Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This entire post represents my personal views and opinions, and should not be taken as financial advice (or advice of any kind whatsoever). I encourage you to do your own research, take anything I write with a grain of salt, and hold me accountable for any mistakes you may catch. Also, full disclosure, I hold a net long position in GME, but my cost basis is very low (average ~$67--I have to admit, the drop today was too tasty so my cost basis went up from yesterday)/share with my later buys averaged in), and I'm using money I can absolutely lose. My capital at risk and tolerance for risk generally is likely substantially different than yours. In this post I will go a little further and speculate more than I'd normally do in a post due to the questions I've been getting, so fair warning, some of it might be very wrong. I suspect we'll learn some of the truth years from now when some investigative journalist writes a book about it.
Thank you everyone for the comments and questions on the first and second post on this topic.
Today was a study in the power of fear, courage, and the levers you can pull when you wield billions of dollars...
Woops, excuse me. I'm sorry hedge fund guys... I meant trillions of dollars--I just briefly forget you control not just your own but a lot of other peoples' money too for a moment there.
Also, for people still trading this on market-based rationale (as I am), it was a good day to measure the conviction behind your thesis. I like to think I have conviction, but in case you are somehow not yet familiar with the legend of DFV, you need to see these posts (fair warning, nsfw, and some may be offended/triggered by the crude language). The last two posts might be impressive, but you should follow it in chronological order and pay attention to the evolution of sentiment in the comments to experience true enlightenment.
Anyway, I apologize, but this post will be very long--there's just a lot to unpack.

Pre-Market

Disclaimer: given yesterday's pre-market action I didn't even pay attention to the screen until near retail pre-market. I'm less confident in my ability to read what's going on in a historical chart vs the feel I get watching live, but I'll try.
Early in the pre-market it looks to me like some momentum traders are taking profit, discounting the probability that the short-side will give them a deep discount later, which you can reasonably assume given the strategy they ran yesterday. If they're right they can sell some small volume into the pre-market top, wait for the hedge funds try to run the price back down, and then lever up the gains even higher buying the dip. Buy-side here look to me like people FOMOing and YOLOing in at any price to grab their slice of gainz, or what looks to be market history in the making. No way are short-side hedge funds trying to cover anything at these prices.
Mark Cuban--well said! Free markets baby!
Mohamed El-Erian is money in the bank as always. "upgrade in quality" on the pandemic drop was the best, clearest actionable call while most were at peak panic, and boy did it print. Your identifying the bubble as the excessive short (vs blaming retail activity) is money yet again. Also, The PAIN TRADE (sorry, later interview segment I only have on DVR, couldn't find on youtube--maybe someone else can)!
The short attack starts, but I'm hoping no one was panicking this time--we've seen it before. Looks like the momentum guys are minting money buying the double dip into market open.
CNBC, please get a good market technician to explain the market action. Buy-side dominance, sell-side share availability evaporating into nothing (look at day-by-day volume last few days), this thing is now at runaway supercritical mass. There is no changing the trajectory unless you can change the very fabric of the market and the rules behind it (woops, I guess I should have knocked on wood there).
If you know the mechanics, what's happening in the market with GME is not mysterious AT ALL. I feel like you guys are trying to scare retail out early "for their own good" (with all sincerity, to your credit) rather than explain what's happening. Possibly you also fear that explaining it would equate to enabling/encouraging people to keep trying to do it inappropriately (possibly fair point, but at least come out and say that if that's the case). Outside the market, however...wow.

You Thought Yesterday Was Fear? THIS is Fear!

Ok short-side people, my hat is off to you. Just when I thought shouting fire in a locked theater was fear mongering poetry in motion, you went and took it to 11. What's even better? Yelling fire in a theater with only one exit. That way people can cause the financial equivalent of stampede casualties. Absolutely brilliant.
Robin Hood disables buying of GME, AMC, and a few of the other WSB favorites. Other brokerages do the same. Even for people on 0% margin. Man, and here I thought I had seen it all yesterday.
Side note: I will give a shout out to TD Ameritrade. You guys got erroneously lumped together with RH during an early CNBC segment, but you telegraphed the volatility risk management changes and gradually ramped up margin requirements over the past week. No one on your platform should have been surprised if they were paying attention. And you didn't stop anyone from trading their own money at any point in time. My account balance thanks you. I heard others may have had problems, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt given the DDOS attacks that were flyiing around
Robin Hood. Seriously WTF. I'm sure it was TOTALLY coincidence that your big announcements happen almost precisely when what has to be one of the best and most aggressive short ladder attacks of all time starts painting the tape, what looked like a DDOS attack on Reddit's CDN infrastructure (pretty certain it was the CDN because other stuff got taken out at the same time too), and a flood of bots hit social media (ok, short-side, this last one is getting old).
Taking out a large-scale cloud CDN is real big boy stuff though, so I wouldn't entirely rule out nation state type action--those guys are good at sniffing out opportunities to foment social unrest.
Anyway, at this point, as the market dives, I have to admit I was worried for a moment. Not that somehow the short-side would win (hah! the long-side whales in the pond know what's up), but that a lot of retail would get hurt in the action. That concern subsided quite a bit on the third halt on that slide. But first...
A side lesson on market orders
Someone printed bonus bank big time (and someone lost--I feel your pain, whoever you are).
During the face-ripping volatility my play money account briefly ascended to rarified heights of 7 figures. It took me a second to realize it, then another second to process it. Then, as soon as it clicked, that one, glorious moment in time was gone.
What happened?
During the insane chop of the short ladder attack, someone decided to sweep the 29 Jan 21 115 Call contracts, but they couldn't get a grip on the price, which was going coast to coast as IV blew up and the price was being slammed around. So whoever was trying to buy said "F it, MARKET ORDER" (i.e. buy up to $X,XXX,XXX worth of contracts at any price). This is referred to as a sweep if funded to buy all/most of the contracts on offer (HFT shops snipe every contract at each specific price with a shotgun of limit orders, which is far safer, but something only near-market compute resources can do really well). For retail, or old-tech pros, if you want all the contracts quickly, you drop a market order loaded with big bucks and see what you get... BUT, some clever shark had contracts available for the reasonable sum of... $4,400, or something around that. I was too stunned to grab a screencap. The buy market order swept the book clean and ran right into that glorious, nigh-obscene backstop limit. So someone got nearly $440,000 PER CONTRACT that was, at the time theoretically priced at around $15,000. $425,000 loss... PER CONTRACT. Maybe I'm not giving the buyer enough credit.. you can get sniped like that even if you try to do a safety check of the order book first, but, especially in low liquidity environments, if a HFT can peak into your order flow (or maybe just observes a high volume of sweeps occurring), they can end up front running your sweep, pick off the reasonable contracts, and slam a ridiculous limit sell order into place before your order makes it to the exchange. Either way, I hope that sweep wasn't loaded for bear into the millions. If so... OUCH. Someone got cleaned out.
So, the lesson here folks... in a super high volatility, low-liquidity market, a market order will just run up the ladder into the first sell order it can find, and some very brutal people will put limit sells like that out there just in case they hit the jackpot. And someone did. If you're on the winning side, great. It can basically bankrupt you if you're on the losing side. My recommendation: Just don't try it. I wouldn't be surprised if really shady shenanigans were involved in this, but no way to know (normally that's crazy-type talk, but after today....peeking at order flow and sniping sweeps is one of the fastest, most financially devastating ways to bleed big long-side players, just sayin').
edit *so while I was too busy trying not to spit out my coffee to grab a screenshot, piddlesthethug was faster on the draw and captured this: https://imgur.com/gallery/RI1WOuu
Ok, so I guess my in-the-moment mental math was off by about 10%. Man, that hurts just thinking about the guy who lost on that trade.*
Back to the market action..

A Ray of Light Through the Darkness

So I was worried watching the crazy downward movement for two different reasons.
On the one hand, I was worried the momentum pros would get the best discounts on the dip (I'll admit, I FOMO'd in too early, unnecessarily raising my cost basis).
On the other hand, I was worried for the retail people on Robin Hood who might be bailing out into incredibly steep losses because they had only two options: Watch the slide, or bail. All while dealing with what looked to me like a broad-based cloud CDN outage as they tried to get info from WSB HQ, and wondering if the insta-flood of bot messages were actually real people this time, and that everyone else was bailing on them to leave them holding the bag.
But I saw the retail flag flying high on the 3rd market halt (IIRC), and I knew most would be ok. What did I see, you ask? Why, the glorious $211.00 / $5,000 bid/ask spread. WSB Reddit is down? Those crazy mofos give you the finger right on the ticker tape. I've been asked many times in the last few hours about why I was so sure shorts weren't covering on the down move. THIS is how I knew. For sure. It's in the market data itself.
edit So, there's feedback in the comments that this is likely more of a technical glitch. Man, at least it was hilarious in the moment. But also now I know maybe not to trust price updates when the spread between orders being posted is so wide. Maybe a technical limitation of TOS
I'll admit, I tried to one-up those bros with a 4206.90 limit sell order, but it never made it through. I'm impressed that the HFT guys at the hedge fund must have realized really quickly what a morale booster that kind of thing would have been, and kept a lower backstop ask in place almost continuously from then on I'm sure others tried the same thing. Occasionally $1,000 and other high-dollar asks would peak through from time to time from then on, which told me the long-side HFTs were probably successfully sniping the backstops regularly.
So, translating for those of you who found that confusing. First, such a high ask is basically a FU to the short-side (who, as you remember, need to eventually buy shares to cover their short positions). More importantly, as an indicator of retail sentiment, it meant that NO ONE ELSE WAS TRYING TO SELL AT ANY PRICE LOWER THAN $5,000. Absolutely no one was bailing out.
I laughed for a minute, then started getting a little worried. Holy cow.. NO retail selling into the fear? How are they resisting that kind of price move??
The answer, as we all know now... they weren't afraid... they weren't even worried. They were F*CKING PISSED.
Meanwhile the momentum guys and long-side HFTs keep gobbling up the generously donated shares that the short-side are plowing into their ladder attack. Lots of HFT duels going on as long-side HFTs try to intercept shares meant to travel between short-side HFT accounts for their ladder. You can tell when you see prices like $227.0001 constantly flying across the tape. Retail can't even attempt to enter an order like that--those are for the big boys with privileged low-latency access.
The fact that you can even see that on the tape with human eyes is really bad for the short-side people.
Why, you ask? Because it means liquidity is drying up, and fast.

The Liquidity Tide is Flowing Out Quickly. Who's Naked (short)?

Market technicals time. I still wish this sub would allow pictures so I could throw up a chart, but I guess a table will do fine.

