's happening now is in the hands of institutions but millions of retailers holding their positions to the grave certainly helps the institutional buyers have more faith in their play to continue a squeeze. SO WHAT DO I THINK I think shorts certainly covered some of their positions, but not all. I also firmly believe a significant amount of short positions were opened on the way back down by both HF's and individuals. Some certainly positioned high, but based on sentiment, it appears a lot of people think GME is fairly valued around $20 (which I disagree with but let's use that for the time being). That would mean shorts would have no problem opening positions at 100,70,60, even $50. 42% is still very high which means a squeeze is inevitable so long as the company continues in a positive path. However, squeezes typically aren't as abrupt as people think. They are actually quite common, in fact another position I'm heavily invested in is SPCE and they have been going through a squeeze for several weeks and will continue to squeeze so long as news continues to be positive. How would we get an abrupt short squeeze? A massive bull run. The new shorts that entered at lower levels wouldn't be too hard to catch, however, they are probably low volume, so when they buy to close, it won't be large enough volumes for massive peaks, but a bull run very well could lead to these lower tiered shorts closing, triggering a gamma squeeze. If gamma squeezes are made week over week then shorts at the higher end would have two options:
Close early and take profits
Wait it out because they are positioned so well that interest means nothing and they don't think there is any hope of us rising to those levels.
In the first case, them closing early would be a nice short squeeze to probably several hundred dollars, but it wouldn't break $1000. To break $1000 we would need a big bull run to catch the shorts, trigger gamma squeezes, and keep momentum until they are caught and underwater. This is highly unlikely unless there is another global sentiment. NOTE: ALL OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS I AM MAKING ARE BASED ON THE 42% REPORTING. IF IT IS IN FACT 78% THEN THE POSSIBILITY IS TREMENDOUSLY INCREASED FOR THESE THINGS TO HAPPEN. SO WHEN DOES IT ALL END My though is if by the end of March these catalysts were not enough to reignite the hype and squeeze, then it will essentially be over except in the case of a few circumstances:
A VW/Porche moment occurs where a large buyer picks up a large portion of the company.
Some other currently unknown catalyst appears seemingly out of thin air
The data was in fact manipulated. Regardless of what the data says, if the shorts did in fact lie about their short int to take the fine over being squeezed, then they will be squeezed regardless.
It is quite possible, that these catalysts and moments aren't enough to force a squeeze anymore especially if the shorts have repositioned really well. I will retain the mindset that this fateful January 2021 was not a short squeeze. However, that does not mean it will ever actually happen. SO WHAT IS YOUR PLAY HOOMAN? Well, I am long on GME which is why I didn't mind hopping back in even at outrageous prices. I will continue averaging down and don't plan on selling for quite some time, probably several years. The reason for this is I believe in Cohen and his team to turn this into something unexpected and I imagine an eventual ROI. Once this is all said and done and I think either the shorts truly have covered or they simply got away with it (Beginning of April), I will be posting my DD for GME as a long play regardless of the squeeze mechanics. Thank you all for joining me on this wild journey. I hope we can discuss some of these points in the comments like adults and truly try to grasp this wild situation we are all in. There are extremes on both sides from "get over it, the squeeze happened" to a cult like mentality on the other extreme. I hope through discussion we can find the moderate approach and further understand the market mechanics at play. Thanks for your time WARNING: Until the squeeze business is over for good, this is a very volatile and risky play. Joining now for the hope of a potential round 2 squeeze should only be done in a speculative manner with money you are willing to lose. This is more akin to a gamble than it is investing. I think the current market price is fair given the future prospects of the company but do your own DD, I will not be releasing any until this squeeze is put to rest. TL;DR: I am still bullish on this scenario even at 42%, if it really is 78% then I am extremely bullish. There are a plethora of upcoming catalysts that could reignite the squeeze but even if none are powerful enough, with Cohen's new direction we could expect good news for quite some time forcing shorts to exit on a more spread out timeline. Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I do not wish to sway your opinion in either direction. I simply seek to examine this interesting and volatile situation via crowd sourcing. What you do with your money is entirely up to you.
How the Hunt Brothers Cornered the Silver Market and Then Lost it All
TL:DR: yes its long. Grab a beer.
Until his dying day in 2014, Nelson Bunker Hunt, who had once been the world’s wealthiest man, denied that he and his brother plotted to corner the global silver market. Sure, back in 1980, Bunker, his younger brother Herbert, and other members of the Hunt clan owned roughly two-thirds of all the privately held silver on earth. But the historic stockpiling of bullion hadn’t been a ploy to manipulate the market, they and their sizable legal team would insist in the following years. Instead, it was a strategy to hedge against the voracious inflation of the 1970s—a monumental bet against the U.S. dollar. Whatever the motive, it was a bet that went historically sour. The debt-fueled boom and bust of the global silver market not only decimated the Hunt fortune, but threatened to take down the U.S. financial system. The panic of “Silver Thursday” took place over 35 years ago, but it still raises questions about the nature of financial manipulation. While many view the Hunt brothers as members of a long succession of white collar crooks, from Charles Ponzi to Bernie Madoff, others see the endearingly eccentric Texans as the victims of overstepping regulators and vindictive insiders who couldn’t stand the thought of being played by a couple of southern yokels. In either case, the story of the Hunt brothers just goes to show how difficult it can be to distinguish illegal market manipulation from the old fashioned wheeling and dealing that make our markets work. The Real-Life Ewings Whatever their foibles, the Hunts make for an interesting cast of characters. Evidently CBS thought so; the family is rumored to be the basis for the Ewings, the fictional Texas oil dynasty of Dallas fame. Sitting at the top of the family tree was H.L. Hunt, a man who allegedly purchased his first oil field with poker winnings and made a fortune drilling in east Texas. H.L. was a well-known oddball to boot, and his sons inherited many of their father’s quirks. For one, there was the stinginess. Despite being the richest man on earth in the 1960s, Bunker Hunt (who went by his middle name), along with his younger brothers Herbert (first name William) and Lamar, cultivated an image as unpretentious good old boys. They drove old Cadillacs, flew coach, and when they eventually went to trial in New York City in 1988, they took the subway. As one Texas editor was quoted in the New York Times, Bunker Hunt was “the kind of guy who orders chicken-fried steak and Jello-O, spills some on his tie, and then goes out and buys all the silver in the world.” Cheap suits aside, the Hunts were not without their ostentation. At the end of the 1970s, Bunker boasted a stable of over 500 horses and his little brother Lamar owned the Kansas City Chiefs. All six children of H.L.’s first marriage (the patriarch of the Hunt family had fifteen children by three women before he died in 1974) lived on estates befitting the scions of a Texas billionaire. These lifestyles were financed by trusts, but also risky investments in oil, real estate, and a host of commodities including sugar beets, soybeans, and, before long, silver. The Hunt brothers also inherited their father’s political inclinations. A zealous anti-Communist, Bunker Hunt bankrolled conservative causes and was a prominent member of the John Birch Society, a group whose founder once speculated that Dwight Eisenhower was a “dedicated, conscious agent” of Soviet conspiracy. In November of 1963, Hunt sponsored a particularly ill-timed political campaign, which distributed pamphlets around Dallas condemning President Kennedy for alleged slights against the Constitution on the day that he was assassinated. JFK conspiracy theorists have been obsessed with Hunt ever since. In fact, it was the Hunt brand of politics that partially explains what led Bunker and Herbert to start buying silver in 1973. Hard Money The 1970s were not kind to the U.S. dollar. Years of wartime spending and unresponsive monetary policy pushed inflation upward throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Then, in October of 1973, war broke out in the Middle East and an oil embargo was declared against the United States. Inflation jumped above 10%. It would stay high throughout the decade, peaking in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution at an annual average of 13.5% in 1980. Over the same period of time, the global monetary system underwent a historic transformation. Since the first Roosevelt administration, the U.S. dollar had been pegged to the value of gold at a predictable rate of $35 per ounce. But in 1971, President Nixon, responding to inflationary pressures, suspended that relationship. For the first time in modern history, the paper dollar did not represent some fixed amount of tangible, precious metal sitting in a vault somewhere. For conservative commodity traders like the Hunts, who blamed government spending for inflation and held grave reservations about the viability of fiat currency, the perceived stability of precious metal offered a financial safe harbor. It was illegal to trade gold in the early 1970s, so the Hunts turned to the next best thing. 📷
As an investment, there was a lot to like about silver. The Hunts were not alone in fleeing to bullion amid all the inflation and geopolitical turbulence, so the price was ticking up. Plus, light-sensitive silver halide is a key component of photographic film. With the growth of the consumer photography market, new production from mines struggled to keep up with demand. And so, in 1973, Bunker and Herbert bought over 35 million ounces of silver, most of which they flew to Switzerland in specifically designed airplanes guarded by armed Texas ranch hands. According to one source, the Hunt’s purchases were big enough to move the global market. But silver was not the Hunts' only speculative venture in the 1970s. Nor was it the only one that got them into trouble with regulators. Soy Before Silver In 1977, the price of soybeans was rising fast. Trade restrictions on Brazil and growing demand from China made the legume a hot commodity, and both Bunker and Herbert decided to enter the futures market in April of that year. A future is an agreement to buy or sell some quantity of a commodity at an agreed upon price at a later date. If someone contracts to buy soybeans in the future (they are said to take the “long” position), they will benefit if the price of soybeans rise, since they have locked in the lower price ahead of time. Likewise, if someone contracts to sell (that’s called the “short” position), they benefit if the price falls, since they have locked in the old, higher price. While futures contracts can be used by soybean farmers and soy milk producers to guard against price swings, most futures are traded by people who wouldn’t necessarily know tofu from cream cheese. As a de facto insurance contract against market volatility, futures can be used to hedge other investments or simply to gamble on prices going up (by going long) or down (by going short). When the Hunts decided to go long in the soybean futures market, they went very, very long. Between Bunker, Herbert, and the accounts of five of their children, the Hunts collectively purchased the right to buy one-third of the entire autumn soybean harvest of the United States. To some, it appeared as if the Hunts were attempting to corner the soybean market. In its simplest version, a corner occurs when someone buys up all (or at least, most) of the available quantity of a commodity. This creates an artificial shortage, which drives up the price, and allows the market manipulator to sell some of his stockpile at a higher profit. Futures markets introduce some additional complexity to the cornerer’s scheme. Recall that when a trader takes a short position on a contract, he or she is pledging to sell a certain amount of product to the holder of the long position. But if the holder of the long position just so happens to be sitting on all the readily available supply of the commodity under contract, the short seller faces an unenviable choice: go scrounge up some of the very scarce product in order to “make delivery” or just pay the cornerer a hefty premium and nullify the deal entirely. In this case, the cornerer is actually counting on the shorts to do the latter, says Craig Pirrong, professor of finance at the University of Houston. If too many short sellers find that it actually costs less to deliver the product, the market manipulator will be stuck with warehouses full of inventory. Finance experts refer to selling the all the excess supply after building a corner as “burying the corpse.” “That is when the price collapses,” explains Pirrong. “But if the number of deliveries isn’t too high, the loss from selling at the low price after the corner is smaller than the profit from selling contracts at the high price.” 📷
