<story><title>The Reddit GME short squeeze game plan (143 days old)</title><url>https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/ip6jnv/the_real_greatest_short_burn_of_the_century/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>elliekelly</author><text>&amp;gt; But the point is that NONE of this information or analysis was secret, conducted in back rooms, or even hard to find.&lt;p&gt;There seems to be a massive misunderstanding that somehow because these discussions happened publicly on reddit everything is fine and dandy. It seems people are conflating insider trading (which has nothing to do with the $GME short squeeze unless you’re wearing a tinfoil hat) and market manipulation. I would be surprised if the SEC went after redditors (this time, at least) but there is no “we did it openly and conspicuously” safe harbor or defense when it comes to charges of market manipulation or securities fraud.&lt;p&gt;There’s a reason market commentary comes with a whole bunch of disclaimers in the footnotes with language like “not intended as investment advice” and “references to specific securities and issuers are not intended to be, and should not be interpreted as, recommendations to purchase or sell securities”.</text></item><item><author>caseysoftware</author><text>I started following WSB just before this one.. it was calm then.&lt;p&gt;There was also a post along the lines of &amp;quot;there are ~50M public shares, 2M of us, if everyone bought 25 shares, we own GME!&amp;quot; At that stage, it was trading between $5-10 so for ~$250, it was silly but not impossible.&lt;p&gt;But the point is that NONE of this information or analysis was secret, conducted in back rooms, or even hard to find. If you didn&amp;#x27;t know the terminology and implications, it might be hard to decipher without someone else doing the heavy lifting but that&amp;#x27;s no different than any other market analysis.&lt;p&gt;For WSB, this is a perfect &lt;i&gt;positive black swan&lt;/i&gt;. The downside was capped ($250 at the time) and the upside is unlimited.&lt;p&gt;CNBC, et al need to look past the shitposting and see this is a new creature.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dasudasu</author><text>If it&amp;#x27;s 2 million people with $250 willing to make a bet, it&amp;#x27;s manipulation, but if a rich hedge fund manager like Soros has the money upfront to do something like short the pound and induce a Black Wednesday event [1] all by himself, that&amp;#x27;s fine and not manipulation at all? Just taking this as a random example. Any fund with enough money can move a market. This is their basic modus operandi.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Black_Wednesday&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Black_Wednesday&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Reddit GME short squeeze game plan (143 days old)</title><url>https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/ip6jnv/the_real_greatest_short_burn_of_the_century/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>elliekelly</author><text>&amp;gt; But the point is that NONE of this information or analysis was secret, conducted in back rooms, or even hard to find.&lt;p&gt;There seems to be a massive misunderstanding that somehow because these discussions happened publicly on reddit everything is fine and dandy. It seems people are conflating insider trading (which has nothing to do with the $GME short squeeze unless you’re wearing a tinfoil hat) and market manipulation. I would be surprised if the SEC went after redditors (this time, at least) but there is no “we did it openly and conspicuously” safe harbor or defense when it comes to charges of market manipulation or securities fraud.&lt;p&gt;There’s a reason market commentary comes with a whole bunch of disclaimers in the footnotes with language like “not intended as investment advice” and “references to specific securities and issuers are not intended to be, and should not be interpreted as, recommendations to purchase or sell securities”.</text></item><item><author>caseysoftware</author><text>I started following WSB just before this one.. it was calm then.&lt;p&gt;There was also a post along the lines of &amp;quot;there are ~50M public shares, 2M of us, if everyone bought 25 shares, we own GME!&amp;quot; At that stage, it was trading between $5-10 so for ~$250, it was silly but not impossible.&lt;p&gt;But the point is that NONE of this information or analysis was secret, conducted in back rooms, or even hard to find. If you didn&amp;#x27;t know the terminology and implications, it might be hard to decipher without someone else doing the heavy lifting but that&amp;#x27;s no different than any other market analysis.&lt;p&gt;For WSB, this is a perfect &lt;i&gt;positive black swan&lt;/i&gt;. The downside was capped ($250 at the time) and the upside is unlimited.&lt;p&gt;CNBC, et al need to look past the shitposting and see this is a new creature.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kevin_thibedeau</author><text>If they were an incorporated bank, made the same realization, and executed a buyout it would be perfectly legal.</text></comment>