Date	Volume	Price at US Market Close
Friday, 1/22/21	197,157,196	$65.01
Monday, 1/25/21	177,874,00	$76.79
Tuesday, 1/26/21	178,587,974	$147.98
Wednesday, 1/27/21	93,396,666	$347.51
Thursday, 1/28/21	58,815,805	$193.60

What do I see? I see the shares available to trade dropping so fast that all the near-exchange compute power in the world won't let the short-side HFTs maintain order flow volume for their attacks. Many retail people asking me questions thought today was the heaviest trading. Nope--it was just the craziest.
What about the price dropping on Thursday? Is that a sign that the short-side pulled a miracle out and pushed price down against a parabolic move on even less volume than Wednesday? Is the long side running out of capital?
Nope. It means the short-side hedge funds are just about finished.
But wait, I thought the price needed to be higher for them to be taken out? How is it that price being lower is bad for them? Won't that allow them to cover at a lower price?
No, the volume is so low that they can't cover any meaningful fraction of their position without spiking the price parabolic almost instantly. Just not enough shares on offer at reasonable prices (especially when WSB keeps flashing you 6942.00s).
It's true, a higher price hurts, but the interest charge for one more day is just noise at this point. The only tick that will REALLY count is the last tick of trading on Friday.
In the meantime, the price drop (and watching the sparring in real time) tells me that the long-side whales and their HFT quants are so certain of the squeeze that they're no longer worried AT ALL about whether it will happen, and they aren't even worried at all about retail morale to help carry the water anymore.
Instead, they're now really, really worried about how CHEAPLY they can make it happen.
They are wondering if they can't edge out just a sliver more alpha out of what will already be a blow-out trade for the history books (probably). You see, to make it happen they just have to keep hoovering up shares. It doesn't matter what those shares cost. If you're certain that the squeeze is now locked in, why push the price up and pay more than you have to? Just keep pressing hard enough to force short-side to keep sending those tasty shares your way, but not so much you move the price. Short-side realizes this and doesn't try to drive price down too aggressively. They can't afford to let price run away, so they have to keep some pressure on at the lowest volume they can manage, but they don't want to push down too hard and give the long-side HFTs too deep of a discount and bleed their ammo out even faster. That dynamic keeps price within a narrow (for GME today, anyway) trading range for the rest of the day into the close.
Good plan guys, but those after market people are pushing the price up again. Damnit WSB bros and Euros, you're costing those poor long-side whales their extra 0.0000001% of alpha on this trade just so you can run up your green rockets... See, that's the kind of nonsense that just validates Lee Cooperman's concerns.
On a totally unrelated note, I have to say that I appreciate the shift in CNBC's reporting. Much more thoughtful and informed. Just please get a good market technician in there who will be willing to talk about what is going on under the hood if possible. A lot of people watching on the sidelines are far more terrified than they need to be because it all looks random to them. And they're worried that you guys look confused and worried--and if the experts on the news are worried....??!
You should be able to find one who has access to the really good data that we retailers can only guess at, who can explain it to us unwashed masses.

Ok, So.. Questions

There is no market justification for this. How can you tell me is this fundamentally sound and not just straight throwing money away irresponsibly?? (side note: not that that should matter--if you want to throw your money away why shouldn't you be allowed to?)
We're not trading in your securities pricing model. This isn't irrational just because your model says long and short positions are the same thing. The model is not a real market. There is asymmetrical counterparty risk here given the shorts are on the hook for all the money they have, and possibly all the money their brokers have, and possibly anyone with exposure to the broker too! You may want people to trade by the rules you want them to follow. But the rest of us trade in the real market as it is actually implemented. Remember? That's what you tell the retailers who take their accounts to zero. Remember what you told the KBIO short-squeezed people? They had fair warning that short positions carry infinite risk, including more than your initial investment. You guys know this. It's literally part of your job to know this.
But-but-the systemic risk!! This is Madness!
...Madness?
THIS. IS. THE MARKET!!! *Retail kicks the short-side hedge funds down an infinity loss black hole\*.
Ok, seriously though, that is actually a fundamentally sound, and properly profit-driven answer at least as justifiable as the hedge funds' justification for going >100% of float short. If they can be allowed to gamble INFINITE LOSSES because they expect to make profit on the possibility the company goes bankrupt, can't others do the inverse on the possibility the company I don't know.. doesn't go bankrupt and gets a better strategy from the team that created what is now a $43bn market cap company (CHWY) that does exactly some of the things GME needs to do (digital revenue growth) maybe? I mean, I first bought in on that fundamental value thesis in the 30s and then upped my cost basis given the asymmetry of risk in the technical analysis as an obvious no-brainer momentum trade. The squeeze is just, as WSB people might say, tendies raining down from on high as an added bonus.
I get that you disagree on the fundamental viability of GME. Great. Isn't that what makes a market?
Regarding the consequences of a squeeze, in practice my expectation was maybe at worst some kind of ex-market settlement after liquidation of the funds with exposure to keep things nice and orderly for the rest of the market. I mean, they handled the VW thing somehow right? I see now that I just underestimated elite hedge fund managers though--those guys are so hardcore (I'll explain why I think so a bit lower down).
If hedge fund people are so hardcore, how did the retail long side ever have a chance of winning this squeeze trade they're talking about?
Because it's an asymmetrical battle once you have short interest cornered. And the risk is also crazily asymmetrical in favor of the long side if short interest is what it is in GME. In fact, the hedge funds essentially cornered themselves without anyone even doing anything. They just dug themselves right in there. Kind of impressive really, in a weird way.
What does the short side need to cover? They need the price to be low, and they need to buy shares.
How does price move lower? You have to push share volume such that supply overwhelms demand and price therefore goes down (man, I knew econ 101 would come in handy someday).
But wait... if you have to sell shares to push the price down.. won't you just undo all your work when you have to buy it back to actually cover?
The trick is you have to push price down so hard, so fast, so unpredictably, that you SCARE OTHER PEOPLE into selling their shares too, because they're scared of taking losses. Their sales help push the price down for free! and then you scoop them up at discount price! Also, there are ways to make people scared other than price movement and fear of losses, when you get right down to it. So, you know, you just need to get really, really, really good at making people scared. Remember to add a line item to your budget to make sure you can really do it right.
On the other hand..
What does the long side need to do? They need to own as much of the shares as they can get their hands on. And then they need to hold on to them. They can't be weak hands either. They need to be hands that will hold even under the most intense heat of battle, and the immense pressure of mind-numbing fear... they need to be as if they were made of... diamond... (oh wow, maybe those WSB people kind of have a point here).
Why does this matter? Because at some point the sell side will eventually run out of shares to borrow. They simply won't be there, because they'll be safely tucked away in the long-side's accounts. Once you run out of shares to borrow and sell, you have no way to move the price anymore. You can't just drop a fat stack--excuse me, I mean suitcase (we're talking hedge fund money here after all)--of Benjamins on the ticker tape directly. Only shares. No more shares, no way to have any direct effect on the price whatsoever.
Ok, doesn't that just mean trading stops? Can't you just out-wait the long side then?
Well, you could.. until someone on the long side puts 1 share up on a 69420 ask, and an even crazier person actually buys at that price on the last tick on a Friday. Let's just say it gets really bad at that point.
Ok.. but how do the retail people actually get paid?
Well, to be quite honest, it's entirely up to each of them individually. You've seen the volumes being thrown around the past week+. I guarantee you every single retailer out there could have printed money multiple times trading that flow. If they choose to, and time it well. Or they could lose it all--this is the market. Some of them apparently seem to have some plan, or an implicit trust in certain individuals to help them know when to punch out. Maybe it works out, but maybe not. There will be financial casualties on the field for sure--this is the bare-knuckled capitalist jungle after all, remember? But everyone ponied up to the table with their own money somehow, so they all get to play in the big leagues just like everyone else. In theory, anyway.
And now, Probably the #1 question I've been asked on all of these posts has been: So what happens next? Do we get the infinity squeeze? Do the hedge funds go down?
Great questions. I don't know. No one does. That's what I've said every time, but I get that's a frustrating answer, so I'll write a bit more and speculate further. Please again understand these are my opinions with a degree of speculation I wouldn't normally put in a post.

The Market and the Economy. Main Street, Wall Street, and Washington

The pandemic has hurt so many people that it's hard to comprehend. Honestly, I don't even pretend to be able to. I have been crazy fortunate enough to almost not be affected at all. Honestly, it is a little unnerving to me how great the disconnect is between people who are doing fine (or better than fine, looking at my IRA) versus the people who are on the opposite side of the ever-widening divide that, let's be honest, has been growing wider since long before the pandemic.
People on the other side--who have been told they cannot work even if they want to, who wonder if congress will get it together to at least keep them from getting thrown out of their house if they have to keep taking one for the team for the good of all, are wondering if they're even living in the same reality.
Because all they see on the news each day is that the stock market is at record highs, or some amazing tech stocks have 10x'd in the last 6 months. How can that be happening during a pandemic? Because The Market is not The Economy. The Market looks forward to that brighter future that Economy types just need to wait for. Don't worry--it'll be here sometime before the end of the year. We think. We're making money on that assumption right now, anyway. Oh, by the way, if you're in The Market, you get to get richer as a minor, unearned side-effect of the solutions our governments have come up with to fight the pandemic.
Wow. That sounds amazing. How do I get to part of that world?
Retail fintech, baby. Physical assets like real estate might be a bit out of reach at the moment, but stocks will do. I can even buy fractional shares of BRK/A LOL.
Finally, I can trade for my own slice of heaven, watching that balance go up (and up--go stonks!!). Now I too get to dream the dream. I get to feel connected to that mythical world, The Market, rather than being stuck in the plain old Economy. Sure, I might blow up my account, but that's because it's the jungle. Bare-knuckled, big league capitalism going on right here, and at least I get to show up an put my shares on the table with everyone else. At least I'm playing the same game. Everyone has to start somewhere--at least now I get to start, even if I have to learn my lesson by zeroing my account a few times. I've basically had to deal with what felt like my life zeroing out a few times before. This is number on a screen going to 0 is nothing.
Laugh or cry, right? I'll post my losses on WSB and at least get some laughs.
Geez, some of the people here are making bank. I better learn from them and see if they'll let me in on their trades. Wow... this actually might work. I don't understand yet, but I trust these guys telling me to hold onto this crazy trade. I don't understand it, but all the memes say it's going to be big.
...WOW... I can pay off my credit card with this number. Do I punch out now? No? Hold?... Ok, getting nervous watching the number go down but I trust you freaks. We're still in the jungle, but at least I'm in with with my posse now. Market open tomorrow--we ride the rocket baby! And if it goes down, at least I'm going down with my crew. At least if that happens the memes will be so hilarious I'll forget to cry.
Wow.. I can't believe it... we might actually pull this off. Laugh at us now, "pros"!
We're in The Market now, and Market rules tell us what is going to happen. We're getting all that hedge fund money Right? Right?
Maybe.
First, I say maybe because nothing is ever guaranteed until it clears. Secondly, because the rules of The Market are not as perfectly enforced as we would like to assume. We are also finding out they may not be perfectly fair. The Market most experts are willing to talk about is really more like the ideal The Market is supposed to be. This is the version of the market I make my trading decisions in. However, the Real Market gets strange and unpredictable at the edges, when things are taken to extremes, or rules are pushed beyond the breaking point, or some of the mechanics deep in the guts of the Real Market get stretched. GME ticks basically all of those boxes, which is why so many people are getting nervous (aside from the crazy money they might lose). It's also important to remember that the sheer amount of money flowing through the market has distorting power unto itself. Because it's money, and people really, really, really like their money--especially when they're used to having a lot of it, and rules involving that kind of money tend to look more... flexible, shall we say.
Ok, back to GME. If this situation with GME is allowed to play out to its conclusion in The Market, we'll see what happens. I think all the long-side people get the chance to be paid (what, I'm not sure--and remember, you have to actually sell your position at some point or it's all still just numbers on your screen), but no one knows for certain.
But this might legitimately get so big that it spills out of The Market and back into The Economy.
Geez, and here I thought the point of all of this was so that we all get to make so much money we wouldn't ever have to think and worry about that thing again.
Unfortunately, while he's kind of a buzzkill, Thomas Petterfy has a point. This could be a serious problem.
It might blow out The Market, which will definitely crap on The Economy, which as we all know from hard experience, will seriously crush Main Street.
If it's that big a deal, we may even need Washington to be involved. Once that happens, who knows what to expect.. this kind of scenario being possible is why I've been saying I have no idea how this ends, and no one else does either.
How did we end up in this ridiculous situation? From GAMESTOP?? And it's not Retail's fault the situation is what it is.. why is everyone telling US that we need to back down to save The Market?? What about the short-side hedge funds that slammed that risk into the system to begin with?? We're just playing by the rules of The Market!!
Well, here are my thoughts, opinions, and some even further speculation... This may be total fantasy land stuff here, but since I keep getting asked I'll share anyway. Just keep that disclaimer in mind.

