<story><title>Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop</title><url>https://twitter.com/KHOUStephanie/status/1354781130021609478</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>whimsicalism</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m just not really sure I understand the narratives being thrown around right now, and I&amp;#x27;d like to think I understand the economy somewhat&lt;p&gt;Melvin Capital closed out their short position yesterday with a large loss - and Citadel helped cover that loss.&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, Citadel and Melvin Capital no longer are holding any short positions in Gamestop. So what do they have to gain, by your narrative, from suppressing the price?&lt;p&gt;Citadel is probably making bank off of this actually, like a lot of other sell-side firms.</text></item><item><author>beachwood23</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think this was Robinhood&amp;#x27;s choice.&lt;p&gt;Robinhood doesn&amp;#x27;t actually execute any trades. They sell user&amp;#x27;s trade orders to Citadel, a trade executor. Citadel then buys the shares on the market, and sells them to Robinhood for a slight markup. It&amp;#x27;s how Robinhood offers trades for $0 fees. You pay pennies more per share, but don&amp;#x27;t have to spend $5 per trade.&lt;p&gt;Citadel, and other trade executors, are refusing to buy shares for retail traders. Coincidentally, Citadel also bailed out Melvin fund for their short position in GME. So, Citadel has an interest in not letting the price go up any further. And citadel controls trade execution for dozens of firms.&lt;p&gt;This is definitely illegal. But Citadel is betting that the resulting SEC fines from this illegal manipulation will be less than the loss they would get if they didn&amp;#x27;t suppress the price.</text></item><item><author>wyldfire</author><text>Can someone help me understand Robinhood&amp;#x27;s POV?  This just seems so outrageous that there must be some sane rationale that I&amp;#x27;m not seeing.&lt;p&gt;Why do Robinhood, Reddit, Discord, etc feel like they have to respond to this?  Whether the investments being made are responsible or not, it doesn&amp;#x27;t seem like it should be their place to intervene.&lt;p&gt;If the hedge funds over-shorted GME and WSB recognized that and traded against that bad analysis, then that&amp;#x27;s great!  If the pendulum swung the other direction and WSB is trading into some momentum, how is that any different than the hedge funds doing the same with shorts?  Why should Robinhood pick a winner (siding &lt;i&gt;against&lt;/i&gt; their own customers)?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>beachwood23</author><text>Yesterday, there was a 140% short position on Gamestop.&lt;p&gt;Today, there is still a 122% short position on Gamestop. There are still many funds hedged against GME. Melvin might have had one of the larger positions, but there are many more funds with this position. Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;finviz.com&amp;#x2F;quote.ashx?t=GME&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;finviz.com&amp;#x2F;quote.ashx?t=GME&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;As you say, they would make money by running the orders, regardless if GME goes up or down. So - why would they stop? It is most likely that Citadel is still exposed to other funds holding short positions in GME.</text></comment>
<story><title>Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop</title><url>https://twitter.com/KHOUStephanie/status/1354781130021609478</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>whimsicalism</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m just not really sure I understand the narratives being thrown around right now, and I&amp;#x27;d like to think I understand the economy somewhat&lt;p&gt;Melvin Capital closed out their short position yesterday with a large loss - and Citadel helped cover that loss.&lt;p&gt;As far as I know, Citadel and Melvin Capital no longer are holding any short positions in Gamestop. So what do they have to gain, by your narrative, from suppressing the price?&lt;p&gt;Citadel is probably making bank off of this actually, like a lot of other sell-side firms.</text></item><item><author>beachwood23</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think this was Robinhood&amp;#x27;s choice.&lt;p&gt;Robinhood doesn&amp;#x27;t actually execute any trades. They sell user&amp;#x27;s trade orders to Citadel, a trade executor. Citadel then buys the shares on the market, and sells them to Robinhood for a slight markup. It&amp;#x27;s how Robinhood offers trades for $0 fees. You pay pennies more per share, but don&amp;#x27;t have to spend $5 per trade.&lt;p&gt;Citadel, and other trade executors, are refusing to buy shares for retail traders. Coincidentally, Citadel also bailed out Melvin fund for their short position in GME. So, Citadel has an interest in not letting the price go up any further. And citadel controls trade execution for dozens of firms.&lt;p&gt;This is definitely illegal. But Citadel is betting that the resulting SEC fines from this illegal manipulation will be less than the loss they would get if they didn&amp;#x27;t suppress the price.</text></item><item><author>wyldfire</author><text>Can someone help me understand Robinhood&amp;#x27;s POV?  This just seems so outrageous that there must be some sane rationale that I&amp;#x27;m not seeing.&lt;p&gt;Why do Robinhood, Reddit, Discord, etc feel like they have to respond to this?  Whether the investments being made are responsible or not, it doesn&amp;#x27;t seem like it should be their place to intervene.&lt;p&gt;If the hedge funds over-shorted GME and WSB recognized that and traded against that bad analysis, then that&amp;#x27;s great!  If the pendulum swung the other direction and WSB is trading into some momentum, how is that any different than the hedge funds doing the same with shorts?  Why should Robinhood pick a winner (siding &lt;i&gt;against&lt;/i&gt; their own customers)?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tsdlts</author><text>They didn&amp;#x27;t tell you how much of the position they closed out on. They can say &amp;quot;they closed their position&amp;quot; even if they only closed out on 1% of it.</text></comment>