Nothing different than Jim Cramer talking up a stock on CNBC every fucking night.
Edit: I know this because I watched a youtube video from a popular redditor named deepfuckingvalue a few weeks ago and bought into the thesis fully as a value investment. He goes under the name RoaringKitty on youtube.
I lost multiple years worth of salary this morning when RobinHood decided to stop selling GME.
That argument was made last year and early this year. The argument this week has been that the stock price will increase specifically because of a short squeeze, and the popular comment on WSB has been that buying and/or holding GME stock is a rebellious act that will cause that short squeeze to happen.
If deliberately causing a short squeeze constitutes illegal market manipulation, then at least some of the WSB comments advocate for going over that line. On the other hand, the SEC would probably have its hands full linking these comments to actual trades that were meaningful enough to move the stock price -- SEC rules aren't written with a horde of enraged small-dollar investors in mind as the culprits.
Notice that RoaringKitty has taken profits from his GME holdings over the past few weeks, most recently about two days ago, and has not continued buying into the stock.
> I lost multiple years worth of salary this morning when RobinHood decided to stop selling GME.
With all due respect, GME has been a highly speculative play for at least this entire week. It's not a good idea to speculate with money that you can't afford to lose.
I don't really think the market should allow for this sort of thing. I agree with you there. But that's how the rules are written, and now when the little guy figures out the rules they shut it down.
GME is trading at between 4x and 8x it's all time high in 2008. The graph of the stock price basically looks like a flat line until a few days ago where it dramatically spiked to far, far more than it's previous peak.
Are you saying that GME will actually be worth it's current stock price a year from now? Why is that?
You also quoted the SEC saying that manipulating a stock price to cause a short squeeze is illegal but also that short squeezes occur naturally. Expecting a short squeeze and intending to profit off of it is not illegal.
You make the point that some people on wallstreetbets made comments that crossed the line on manipulation. I'm sure that's true, but if you see a few problematic comments out of millions it's obviously absurd to say that a stock mustn't be bought because of them.
Ironically, you are criticizing what is clearly not manipulation (valuing GME highly and expecting to profit off of a coming short squeeze) in order to defend what clearly is manipulation (banning a million retail investors from taking one side of a trade at a critical moment).
Buying $300 worth of stock and then posting a rocket emoji on a message board: an assault on the basic foundations of capitalism.