A Study in Big Finance Power Moves: If you owe the bank $10,000, it's your problem...

What happens when you owe money you have no way to pay back? It's a scary question to have to face personally. Still, on balance and on average, if you're fortunate enough to have access to credit the borrowing is a risk that is worth taking (especially if you're reasonably careful). Lenders can take a risk loaning you money, you take a risk by borrowing in order to do something now that you would otherwise have had to wait a long time or maybe would never have realistically been able to do otherwise. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes it's due to reasons totally beyond your control. In any case, if you find yourself there you have no choice but to dust yourself off, pick yourself up as best as you can, and try to move on and rebuild. A lot of people had to learn that in 2008. Man that year really sucked.
Wall street learned their lessons too. Most learned what I think most of us would consider the right lessons--lessons about risk management, and the need to guard vigilantly against systemic risk, concentration of risk through excess concentration of leverage on common assets, etc. Many suspect that at least a few others may have learned an entirely different set of, shall we say, unhealthy lessons. Also, to try to be completely fair, maybe managing other peoples' money on 10x+ leverage comes with a kind of pressure that just clouds your judgement. I could actually, genuinely buy that. I know I make mistakes under pressure even when I'm trading risk capital I could totally lose with no real consequence. Whatever the motive, here's my read on what's happening:
First, remember that as much fun as WSB are making of the short-side hedge fund guys right now, those guys are smart. Scary smart. Keep that in mind.
Next, let's put ourselves in their shoes.
If you're a high-alpha hedge fund manager slinging trades on a $20bn 10x leveraged to 200bn portfolio, get caught in a bad situation, and are down mark-to-market several hundred million.. what do you do? Do you take your losses and try again next time? Hell no.
You're elite. You don't realize losses--you double down--you can still save this trade no sweat.
But what if that doesn't work out so well and you're in the hole >$2bn? Obvious double down. Need you ask? I'm net up on the rest of my positions (of course), and the momentum when this thing makes its mean reversion move will be so hot you can almost taste the alpha from here. Speaking of momentum, imagine the move if your friends on TV start hyping the story harder! Genius!
Ok, so that still didn't work... this is now a frigging 7 sigma departure from your modeled risk, and you're now locked into a situation that is about as close to mathematically impossible to escape as you can get in the real world, and quickly converging on infinite downside. Holy crap. The fund might be liquidated by your prime broker by tomorrow morning--and man, even the broker is freaking out. F'in Elon Musk and his twitter! You're cancelling your advance booking on his rocket ship to Mars first thing tomorrow... Ok, focus--this might legit impact your total annual return. You need a plan, and you know the smartest people on the planet, right? The masters of the universe! Awesome--they've even seen this kind of thing before and still have the playbook!! Of course! It's obvious now--you borrow a few more billion and double down again first thing in the morning. So simple. Sticky note that Mars trip cancellation so you don't forget.
Ok... so that didn't work? You even cashed in some pretty heavy chits too. Ah well, that was a long shot anyway. So where were you? Oh yeah.. if shenanigans don't work, skip to page 10...
...Which says, of course, to double down again. Anyone even keeping track anymore? Oh, S3 says it's $40bn and we're going parabolic? Man, that chart gives me goosebumps. All according to plan...
So what happens tomorrow? One possible outcome of PURE FANTASTIC SPECULATION...
End of the week--phew. Never though it'd come. Where are you at now?... Over $9000^\)!!! Wow. You did it boys, and as a bonus the memes will be so sweet.
^\)side note: add 8 zeros to the end...
Awesome--your problems have been solved. Because...

..

BOOM

Now it's EVERYONE's problem. Come at me, Chamath, THIS is REAL baller shit.
Now all you gotta do is make all the hysterical retirees watching their IRAs hanging in the balance blame those WSB kids. Hahaha. Boomers, amirite? hate when those kids step on their law--I mean IRAs. GG guys, keep you memes. THAT is how it's done.
Ok, but seriously, I hope that's not how it ends. I guess we just take it day by day at this point.
Apologies for the length. Good luck in the market!
Also, apologies in advance for formatting, spelling, and grammatical errors. I was typing this thing in between doing all kinds of other things for most of the day.
Edit getting a bunch of questions on if it's possible the hedge funds are finding ways to cover in spite of my assumptions. Of course. I'm a retail guy trying to read the charts and price action. I don't have any special tools like the pros may have.

READ THIS if you expected a huge gamma squeeze today after close above $320

OG poster u/PlayFree_Bird

Alright, I hate to say it, but there is some less-than-ideal information circulating out there, particularly about the famed "gamma squeeze" we hear so much about these days. I'll get to that. Let's go through the questions you simpletons want to know, as explained by a mouth-breathing fool who has managed to convince you he knows what he's talking about:

Did we win today? Is it endgame?

Kind of. Be patient.

In what ways did we win?

First, there was the obvious victory of bouncing back 65% today after the worst market manipulation I've ever witnessed. We kept the upward momentum going.
Secondly, every day you finish higher is another day the shorts are underwater. If you are perpetually going up, the walls are closing in on them.
Finally, a lot of put options expired worthless today while a number of call options expired in-the-money. It's always good to make put holders lose money because you drain the bank accounts of people betting against you.

Yes! Call options! We finished above $320 and get a gamma squeeze to infinity now, right?

No. That's not how this works. Too many people don't quite understand what a gamma squeeze is.
A gamma squeeze happens when call option sellers (or "writers") have to hedge their naked calls by buying stocks. They do this because the risk of selling naked calls is theoretically infinite if they don't. It's called delta hedging. You don't need to know all the fancy math ("delta" and "gamma" are those greek symbols for nerds), just understand this: as it becomes more probable that the call option you sold will cost you money, you hedge more.
This is a continuous PROCESS, not a discreet moment in time. The market makers and hedge funds and institutions selling you calls don't wake up on Friday morning and think, "Shit! I think I'm going to lose everything if these stocks keep going up! I have to BUY NOW!!!" That would be stupid. They are hedging all the way up. I guarantee you that most of the calls that were exercised at $320 today were already covered. They already went out and bought those shares and most of the upwards pressure that places on the market is priced in already.

So, no gamma squeeze?

Probably not significantly. They're not going to be madly rushing out on Monday to buy shit they already own for the most part.

Why are people talking about a gamma squeeze at $320, then?

We did have a gamma squeeze at $320. On Wednesday, two days ago. The price exceeded $320 (then the highest strike price on the books) and promptly surged to $371 before coming back down to around $320. That's what a gamma squeeze is: a frenzied rush by call sellers to cover calls.
It typically happens BEFORE expiration, not after. It's rare for market makers to get so caught with their pants down that they have to get squeezed for the previous week's calls on a Monday. I don't know where this idea of a gamma squeeze now at $320 is coming from.

This hurts my feelings. So, what's so great about the $320 threshold, anyway? Did it matter at all?

It's still a good thing. There may have been a few lingering naked calls to cover. And, like I said, it's always good to make put-holders lose money because stick it to the 🌈🐻, that's why.
$320 was a significant level because there were quite a few open call options at that strike. You can see the entire option chain here: https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/gme/option-chain
Go through and count up all the January 29th options that were in-the-money at today's close. I think maybe 90,000 or something? Screw it, I didn't count. Somebody who can figure out how to use a calculator can add those up. Multiply that number by 100 (because option contracts are sold in groups of 100) and that's how many shares need to change hands thanks to contracts expiring ITM.
It may be that with so many shares needing to change hands and so little liquidity in this market, some weird things could happen.

What weird things?

Well, if nothing else, a lot of shares will need to be tied up as the process of settling calls plays out.
You have to remember that when somebody says they own shares, they don't necessarily own own the shares right at that moment.
When you press "buy" on your phone and it says your order was filled, that doesn't mean that the process happens instantaneously. For all intents and purposes as far as you are concerned, sure, the process looks instant. However, there's a lot of messy stuff that happens on the back-end of the system between the brokers and the clearing houses. The clearing houses are where the daily tab gets settled: who owes whom and what they owe and at what price, etc.
Monday could be interesting as this tab for millions of stocks (in a market with only 50-something million shares actively circulating) gets settled. It might not be crazy, but it could. We'll see.
Michael Burry (Christian Bale, for all you noobs) seems to think that all the naked short-selling above the float will result in a shit-storm when people actually go to get their shares back: https://twitter.com/michaeljburry/status/1355221824661983233
Liquidity crunch + lots of shares being moved around + nobody knows where they all are currently = potential nightmare for Wall Street.

I just want my infinite short squeeze and my tendies, so how do we get the MOASS?

Something needs to be the catalyst. Something needs to get the short sellers really underwater, so much so that they are drowning. That's why there's been so much hype about gamma squeezes; the gamma and short squeezes are two separate things, but the gamma squeezing has been really good to us lately. It has triggered some crazy upwards price movements. I still think one was about to happen yesterday morning that would have triggered the squeeze-pocalypse, the Mother of All Short Squeezes. The bastards at the brokerages (acting with and for the clearing houses), took your tendies. It's criminal what played out.
I actually think a gamma squeeze was possible today, as well, as the price shot up to $378 around noon. If it had gotten to $400, it stood a very good chance of running up to $500, which would have caused a run up to $650 and beyond. Then Robinhood said, "Oh, actually, you plebs cannot buy 5 shares anymore, only 2 now." The price came back down again.
Oddly enough, the S&P500 sold off over a full percentage point (that's a lot of money) right after GME hit that $378 peak. Do you think this doesn't freak the finance world out? They know a gamma squeeze is like the fuse on a firework. It consumes itself until it ignites the rocket.

How will Wall Street defend themselves?

They will try to keep snipping the fuse. That's what all these restrictions on brokerages are about. They are trying to defuse the situation slowly because having it all get sorted out quickly and frantically is no good for them.
We need enough upwards price momentum that those option chains keep going up and up and feeding on themselves. They need to become a self-sustaining chain reaction, fed by hedging pressure. And you need to put pressure on your elected representatives to tell them that Wall Street cannot be allowed to just shut down the game when they are losing. I hate to tell you this, but the squeeze has so far been stopped purely by the losers declaring that it will not happen at any cost. It's bullshit. Eat the rich. But there it is.

Do you feel you've used the word "squeeze" too much by now?

Yes. I've been writing and looking at the word "squeeze" so much that it is starting to lose its meaning. Squeeze. Squeeze. Squeeeeeeze.

EDIT:
TL;DR Shares most likely already bought so no gamma squeeze, doesn't matter anyway 🙌💎🚀 🙌💎🚀 🙌💎🚀
EDIT 2:
STOP THANKING ME FOR THIS POST, RETARDS! Literally the first sentence is me giving credit to the original poster, THANK HIM.

