GameStop Thoughts to a Friend

It’s very common for either the SEC, the exchanges, or brokerages to do something “unallowed” in an extreme situation and then see their actions turn into a new trading rule.

That happened during the flash crash in May of 2010, when the market dropped 1,000 points in minutes. I have a local buddy who owned many puts and made millions, literally, only to have the SEC unwind a number of trades and his bona fide profits were wiped away.

I really had no idea how crazy this week was until my 18 year old godson messaged me, for the first time ever, to ask for trading advice. The biggest issue with this week's big moves was there were no fundamentals to support the meteoric rises we saw in GameStop, AMC, BB, etc. It’s not the buying that makes money, it’s the selling – when were these casual day traders going to sell their stock? They had no exit plan and got caught up in the moment.

The problem with this week’s activities was the motivation of the Redditors was nefarious – they intended to hurt the hedge funds that were short, so that might not bode well for them. But I’m still evaluating what happened and my opinion is in flux.