The Chicago Board of Trade trading floor. Photo credit:Jeremy Kemp
Even so, when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found that a single family from Texas had contracted to buy a sizable portion of the 1977 soybean crop, they did not accuse the Hunts of outright market manipulation. Instead, noting that the Hunts had exceeded the 3 million bushel aggregate limit on soybean holdings by about 20 million, the CFTC noted that the Hunt’s “excessive holdings threaten disruption of the market and could cause serious injury to the American public.” The CFTC ordered the Hunts to sell and to pay a penalty of $500,000. Though the Hunts made tens of millions of dollars on paper while soybean prices skyrocketed, it’s unclear whether they were able to cash out before the regulatory intervention. In any case, the Hunts were none too pleased with the decision. “Apparently the CFTC is trying to repeal the law of supply and demand,” Bunker complained to the press. Silver Thursday Despite the run in with regulators, the Hunts were not dissuaded. Bunker and Herbert had eased up on silver after their initial big buy in 1973, but in the fall of 1979, they were back with a vengeance. By the end of the year, Bunker and Herbert owned 21 million ounces of physical silver each. They had even larger positions in the silver futures market: Bunker was long on 45 million ounces, while Herbert held contracts for 20 million. Their little brother Lamar also had a more “modest” position. By the new year, with every dollar increase in the price of silver, the Hunts were making $100 million on paper. But unlike most investors, when their profitable futures contracts expired, they took delivery. As in 1973, they arranged to have the metal flown to Switzerland. Intentional or not, this helped create a shortage of the metal for industrial supply. Naturally, the industrialists were unhappy. From a spot price of around $6 per ounce in early 1979, the price of silver shot up to $50.42 in January of 1980. In the same week, silver futures contracts were trading at $46.80. Film companies like Kodak saw costs go through the roof, while the British film producer, Ilford, was forced to lay off workers. Traditional bullion dealers, caught in a squeeze, cried foul to the commodity exchanges, and the New York jewelry house Tiffany & Co. took out a full page ad in the New York Times slamming the “unconscionable” Hunt brothers. They were right to single out the Hunts; in mid-January, they controlled 69% of all the silver futures contracts on the Commodity Exchange (COMEX) in New York. 📷
But as the high prices persisted, new silver began to come out of the woodwork. “In the U.S., people rifled their dresser drawers and sofa cushions to find dimes and quarters with silver content and had them melted down,” says Pirrong, from the University of Houston. “Silver is a classic part of a bride’s trousseau in India, and when prices got high, women sold silver out of their trousseaus.” According to a Washington Post article published that March, the D.C. police warned residents of a rash of home burglaries targeting silver. Unfortunately for the Hunts, all this new supply had a predictable effect. Rather than close out their contracts, short sellers suddenly found it was easier to get their hands on new supplies of silver and deliver. “The main factor that has caused corners to fail [throughout history] is that the manipulator has underestimated how much will be delivered to him if he succeeds [at] raising the price to artificial levels,” says Pirrong. “Eventually, the Hunts ran out of money to pay for all the silver that was thrown at them.” In financial terms, the brothers had a large corpse on their hands—and no way to bury it. This proved to be an especially big problem, because it wasn’t just the Hunt fortune that was on the line. Of the $6.6 billion worth of silver the Hunts held at the top of the market, the brothers had “only” spent a little over $1 billion of their own money. The rest was borrowed from over 20 banks and brokerage houses. At the same time, COMEX decided to crack down. On January 7, 1980, the exchange’s board of governors announced that it would cap the size of silver futures exposure to 3 million ounces. Those in excess of the cap (say, by the tens of millions) were given until the following month to bring themselves into compliance. But that was too long for the Chicago Board of Trade exchange, which suspended the issue of any new silver futures on January 21. Silver futures traders would only be allowed to square up old contracts. Predictably, silver prices began to slide. As the various banks and other firms that had backed the Hunt bullion binge began to recognize the tenuousness of their financial position, they issued margin calls, asking the brothers to put up more money as collateral for their debts. The Hunts, unable to sell silver lest they trigger a panic, borrowed even more. By early March, futures contracts had fallen to the mid-$30 range. Matters finally came to a head on March 25, when one of the Hunts’ largest backers, the Bache Group, asked for $100 million more in collateral. The brothers were out of cash, and Bache was unwilling to accept silver in its place, as it had been doing throughout the month. With the Hunts in default, Bache did the only thing it could to start recouping its losses: it start to unload silver. On March 27, “Silver Thursday,” the silver futures market dropped by a third to $10.80. Just two months earlier, these contracts had been trading at four times that amount. The Aftermath After the oil bust of the early 1980s and a series of lawsuits polished off the remainder of the Hunt brothers’ once historic fortune, the two declared bankruptcy in 1988. Bunker, who had been worth an estimated $16 billion in the 1960s, emerged with under $10 million to his name. That’s not exactly chump change, but it wasn’t enough to maintain his 500-plus stable of horses,. The Hunts almost dragged their lenders into bankruptcy too—and with them, a sizable chunk of the U.S. financial system. Over twenty financial institutions had extended over a billion dollars in credit to the Hunt brothers. The default and resulting collapse of silver prices blew holes in balance sheets across Wall Street. A privately orchestrated bailout loan from a number of banks allowed the brothers to start paying off their debts and keep their creditors afloat, but the markets and regulators were rattled. Silver Spot Prices Per Ounce (January, 1979 - June, 1980) 📷
In the words of then CFTC chief James Stone, the Hunts’ antics had threatened to punch a hole in the “financial fabric of the United States” like nothing had in decades. Writing about the entire episode a year later, Harper’s Magazine described Silver Thursday as “the first great panic since October 1929.” The trouble was not over for the Hunts. In the following years, the brothers were dragged before Congressional hearings, got into a legal spat with their lenders, and were sued by a Peruvian mineral marketing company, which had suffered big losses in the crash. In 1988, a New York City jury found for the South American firm, levying a penalty of over $130 million against the Hunts and finding that they had deliberately conspired to corner the silver market. Surprisingly, there is still some disagreement on that point. Bunker Hunt attributed the whole affair to the political motives of COMEX insiders and regulators. Referring to himself later as “a favorite whipping boy” of an eastern financial establishment riddled with liberals and socialists, Bunker and his brother, Herbert, are still perceived as martyrs by some on the far-right. “Political and financial insiders repeatedly changed the rules of the game,” wrote the New American. “There is little evidence to support the ‘corner the market’ narrative.” Though the Hunt brothers clearly amassed a staggering amount of silver and silver derivatives at the end of the 1970s, it is impossible to prove definitively that market manipulation was in their hearts. Maybe, as the Hunts always claimed, they just really believed in the enduring value of silver. Or maybe, as others have noted, the Hunt brothers had no idea what they were doing. Call it the stupidity defense. “They’re terribly unsophisticated,” an anonymous associated was quoted as saying of the Hunts in a Chicago Tribune article from 1989. “They make all the mistakes most other people make,” said another. p.s. credit to Ben Christopher
EDIT: the post has been re-activated on stocks please comment there as it has the most traffic so I’m not jumping back and forth trying to respond. Appreciate everyone! GME Short Squeeze What Comes Next Part 3 Hello all, Before I begin I would like to address something I have been encountering on my posts in the comments section. I keep receiving some hate concerning my opinions and I want to be crystal clear that they are just that; opinions. I also want everyone to know that is is meant to be a dialog. I am not trying to pump this stock because truthfully, this goes far beyond us retail investors at this point. What I want is a dialog between all sides to examine this truly fascinating phenomenon that is occurring. I would also like to clarify something, I am not a bagholder. I do currently hold bags because I own 336 shares at a $194.34 cost basis, however, that total amount is house money that was used from my profits on the first go around. I also understand some people are tired of hearing about this because it's the same regurgitated form of someone else's post as it keeps circulating in an attempt to retain hype and drive future buying; this is not what this post is about. As investors and individuals involved in the world of finance, this situation should absolutely intrigue us whether or not we are involved. I am here to present my logic on the situation but encourage healthy discussion and debate. This brings me to my first claim. This is not over. Now, I am not claiming that a squeeze will still occur, I am simply claiming it is not over, for better or for worse. Several things need to take place for this to be completely over, at which point I will either post my gains or my losses from the adventure. When I say "it" I am referring to this entire phenomenon, not one short squeeze. I do not think these events, "it", is over. This is largely due to retail and institutional purchasing not really changing all that much since we found the bottom and established support at a staggering $60. This support was lost today and found new support at $50. There was very interesting ATH action and I'm not sure what to make of it. Millions of bag holders (not just WSB) are still holding and in fact, averaging down, thereby purchasing more. These same bag holders are absolutely refusing to sell for such massive losses and in turn are becoming long term investors on the stock if another squeeze isn't to occur. People are picking up speculative positions in the off-chance of another squeeze. Others are determining this as a fair value for the company, not fundamentally, but based on the future prospects of Ryan Cohen and team. Finally, it is nowhere near leaving the global stage with important upcoming dates that we will discuss later. To examine why it isn't over let's look at both sides of the argument:
Bulls claim it's not over for many reasons that you can find in the hundreds of other bullish posts, so I won't bore you with those details. My argument on the bull side is more along the lines of what I listed above.