We need to talk about NOK

Feb 4, mid-market: Thank you everyone for your support. I really don't know what to say. The company keeps getting pounded because GME is having a sell-off, which doesn't make any sense. But that's the market for you. It doesn't always make sense.
I still believe 2021 will be a big year for Nokia, although it doesn't look like there is any way we'll manage the crazy play anymore. Still, it was nice to see something that was impossible become possible, even if it was for only a few days.
And remember, we can still do it any day. All it takes is for us to work together. If you want. Make up your own mind.
I'm still holding. NOK will recover from this. Fair value is at least 4.81, and way more when 5G really gets going. So if you can, I would buy some more now. You'll thank me later for the tip. It may not be the most exciting play, but it is what investing is all about. Slow and steady growth that compounds to make a big change.
One of these days I'll be able to post again, when the mods lift the restrictions on new posts and things get a little less crazy around here. When I post again about NOK, I'll post the link here too. Thanks everyone!
Feb 4 premarket: Earnings out! They beat expectations a bit, their revenue was a little smaller than expected. Overall, good quarter, good year. Here it is: https://www.nokia.com/system/files/2021-02/nokia_results_2020_q4.pdf
Feb 2, end of day: It's getting pretty crazy out there, but here's what you should know. The NOK chart is following the GME chart. It's got way more shares so the bumps and dips are more stable, but that's the main trend.
What that means: GME has no underlying value at this level. It is a gamble on the short squeeze. It might pay off, or it might not. If people panic sell like yesterday, it won't.
NOK is very different. It has underlying value. So if someone dumps it below its target price, the best thing to do is just to buy and wait for the value to go down. Thursday NOK reveals its earnings, and they are likely to be good based on what Ericsson revealed. Ericsson is one of its main competitors and a very similar company currently trading at twice the NOK price.
Feb 1, end of day: Told you it was a value share! Still trading at target, still low risk.
Either dumping has stopped, or normies are piling in because of the results. Either way good news, hope you made some money today!Vol today 190m, still way above average. Normal average 30m before we changed it lol. That means since Wednesday over 2bn shares have changed hands. Hope you got em!
Ericsson (NOK competitor) results suggest NOK will report good numbers this week, NOK upped to BUY on market watch: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nokia-upped-to-buy-after-ericsson-results-2021-02-01
Unless my math is retarded (which it is cos ahmsodumb), if everyone (7m) on this sub spends $3000 at current price ($4.55) we BUY THE FLOAT. The more they keep dumping, the more shares we get cheap. Think about it.EDIT: buying the ENTIRE float is NOT the point of this play. I know share price goes up when supply is restricted, just read the play. This is just an example of what happens when they dump a value share on millions of retail investors.
BLACKROCK IS IN PEOPLE: https://fintel.io/so/us/nok/blackrock
Robin hood increases NOK allowance to 2000 shares for next week (still any allowance is CRAZY because it's a VALUE SHARE THAT HASN'T BUBBLED) https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/changes-due-to-recent-market-volatility/?fbclid=IwAR2SK9VQOI_eBgBF0SK4-R1eQjBkSAe3sd6KMwSBaCPmz38e5cc8siRdhEY
You dump a VALUE STOCK on me and think I'm in danger?

Added new summary (30 Jan), and Q&A.
FIRST OFF: This post is not financial advice or anything except the rant of some idiot retard who is an idiot. I tell you straight up that there is a normal investment side to the NOK play (STILL MEANS RISK, which YOU will have to decide!) and that there is a CRAZY side that is PROBABLY IMPOSSIBLE. If you want to play the crazy play then you’re also a crazy retard idiot just like me.
I don’t know shit, I just look at graphs and go WOW. Do your own due diligence, I am not a financial advisor. Don’t ask me if you should buy, I don’t know, can you afford to? Are you comfortable with the risks? I don’t know these things. You do.
NOK PLAY:
Here’s how it works. YOU DECIDE if you want to take part.
1.It’s not a short squeeze like GME. Get that out of your head.
2.It’s a value/momentum play. The value part is just normal granny&grampa investing. See a good company going cheap, buy and hold. Tell your mom, dad, granny and grampa, cousins, relatives, friends.
3.The momentum part is the crazy part, and if it works the share will SKYROCKET as long as YOU DON’T SELL. GME is the biggest short squeeze in history, the NOK play could be the biggest value buy in history.

The beauty of it is that it works because Wall St is dumping NOK irrationally. That’s why the price is going down (slowly). They think they’re attacking us and slowly winning, but they’re giving us a value share cheap = their money, our pockets. By the time they realize what we did, it will be too late.
Don’t panic, and keep buying the dumps (if you think the company has value), and if we hold the line you could see a miracle.

3310 HANDS

Value Part (crazy part in Q&A):
The company is healthy, has good financials, it’s a market leader in 5G (it’s main competitors are Huawei and Ericsson, they have about the same market share share of 5G) a lot of potential to be the company that builds 5G for a large part of the world. NOK is currently trading at a standard price for the value it holds. It is not a bubble.
Here’s Nokia’s 5G contracts: https://www.nokia.com/networks/5g/5g-contracts/
Here’s Bloomberg shitting bricks that we’ve realized that Nokia is a value bet: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-28/gamestop-may-be-a-reddit-wallstreetbets-game-but-nokia-sure-isn-t
Nokia also just unveiled new 1tb tech, the thing AFTER 5G. First on the world. They have it, they’re showing the world it works. Here is their press release from Wednesday: https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/nokia-and-elisa-push-network-boundaries-with-worlds-first-1t-deployment-2021-01-27
They are so trusted that NASA got them to build a cell network on the MOON. Literally. If you’re NASA, would you hire your retard uncle Earl to build cell towers on the moon? No, you hire someone who CAN ACTUALLY DO IT. Imagine what it takes to build something really big and complicated on the moon? Now imagine who’s the likely guy who can do it. That’s right, NOKIA. Here they are, going to the moon: https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2020/10/19/nokia-selected-by-nasa-to-build-first-ever-cellular-network-on-the-moon/
If the Huawei 5G war continues, who do you think US and Europe is going to back, especially since NOK already has the next tech, owns a bunch of patents, is from FINLAND that has never tried to take over the world and has a brand that EVERYONE who lived in 2000s remembers?
Here’s a guy who’s been doing the numbers for a while now in case you want to see them: https://www.reddit.com/useJimming/comments/l7f6ua/part_iv_option_chain_analysis_on_nok_and_why_you/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf I don’t know him, I don’t know the numbers as well, but looks pretty good to me. Amazing due diligence. But what do I know, I’m an idiot. So is he. So are you. We’re all fucking retards, just ask Wall Street. I poked myself in the same eye twice yesterday. We’re “dumb money”. They have other names for us too.
So, worst case, you just bought into a good company at a fair value. If the crazy play doesn’t work, you just hold on to them and let them become the world leader in 5G. Unlike GME (NOT SAYING SELL!), NOK will not fall 99%. Or if it does, I'M BUYING THAT SHIT because if a HEALTHY COMPANY FALLS 99% you make some CRAZY MONEY on that when it bounces back.
Q&A
Q: You retards were tricked by bots to buying NOK, there’s no short
A: This just full on doesn’t get what the play is about. IT IS NOT A SHORT SQUEEZE. THIS IS NOT GME RINSE REPEAT. GME IS A DIFFERENT PLAY. NOK IS A VALUE PLAY. How many more ways can I say it? Not sure. How many more do I have to?
Q: Stop taking attention away from GME you retards
A: Nobody is saying sell your GME. Nobody is saying that. GME is too expensive for a lot of people, and GME is VERY RISKY and NOK has genuine value behind it. If the NOK play works, those people who couldn’t afford GME can still get on & get rich. If it doesn’t, they most likely still make money on a good company.
Q: This play is impossible / crazy / it’ll never work / there are too many shares you retards
A: This is ALMOST true. This play WAS impossible until 1/27/2021. That is why nobody has EVER tried anything like this. But it’s NOT impossible anymore. Look at this graph. Look at it. See that spike? What the fuck is that? I’ll tell you my fellow autistic space boot packin 3310 using NOKSTER.

https://preview.redd.it/v473xl00ghe61.png?width=2182&format=png&auto=webp&s=bf5aac455156dbadb919b80afacb5232af0a05b5
That spike was them running out of shares for half an hour. Trade was stopped until they could find more, to avoid an artificial spike in the price.
Proof? Look at the volumes. A small sale (red) causes a small dip. Two small buys cause a MASSIVE SPIKE. They ran out, and had to call their friends to liquidate more shares so the price wouldn’t skyrocket "artificially".
But that’s IMPOSSIBLE for NOK. NOK has 5bn shares. Nokia should be much more stable because it has so many shares, having a crazy demand spike is crazy. I saw it, and fell off my chair and since I’m such a retard it took me an hour to get back up.
So it was impossible, and that’s why Wall Street won’t see it coming. They think this is their attack and they’re about to break through our ranks, but they’re actually playing right into our hands.
Wendnesday, we moved 1bn shares. Thursday, when nobody could buy, we still moved 500m. Yesterday, we still moved 360m. We’ve moved so much NOK in the past three days, the average volume of the share has MORE THAN DOUBLED in THREE DAYS. The play is not impossible anymore, but Wall St thinks it is, which is how we can use their own strength and mass against them. But the value buy still makes sense WHENEVER you see someone dump a valuable share. Someone sells you a 100$ bill for 90$? Buy it.
They attack? We absorb. They dump, we buy, they run out of shares, we hold. They’re fucked, and they just handed us a bunch of value shares at an undervalue = they just gave us their money. They are just giving it to you. When they realize they can’t buy them back at a lower value, what do you think is going to happen?
Q: We don’t do value plays, we do short squeezes you retards
A: Go back to April. Look at u/DeepFuckingValue’s position. GME was a value play. It’s only in April that the Short Squeeze became possible. Look it up yourself.
Will a short squeeze also happen with NOK? It’s unlikely. Hedge Fund Assholes have been increasing their shorts in NOK in the last few days, but they won’t go over 100% on 5bn shares because they're not as stupid as me. But it doesn’t have to happen. We just need to buy the dumps. If they short, great. More money for us as long as we don’t let them drive the price down with the dumps.
Q: Why is NOK not rocketing?
A: Because Wall Street is dumping, just like I said they would after the Wednesday spike. That’s the whole plan. They dump, we hold the line, buy the dumps and keep the price steady.
The GME short squeeze guys waited for this for UP TO TWO YEARS. I saw it in April. I thought it was crazy. I didn’t jump in back then. If I did, I’d have about as much money as u/DeepFuckingValue. On a value share, you can afford to wait. GME was originally a value play. That’s what I should have realized in April.
SO JUST WAIT AND HOLD (if you believe and idiot like me, which you shouldn't, no need to message me about it). It’s been two days since this play even became possible.
Q: How do we know it’s working?
A: Look at the volume of shares traded. Nokia has 5bn shares. In the last three days, nearly 2bn have been traded. The price is still up from last week. That’s how.
This has already been a giant dumping campaign. How come the price hasn’t floored? What happens if we just buy it all up?
What happens if they run out, and then their shorts blow, the price bumps up, CNBC tells the world we broke another short wall, everyone piles on, Wall Street realizes they just gave us their shares at an undervalue and try to buy back, we don’t sell, we have all the shares? The Wednesday spike is what happens, except this time there is no stopping it. If they stop trading again and try to dump some more, you just buy up the dump and keep the spike going. Spike stops being a spike and becomes a floor.

Q: Where will this max out and when?
A: What do you think I’m from the future? I just saw an impossible thing happen on Wednesday, and we need to make it happen again. Look at the graph. Look at it.
Set your targets to $3310, that should do it.
Q: When should I buy? What should I buy? Should I buy?
A: Be your own person. Buy when you feel like it, if you feel like it.
Q: Wall street bots are promoting NOK.
A: I don’t give a shit. If they are, and we keep buying, they are promoting giving us money.

Part 2: (29 Jan)
First off, much as I appreciate the love, I can’t play your hand for you. You have to make your own decisions. Do I know where NOK is going to be tomorrow? Nope. Nobody does. All that I have for you is the news from Wednesday that this play is no longer totally impossible:

I think the assholes are going to try to dump you out of the market
It won’t work if we keep the demand up.
The way we keep demand up is we buy, and others will follow us because the company is good.
When they realize it won’t work, they’ll need to start buying back in.
Then it’ll be too late, cos they dumped their shares on US and we are RETARDS who HOLD. That means that when their shorts start to go bust, the price will jump up (a little bit, not like with GME at first – this is a different play based on the health of the company, not a straight up short squeeze. The short position on NOK is much smaller).
When the price jumps up, and the GME guys start cashing out, they need somewhere to put that cash. Some of them pay off student loans, or buy cars or whatever, but the smart ones will go NOK.

