Irish Stockbroker firm predicts 4.8% growth in 2021

[JohnRoberts]

This is simply not true,  despite what several media outlets are reporting. The actual facts are easily verified by simply spending some time reading the reddit thread at the center of things.

The real manipulation is trying to create the illusion of a short squeeze in SLV.  Who owns very large long positions there? The very same funds getting crushed by GME.

For the record I did not say that the price movement in silver was a short squeeze (most holders are long), but a similar to Gamestop attempt to manipulate order flows with social media touts.  (I repeat look up the Hunt Brothers for their failed attempt to corner the silver market years ago. )

One theory is that this is a conspiracy to punish bankers that reportedly hold silver, but since they are typically long, I don't see how moving the price up would hurt them. Any short positions in silver are routine futures hedging to protect against commodity market moves. Held by "hedge funds" hmmm...

I don't trade in or on conspiracy theories. I am long some silver just like a modest amount of gold in my stock portfolio, mostly to buy ammo with after the revolution. Silver is arguably a precious metal, and often trades in sympathy with gold, but is also a commodity with commercial uses.

I agree about caution with margin.  But again the real problem is the institutions which are overleveraged, doing all kinds of mischievous things creating systemic risk to the entire system.  But of course the retail investor will get blamed if things go too far south.

Or the government and central bankers that have pumped so much excess liquidity into the economy. This is indeed causing all kinds of economic distortions as I have been saying right here for years. 

===
The swamp dwellers have noticed the game stop trading activity... something like 51 million shares changing hands daily. Rep Ilhan Omar has proposed a 0.1% stock transaction tax to raise $1T and use that to retire college debt.

This is not a new idea, in fact I have even discussed a tiny transaction tax to discourage high speed trading, just like charging postage on spam would quickly make it uneconomic. So stop presses we almost agree...  but in classic political (faulty) math, if they charged 0.1% per trade they wouldn't get so many trades any more and won't raise a fraction of the money needed to buy votes with free college. But it sounds good to equally math (economics) challenged listeners. 

JR

 

[john12ax7]

For the record I did not say that the price movement in silver was a short squeeze (most holders are long), but a similar to Gamestop attempt to manipulate order flows with social media touts.

Gamestop started 1+ year ago by long time online users that did fundamental analysis seeing it was at a deep discount to cash flow (when it was a $3 stock) while also being 100+% shorted. It was actually a savvy investment play that grew organically and snowballed.

Silver is nothing like that.  Yes there are posts promoting it now,  but they are almost entirely from new user accounts less than a week old in what seems like a large scale concerted effort to manipulate the price upwards.

The GME crowd wants nothing to do with SLV.

 

[Tubetec]

We'll have to call you 'Long John Silver' from here on in so  ;D

 

[scott2000]

Ahahaha...

 

[JohnRoberts]

Gamestop started 1+ year ago by long time online users that did fundamental analysis seeing it was at a deep discount to cash flow (when it was a $3 stock) while also being 100+% shorted. It was actually a savvy investment play that grew organically and snowballed.

Silver is nothing like that.  Yes there are posts promoting it now,  but they are almost entirely from new user accounts less than a week old in what seems like a large scale concerted effort to manipulate the price upwards.

The GME crowd wants nothing to do with SLV.

I am unsure what exactly you are arguing... but it appears you are arguing something.

SLV the silver etf in my account is up 7% today.

I am absolutely not pimping silver, if anything thinking of selling my quick gain off, because it it not rational. Maybe tomorrow.

Buy low sell high...

JR

 

[john12ax7]

I'm saying the people that currently are pimping silver is NOT the retail investing crowd from gamestop.  The media is conflating the two,  either due to lazy incapable reporting,  or more nefarious purposes.  Please don't buy into the narrative that they are the same.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I'm saying the people that currently are pimping silver is NOT the retail investing crowd from gamestop.

do you mean not the people from the reddit forum?  There are some conspiracy theories I won't repeat but suspicions of big money actors behind all of this.

The media is conflating the two,  either due to lazy incapable reporting,  or more nefarious purposes.  Please don't buy into the narrative that they are the same.

The media does not have a f'n clue. It would almost be humorous if so many people didn't take them seriously.

Now the government is tapping in "to help us" ...  sad, but life today. .

JR 

 

[john12ax7]

do you mean not the people from the reddit forum?

Yes, this. They are not from the reddit forum. There are so many news stories of "reddit turns its attention to silver ". Anyone can easily go to the reddit forum to see this isn't true.  You would think reading the actual forum would be the first thing someone reporting about reddit would do.  But alas even that seems too high a bar for modern media.

 

[Script]

At some point there were 260 percent of short positions on all publicly available GameStop shares. Madness.

Europe had been discussing transaction fees again about a year ago. I'd not be fully against it, until some ideas transpired that high-speed trades should be exempt from such tax 

 

[ruffrecords]

I have a long position is silver - the real stuff. I bought a couple of kilos of it about 8 years ago at £14 per troy ounce. Today the price is over £20.

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

I have a long position is silver - the real stuff. I bought a couple of kilos of it about 8 years ago at £14 per troy ounce. Today the price is over £20.

Cheers

Ian

I should have sold my silver yesterday when it peaked...  While there is still talk about physical delivery problems when the futures contracts close out.