Bears claim it is over because there was a 2250% price increase over the course of two weeks, therefore this must be a short squeeze.
I think we can all agree, bear or bull, that something happened. A 2250% increase certainly isn't nothing. The question is...what? I see several possibilities and would like to discuss them in the comments.
The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze.
The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze, but the price increase was mainly hype and gamma squeezes.
The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes.
Some combination of the above 3.
First, the data: Based on morningstar the short interest is showing 78.46%. Now, I think the website is having some issues storing cookies because it will show the outdated 226% unless you open it up in incognito. Market watch is showing 41.95% This spread is interesting for sure, my thoughts are some of these calculations are including "synthetic longs" introduced by S3. It is extremely possible to manipulate these numbers via illegal methods and even legal methods using options. Please see this SEC document to explain how this would work. I am not trying to convince anyone to fit my narrative, but these things occur far more commonly than one would expect. The reasoning is because the fines for committing the crime are far less costly than letting the event take place. Please see FINRA's website for the long, and frequent list of fines being dealt out due to manipulation. A common culprit? Lying about short volume. Let's use the absolute worst case scenario being reported of 41.95%, which mind you is still extremely high for one stock: The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze What's interesting here is even if the shorts 100% covered all of their positions, they very well could have shorted on the way back down. Why wouldn't you? It would be insane to not open a short position when this hit nearly $500 especially if you lost half of your companies money; what better way to get it back? For the remainder of this thesis, I will be assuming that some of the short positions that exist are newly opened positions at a higher price unless someone has a counter-claim as to why that wouldn't be possible/probable. That would mean 226% was covered on the way up and another 41.95% was reopened on the way back down. Based on the volume and price changes throughout the past two weeks this simply doesn't pass the math check. The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze. Again, using 41.95% this is highly likely and the most reasonable case. Some, probably the worst positions, were covered on the way up. I think this is precisely what happened, we had some partial shorts covering but for the most part it was gamma squeezes, hype, and FOMO whereby the price started climbing so rapidly it became smarter for the shorts to just wait out the bubble than to actually cover all of their positions. Again, we fall into a "what-if" scenario regarding shorting on the way back down. The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes. This scenario does not pass the math check using the 41.95% figure. If the data is being manipulated then this becomes very interesting because if some of the worst positions are still open then that means all of these HF's losses that were reported were strictly interest and they are simply waiting this out for as long as it takes making back their losses on their newly opened short positions in t $300-$400 range. Sadly, this puts us in the guessing range yet again. We can do the math and see it's possible this scenario exists, however, we would be comparing it against losses reported by the entities that were being squeezed. There are way to many what-if's for me to me consider this a possibility, but I can't write it off completely. Some combination of the above 3. Truthfully, this isn't worth examining just yet. There would be far to many "what-if's" to address, this is something that could be address at the later dates that we will get to shortly. Now, I've heard it a lot regarding the 02/09 data. "It's two weeks old". Well, that is always the case. The FINRA short data is always two weeks old and suggesting that we can't pull any information from it at all is asinine. Where it gets quite murky, is the data includes 01/27 information. This was a day unlike any other in this saga. I will take this moment to address the following upcoming catalysts and when I truly think this will be done; one way or the other. Today's data 02/09, was very important because if it showed an extremely low percentage then we know shorts have exited and did not re-enter and this is completely done. Given the data does not reflect that, we now must turn to several events that could act as catalysts for either a further squeeze or a complete shutdown. 02/15ish - In my last post, I discussed the Failure To Deliver (FTD) conundrum. I do need some help figuring out the exact expiration date. From here "The close-out requirement states that a participant of a clearing agency needs to take immediate action to close 4 out a fail to deliver position in a threshold security that has persisted for 13 consecutive settlement days by purchasing securities of like kind and quantity." I am missing two pieces of information to answer this.
Does the 13 day countdown begin after T+2, or are those two days counted in the total number?
Are settlement days business days only?
Depending on the above information, starting at 01/29 we are looking at these possibilities:
If T+2 is not included and weekends are: 02/15
If T+2 is not included and its business days only: 02/19
If T+2 is included and weekends are: 02/13 (Saturday)
If T+2 is included and its business days: 02/17
The exact date is slightly irrelevant because I highly doubt all of these FTD's are going to deliver on the same exact day. This site, while it isn't an official channel seems to be doing a good job of tracking data. If you want to learn more about FTD's and the implications there please visit that site or review my last post which has links to follow for further reading. 02/18 - Keith Gill aka u/DeepFuckingValue will testify before congress and Robinhood CEO Vladimir will be attending. This can go several ways which can lead to an SEC trading halt on GameStop or with evidence that proves foul play occurred. Who knows? It will certainly be interesting and I don't even to speculate on the market reaction to this even because it could go a ton of different ways; it will be an important date nonetheless 02/24 - The next FINRA short interest information will be made readily available to the public. This will be far more interesting and helpful information because it won't include the insane volatility of January, but it will also highlight the newest short positions. This data will help further drive where I think this is all going to end. It's possible that shorts opened new positions at $50 thinking it was going back to $12. Let's not speculate too much here either, it's just another dataset that will bring light to the direction this is headed. 03/25 - GameStop ER. This is big too for several reasons. First, this will include the console sales cycle which historically has done well for GameStop. A typical buy the hype, sell the news event. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts leading up to this ER, maybe people won't even touch GME leading up to then due to the recent volatility, but if they do, and if there is still a lot of short interest, this too could force shorts to begin covering. Another critical part of this ER is Ryan Cohen. This will be the first time this new board addresses the public with their plans for the future and for the first time since this entire adventure began, the "dying brick and mortar" narrative will finally begin to change in the public eye. That is still the common misconception regarding GameStop, that it is a dying brick and mortar retailer where nothing has changed. This hasn't been the case for around 6 months now, but this will be the first time it is publicly address. The headlines surrounding GameStop's future plans will be very interesting to read and the markets reaction will be far more interesting. I have been asked a lot what my PT is and when I expect the squeeze to happen, but let me be clear. Very seldom do squeezes "just happen". In fact, short squeezes are far more common than one would think, they just typically happen over months, if not years and the shorts cover on dips so you don't even notice it's happening. In order to force a squeeze, you need to hold a decent amount of shorts underwater. Soon one will crack and start closing their position, this leads to a series of shorts closing their positions skyrocketing the price until more and more shorts need to cover. This is rare. I hope this narrative of purchasing heavily shorted companies comes to a close soon because a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money simply buying up companies because they are heavily bet against. Catalysts and massive changes need to occur like overhauling your entire business as is the case with GameStop. Normally, shorts will close their positions one at a time, covering on dips and you don't even notice it's happening. In times where you see a price rise of seemingly no news could very well be shorts closing their positions because their research led them to realize this company is on the road to recovery. I digress. Given the most recent data and the multiple upcoming catalysts I am still very bullish on a GME short squeeze. My post from quite some time ago illustrated the importance of catalysts regarding a short squeeze, this is still very much the case. The first run was interrupted and the second run won't happen with magic, it requires a catalyst. Another post was titled For those who do not understand the inevitable GME short squeeze, was at the time "inevitable" because math. That is no longer the case. It is no longer inevitable but it is still possible. I want to be clear: This is not nearly as close to a sure thing as it once was and it depends on a lot of different factors. One of the largest is the people. Granted, a lot of what's happening now is in the hands of institutions but millions of retailers holding their positions to the grave certainly helps the institutional buyers have more faith in their play to continue a squeeze. SO WHAT DO I THINK I think shorts certainly covered some of their positions, but not all. I also firmly believe a significant amount of short positions were opened on the way back down by both HF's and individuals. Some certainly positioned high, but based on sentiment, it appears a lot of people think GME is fairly valued around $20 (which I disagree with but let's use that for the time being). That would mean shorts would have no problem opening positions at 100,70,60, even $50. 42% is still very high which means a squeeze is inevitable so long as the company continues in a positive path. However, squeezes typically aren't as abrupt as people think. They are actually quite common, in fact another position I'm heavily invested in is SPCE and they have been going through a squeeze for several weeks and will continue to squeeze so long as news continues to be positive. How would we get an abrupt short squeeze? A massive bull run. The new shorts that entered at lower levels wouldn't be too hard to catch, however, they are probably low volume, so when they buy to close, it won't be large enough volumes for massive peaks, but a bull run very well could lead to these lower tiered shorts closing, triggering a gamma squeeze. If gamma squeezes are made week over week then shorts at the higher end would have two options:
Close early and take profits
Wait it out because they are positioned so well that interest means nothing and they don't think there is any hope of us rising to those levels.