How you play it is up to you. I can’t tell you if you should buy, what minute to buy, what app to use and so on. All I can say is I buy the dumps. You need to decide for yourself if you want to do it. You can see the dumps on any app, or even yahoo finance. I buy NOK on NYSE, and I buy straight up shares (so they can’t lend out mine for shorts) but you’re free to do what you want. I’m a retard, you’re a retard, we’re all autistic fucks, we make up our own mind and stick with it.
Secondly, what I said yesterday morning would happen, did happen. And it happened exactly like I said it would. So don’t get scared off, just buy the dumps. And they know that they’ll be fucked if we keep buying the dumps. That’s why they stopped us from buying NOK.
NOK hasn’t bubbled, stopping us from buying NOK was because they know we’re on to them. They know the dumps won’t work if we JUST KEEP BUYING and HOLDING. The play works, they’re scared, we caught them with their pants down, they’re trying to get ahead of us.
OK, so about what happened yesterday with RH and others. I’m so fucking angry about this.
What RH and others did is completely insane. Their argument is “you guys are throwing your money away on a bubble, we’re just protecting you”. Bullshit. I won’t comment on GME, I’ll let u/DeepFuckingValue or one of those guys do that. I’ll just say, that short squeezes happen with hedge funds all the fucking time. Why is trading not stopped for them? They have people’s fucking pensions that they’re playing with.
But for NOK, it’s TOTAL BULLSHIT. Here’s why:

NOK HAS NOT BUBBLED. Look at the graph. Look at it. It is still down from 2016. NOK is well within normal variation. Long term, you barely see the spike from a couple of days ago. There is nothing to “protect us” from. They’re protecting themselves.
The NOK play is not a straight up short squeeze. The play is HELPED by the shorts that are there, as long as we can keep the demand up and keep the price up against the dumping, but that’s all.
NOK is a healthy company, with new and important tech, a great brand, a lot of potential. You want to see why, read the original post. ANYONE who sees a company like that being dumped for NO REASON would buy. So should you. They are only dumping it because they’re trying to fuck up our play.

Ok that’s enough for now. I’ll see you all when I’ve got my space boots on, in my house on the FUCKING MOON, next to a NOKIA Comms tower, or I’ll see you in VALHALLA with my broke ass. If this doesn’t work, then at least you TOOK ON THE MOTHERFUCKERS and EARNED A PLACE at the table with FUCKING ODIN.
UNBREAKABLE 3310!
ORIGINAL POST (28 Jan):
I get it, it’s not the play. I’m not saying sell your GME. I’m not a bot or a spy or a wall street asshole. I’m a regular guy who’s got a couple of bucks in his bank account and plays videogames and wants a fucking house to live in like my parents had when they were young. If you don’t agree with me, just say so.
I’m also not a financial advisor, so make up your own minds you autistic fucks.
But, BUT, yesterday we did something they’ve never seen. Yesterday, we made them run out of NOK shares. That’s what that big spike was, and that’s why trading was stopped for 2h. If we keep doing that, it will be the biggest wall street wealth transfer from assholes to retards in history. Because they will keep dumping it until it’s too late.
Impossible, you say. Too many shares, you say. Well listen up. Yesterday, in ONE DAY, we traded, or caused others to trade, 1bn shares of Nokia. That is 1/5 of all the Nokia shares in the world. That’s never happened, EVER. Not even when Nokia was the biggest phone company in the world.
3516.16% of average trading volume.
Do you get it? They’ll keep dumping their stock, we keep buying them cheap, and then they won’t be so cheap anymore when they try to buy back in. We can move 1bn shares IN A DAY. ONE DAY. 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Why do they stop trading in NYSE? Cos they ran out of shares temporarily and they don’t want “artificial” spikes in the prices. So they made us retards wait a couple of hours while some assholes called some other assholes to unload their shares into the market, and once they had enough, they started again. That’s why that spike went down right after the freeze.
But then we did it again. And they had to stop again. The price just wouldn’t go down. The assholes who’d just unloaded shares were probably back on the phone with the other assholes who’d convinced them.
Everyone is watching us. What we do, millions of normal folks do with us, and every wallstreet asshole does against us.
What did the asshole brigade do? They started shorting NOK. They will continue to do that, because they think we’re retards (they are correct).
But how come the price didn’t go down? It’s got 5bn shares, and everyone whos ever held it was dumping it. How could we ever keep up the demand when there are so many shares out there? How is this going to work?
Because the retard brigade was buying it. There’s 3m of us and counting. If we each put 600 bucks on NOK, we get 100 shares, and that’s 300m shares.
Now imagine what happens if we put 6000 on it. AND. FUCKING. HOLD. And every dip you see, you buy more. AND. FUCKING. HOLD. They'll keep dumping, we keep buying, until they realize the price isn't going down. Then they start buying, we keep holding, the market runs out of NOK. Price skyrockets.
And normies outside were following us. They can see that the stock is still LOW, lower than 2016. This means they don’t think it’s a bubble that’s going to crash on them.
So why do the normies follow us on this, and not on GME? (I’m not saying sell GME).
Because GME has never, ever been anywhere near where it is now. That scares a normal guy who’s just trying to put in some savings for his family. They think this is some Dutch tulip market shit.
Not so with NOK. Even with the spike from yesterday, NOK is still DOWN from 2016. Remember 2016? Remember that being a really big year for Nokia? No, me neither. And let’s not even get started on where it has been in the past. Yesterday's spike barely shows on the graph.
You know what is going to be a big year? 2021 and 2022. Why?
What else did NOK say yesterday? Well, they revealed that they have a new kind of 1 terabit data transfer networks shit, what do I know, I’m not a techie. But it IS a new kind of technology that’s going to kick 5Gs ass. And my fellow retards of the most honorable retard brigade – Do you think we’re going to need more data this year than last year?
Remember how Netflix had to downgrade its picture quality in March because the networks couldn’t handle the amount people were streaming? What do you think is going to happen with the company that solves that?
But why would NOK be the company? Well, remember the 5G war with China?
US and Europe can’t buy 5G from China, because then China has our networks. But guess who US and Europe aren’t afraid of? Fucking FINLAND. Finland, the land of NOKIA. So tiny that some people think the whole country is a conspiracy theory and doesn’t really exist. Sorry Finnish people, nobody gives a shit about you. Good thing for you, cos you get to build the 5G network on the moon and shit because nobody is scared that Finland will take over the world.
Want proof? They are literally building one on the FUCKING MOON: https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2020/10/19/nokia-selected-by-nasa-to-build-first-ever-cellular-network-on-the-moon/
And we’re going to send them there. 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
But hang on, why is NOK so low in the first place if it’s so great?
Answer: because Microsoft fucked them. That’s right, they sent one of their own assholes to infiltrate the NOK, leak a bunch shit to drive the share price down, and then buy the phone part of the company. These assholes wrecked the company, the Finnish economy, and every middle class shareholder who was just trying to put their kids to college. Imagine everyone who’d be fucked if someone did that to Apple now.
Worked like a charm. Firesale. Business restructuring. Lost their phones. NOK never recovered.
The asshole they sent from Microsoft? Went back to work for Microsoft, and was paid a shit ton of money for what he did. His name is Stephen Elop. Look it up.
So they have tech that nobody else has and a brand that everyone recognizes. But what don’t they have? Money. That’s why they’re building this 1tb magic network thing in tiny fucking possibly fake Finland to show everyone it works.
But if we drive the share price up, do you think that’s going to change?
So FUCK IT. I’m in for every penny, and I am HOLDING. I’ll see you in my house ON the MOON next to a NOKIA Comms tower, or I’ll see you in VALHALLA you BEAUTIFUL RETARDED MOTHERFUCKERS.
TL;DR: NOK is literally going to the moon. Go there with them. 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

(GME DD) One DD to rule them. One DD to find them. One DD to to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Gamestop Big Picture: Market Mechanics

Capital Flow, Liquid Float, and Price

Ok, so let's go with a diagram I put together while thinking about how to best answer a ton of questions related to the mechanics behind triggering a squeeze. This is not very formal--just conceptual to help you think about the relationship between price, liquid free float, and capital required to move things around.
Capital Flow to Price Volatility Leverage Conceptual Diagram
As you can see in the diagram, I figured it would be conceptually clearest to model the relationship kind of like a seesaw.
On the left you can see that people selling tends to increase liquid float, moving the fulcrum of our conceptual seesaw to the right, except in the case of selling to people who are planning to buy and hold, which moves the fulcrum to the left.
The lower the liquid free float, or the further to the left the fulcrum goes, the greater the likely impact of any particular capital flow (net selling or buying) on share price. Importantly, as the diagrams on the right half show, it's not a linear relationship. The closer the liquid free float comes to 0%, the faster the price volatility increases... theoretically approaching infinity as liquid free float approaches 0%.
I find it sometimes help to think of the extreme case to help clarify. On the extremely liquid side, if you have all of the tens of millions of GME shares in play, dropping $10,000 in to buy shares probably doesn't even register on the ticker. On the other extreme, if what if there was only 1 share in play? That same $10,000 instantly prices GME at $10,000 a share--if you can even get the person holding it to sell!
Since company value is estimated mark-to-market, GME would instantly become rated one of the most (if not the most) valuable companies in the world. This is in no way true, of course, as you could not subsequently sell all the rest of the shares at that price, but as far as a whole bunch of market mechanics and market participants are concerned, they would have to treat it that way until another transaction took place to re-price the company.
So, in the grand scheme of things, in terms of difficulty of initiating what magnitude of a squeeze, the primary factor is locking up actively traded/liquid free float. Also important to keep in mind, locking up the float is only very gradually noticeable until you get very close to locking it all down, and you reach a point where suddenly each fraction of free float being locked up has parabolically greater impact on price volatility, reaching its limit where going from 2 actively traded shares to 1 actively traded share doubles price volatility sensitivity to capital flow by just locking up a single additional share.
So simple, right? Actually, yes. However, don't mistake simple for easy (absolutely not the same thing in this case).

Market Games

So, GME and other high short interest stocks are looked at in two ways by many market participants. On the one hand, you have normal investors and traders who don't really pay attention to it at all, and, if they do, they see it as a tool for price discovery that is otherwise neutral and dampens volatility (people tend to short stocks as price goes up, and cover shorts as price drops, so normal shorting activity is at least in theory supposed to help keep price stable).
Then you have what I'll call market gamers. These are people who are willing to look through the veil of what various mechanics in the market are theoretically intended to accomplish, and just pay attention to what they actually do. There are a number of market mechanics that get really strange in extreme circumstance, and shorting is one of them, as using it to the extreme can absolutely crush a company's share price and actually harm the company badly. The counter to that is the increasing risk of a squeeze, which gets worse with extreme price volatility.
Imagine it this way. Short interest in a stock is like the stock comes with a very strange feature--a closed wormhole portal into the brokerage account of the short position holder that, if slammed with a high enough day or week end price, blows open and sucks their account capital through, and possibly their broker's capital too, until they've patched it closed again with shares of stock they were short.
That's not how you're supposed to look at it, but that's kind of how it actually works in practice. Most wall street types would find it appalling and wrong to think about it that way, but with Millenials and younger jumping in to the market we're talking about generations of people who grew up watching things like people doing 4 minute speed runs through games intended to take~100 hrs to complete, using nothing but the mechanics of the game in ways entirely unintended by the developers. That's kind of what GME is like, from a certain point of view--a speed run through the market, blitzing and confusing everyone watching--throwing a ton of money at hedge funds' short interest until you blow a hole in their account and suck the capital out with the force of a black hole. Of course people are getting jumpy.