Members of the "wallStreetBets" forum on reddit claim they are not behind the silver squeeze and it is very possible that one or more hedge funds are trying to blame wallstreetbets to conceal their own market manipulation shenanigans.

I like to see more kids getting involved in stock ownership, but I do not like to see them approach it as a form of or replacement for gambling. Not a coincidence that pandemic lock down and lower barriers to trading have made it a little too easy for individuals to trade.

I have heard price targets for gamestop based on fundamentals that vary from a very optimistic $100, to less bullish $13... You don't want to be the last seller when all the air comes out of this puppy.

Robin hood has been forced to raise their capital reserves to support the excessive trading volume. The end game could get a little messy.

Citadel seems to be the trade execution partner making big profit from this drama irrespective of individuals making winning or losing trades. 

Buy low sell high. By most measures markets are now high, but that doesn't mean they can't keep going up.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

David Portnoy (Bar stool sport) a high profile social influencer promoting day trading, has announced that he lost around $700k on Gamestop...

JR 

 

[john12ax7]

At some point there were 260 percent of short positions on all publicly available GameStop shares. Madness.

I saw 140% high at one point,  where did you see 260? They are now saying it's down to 35.

Either way it begs the question,  how were these shares actually covered? A lot of the shares are held by institutions in buy and hold type funds. There was also an army of retail investors buying and holding to force a colossal squeeze. This was on its way last week before buying got halted.    There really needs to be an accounting of the shares traded.

It's possible a big  second squeeze could still happen ala VW in 2008.

 

[Tubetec]

Some how traders in stocks n shares manage to convince themselves there on another level to ordinary gamblers (horses ,dogs, sports etc) ,sure the odds may be better depending on how plugged into the system you are ,its still the same underlying disease in my humble opinion 

 

[Script]

I saw 140% high at one point,  where did you see 260? They are now saying it's down to 35.

Saw it in some news article. Didn't fact check. Apparently not so trustworthy a source. Either way more shorts than shares. Can't be healthy.

 

[Script]

There really needs to be an accounting of the shares traded.

Blockchain technology ?

 

[JohnRoberts]

I saw 140% high at one point,  where did you see 260? They are now saying it's down to 35.

Either way it begs the question,  how were these shares actually covered? A lot of the shares are held by institutions in buy and hold type funds. There was also an army of retail investors buying and holding to force a colossal squeeze. This was on its way last week before buying got halted.    There really needs to be an accounting of the shares traded.

It's possible a big  second squeeze could still happen ala VW in 2008.

The regulators have been playing catchup for decades to track transaction data. They are pretty much at the mercy of exchanges. High speed trading creates exponentially more data... Gamestock was changing hands at over 50M shares a day. 

VW was a notable short imbalance.

Some are still advising to hold gamestock long, like Mark Cuban, but I suspect he has a different tolerance for risk than normal folk.

The shenanigans in this case are pretty much in plain sight...

I am not smart enough to press shorts or even day trade, but I can still have opinions.

JR

 

[kambo]

US Mint couldn't meet demand for gold and silver coins due to pandemic buying

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/03/us-mint-couldnt-meet-demand-for-gold-and-silver-coins-due-to-pandemic-buying

apmex still has some but premiums are crazy high :

 

[john12ax7]

Blockchain technology ?

That is one thing being proposed.  As well as other things like removing antiquated T+2 settlements.  And requiring you actually borrow shares first before you can short them.

So basically a bunch of common sense stuff that could easily be implemented,  but most likely won't since its more profitable not to.

 

[JohnRoberts]

That is one thing being proposed.  As well as other things like removing antiquated T+2 settlements.  And requiring you actually borrow shares first before you can short them.

So basically a bunch of common sense stuff that could easily be implemented,  but most likely won't since its more profitable not to.

Yup not a new discussion, and easy answers usually cause other distortions. There are congressional hearings already scheduled so this should be a laugh riot, as legislators step up to help. 

There are already rules against selling naked shorts or uncovered calls but it is difficult to enforce for stocks trading 50M shares a day. The concern from regulators is mostly about keeping the markets liquid and trading. Robin hood had to scrape up an extra couple $B of collateral to satisfy the intermediaries who were settling their order fulfillment.. I think they were selling their order flow to Citadel (a hedge fund) so Citadel could merchandise that access to other high speed traders or whatever to monetize (hint when any product is free, like free trades, your trades are the merchandise being sold). Citadel required the extra $B because of the huge exposure from all those short squeezed trades (gamestop peaked up above $400 a share before falling again). When the music stops there won't be enough chairs for everybody so the big players secure a chair for themselves when they can. The original short sellers are probably already covered or hedged, so it will mostly be individuals who suffer losses from falling stock prices from here, or new shorts squeezed.   

The exchanges are getting better about eliminating dark pools or blind trading where the regulators don't even see data on the trades. The big high speed traders invest big dollars in realizing tiny speed improvements (apparently light travels even faster in hollow tubes than through fiber optic cables). I like the idea of inserting trading speed bumps to negate speed advantages enjoyed by high speed traders. 

I don't think this is over yet, and the same guys are looking for other thinly traded instruments that might be similarly swayed (they took a run at silver and bumped it but appear to have moved on. Colluding to manipulate market prices is already against the rules too. 

JR