In the first case, them closing early would be a nice short squeeze to probably several hundred dollars, but it wouldn't break $1000. To break $1000 we would need a big bull run to catch the shorts, trigger gamma squeezes, and keep momentum until they are caught and underwater. This is highly unlikely unless there is another global sentiment. NOTE: ALL OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS I AM MAKING ARE BASED ON THE 42% REPORTING. IF IT IS IN FACT 78% THEN THE POSSIBILITY IS TREMENDOUSLY INCREASED FOR THESE THINGS TO HAPPEN. SO WHEN DOES IT ALL END My though is if by the end of March these catalysts were not enough to reignite the hype and squeeze, then it will essentially be over except in the case of a few circumstances:
A VW/Porche moment occurs where a large buyer picks up a large portion of the company.
Some other currently unknown catalyst appears seemingly out of thin air
The data was in fact manipulated. Regardless of what the data says, if the shorts did in fact lie about their short int to take the fine over being squeezed, then they will be squeezed regardless.
It is quite possible, that these catalysts and moments aren't enough to force a squeeze anymore especially if the shorts have repositioned really well. I will retain the mindset that this fateful January 2021 was not a short squeeze. However, that does not mean it will ever actually happen. SO WHAT IS YOUR PLAY HOOMAN? Well, I am long on GME which is why I didn't mind hopping back in even at outrageous prices. I will continue averaging down and don't plan on selling for quite some time, probably several years. The reason for this is I believe in Cohen and his team to turn this into something unexpected and I imagine an eventual ROI. Once this is all said and done and I think either the shorts truly have covered or they simply got away with it (Mid March-ish), I will be posting my DD for GME as a long play regardless of the squeeze mechanics. Thank you all for joining me on this wild journey. I hope we can discuss some of these points in the comments like adults and truly try to grasp this wild situation we are all in. There are extremes on both sides from "get over it, the squeeze happened" to a cult like mentality on the other extreme. I hope through discussion we can find the moderate approach and further understand the market mechanics at play. Thanks for your time WARNING: Until the squeeze business is over for good, this is a very volatile and risky play. Joining now for the hope of a potential round 2 squeeze should only be done in a speculative manner with money you are willing to lose. This is more akin to a gamble than it is investing. I think the current market price is fair given the future prospects of the company but do your own DD, I will not be releasing any until this squeeze is put to rest. TL;DR: I am still bullish on this scenario even at 42%, if it really is 78% then I am extremely bullish. There are a plethora of upcoming catalysts that could reignite the squeeze but even if none are powerful enough, with Cohen's new direction we could expect good news for quite some time forcing shorts to exit on a more spread out timeline. Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I do not wish to sway your opinion in either direction. I simply seek to examine this interesting and volatile situation via crowd sourcing. What you do with your money is entirely up to you.
Reposting because for whatever reason once this post started gaining traction in stocks it was removed. stocks reactivated the post, I posted this in several places please comment there as it has the most opinions to go around and I’m not jumping all over the place Hello all, Before I begin I would like to address something I have been encountering on my posts in the comments section. I keep receiving some hate concerning my opinions and I want to be crystal clear that they are just that; opinions. I also want everyone to know that is is meant to be a dialog. I am not trying to pump this stock because truthfully, this goes far beyond us retail investors at this point. What I want is a dialog between all sides to examine this truly fascinating phenomenon that is occurring. I would also like to clarify something, I am not a bagholder. I do currently hold bags because I own 336 shares at a $194.34 cost basis, however, that total amount is house money that was used from my profits on the first go around. I also understand some people are tired of hearing about this because it's the same regurgitated form of someone else's post as it keeps circulating in an attempt to retain hype and drive future buying; this is not what this post is about. As investors and individuals involved in the world of finance, this situation should absolutely intrigue us whether or not we are involved. I am here to present my logic on the situation but encourage healthy discussion and debate. This brings me to my first claim. This is not over. Now, I am not claiming that a squeeze will still occur, I am simply claiming it is not over, for better or for worse. Several things need to take place for this to be completely over, at which point I will either post my gains or my losses from the adventure. When I say "it" I am referring to this entire phenomenon, not one short squeeze. I do not think these events, "it", is over. This is largely due to retail and institutional purchasing not really changing all that much since we found the bottom and established support at a staggering $60. This support was lost today and found new support at $50. There was very interesting ATH action and I'm not sure what to make of it. Millions of bag holders (not just WSB) are still holding and in fact, averaging down, thereby purchasing more. These same bag holders are absolutely refusing to sell for such massive losses and in turn are becoming long term investors on the stock if another squeeze isn't to occur. People are picking up speculative positions in the off-chance of another squeeze. Others are determining this as a fair value for the company, not fundamentally, but based on the future prospects of Ryan Cohen and team. Finally, it is nowhere near leaving the global stage with important upcoming dates that we will discuss later. To examine why it isn't over let's look at both sides of the argument:
Bulls claim it's not over for many reasons that you can find in the hundreds of other bullish posts, so I won't bore you with those details. My argument on the bull side is more along the lines of what I listed above.
Bears claim it is over because there was a 2250% price increase over the course of two weeks, therefore this must be a short squeeze.
I think we can all agree, bear or bull, that something happened. A 2250% increase certainly isn't nothing. The question is...what? I see several possibilities and would like to discuss them in the comments.
The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze.
The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze, but the price increase was mainly hype and gamma squeezes.
The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes.
Some combination of the above 3.