Battleground - Strategy and Tactics

In a way, GME has turned into a battleground stock in the minds of many wall street people. Wall Street vs WSB is basically the way it's been depicted in the media, and a number of them seem to be taking it personally.
With a battleground stock I find it helpful to think of it like a literal battleground, but with territory marked out by stock price. It helps you consider the impact on each 'side', what their motives are, and tactical and strategic implications. The reason I think this way is that once a stock becomes a battleground, the issue is no longer about price discovery--it's about proving a point or accomplishing a specific goal, which changes the dynamics of the trade.
In my opinion, the retail strength/defensive line is at the $148 level as mentioned in my previous post analyzing the week. This is based on the majority of volume being in the runup from $30 to $148, which triggered the first squeeze.
My guess is short-side strength hardens at the $350 level, based on that being the level at which the whale plugged the first squeeze. What this means is that you can expect some short-side people to actively short more at that level, possibly following through on momentum, as many of them want to prove a point that GME is a <$20 stock, as stated by a number of them on CNBC. $350 might seem like a low number given Friday's close, but remember that Friday trading was subject to the uptick rule, so the short effectively could not push back, and was instead fighting a rearguard action to bleed the long-side advance as much as possible, and lure them off their strength as much as possible.
Say what? Is there a point to those analogies like that? Why yes, of course, because those analogies are very good mental models for what is going to happen in a short squeeze campaign.
Remember, in the grand scheme of things, the goal of the long side is first and foremost to lock up liquid float. That means buying and holding shares. The question is.. how much will it cost you to move the needle on that, so to speak. the higher the price the short side can force you to pay to lock up float, the longer it'll take and the more expensive it will be. It is also like fighting far from your supply lines in that respect, in that there will be weaker hands mixed in far beyond hard support levels, such that quick pushes by the short side will shake them out, loosening float back up.
How about on the long side? You want the short side to overextend themselves by shorting the price down on momentum, and hopefully get them to keep building up short interest at the lowest price at which they will do so. This means having to have the patience to see the price go as low as you can tolerate before you start losing your key support to despair. Why? Because it means you're buying the shares they throw at you at a lower price (costs less to move the needle on locking up liquid free float) and also that their short position is at a lower average price, lowering the price it will take to trigger a squeeze.
The above is why, in some cases, you will see a sharp dip before the vertical move in a squeeze. You can essentially lure the short side into an ambush by falling back to lower and lower price points, which allows you to continue to lock up free float at ever cheaper prices while the short side thinks it is winning. Once you think you've accumulated enough to prevent covering without a parabolic price move, you spike the price back the other way and it's effectively game over. It can take some time to play out to its conclusion, but that is the essence of it.
Let's make it concrete and put some numbers to it. let's say you need to lock up 10mio more shares for the squeeze (no idea, just using the number for easy math). If you can buy it all skirmishing at the $200 line, you'll pay $2bn to do it. If instead you've extended to the $300 line, you're going to pay $3bn. If you're an alpha-seeking whale, why pay 50% more to accomplish the same thing if you can get away with it? If you recall, I referenced seeing what I thought looked like this type of ticker behavior in my 3rd post.
That being said, you might not mess around with those types of tactics at this point if you think you're already close to blowing up the next short interest holder.
If you think you're close, then you're looking at the most efficient way to make the last tick at trading close as high as possible.
That is very similar to the price action we saw on Friday at the end of the day, as mentioned earlier. If you think about it, if the goal is the have the price at/above a certain point at the end of the day, what is more efficient? Rush in the morning, then have to pay that higher price level for the whole day to maintain it, or wait until later in the day, as late as you think you can manage, and then push to that point at the very last tick?
That, at least, is a very high level view of what you're trying to accomplish, but it gets very complicated in the details. If you're dueling with a good HFT algorithm, you can run into things like the price getting spiked to trigger halts to run out the clock (kind of like fouling someone in basketball), which gets harder in the final minutes of trading due to the wider LU/LD allowances, but still doable, even if you have to do it by sucking price level up (maybe to give you 5 mins to call your buddy at Blackrock to dump shares onto the ticker or something like that).
Another thing to keep in mind. One of the reasons these things can roll on for a long time, is it might not be a one and done blowout (possibly on purpose). Think about it--if you can get people to keep piling short interest in--particularly for emotional reasons, you can ring the register as many times as they are willing to keep doing it to ultimately prove their point. Think of the Citron guy who re-shorted back in around what.. $90 or $100 I think? All because he wanted to make his point when he got blown out at the move off of $30. There are people piling back in right now. Who knows how many times they're willing to reload the short float.
Ok, so this post is much longer than I originally intended anyway, but I think the diagram and some of the descriptions above should provide a good amount of food for thought and discussion. A number of people asked me why I said that price to squeeze was secondary at this point. If you haven't already figured out why, try to think about it, or maybe ask in comments and someone can help with a further discussion.
A couple of final points:

Assuming the long-side people continue to lock up liquid float, remember that volatility can get greater in BOTH directions. This can mean that you get wiped out if you're somehow still trading GME on margin, as a quick price collapse can get you margin called even if the price quickly rebounds later.
Greater volatility means you should mentally prepare for big dips as well as swings to the upside. Pre-market and after hours trading don't have circuit breakers, so it could get wild during those times too.
Also with extreme volatility you end up possibly hitting halts more frequently. After the first frustrating day of this happening with GME I made myself a basic thinkorswim thinkscript study so I'd have a handy reference on whether it looked like this was going to happen. For those of you on ToS, use it on the 1 minute chart. Note that the LULD tolerances are different in first few minutes and toward the end of the day, so you'd have to adjust the parameters (or just keep it in mind). I use it with the step lines vs the default line. If price crosses the guard lines then you're getting close--if it crosses the circuit breaker line then you're about to be or already are getting halted. Here is the code:

input TrailingPeriodLength = 5; input CircuitBreakerPercent = 10.0; input GuardMultiplePercent = 70.0; def trlAvg = Average(close, TrailingPeriodLength); plot trailingAverage = trlAvg; plot upperStop = trlAvg * (1 + CircuitBreakerPercent / 100); plot lowerStop = trlAvg * (1 - CircuitBreakerPercent / 100); plot upperRail = trlAvg * (1 + CircuitBreakerPercent / 100 * GuardMultiplePercent / 100); plot lowerRail = trlAvg * (1 - CircuitBreakerPercent / 100 * GuardMultiplePercent / 100);

Also, I got a comment in another post telling me to get a job lol. Actually I have one, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post from Monday forward. As I've mentioned in a few comments on prior posts, I actually am not active on social media normally. I just created this account to try to help people use this probably once-in-a-lifetime event and the intense interest it's generating to help people learn to become better investors and traders. I'll try to keep posting, but maybe not as regularly, and probably shorter (which I know some of you will be happy about :)).
Hope you all have a good rest of the weekend. Good luck in the Market on Monday

AITA for not giving my cousin a PS5?

300-400 Viewer Average and Partner in 5 Months Here is my Advice

Just yesterday I hit ~~free twitch turbo~~ partner on twitch after roughly 5 months of streaming (somewhat) consistently. Today I'm hoping to share some decent advice and give my own (learned) opinion on some of the frequent yet not always useful tips shared around here.
Before writing this I did a cursory search through the subreddit for frequently asked questions so hopefully this answers most of the ones that I myself have any experience to answer.
My simple request: I'm not going to be posting any links to my stream or anything but if you go out of your way to find it please don't follow/subscribe to the channel unless you are genuinely interested. Thanks big boss.

Should you stream?

If I have to read another thread or comment of a person asking if they should stream I am going to scream. What do you people expect to hear? Yes, please stream the world needs you, you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams and have all the clout to have ever been cloutted.
I know people who usually type out questions like that probably don't read posts but here is a hack I've used to answer my own dumb questions through out the years. Say that shit out loud and respond to it like someone asked you the question. Nine times out of ten, you end up answering it yourself and on the off-chance you actually don't you should have a more actionable question.
Example: Instead of asking "should I stream?" you end up realizing the only thing holding you back is having no mic or something. The question then becomes "I want to stream what's a good cheap mic?". Which is a lot better and doesn't make people want to pelt you with rocks.
For those of you who ask "should I stream or is it a waste of time?" please, I BEG YOU, stop. Most of the shit you do is a waste of time, you either want to stream or don't. Make a decision based on that.

Webcam, do you need one?

This question is asked so often that I see it every time I come on the subreddit. Unsurprisingly, the answer is always the same as well, yes you do.
However I disagree.
I have never streamed with a webcam, not a single time, yet I'm still here and somehow managed to get partnered.
Now, I know why every one parrots the same advice, it is because the people making tip threads, youtube videos, etc., all say to use a webcam. Harris Heller said it once and I'm pretty sure that was enough for the people who copy and paste what he says in text threads here to become their mantra.
The truth is, all that matters is the content. Ask yourself do you do/want to do a lot of react/just chatting content? If so, you probably want a webcam since your content will focus around reacting to content. Lirik doesn't use face-cam because his content is his gameplay and commentary, not his face. Corpse literally blew up and is famous for not showing his face (even though he is still a personality).
I know the whole "Lirik doesn't use a face cam" argument is going to be met with people saying "exception not the rule!!!" but seriously, just use your head. Half the people you watch probably don't need face cams. MoonMoon probably doesn't need a face cam, Critikal didn't have a face cam until he already had over a million subs on youtube, schlatt didn't either, Dream doesn't, AdmiralBahroo doesn't, almost every DBD streamer I watch doesn't, just think for yourself.
The point I'm trying to drive home here is not just that a webcam isn't required, but also you need to look at what you want to create and decide for yourself.
Edit: I saw someone say somewhere that you need a webcam for sponsors. That's cap. I've had a sponsor and nobody has seen this ugly mug.

Equipment in general

People like saying that they need this this and that before they start streaming. This is just stalling. Until last month I hadn't owned a desktop PC my whole life. Before that it was just laptops and using my phone to read chat or look up things. You obviously need SOME equipment to start, i.e. a computer and some form of internet connection, but that doesn't mean you need to pick up a shure, a streamdeck, 4 monitors, 6 consoles, and whatnot.
Here is my setup. Keep in mind I literally just upgraded this last month after saving up for several months:

Blue Yeti: Hell ya baby got a free game with it too so I'm for sure pleased with this purchase. Edit: I recommend shopping around for mics since the yeti isn't as much of a "get this for streaming" mic as it once was. Plenty of good options out there for cheaper
Two BenQ monitors: Like I said, I was using my phone for chat but that got old fast. These monitors are cheap and 144hz. There are some color issues but eff it I barely notice anymore
Streamer PC from NZXT: My old laptop was from 2016 and made editing literal hell. Averaged 3 crashes every time I would try and render (and the renders took about an hour). Upgrading to this was the most worth purchase I've ever made. Also, the streamer PC got upgraded since I purchased, so you can grab a 2070 instead of the 2060 ti like I have :)
Red Dragon Keyboard and Mouse: I'm a cheap ass so when I see light up peripherals for like 40 bucks total I am sold.
Earbuds: Legit don't know the brand. I stole them from my sister like a year ago. I prefer these over a headset anyway since I don't want that gamer dent lmao

For those of you who are probably saying "GROSS A PRE-BUILT" remember that part prices are actual aids right now, not to mention the availability of even finding good parts. If you have the cash go pre-built that shit is amazing.
My recommendation:
Stay with your shitty set-up as long as possible but make sure to pick up a good mic first. Big streamers (looking at you Ludwig) shit on the Yeti, but straight facts all you need is to EQ that shit a lil bit and nobody will bat an eye. You don't have to pick up the Yeti (there are lots of cheaper options) but that's just the one I and many others have gotten since it is reliably a good ass mic.
Audio <- chat engagement <- pc upgrade

YouTube

How many people have to tell you bums to focus on YouTube before you do it? Twitch sucks ass. I'll say it, i'm brave. No discoverability, especially to those of you at the very bottom. Make a goddamn YouTube and start pumping out videos, it is not hard.
Ludwig made a power point on how to be a streamer that talks about a few things but the most important point of all was what he said on creating content for stream/YouTube. This isn't the exact timestamp but it do be close: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/896089267?t=01h24m14s
That advice is coming from a top streamer who also has over a million subs on YouTube by almost exclusively taking twitch vods and editing them for YouTube.
As for getting views on your videos here is my advice from my personal experiences:

Thumbnail and title are important but there are outliers that can thrive without doing shit. One guy I saw has their most watched video (over 250k views) with a title like "[game] [character] gameplay" and the literal default thumbnail that youtube makes. AND to top that off it was just a VOD from their twitch channel.
Audience retention matters. There is a reason massive YouTubers have these weird zoom in pans and flamboyant gestures all the time. Lots of movement and noises keep our tiny attention spans happy and frequently cutting is usually the key to success, although don't overuse it. I do very light edits and have been growing but that's more of my personal preference rather than a growth strategy.
Respond and engage. If you have one comment on your video and they are complimenting you, why aren't you responding? This is by far the easiest way to get someone to continue to engage with you and trust me, that is the most important thing in the algorithms eyes.

