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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

If you buy stock with the purpose of pushing the price up so that other people will buy it, that’s market manipulation.

What WSB crowd is doing is market manipulation. That's illegal. WSB is doing everything openly and even celebrating it. Getting mad when openly breaking the law is not rational response. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/78i

Brokers like Robinhood are reacting because they want too keep SEC out of their asses and prevent SEC doing something even worse to their customers.

Stock Markets like nasdaq are reacting to volatility, like they usually do in abnormal situation.

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Not so clear cut. If you hype stock to PROFIT from it by selling before it crashes, that is market manipulation. If you hype stock because you believe it is an amazing opportunity, and you happen to diversify before it crashes - that is talking about things in public.

A bunch of people hyping each other up? Also talking in public about what they like. If that moves markets? That happens.

If that opportunity is a short squeeze (which it still appears to be - newest data I can find is GME is still at 120%+ short interest), then it gets really really confusing - and I'm not sure how this is going to sort out.

People going on public news networks saying they've 'got out' and other articles talking about folks no longer being short - that would be clear market manipulation if not true.

I agree, it's not clear cut. It's unlikely that SEC goes after the WSB but they could.

What happened satisfies the four part test for market manipulation. But you would have to figure out the suspects who actually match the test. Most participants are just fools.

> What WSB crowd is doing is market manipulation.

Shorting GME more than number stocks exist is not market manipulation? HFT isn't? Bailing out greed isn't?

Why is this notion of market manipulation such a narrow one-way street?

And they stop the manipulation by more manipulation? Why isn’t the trade blocked entirely for those stocks? Having the ability to sell seems like an inviting open door towards a specific outcome. I closed my RH account today

Exactly. Good on you. I am with Tastyworks and IB, but IB seems to be playing shenanigans with GME today as well.

> And they stop the manipulation by more manipulation?

Moving the goal-posts here, but yes, this ought to be the catalyst to do just that. Changes to regulations may yet happen (not that I agree with it); kind of seems inevitable at this point.

>Shorting GME more than number stocks exist is not market manipulation?

No, it's just a risky play (as long as not naked) that can blow up and that's fine.

>HFT isn't?

No, HFT provides a service, like it or not. You might think the service isnt worth it but it's not market manipulation.

>Bailing out greed isn't?

That one usually isn't (most bailouts are other private actors' loans) but yes, I guess it can be if it allows actors to make risky plays without having real risk.

That said, what WSB is doing here isn't market manipulation either.

> such a one way street?

It's not, though - rich people get in trouble for this all the time. Bernie Madoff is going to die in prison for running a finance scam. Enough people were convicted of insider trading in the 80's that they made a movie about it - and the movie was just called "Wall Street". None of this is new.

> It's not, though - rich people get in trouble for this all the time.

This has to be a joke.

Peasants suspected their king was getting away with raping villagers. Peasants came together and decided to show the king. They started to rape each other in the broad daylight. When the town sheriff intervened, they cried out foul, "Why is the notion of rape such a one way street?"

When the dust finally settled and anuses stopped bleeding, they discovered that they were coaxed to rape each other by Kings son who disguised himself as a commoner in the village subreddit. What made it worse was that King's son was involved in raping during the rape fest but somehow avoided getting raped himself.

> What made it worse was that King's son was involved in raping during the rape fest but somehow avoided getting raped himself.

Let's see if that's how this plays out.

Also, ignoring the fact that whilst the peasants are merely slapping each other on their wrists, they're really in fact looking to take the King who doesn't jive like them, to the guillotines.

Sorry, but what WSB is doing is free speech. Any analyst can get on TV and announce a price target. What WSB is doing is no different. WSB is a transparent group and everything they say can be read by the public.

That seems to be the minority view among pundits and analysts, and disregards the large amount of funds jumping into the fray to squeeze the shorts.

Trading against shorts instead of fundamentals isn't market manipulation.

WSB is not buying the stock with the purpose of pushing the price up beyond realising that by buying and holding, it makes covering short positions more difficult to cover.

It is not illegal.

It's not that clear as far as I can tell (and from reading commentary from people far more knowledgeable than me).

Matt Levine's column from 2 days ago, for example, goes over some of those questions to a decent degree: (possible paywall)

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-26/will-w...

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