First, the data: Based on morningstar the short interest is showing 78.46%. Now, I think the website is having some issues storing cookies because it will show the outdated 226% unless you open it up in incognito. Market watch is showing 41.95% This spread is interesting for sure, my thoughts are some of these calculations are including "synthetic longs" introduced by S3. It is extremely possible to manipulate these numbers via illegal methods and even legal methods using options. Please see this SEC document to explain how this would work. I am not trying to convince anyone to fit my narrative, but these things occur far more commonly than one would expect. The reasoning is because the fines for committing the crime are far less costly than letting the event take place. Please see FINRA's website for the long, and frequent list of fines being dealt out due to manipulation. A common culprit? Lying about short volume. Let's use the absolute worst case scenario being reported of 41.95%, which mind you is still extremely high for one stock: The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze What's interesting here is even if the shorts 100% covered all of their positions, they very well could have shorted on the way back down. Why wouldn't you? It would be insane to not open a short position when this hit nearly $500 especially if you lost half of your companies money; what better way to get it back? For the remainder of this thesis, I will be assuming that some of the short positions that exist are newly opened positions at a higher price unless someone has a counter-claim as to why that wouldn't be possible/probable. That would mean 226% was covered on the way up and another 41.95% was reopened on the way back down. Based on the volume and price changes throughout the past two weeks this simply doesn't pass the math check. The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze. Again, using 41.95% this is highly likely and the most reasonable case. Some, probably the worst positions, were covered on the way up. I think this is precisely what happened, we had some partial shorts covering but for the most part it was gamma squeezes, hype, and FOMO whereby the price started climbing so rapidly it became smarter for the shorts to just wait out the bubble than to actually cover all of their positions. Again, we fall into a "what-if" scenario regarding shorting on the way back down. The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes. This scenario does not pass the math check using the 41.95% figure. If the data is being manipulated then this becomes very interesting because if some of the worst positions are still open then that means all of these HF's losses that were reported were strictly interest and they are simply waiting this out for as long as it takes making back their losses on their newly opened short positions in t $300-$400 range. Sadly, this puts us in the guessing range yet again. We can do the math and see it's possible this scenario exists, however, we would be comparing it against losses reported by the entities that were being squeezed. There are way to many what-if's for me to me consider this a possibility, but I can't write it off completely. Some combination of the above 3. Truthfully, this isn't worth examining just yet. There would be far to many "what-if's" to address, this is something that could be address at the later dates that we will get to shortly. Now, I've heard it a lot regarding the 02/09 data. "It's two weeks old". Well, that is always the case. The FINRA short data is always two weeks old and suggesting that we can't pull any information from it at all is asinine. Where it gets quite murky, is the data includes 01/27 information. This was a day unlike any other in this saga. I will take this moment to address the following upcoming catalysts and when I truly think this will be done; one way or the other. Today's data 02/09, was very important because if it showed an extremely low percentage then we know shorts have exited and did not re-enter and this is completely done. Given the data does not reflect that, we now must turn to several events that could act as catalysts for either a further squeeze or a complete shutdown. 02/19 - In my last post, I discussed the Failure To Deliver (FTD) conundrum. I do need some help figuring out the exact expiration date. From here "The close-out requirement states that a participant of a clearing agency needs to take immediate action to close 4 out a fail to deliver position in a threshold security that has persisted for 13 consecutive settlement days by purchasing securities of like kind and quantity." The exact date is slightly irrelevant because I highly doubt all of these FTD's are going to deliver on the same exact day. This site, while it isn't an official channel seems to be doing a good job of tracking data. If you want to learn more about FTD's and the implications there please visit that site or review my last post which has links to follow for further reading. 02/18 - Keith Gill aka u/DeepFuckingValue will testify before congress and RH CEO Vladimir will be attending. This can go several ways which can lead to an SEC trading halt on GameStop or with evidence that proves foul play occurred. Who knows? It will certainly be interesting and I don't even to speculate on the market reaction to this even because it could go a ton of different ways; it will be an important date nonetheless 02/24 - The next FINRA short interest information will be made readily available to the public. This will be far more interesting and helpful information because it won't include the insane volatility of January, but it will also highlight the newest short positions. This data will help further drive where I think this is all going to end. It's possible that shorts opened new positions at $50 thinking it was going back to $12. Let's not speculate too much here either, it's just another dataset that will bring light to the direction this is headed. 03/05 - GameStop ER. This is big too for several reasons. First, this will include the console sales cycle which historically has done well for GameStop. A typical buy the hype, sell the news event. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts leading up to this ER, maybe people won't even touch GME leading up to then due to the recent volatility, but if they do, and if there is still a lot of short interest, this too could force shorts to begin covering. Another critical part of this ER is Ryan Cohen. This will be the first time this new board addresses the public with their plans for the future and for the first time since this entire adventure began, the "dying brick and mortar" narrative will finally begin to change in the public eye. That is still the common misconception regarding GameStop, that it is a dying brick and mortar retailer where nothing has changed. This hasn't been the case for around 6 months now, but this will be the first time it is publicly address. The headlines surrounding GameStop's future plans will be very interesting to read and the markets reaction will be far more interesting. I have been asked a lot what my PT is and when I expect the squeeze to happen, but let me be clear. Very seldom do squeezes "just happen". In fact, short squeezes are far more common than one would think, they just typically happen over months, if not years and the shorts cover on dips so you don't even notice it's happening. In order to force a squeeze, you need to hold a decent amount of shorts underwater. Soon one will crack and start closing their position, this leads to a series of shorts closing their positions skyrocketing the price until more and more shorts need to cover. This is rare. I hope this narrative of purchasing heavily shorted companies comes to a close soon because a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money simply buying up companies because they are heavily bet against. Catalysts and massive changes need to occur like overhauling your entire business as is the case with GameStop. Normally, shorts will close their positions one at a time, covering on dips and you don't even notice it's happening. In times where you see a price rise of seemingly no news could very well be shorts closing their positions because their research led them to realize this company is on the road to recovery. I digress. Given the most recent data and the multiple upcoming catalysts I am still very bullish on a GME short squeeze. My post from quite some time ago illustrated the importance of catalysts regarding a short squeeze, this is still very much the case. The first run was interrupted and the second run won't happen with magic, it requires a catalyst. Another post was titled For those who do not understand the inevitable GME short squeeze, was at the time "inevitable" because math. That is no longer the case. It is no longer inevitable but it is still possible. I want to be clear: This is not nearly as close to a sure thing as it once was and it depends on a lot of different factors. One of the largest is the people. Granted, a lot of what's happening now is in the hands of institutions but millions of retailers holding their positions to the grave certainly helps the institutional buyers have more faith in their play to continue a squeeze. SO WHAT DO I THINK I think shorts certainly covered some of their positions, but not all. I also firmly believe a significant amount of short positions were opened on the way back down by both HF's and individuals. Some certainly positioned high, but based on sentiment, it appears a lot of people think GME is fairly valued around $20 (which I disagree with but let's use that for the time being). That would mean shorts would have no problem opening positions at 100,70,60, even $50. 42% is still very high which means a squeeze is inevitable so long as the company continues in a positive path. However, squeezes typically aren't as abrupt as people think. They are actually quite common, in fact another position I'm heavily invested in is SPCE and they have been going through a squeeze for several weeks and will continue to squeeze so long as news continues to be positive. How would we get an abrupt short squeeze? A massive bull run. The new shorts that entered at lower levels wouldn't be too hard to catch, however, they are probably low volume, so when they buy to close, it won't be large enough volumes for massive peaks, but a bull run very well could lead to these lower tiered shorts closing, triggering a gamma squeeze. If gamma squeezes are made week over week then shorts at the higher end would have two options:
Close early and take profits
Wait it out because they are positioned so well that interest means nothing and they don't think there is any hope of us rising to those levels.
In the first case, them closing early would be a nice short squeeze to probably several hundred dollars, but it wouldn't break $1000. To break $1000 we would need a big bull run to catch the shorts, trigger gamma squeezes, and keep momentum until they are caught and underwater. This is highly unlikely unless there is another global sentiment. NOTE: ALL OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS I AM MAKING ARE BASED ON THE 42% REPORTING. IF IT IS IN FACT 78% THEN THE POSSIBILITY IS TREMENDOUSLY INCREASED FOR THESE THINGS TO HAPPEN. SO WHEN DOES IT ALL END My though is if by the end of March these catalysts were not enough to reignite the hype and squeeze, then it will essentially be over except in the case of a few circumstances:
A VW/Porche moment occurs where a large buyer picks up a large portion of the company.
Some other currently unknown catalyst appears seemingly out of thin air
The data was in fact manipulated. Regardless of what the data says, if the shorts did in fact lie about their short int to take the fine over being squeezed, then they will be squeezed regardless.
It is quite possible, that these catalysts and moments aren't enough to force a squeeze anymore especially if the shorts have repositioned really well. I will retain the mindset that this fateful January 2021 was not a short squeeze. However, that does not mean it will ever actually happen. SO WHAT IS YOUR PLAY HOOMAN? Well, I am long on GME which is why I didn't mind hopping back in even at outrageous prices. I will continue averaging down and don't plan on selling for quite some time, probably several years. The reason for this is I believe in Cohen and his team to turn this into something unexpected and I imagine an eventual ROI. Once this is all said and done and I think either the shorts truly have covered or they simply got away with it (Mid March-ish), I will be posting my DD for GME as a long play regardless of the squeeze mechanics. Thank you all for joining me on this wild journey. I hope we can discuss some of these points in the comments like adults and truly try to grasp this wild situation we are all in. There are extremes on both sides from "get over it, the squeeze happened" to a cult like mentality on the other extreme. I hope through discussion we can find the moderate approach and further understand the market mechanics at play. Thanks for your time WARNING: Until the squeeze business is over for good, this is a very volatile and risky play. Joining now for the hope of a potential round 2 squeeze should only be done in a speculative manner with money you are willing to lose. This is more akin to a gamble than it is investing. I think the current market price is fair given the future prospects of the company but do your own DD, I will not be releasing any until this squeeze is put to rest. TL;DR: I am still bullish on this scenario even at 42%, if it really is 78% then I am extremely bullish. There are a plethora of upcoming catalysts that could reignite the squeeze but even if none are powerful enough, with Cohen's new direction we could expect good news for quite some time forcing shorts to exit on a more spread out timeline. Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I do not wish to sway your opinion in either direction. I simply seek to examine this interesting and volatile situation via crowd sourcing. What you do with your money is entirely up to you.
The cannabis market right now is so similar to the start of the green energy market.. its nowhere near done being bullish. Save for some small dips, there will very likely be a huge bullish trend for 2021. EVEN NASDAQ AGREES. I’ve posted my positions a few times, and I’ll continue to do so. But this is my reasoning for investing in cannabis stocks in general for 2021.