My understanding of YouTube

So obviously, clickthrough rate and audience retention are the things that are constantly brought up when talking about gaining more views and what not, but I am fairly comfortable in saying that there are other metrics that you should be paying attention to.
Let me hit you with a something that would make Dream shake in his boots. I don't subscribe to anyone on YouTube. *gasp*
The reason for that being, I almost always have the videos I want to see on my home page. I never have to go, "wonder if x YouTuber made a video" since YouTube knows I watch and enjoy their stuff. The question for most people being, how does YouTube know what people like and how does it suggest it to them? Basically, by seeing how often people engage with your content AND also what type of content you create. (although keep in mind, youtube tries to throw new videos at you a lot as well, these are usually in-line with content you engage with though)
For engagement, think of it as like affinity points in a video game but in reverse. Before you get to bang that smoking hot sim, you got to woo them. Every time someone likes your video they get a point, every time they comment they get two, every subscription counts as like 10, watching an entire video might be 20, etc. Obviously, these are made up values but I hope you follow what I'm putting down here. Once they get enough points you start showing up more in their home page.
I know this because I have a different account on my phone that doesn't have the same suggestions as my main account because I watch different things on my PC than my phone. However, I do like to look at the comments while I'm taking a dump or something. Problem was, my videos were rarely every recommended. I solved this easily by liking a couple videos. I didn't even watch them, just liked and read comments. LITERALLY NOT EVEN SUBSCRIBED AND I GET NOTIFICATIONS ON MY PHONE SOMETIMES WHEN A VIDEO DOES WELL!
In other words, by getting people to like and comment on your videos you are almost guaranteeing they see future videos from you.
Now, keep in mind, engagement is only a small portion of the whole pie. And even though you might engage with a content creator often, there is still a chance you miss some of their videos because of one other reason, the content's genre.

Content Genre

You might have noticed this phenomenon on various different creators YouTubes, but sometimes they create a video that bombs. Usually, this happens when they create something outside of their niche. This could be as simple as changing games, or as radical as changing the entire direction of the channel. Even if you engage like crazy with a creator, if they change the content enough, you won't get that shit recommended to you.
This is the main reason some creators have several channels and why some even get pigeonholed to one type of content. The reality of it is, if you build your audience on one piece of content and then want to change it, you will be fighting an uphill battle. One of the best ways to fight that is to diversify early OR better yet, emphasize your personality over the content. Jschlatt shits views and he does whatever the hell he wants really. Same goes for jacksepticeye, markiplier, Ludwig, Critikal, XQC, and numerous other creators.
That being said, doing one game/genre isn't a bad strategy either. A metric fuck ton of OfflineTv's videos are the same game. DisguisedToast played Hearthstone on repeat, then switched to TFT, THEN switched to among us, and his videos absolutely kill. Valkyrae is one of the biggest streamers period and all she does is play/upload among us and rust. Then of course we have all the minecraft streamers too.
It's really up to you to decide, but I'd recommend going towards personality content since that allows the most flexibility.

Other Social Media (Twitter, IG, etc)

Lots of people here seem to think that they don't have time to do YouTube or some other BS they think up as an excuse, so they think that twitter, instagram, tiktok, etc are all ways to grow. Trust me, they are not good ways to grow.
These are all stupid treadmills that trick you into thinking you're doing something when in reality you aren't moving the needle by much if by any at all. Posting ten dumb tweets and reposting memes on IG seem "productive" if you frame it in the light of "content creation" but the two people that see all of these things don't really give a shit. Spend that time working on a video for YouTube.
Don't give me this "I don't have time" bullshit. Do small videos and work yourself up, become better and faster. Perfectionism is a cute word for procrastination.
Ok, now that I took a shit on them so hopefully, you won't grind on them all day, these are still ways to grow and are important. Having multiple platforms for fans to communicate and engage with you is always a good idea, but don't spread yourself so thin early on when nobody knows who you are. Prioritize the thing that will get eighty percent of your results.
I personally have a discord for people to come and chat in. Thing is, I had no intention of doing so because I don't really use discord that much. The only reason it exists is that people kept asking for it in the comments on my YouTube videos so I made one.
TL;DR: Don't put the cart before the horse :)
Edit: Oh ya I forgot to mention. TikTok is trash for growth. I won't mention names cuz that's probably toxic(?) but there is someone signed on luminosity who has 690k TikTok followers and 95k YouTube subscribers who barely cracks 100 views on Twitch and has a hard time getting over 1k on YouTube. So don't go thinking TikTok leads to immense fame ya darn kids

Hosting/Raiding

Getting hosted/raided means actual jack. I remember pretty clearly when I had like ten viewers, I got hosted by someone with twenty-five or something. I think only one person ended up saying anything in the chat to me about it and although some stayed for the entire stream, by the time I went live again I lost all of the people who were in the host. This seems to be something others have mentioned as well, you won't retain almost any views from hosts/raids.
Edit: Please do try raiding/hosting or otherwise networking with other streamers at least once. Your mileage may vary and it could end up blowing up your channel. Who knows?
Edit edit: Having something that you can do during the stream is huge when getting hosted/raided. Most of the time, if not all of the time, a streamer is ENDING their stream and sending viewers to you rather than timing it for your own content. So if you are doing something uninteresting or are in the middle of something you are going to get less retention than if you did something crazy to impress the newcomers. In other words, having a strategy for hosting/raiding growth is key.

Speaking on stream

This seems to be something a lot of people struggle with on Twitch since so many people ask how to do it when nobody is watching/chatting. Coming from someone who had this problem, the answer is pretty simple, talk for the content not the chat.
What I mean by this is you should be focusing on your content more than the chat. Since I play games, what I do is just say some shit about whats happening on screen and sometimes say something that is hopefully funny. Pick up a garbage item? Say something about how garbage the item is, ez.
If you're streaming to NO VIEWERS you shouldn't be streaming to stream anyway. What you should be doing is making a YouTube video in the hopes of getting viewers to watch your stream. The only way to do that is to have good content planned out that should effectively act as your script. Again, Ludwigs stream on this is good (it'll probably be a video soon) so make sure to check it out.
A more recent problem I've had was just how much I engaged with chat (suffering from success I know). When I went to edit the videos I had to cut large swathes of the video because I was just chatting to people. Make sure to avoid this when you are actually trying to get content out for YouTube as it can mess up the flow of a video and make it harder to edit. You still can chat with people just make sure not to go overboard. Again, Ludwig is a perfect example of this, just look at his videos and streams and notice the difference between the two.

Streaming as a job/hobby

I hate this dumb argument of streaming isn't your hobby or twitch isn't your job. You have 24 hours in the day, subtract 8 for sleeping and depending on your job, 9 for work. All that extra time can be spent doing whatever the fuck you want. Want to get big and make money streaming? Do work. Want to just stream while you're playing games anyway? Do that.
IF YOU WANT TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL AT SOMETHING YOU PUT IN THE AMOUNT OF EFFORT REQUIRED TO DO SO! So stop telling people it has to be a hobby or it has to be a job. It can be either for christ's sake.

Partner difference

I have a checkmark which makes me a better person.
No, but seriously, partner doesn't really do much other than add more emote slots and some quality options. Also, you don't gain extra cash as a partner either. I don't have the mystical bounty board or god-tier split, just the checkmark to flex baby.

Opinion on affiliate

Devin Nash made a video about how affiliate is a scam, which is kinda true but only for people with no viewers. Having the sub button is huge and even when I was small small, affiliate gave me a couple hundred bucks a month for no effort on my part. Patreon is probably better though, no lie.

Twitch "grind"

If you stream 5+ hours a day without making content that lives somewhere else please form a neat line so I can smack you all. People saying they have no time drives me nuts, but when they also "grind" all day AND say that, it makes me want to punch air.

Stream YouTube friendly content
Stop stream and edit content
Upload and plug twitch in the video
repeat

That is the only "grind" you should be on. Affiliate is stupid if the 3 viewers you have are all just you on a different ipad.

Luck

You know what? Maybe PewDiePie got lucky and that's how he is such a big YouTuber. Maybe early twitch streamers got all their views because they were early adopters. Or maybe these people only got lucky because they showed up and actually put the effort in.
There are plenty of videos on my channel that looked like flops at first. They got like a couple of hundred views and didn't do well. However, after continuously publishing, a whole bunch of them ended up blowing up and becoming some of the most-watched. Without publishing more videos they would have ended up dead in the water. Consistency > luck.
I don't believe too much in luck when it comes to doing very simple things (LIKE MAKING A YOUTUBE VIDEO) but you literally cannot win the lottery if you do not purchase a ticket, it's that simple.

Editing Software

A couple of people asked this so I thought I should add it here. I use davinci resolve for my videos. Previously, I used hitfilm or something like that I can't quite remember the name, but I had to switch because they don't allow you to have split audio channels (i.e. one for desktop audio and one for mic audio).
I've literally never touched any paid software like premier or anything because, again, I'm a cheap ass.

What should you upload to YouTube?

Seriously just look at Ludwig, smallant, DisguisedToast, literally every top Twitch streamer with a YouTube. All three of the people I just mentioned are over one million subs on YT and are top streamers, so they are definitely doing something right.
In terms of off-stream content, guides are king. If you're a small YT channel with ZERO subs you can still get thousands of views by hitting the search algorithm of YT. My first 3 videos were uncut gameplay, guide video, guide video, in that order. Guess which ones have tens of thousands of views and which has less than a thousand? Guide videos are insane for small channels.
Edit: Actually, let's just call it searchable content. Searchable content is king

Ending notes

I think that's about it for this post. Hopefully, I covered everything although I doubt I did. If you have any questions I'll try my best to answer them and will probably edit the good ones into the post.

Bitcoin and speculative stock investing are dark mirrors of each other and the whole system is rotten.

I know everyone is feeling down about the red, but please listen to this example. This is the Prisoner's Dilemma.

My Dissapointments and opinions on how Blizzard is treating OW this past year and a half, and what would i do to improve it

First of all let me introduce myself, im a Spanish Offtank player with a peak of 4500 who achieved Contenders Trials at the beggining of 2020 along with my teammates, i want to point that to let you know im way above the average user, and as somehow who spent the last 3 years competing on this game, my opinión might be more valuable than others (Sounds kinda yikes, but we can all agree that the opinion of an OWL player is more valuable than a gold player, so this is kinda the same but at different levels)
So im writing this because im sick of this game, so instead of crying, which is all i do in generall, imma do this and hope someone from blizzard sees it, where im gonna give contructive opinions and things they could improve.

