Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

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That's like saying that the money supply is $5.2T but the U.S. national debt is $28T, so all the money in the world couldn't pay off the U.S's debt. Technically true, but completely missing the point of how currency circulates.

In reality, when a short covers they buy back the stock and pay back the broker or market maker they borrowed it from. Then the broker or market maker sells it again. Then the short can buy back the same share, over and over again, as long as they can find someone to sell it to them. That "as long as they can find someone to sell it to them" is what's going on here - if everybody HODLs, the stock doesn't circulate, and the shorts have to pay increasing amounts to incentivize other weak hands to sell. But total short interest > 100% doesn't mean anything other than that there are a lot of shorts whose need to cover might blunt some price declines. Unless those particular shorts are right up against their margin limits, they can just hold the short position open until WSB loses interest.

Except shorts pay borrow fees but longs can hold indefinitely for free. Borrow fees on $GME often go as high as 80%

80% annualized is tiny on a daily basis - it's like 0.25%. They can afford to wait until next week when WSB has moved on to AMC and BB. Sustaining these high prices requires a continuous influx of new money; once the folks who believe GME is going to $1000 have already bought, what's left are the folks who believe it's worth $10.

Except when it's already too shorted and there's nothing left to short

It's a huge tax. You cant hold that more than a few weeks and you need a huge upside.

> you need a huge upside.

Shorting a stock at $300, when it was trading at $16 last month is pretty much the definition of huge upside.

True, but 80% a year means that you might have to inmobilize a multiple of the capital and by 6 months lose half the investment.

Note that if you short at 300 and it flash jumps to 1000 you are toast.

It seems unlikely that wallstreetbets and other retail investors are going to have much patience. They are already pumping other stocks.

this is probably the exact mentality that got the funds in this position. they have more patience than you think when it comes to making money (which is the end goal), and the other pumping is getting rooted out as shills or distractions.

GME has crashed since we wrote this 8 days ago. Do you still feel the same way?

That assumes the longs are unified. The WSB community are heavily promoting Friday as the day their grand scheme comes to fruition. How many of these novice first-time investors will defect when Friday comes around and the shorters opt to wait them out? How many need to defect before panic sets in?

Shall be an interesting week.

Edit: looks like it's already falling apart, the price is down 30% on post-market trading! Expect things to get real once the market opens up.

this aged badly.

I just checked it again, they're still down 15% from the market close.

Really? The stock did +135% on a single day and you complain about after hours noise

Any trader knows that after-hours price action does not necessarily translate or carry over into RTH. It is much easier for price to be manipulated in thin after-hours trading.

Friday has nothing to do with the shorts (not the short squeeze). Friday is about the gamma squeeze because options expire on Fridays

One thing I’ve read is both a short squeeze and a gamma squeeze have never happened at the same time to this degree.

Is that true? I tried and failed to verify.

That's why there are people rallying amongst themselves to hold. A significant number of shares are with people who simply does not care if they lose it all. They want the hedge funds who are shorting to bleed mostly from the interests.

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