I've been a bull on cannabis since the democrats had a strong pro-cannabis platform. But what made me go balls deep into the market was that the UN changed its classification of cannabis. Countries follow the UN closely for guidance on their own classification of controlled substances. Congress has repeatedly cited the UN’s classification as one of the reasons for not changing it. Several countries immediately changed their stance on cannabis in response to this, including Israel, which In November 2020, announced that it was moving forward with a plan to legalize recreational cannabis nationally. “The country is aiming to implement recreational legalization within nine months, and even if there are delays, that means mid-to-late 2021.” (This is my reason for investing in Canadian cannabis companies, because they are already poised to expand internationally since its legal there nationwide)
THE SENATE IS NOW BLUE! The Georgia runoffs were won by Democrats, and they can now swing the vote left with VP Harris. She promised it as part of her platform, so we know it will be prioritized. CHUCK SHUMER SPONSORED THE MORE ACT. HE WILL BE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER. IT WILL 100% BE PRIORITIZED BETWEEN HIM AND VP HARRIS.
EVERYONE predicted beforehand that the republicans would win Georgia... everyone talked down decriminalization passing the house because of they believed it would NEVER pass the republican majority senate. But the left spent more than any senate race in history to encourage voters to go out and vote. Only once the race started did it become clear that the left had a chance. Then some gains from the surprise that they won. However the gains from 1/5 onwards definitely hasn’t been priced in for all the future legislation, because some of it will be completely new legislation that wasn’t possible to consider before without a blue senate. THIS HASN'T BEEN PRICED INTO THE MARKET YET.
The government is broke post-COVID. There is a terrible image of the police. They don’t want to waste more resources on cannabis related crimes that would be fixed under decriminalization. And the tax revenue from decriminalization would be significant. Decriminalization (THE MORE ACT) opens up the borders to interstate-commerce and international import/export. This would all trickle down into Uncle Sam’s empty pockets.
New York Governor Cuomo announced on Jan 6 his plan to legalize marijuana for adult use (right after New Jersey vote, as I anticipated in my last post) as part of his State of the State agenda. The next step is a ripple out on the North East. NY didn’t want to miss out on tax revenue, neither will any of the other states in the northeast within driving distance of NJ and NY. This is Cuomo’s third attempt in three years to legalize adult-use cannabis in the state; last year, Cuomo included a legalization proposal in his state budget, but the plan was ultimately cut in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other ongoing state legislature:
Rhode Island: Regulators have received 45 applications for six new medical cannabis dispensary licenses in the state. If all applicants meet the requirements for a license, six will randomly be selected in a lottery to operate retail locations in different regions across the state. Read more
Missouri: Rep. Shamed Dogan has filed legislation that would place an adult-use cannabis legalization measure on the state’s 2022 ballot. Meanwhile, Missourians for a New Approach has announced plans for a separate 2022 ballot initiative after an unsuccessful signature campaign to get the issue before voters in 2020. Read more
Alabama: Sen. Tim Melson plans to reintroduce a medical cannabis legalization bill this year. Medical cannabis legislation passed the Alabama Senate during the 2020 session, but failed to clear the House. Read more
Illinois: Illinois lawmakers have proposed the creation of 75 new cannabis retail licenses to give disadvantaged and minority applicants a second chance at licensing following the controversial licensing lottery to issue an initial 75 dispensary licenses. A work group made up of lawmakers and members of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration met this week to finalize details of the bill, which will be introduced in a lame-duck session that starts Jan. 8, before new lawmakers are sworn in Jan. 13. Read more
Minnesota: House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler is again renewing his push to legalize adult-use cannabis in the state, announcing plans to reintroduce a legalization bill this year. Winkler told WCCO that he sees “Senate leadership as being the number one obstacle,” but said that if lawmakers agreed to place an adult-use legalization initiative on Minnesota’s 2022 ballot, “it would pass overwhelmingly.” Read more
Virginia: Del. Steve Heretick has reintroduced a bill to legalize adult-use cannabis. Heretick has proposed legislation related to decriminalization and legalization in the past, and this year’s bill would legalize the cultivation, sale and consumption of cannabis in the state. Read more
Connecticut: Gov. Ned Lamont renewed his push for adult-use legalization during his State of the State address Jan. 6, announcing that it is a priority for the new legislative session. Connecticut’s 2021 legislative session opened Jan. 6, and Lamont, a Democrat, kicks off the session with increased majorities in the House and Senate, which could increase his chances of passing an adult-use legalization bill. Read more
Now that you understand why I’m going green, here’s my reasoning for my positions. TLRY (Tilray)
largest cannabis company in the world by revenue post merger. Will run out of Seattle and New York City. New York Legalization on top of senate turning blue is a big catalyst for TLRY.
Merger hasn’t completed yet, and the merger happened before the senate went blue.. that was the gamble APHA was making, and they won. The sky is the limit now. When they merge, they will reduce expenses and be much more likely to post profitable quarters. (This is why mergers have so much hype; the sum is > than their parts because they can reduce operating expenses while maintaining revenue from the two companies)
Tilray CEO Brendan Kennedy: “I think medical cannabis will be legal at the federal level, which means medical cannabis can cross state lines and be imported into the U.S., like we export cannabis from Canada and Portugal to about 15 countries now,” Kennedy said. “Anyone who thinks there’s a state-specific medical market is wrong.” As for the recreational market, Kennedy says the state-specific markets, with interstate trade banned, “are not going to last long.” Kennedy believes that cannabis will be distributed like alcohol and tobacco within two years’ time. That would require significant overhaul of US federal drug laws—and would significantly disrupt all US cannabis companies’ existing business models. Brendan Kennedy, the cannabis billionaire will step down as Tilray's chairman and CEO. Irwin D. Simon, Aphria's current chairman and CEO will take Kennedy's place.
[On December 18, 2020, just three days after the U.S. Senate adopted the Cannabidiol and Marihuana Research Expansion Act (CMREA or the Act) (more on this below), the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA or the Administration) published in the Federal Register a final rule, “Controls To Enhance the Cultivation of Marihuana for Research in the United States” (Rule), which finally paves the way for DEA to issue additional licenses to grow “marihuana” (i.e., cannabis) for research purposes.](https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/on-heels-of-senate-s-adoption-of-36129/)
GNLN (Greenlane Holdings)
One of the largest global sellers of premium cannabis accessories. Pax/JUUL/Volcano products. I’ve had Pax products, and although I prefer Arizer because of the affordability, I can’t deny Pax has quality products and is like the “iPhone” of vaporizers. I like their products, I like their branding. There’s lots of hype and loyalty, especially with their Volcano desktop vaporizer.
Strong US brands.
The main reason they did poorly was bad timing. They IPO’d during the year that JUULs started being banned. They’re actually at all those levels again. Theres a ton of upside potential.
Market cap is ridiculously low for some really renown brands all because of the JUUL flavor pod ban. Everyone knows Pax, Volcano, and JUUL. But no one knows Greenlane because of the bad timing of their IPO and the subsequent JUUL flavor ban. It’s crazy. They’ve already broke all time high for the year. But I’m holding until they break 1B market cap.
Overall i think too many people count it out just because of their IPO and subsequent decline in JUUL sales from the JUUL flavored pods ban. They definitely have the potential because of their strong branding and quality products. I’m betting on them having more high quality products in the future with equally loyal customers.
SNDL (Sundial Growers)
SNDL must close above $1 per share for 10 consecutive sessions by June 26, 2021 or it will bedelisted from NASDAQ. People see this as a fear factor, I see this as “they will do anything necessary to reach $1 for a week so they won’t be delisted”.. IMHO reverse splitter probably isn’t on the table since they could have done that in 2020, but instead applied for a 6 month extension after announcing “alternative strategic investments”. We can already see this by their predatory loan SPAC spinoff.
Rumors of a merger with CGC; SNDL also purchased a SPAC recently and entered an agreement with Zenabis, immediately claiming they defaulted. Turning that SPAC into predatory loan/debt repurchasing company. Imo if they want to complete a merger, it would be easy to sell ownership through that SPAC to the buyer.
THEY RECENTLY WENTDEBT FREE by selling off unprofitable assets in the business. This means we are much more likely to see earnings in future quarters, and they are much more attractive for mergers.
Because they are indoor growers, they are more likely to be bought up by a company in the consolidating Canadian cannabis market than fail all together. The amount of space licensed to grow cannabis in Canada is now heavily skewed toward outdoor cultivation instead of indoor for the first time, according to new data from Health Canada. A growing population of licenses for outdoor growers means that there aren’t as many indoor licenses being given out... If a company ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD wants to quickly expand into indoor growing OR into the west, they would have to purchase an existing company that has the license to quickly do so. This is WAY faster, and a guaranteed way to obtain a license rather than applying for one and waiting x amount of months and be rejected for some requirement that wasn’t met.
From my own experience, outdoor cannabis is subpar quality to indoor grown cannabis. So a growing market for outdoor cannabis doesn’t necessarily mean its better... it is likely just cheaper. I would imagine a high quality “craft cannabis” company would want to purchase SNDL, or an existing outdoor growing company that wants to quickly expand to indoor grown cannabis. With this being a Canadian company, there’s a chance a company in another country like Israel would be interested in purchasing it in the near future.
