LogFAQs > #950846078

Thomas Peterffy, the IBKR chairman and founder, has basically said that the short squeeze was starting and would have happened if brokerages did not stop buying. He also said that Robinhood traders, with only about $40 billion in assets, were not big enough players to move markets that much, so that sounds a lot like a confession that it was the actions of larger brokerages like IBKR that stopped the squeeze. He thinks that the squeeze would have caused something of a system collapse (I interpret that to mean brokerages taking heavy losses as their short selling clients get margin called and the positions cannot be closed without going beyond the equity the short sellers have, putting the liability onto the brokerage).

As for people saying to buy GME not to make money but as part of a social movement, well, they were pretty transparent I think. They said to buy it and expect to lose money. If people bought it based on that, well, they must have expected to lose money. If I go watch a movie at a theater I expect to lose the money I pay for admission; if I play a round of golf I expect to lose the money I pay the golf course; if I read some social media person's post saying to buy ABC stock and lose money, and I buy it based on that, I must be comfortable with losing that money.

WSB went down conspiracy theory land a bit with all the talk of short ladders and that kind of stuff.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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