· Path to Pro and Tournaments

To begin with, there is no reward on going pro, people have to take it as a full time job, just to get not enough money even to live in prison conditions, you can see on twitter that half of contenders players are just moving onto Boosting, Valorant or IRL stuff, just because of that, there are almost no orgs in contenders, why? Sponsors, Blizzard acts so hard about sponsors in contenders/trials, they have cocacola as sponsor, so if you have any drink company as sponsor (Monster, redbull…) well guess what, you cannot play under that sponsorship, so companies will not pay a team to dont represent them.
So with no orgs, there cannot be big names out there, thats why contenders has such a low viewership, even with the contenders skins thing, which lasted like 2 days, because who wants to stay afk for 7h watching a stream to get a Symmetra contenders skin… No one.
Also what the fuck happened with SA and PAC contenders? How is it possible that they dropped those two? PAC was like second division of chinese contenders yeah, but whats wrong with that? More regions equals more pros, more pros equals more people in OWL…

· Rewarding “yikes players”

For he last years, there have been a lot of changes that helped bad players, throwers, clients, etc.
Beggining with the private profile, back in the time you could just open someones profile and watch whatever, “Oh the enemy team have a junk and pharah main, lets play long range hitscans”, “Oh this person dropped 1000 sr in one season, he might be a bought account…” having someone that bought an account, aquired a boost or whatever being, able to hide is just shit, yet some of those are that Smart that dont pur their profile on private, and you see a dude in platinum inting with an account that was 4300 last season, but guess what blizzard does not care.
Smurfs, why would someone play on their main? There is no reward at all to do that, Skins? Already have all of them, gold guns? Worthless, in my opinion there should be a season pass like in Forntnite, Apex or some other games, rewarding people to play on their main, but smurfing gives you joy destroying games for people in lower ranks than you, hides your identity, so you can be super toxic, and you will not get banned, will explay why now.
Lets talk about bans,
(This only affects at gameplay sabotage or abusive chat, not to cheaters)
As easy as just getting banned once you recieve ciertain number of reports, so for example, if you drop the N Word once, nothing happens, because you need at least 20 reports, so you are free to do whatever you want before getting a mute or ban, which ends up on a 10h mute or some worthless shit.
Now comes the ontricking, how is it possible that in a game with more than 30 heroes someone wants to play only one hero, regardless of the game situation? Even if you get hard countered.
You wanna do it in QP? Ok, arcade? Ok, but brother, competitive is competitive, you play to win, and adapting to situations and enemy team compositions its a basic thing, don’t stick onto a hero.

· MMR resets and drastical meta shifts

Carter already talked about this, lets put as an example, a diamond Orisa player, double shield meta comes, he ranks up to 4200, meta changes, his main hero is now shit, but guess what, since there are no resets between seasons or anything, he will not drop, because on the enemy team the chances that there is someone in the same situation are so high, so one Will win, the other will lose, so in average the person will stay in the same SR, even withouth deserving it.
Also, the 3900 placements cap cannot be more shit, without reseting MMR, its literally worthless, the only thing it does is matching on the same game poeple that is 4500 with diamonds, also, as a personal experience, i managed to rank from 3900 to 4300 last season, with negative winrate, so imagine how shit that is, NEGATIVE WINRATE AND 400SR UP.

· Boosting, new accounts & account selling

So there is basically no control over that, and an incentive to do it, is getting 0 money because there are no open tournaments, maybe 1 or 2 per year, which is, of course, not enough
Also there is no control over that, someone from EU can boost an account of someone from NA and nothing happens, come on blizzard, if a platinum US account, suddently gets logged in Sweden, ranks up 500sr, and then it logs back to the owner’s country... Come on blizzard, just check a bit the IP’s and thats it, the feature already exists in the security page of your battlenet account.
Also another shit reason to do that, is that blizzard gifted 100.000k accounts for free, with the Gladiators and Toronto thing, come one man, now you rank up for a ranked game, and 10 out of the 12 players of the lobby are smurfs, and 8 out of that 10 are fresh accounts, that of course, the matchmaking cannot take control over that, so thats why MM is so bad.

· Events & Content

Well thats it, there is no fresh content, an event comes, and no one cares, people log in, buy the skins and logs off to continue smurfing.

· Balancing

On this point is just a meme that blizzard nerfed Hog and Genji ( 2 skill héroes ) after 1-2 weeks of being OP, but does not manage to blanace brig after 2 years of constant nerfs, this was already explained by Samito, if you nerf the numbers, but not the concept, the ability/hero will remain OP, same with Ball, Nerfing the shield so he has 800hp instead of 900 is just absurd, since the hero can fucking run faster than a bullet.
Patches are useless, irrelevant, back in the time there was complete hero reworks, ability reworks, NEW HEROES, drastical nerfs/buffs, but now theres this, shitty experimental patches that nerf 0.1 damage into one hero and thats it, well done blizzard.

· Competitive seasons

What season are we in, 28? 26? Doesnt matter, its literally irrelevant, seasons are too short and nothing differeniciates one season with the next one, in my opinion a good thing to improve that, would be making 3 seasons per year of 4 months each, with competitive rewards, and fresh things, so people would have an incentive to play on main accounts, which of course, the more main accounts are in a lobby, the better, since matchmaking is more balanced, people care about their main acc and all those things.

· Cheating

Half of the games there is at least one person cheating, its not even worth anymore to draw, I havent draw a lot of games, because if i do i would be afk 3 games per day, which is one hour.
How is it possible that someone rage hacks in one game, where everyone sees hes blatantly aimbotting, everyone reports that person, and doesn’t get banned? It doesnt fit on my mind, blizzard made us lose GamerDoc, a dude that was giving his life onto anti cheats and things, what happend? Since blizzard just ignored, he left for Valorant and he got hired by Riot, they saw someone doing a pretty good job, and they hired him, now they have an anti cheat 10 times better than us.
Also in the strange case that blizzard bans someone for cheating, remove/give back those points that were aquired/los ton that game…

· Toxicity and frustration

https://twitter.com/AvAtAr1822/status/1274744663719776258
As a savant person from EU called AvAtAr said, “Disgusting developer team breeding toxicity out of the player base by causing constant frustration and mocking people's grind by offering them unbalanced games for the sake of finding game.20 min q for this.And then they ban players for toxicity that they cause.disgusting thieves”
Its kinda agressive, but think about it, someone spends months grinding, just to get in a game with someone way lower that him that is not even trying…
That is a pretty strange thing, but its a fact that people are more toxic when they get on an unbalanced lobby, or are just sick of the state of the game, and watching how a company does nothing about your favorite game just frustrates people.
And as a final fact here, how is it possible that on GM you can only duo with people -+ SR ahead of you, but you get games with people 500sr lower… It just makes no sense, if you dont let me duo with someone, dont put it in the same game.
Now as a personal advice, i recomend to read this post, about how to manage tilt and those things
https://twitter.com/Moreweth2/status/1357460528248090624

· Queue times, playerbase, splitting gamemodes

Queue times are so high in all modes, why? There are too much modes, the clearest example could be the junkestein event, there used to be 2 modes, and 3 difficulties each, now when the event comes, there are 5 modes, with difficulties, which means the players are too split, for no reason, i would do the modes be random.
A good thing that i would do, that probably is kinda difficult to implement to boost playerbase drastically, is crossplay, in all gamemodes but competitive. Queue times for casual gamemodes would be much lower, also it allows you to play with people that doesnt have a PC, how many times have you talked with someone in class, you both played the same game but you played on PC and your friend on PS4/Xbox, so you couldnt play together?

· OW Excuse

So its been more than a year where blizzard is not doing a shit with the excuse of ow 2, no events, no balancing, no nothing, the game has been the same shit for more than a year.
TRANSPARENCY MAN, what is happening there, show is something, we dont know anything of OW 2, give people hype, because withouth knowing anything, people is just leaving.
Also there is the rumor that OW2 Demo in blizzcon was made in a month or so, if you look at gameplay, all looks kinda scuffed…

free games you can win money playing video

At Gembly you can win real prizes by playing the best free online card games, board games and puzzles such as Pyramid Solitaire 2, Klondike Solitaire, Sunset Solitaire, Bubble Up and 5Dice. Experience the thrill of playing against real opponents in the tournament games and participate in the Gembly lotteries to win real prizes for free. Playandwin.co.uk is Britain’s best gaming website offering free games and giving you a chance to win real money prizes. Play games like Yatzy, Ludo, Mahjong 3, Pow and more. You can also take part in the tournament and have a lot of fun. Lucktastic (iOS) allows users to play with 100% free scratch cards to win loads of free money. Just pick your theme, swipe digital scratch-offs, and test your luck to earn real money daily. This gaming app is a free and fun way to win real cash and prizes and earn rewards. Even if you just login daily to collect the daily bonus, you can save up for an Amazon gift card in a few days. Unfortunately, you can't expect that the free spins on this page will make you rich or that you will win cash every time you play free slots. Although many of these bonuses let you play real money slot machines for free with the opportunity to win cash online - don't forget winning money in gambling isn't easy. You can actually play games for money. Playing games is certainly highly addictive. It’s a fun pastime. Unfortunately, it eats up most of your time. As a result, you may be unproductive in your day. But here’s a way to take advantage of it all. And that’s through playing games. Another real money paying gaming app is Play and Win. You can win money playing solitaire, arcade games, bingo, puzzle games, matching games, card games, and multiplayer games to earn money. Also, you can also enter tournaments and challenges to earn additional rewards points. For redeeming your rewards points, you can use PayPal or enter ... Do you love playing online games? Then how does playing free online games to win real money with no deposit sound to you?. If you fired up your search engine and looked for games where you can ... There are more than 30 free games you can play, including word search, pool, chase, sudoku, card games and more. The average earnings per activity range from 25 cents to $5, so it’s easy for your money to grow. If you are serious about earning money by playing free games, I also recommend you download a good Bitcoin wallet to receive payments. There are three types of free games you can play and get paid: Satoshi Slot, BTC Scratch and Faucet. 15. Spark Profit. Spark Profit is a website that pays you to play games for free. You’ve just discovered Reelzone, the only place online where you can slot games you find on casinos, for absolutely free AND win real money while doing so. How? Play a slot game for free in one of our featured tournaments and compete for top spots on our leaderboard(s). If you grab one that qualifies for a prize, we’ll send you the reward ...

40 MONEY MAKING GAMES OF 2021. GET PAID UP TO $3000 ...

free games you can win money playing

free games you can win money playing - win

Torn City Online RPG

[OFFER] Long Game - Savings made fun! Get $5 for signing up and depositing $5. You also get coins you can use to play games and win real money! You will never lose your real money! Paying $2 for signing up and depositing! That’s $7 free plus free coins to play the games!

[OFFER] Long Game - Savings made fun! Get $15 for signing up and depositing $5. You also get coins you can use to play games and win real money! You will never lose your real money! Paying $5 for signing up and depositing! That’s $20 free plus free coins to play the games!

Do pay to win players really have a huge advantage?? let's find out. on most games this is what it usually looks like when you get pay to win vs free to play or cheap to play players who can't drop a lot of money into their games.

If anyone plays HQ (Trivia game app - it's free but you can win money).. tonight is THE OFFICE THEME game!

[Serious] Are there any free sites where you can play bingo or another game and win free money?

Keno is available for real money play at quite a few UK online casinos. However, lack of preparedness and understanding of the game can cost you wins. A better way, if you are new to the game, is to play the game in free play mode. Visit Now: https://www.casinositesuk.com/keno #onlinecasino

Gamestop Big Picture: The Short Singularity Pt 3 - WTF edition