PLNHF (Planet 13 Holdings)
Biggest tourist trap in Las Vegas if you’re a stoner, casual smoker, or just wanting to try it. From my own experience, I think they will continue to be successful. If I went around the US trying other brands I’d probably be more confident in putting 5-10% of my portfolio into those picks or choosing to not include them lol. Like for example, I used to have Curaleaf. But there's tons of bad feedback on Curaleaf, a friend has tried it said the nug is really subpar quality and if I tried their nug I’d probably confirm that I wouldn’t want to invest in them. With PLNHF, i’ve seen the ambience and tried the product myself. It’s definitely a lot of hype price wise, but still quality. This is my own bias showing, but I still think they’ve got solid fundamentals and excellent location/strong US branding.
I’m well aware of other good stocks like GTBIF, CRLBF, SSPK, TCNNF, GRWG.. but these stocks haven’t been swinging as hard in response to pro-cannabis news. E.g. TLRY, SNDL, GNLN swung more than 20% some days from pro-cannabis news...I will likely reduce my current positions shortly after inauguration, after some news about the timeline for cannabis legislation, and diversify my positions more between these other good picks. 2021 is the year of cannabis boys
Also on my blog with better formatting, cute footnotes and inlined images. Note that not much here is new material, mostly rehashing existing points.
Disclaimer
This article started out as research for my betting against Bitcoin on the stock market. This isn't financial advice. As a matter of fact, I encourage all readers you to not buy or short crypto, through any market or derivative. Use your money for productive uses. Here's a TL;DR:
The current parabolic price increase in Bitcoin is a bubble that has started popping.
A stablecoin called Tether is either one of the largest frauds or money laundering operation in history, and is providing most of the liquidity in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Proof of concept: No argument here, but now that the market cap of cryptocurrencies is closing in on a $700B, this seems moot.
Cheap Payment Network: Nonsense, since BTC transactions are currently >$10 and this worsens the more people use it.
Anonymous Darknet Currency: I'd have said "no argument here", but apparently it's surprisingly easy to trace BTC nowadays. However, crypto ecosystem as a whole seems to do a decent job at laundering money as we'll see later.
Reserve Currency for Crypto: Since a reserve currency should be useful as a means of exchange, and I wrote several thousand words on how BTC is not that, my position is pretty clear. Also, the fact that a cryptocurrency indexed to the US dollar has trounced BTC as the main means of exchange in the crypto ecosystem speaks for itself.
Programmable Shared Database: You know what's programmable, shared and a database? The database we use at work. Just learn to implement access control lists on your SQL server.
Uncorrelated Financial Asset: Given BTC crashed just like the rest of the market when COVID showed up, this doesn't hold up
The stupidest version of the "uncorrelated asset" argument I hear is "Bitcoin is a great hedge for inflation!" You know what's a good "hedge for inflation"? Literally anything. The definition of inflation is "the price of money". If the price of money goes down (inflation) then everything else has a positive return by comparison. People who say "bitcoin is a good hedge for inflation" shouldn't be trusted to manage their own money, let alone give financial advice to anyone.
Censorship Resistant e-Gold: This is a roundabout way of saying "BTC is a store of value"! Which, again, can only be said by people who've never read the definition of "store of value" in a textbook.
I already went into detail into this, but BTC is a terrible store of value because it's volatile. Assets that can lose 20% of value overnight don't "store value". BTC is a "vehicle for speculation". The only way price is sustained for BTC is that you can find some other idiot to sell it to. Just as a reminder, 50% of Gold is used for things that aren't speculation, like Jewelry, so you'll never have to worry finding a seller there. Here are some real uses for bitcoin:
Gambling is fun. You buy BTC, the price might go up! Or down! This is exciting.
Hackers, money launderers and other criminals certainly find cryptocurrencies useful.
Reminder: BTC is an ecological scourge The current cost to mine a BTC is around $8000 in electricity. This electricity mostly comes from subsidized coal in China. And given the current amount of BTC generated each day, we're using about equivalent to the electricity from all of Belgium, largely in coal, to keep this going. I don't mind wasting time on intellectual curiosities, but destroying our planet for glorified gambling is not something I'm happy about. I want cryptocurrencies to go away entirely on this basis, philosophically.
Current BTC prices are a bubble
Before we go into tether, reminder that at the time of writing, the plot of BTC price against the S&P500 looks like this BTC price has increased by ~800% since March. Still, no one uses it for anything useful since the last bubble in 2017, or the other one before that in 2013. This is another bubble however you put it. BTC is not "new technology" 10 years the internet became popular, Google and Amazon already existed. We're 8 years after the popular emergence of deep learning and it has already revolutionized machine translation, computer vision and natural language processing in general. You could argue that deep learning and the internet existed before their emergence, but so did cryptocurrencies. Look up b-money and hashcash for instance. Bitcoin has existed since 2008 and emerged in popularity around the same time as deep learning did, yet we're still to find actual uses for it except speculation and criminal uses. It's a solution waiting for a problem. Institutional investors are also idiots The narrative this time is that "institutional investors" are buying into BTC. This doesn't mean it's not a bubble. Many of the institutions were buying through Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Rather, many of them were chasing the premium over net asset value that hovered around 20%. Basically, lock money in GBTC for 6 months, cash out and collect the premium as profit. Of course, this little Ponzi couldn't last forever and the premium seems to be evaporating now. Similarly, totally-not-a-bitcoin-ETF-wearing-a-software-company-skinsuit Microstrategy (MSTR) trades at a massive premium over fundamentals. There will always be traders chasing bonuses from numbers going up, regardless what is making the number going up. The same "institutional investors" were buying obviously terrible CDOs in the run-up to 2008.
Tether is lunacy
Tether is a cryptocurrency whose exchange rate is supposed to be pegged to the US Dollar. Initially this was done by having 1-to-1 US Dollar reserves for each tether issued. Then they got scammed by their money launderer, losing some $800M, which made them insolvent. Anyway, now tether maintains their reserves are whatever they want them to be and they haven't gotten audited since 2017. You know, normal stuff. There's a problem to backing your USD-pegged security with something that isn't US Dollars. Namely, if the price of the thing you're backing your US Dollars against goes down, you're now insolvent. If you were backing $10B in tether with $10B of bitcoin, then the bitcoin drops by half, you're insolvent by $5B. And then this spotlessly clean company they somehow added $20B to their balance sheet in the second half of 2020 Reminder: one side of that balance sheet is currently floating around the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Cryptocurrency traders own it as an asset and sell it to others. The other half of the balance sheet is whatever tether wants. There are only two possibilities that explain tether's growth:
It could also be a happy mix of both. One particularly interesting date is 30/8/2020, where tether added $3B to its balance sheet overnight. This is interesting because it predates the subsequent movement in bitcoin price and large movements in other cryptocurrencies. The story from tether and tether's bank's CEO is that this money largely comes from foreign nationals through an OTC desk which implies the transaction goes as following:
That OTC desk converts the money to USD and sends it to tether's correspondent US bank. The OTC desk gives tether to the foreign national.
Wait tether has a correspondent US bank?
Oh, I forgot to mention, no bank wants tether as a customer because they obviously break KYC/AML compliance. So tether first boughtinvested in a bank called Noble which then lost its relationship with Wells-Fargo when they realized tether were lying to them about AML. Poor tether lost its legal access to USD. Tether has been banking in the Bahamas with a bank called Deltec since. First they had a money launderer called Crypto Capital Corp to send funds to customers, who stole the $800M from them and subsequently went to jail. But worry not! Tether found a way to get banked in USD afterwards. Curious coincidence, an executive at Deltec was randomly blogging about buying small US community banks in 2018. You know, that thing money launderers do. So tether's story is that in 2020, they took in roughly twenty billion USD of shady foreign money into the small community US bank their deltec bankers bought. These transactions are necessarily breaking KYC/AML. The foreign parties to those transactions wouldn't take such a rickety route to convert billions into cryptocurrencies if they weren't laughed out of the room in serious banks. But of course, Deltec will say it did KYC on tether. Really solid KYC, clearly, since they're the last bank on earth taking tether's business. Tether says they do KYC on their customers (the large OTC desks). And I'm sure the OTC desks would be shocked, shocked if the cash money they get in Russia and China turns out to be dirty. So everyone can pass the buck of responsibility down the road and claim "We do KYC on our customers". Sure you do, tether. If you did such great KYC, you wouldn't have such problems finding banking relationships. I mean when even HSBC is not doing business with you you're apparently more obviously moving criminal money than fucking drug cartels. And, according to tether's people, this money is what's backing tether's reserves. Money that will get frozen the instant a prosecutor even looks at it. Reminder: the above is the charitable, positive case for tether. The less charitable case is that they took crayons and added zeros to their balance sheet, and that there's a couple billions waiting to burn a hole in the crypto ecosystem. Anyway, the $25B garbage fire that is tether will make a great book/netflix series at some point and their hilariously stupid CTO going on podcasts while flinching on questions about how BTC ended up on their balance sheet will be a fun part of it. But I'm not here to write a book, I'm here to make money by shorting all of this. For my purposes, even in the positive case tether is a ticking time bomb waiting to burn a hole in the crypto ecosystem, because...
KYC and AML are coming for cryptocurrencies
If you listen to "crypto news", all incoming crypto regulation is just great, because that means crypto is becoming legit. However, companies investing in crypto are very angry about them. This is because crypto transactions break the FinCEN travel rule, where KYC information should "travel" along transactions, to prevent money laundering obfuscation schemes. Of course, according to the crypto industry this is "stifling innovation". A more reasonable take is that by being leaving the crypto industry outside normal financial regulations, we're enabling a "race to the bottom". As we saw with shadow banks in the 2000-2007 era this leads to "creative banking". I don't want my bankers to be creative, I want them to be solvent.
Tether's effect on the crypto ecosystem
When tether implodes, it's taking most of the crypto industry along for a fun ride. Tether can implode in one of a few ways:
A BTC price crash triggers it. If
Regulators decide they've had enough of AML avoidance and regulate them.
The NYAG investigation, which is waiting for an update in a few weeks, finds something and shuts them out.
Let's assume tether falls to $0 for simplicity. The analysis is the same directionally if tether significantly "breaks the buck". This doesn't happen instantly, but it happens quickly. The peg breaks, and most people holding tether will try to sell it for other crypto (BTC, ETH, etc.). This puts downward pressure on the price of tether, incentivizing even more people to "pass the buck". Automated inter-exchange arbitrage bots might try to exploit emerging gaps in bid-ask spreads, only to end up with worthless tether instead, as their operators rush to pull the plug. Then, we have a small village of cryptocurrency enthusiasts being out some $24B. With the trading bots turned off and the trading lubricant (a dollar pegged asset) gone, the bid-ask spreads blow up. You get a predictable flight to safety -- that is, to real money. This puts downward pressure on BTC. While all of this is happening, there are all sorts of fun second-order effects happen. A lot of DeFi derivative products are priced in cryptocurrencies, so having normally stable prices shuffle around (eg. USDC price moving above $1 in a flight to safety) triggers a tsunami of margin calls. Some exchanges might insolvent (they're the ones redeeming tether for USD after all).
If BTC price drops below $8000, fun things happen
Currently, the price to mine a BTC is roughly $8000. Most of the mining comes from huge mining farms using subsidized coal in China, and mining costs more the more hardware there is to mine it. Since the price of BTC hasn't substantially dropped below cost to mine we're in for a fun experiment if the price drops below this threshold. Most of these farms should turn off so that the price to mine comes back to breakeven in a case of prisoner's dilemma. But if too much hardware turns off, this leaves mining hardware idle and the door becomes wide open to a 51% attack. It's not clear at what price below breakeven cost to mine a 51% attack becomes a serious threat, but once this threshold is crossed, we're in the "irreparable harm to BTC" risk zone. And for a person like me, who just wants to see crypto disappear forever this is very exciting. Maybe those mining farms could be replaced with nice forests soaking up all the carbon they emitted for posterity. One can hope.
How do I bet against all of this?
Microstrategy (MSTR) is, at this point, a bitcoin ETF wearing the skinsuit of a dying software company. Michael Saylor, MSTR's CEO, is quite the character. I wrote a lot about his lack understanding of what a currency is, but it's on another level to look at the early stages of a bubble pop and decide this is a good time to buy $10M more of the stuff, as seen here However, this bubble is tame by Michael's standards. Look at the historical stock of his company What's happening on the left is that Saylor pumped the numbers with accounting fraud then the SEC took issue with the fake numbers. The stock dropped 90% practically overnight. Their accountants, PWC, paid $51M in fines. Saylor and friends paid fines, partly with company stock. You could also short GBTC, but when Mr. Saylor provides you with an options market instead, why not use it? Shorting on crypto exchanges that might become insolvent in the very event you want to happen with this bet is a bad idea, on the other hand.
Mike can't cash out
The bitcoin market is illiquid and leveraged when it comes to real money coming in and leaving the ecosystem. Buys in the $10M-$100M seemingly move the price of BTC by upwards of $1000 in the last weeks. This means hundreds of millions of real money means tens of billions in movement in BTC market capitalization. Now imagine what cashing $1.1B of BTC into real money would mean for the price. And this is purely in market terms, before the PR damage from bitcoin's demigod abandoning ship would have second-order effects. Saylor has painted himself into a corner. Even if he wanted to cash out, he can't.
MSTR fundamentals: Why it should be valued below $10
In early 2020, MSTR was a slowly dying business. The EBITDA has been rapidly evaporating in the last 5 years At that point, MSTR a stock price of $115 meaning a market cap of $1.1B. This included some $560M of cash they were sitting on. I presume the remaining $550M was an implicit sales premium for the inevitable private equity firm investors expected was going to relieve them of this stock and make the business profitable again. Of course, they didn't sell. Instead, they took the $560m they were sitting on and bought $400m of BTC at prices $11k and $13k in late summer 2020. Then, in early December, they took on $600m of debt to buy BTC with at $23k. They also bought $10m more in January at a price of $30.5k. At this point, we can mostly value MSTR like a trust.
Price the underlying software business as being worth $600M, as the market did before the bitcoin nonsense. If BTC went to $0, this is what we'd value it at, and the MSTR stock should be around $65.
But wait! MSTR took on $650M in debt in December. Their actual value with a BTC priced at $0 should be much, much lower than $65 depending on how you value the debt. You could make an argument it should be in the single digits.
They hold 70,784 BTC. At current prices ($32,000) this is worth roughly $2.2B. With the current market cap of MSTR ($577 stock price), this means MSTR is currently priced at an eye watering $3B premium over fundamental value.
GBTC's 20% premium-to-NAV is a joke compared to the MSTR premium.
DisclaimerI want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it. Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it. Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions: For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month! For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k. I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device. Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system. Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section. Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox. Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like. Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird. Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device. For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV. Anime If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two. PC Centric software If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12. Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development. The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals. Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap. Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam. **BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however. IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff. Game Store Fronts
Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with GoldBleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
Gaming Subscriptions Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that. Audiobooks & Ebooks
Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Sign LanguageBSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesizehere is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
If you need some spare change Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change
If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the detailsAccording to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment. Hope it helps someone at least PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75! tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books Learning Language Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments: TogtogtogGives a lot of links for Spanish
Board & Tabletop games Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games ilyemco suggested these HEALTH I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix. Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7. If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery. HELP & ADVICE The lockdown Rules. Reasons to leave home include:
Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THEROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though) _riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:
Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen. Office suit software A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.
LibreOfficeThis has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
Music Making I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software. Games development D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here
In most states you have to be either 18 or 21 to gamble for real money. Today there are 22 states where 18-year olds can legally gamble and 35 which only allow 21+. However, it can also vary... Washington however is one of those states you can gamble at 18, this is where the confusion arises, however. Certain games such as roulette and slot machines are forbidden for 18-year old’s to play. If an establishment serves alcohol this also prevents 18-year-olds from accessing these facilities. Some of Washington’s most recognizable land-based casinos include 7 Cedars Casino and Angel of the Winds Casino Resort in Arlington. The states with a legal gambling age limit set to 18 are California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Washington. Other states have their legal gambling age limit set to 21. The legal age to gamble at a casino is going to vary depending on states. Generally it will be from 18-21 in the states that it is legal in. Sometimes it will vary depending on the casino in question, as Native American casinos sometimes have lower betting ages than commercial casinos due to the compacts signed with the tribes. For online casinos, we recommend following the laws of the state ... To be actually able to legally gamble, though, you need to be 21. As far as I’m aware, the only states where you can gamble at 18 in casinos are Idaho, California, Georgia, Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, Oklahoma, Washington, Rhode Island, Florida and Oregon. 25 views There are currently 12 states that allow players that are 18-year old to gamble in land-based casinos. That's mainly because there is no booze being served in the gambling halls. If you want to know more, check out the 12 states where you can gamble in casinos at 18. This is the case in nearly every single state. Some states allow 18 year olds to gamble. Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming all have gambling ages of 18. U.S. States Where You Can Legally Gamble At 18 And Up. Below you can learn more about the minimum legal online gambling age by state in the USA. AL Offshore Yes:18: IL Offshore Yes:18: NE Offshore Yes:18: SD Offshore Yes:18: AK Offshore Yes:18: IN Offshore Yes:18: NV Offshore Yes:18: SC Offshore Yes:18 : AZ Offshore Yes:18: KS Offshore Yes:18: NH Offshore Yes:18: TN Offshore Yes:18: AR ... US States That Allow 18 Year Olds To Gamble Legally At Brick And Mortar Land Casinos. There are currently twelve states that have established 18+ over as their legal minimum gambling age for state-regulated casino gaming. Those states include: Washington; Rhode Island; Puerto Rico; Oregon; Oklahoma; Montana; Minnesota; Michigan; Idaho; Georgia; Florida; California The legal age to gamble at a casino can be 25, but can also be 18, it all depends on the specific casino. There are some casinos that even allow for tourists to gamble at 18, but restrict locals to 25 and older. In both Andorra and Bosnia & Herzegovina, there is no legal minimum age to gamble, anywhere. Keen young punters from around Europe and the rest of the world can head to these countries and see what they have to offer. While Andorra doesn’t have any casinos yet, this small nation is ...