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Comment by shoto_io | Hacker News Reader

What's the equivalent today? TikTokers?

I Am Not A Banker, but I'd think the modern equivalent is all the Reddit stuff. The meme stocks, diamond hands, to the moon, "I just like the stock", etc. Then again, people supposedly made some money on Gamestop and AMC. Like I said, I Am Not A Banker.

Not really because a lot of those are professionals manipulating the market. The archetype of a shoe-shine boy is the least knowledgeable person possible. Sure some of the meme stocks voices fall into this bucket, but which ones?

I am not a banker either but, "a lot of those are professionals manipulating the market" isn't how I would characterize it. More like, a few of those are professionals, and the rest are more along the lines of newspaper boys. So many of my friends have huge sums of their savings in stonks and crypto are proudly ignorant of how any of these things work. So far their antics have worked out very well for them and they've received very aggressive returns, but I am honestly worried for them. Their success has reinforced a dangerous mixture of risk taking + ignorance.

How long can that be sustained? I am sure the few professionals on reddit are up at night sweating about this stuff and have escape hatches, but I am not so sure about the rest.

It is dangerous when the value of your stocks goes up. You start feeling good not about the stock, but about yourself. You start thinking you made that money .. why? Because you are a smart guy. Even if you rationally know that you were just lucky, it gives you the confidence that you know what you are doing.

It is just human psychology, when you succeed you think it is because of how great you are. And similarly when your stocks fall you don't feel so good about yourself any more. I see this in myself as markets go up and down. I assume it is the same for most people.

Most of them. "Ape strong" is a meme and I'd bet the people following it are going to be bagholders if they aren't already because they think a short squeeze is coming.

But a short squeeze is always coming, will it ever arrive? And if it does would they know? Or will they just keep saying it's coming?

And after GME, institutional investors have changed their models to guard against that type of squeeze, so they squeeze is already less likely. I can't imagine there's many institutional investors left in GME that aren't trying to sell off at a slow enough trickle to avoid a cliff.

It's when a major fund(s), bank(s) or lender(s) blows up and is followed up a successive string of failures until the "big one".

Every financial crisis or recession from the last 30 years or so has had a string of failures leading up a crash.

Late 1980s S&L Crash - You had a string of larger S&Ls failing (and a ton of smaller ones). This was a contributing factor in the 1990 recession. Note that S&Ls started failing in the mid 1980s.

2000 Crash - Long Term Capital Management blew up in 1998 and had to be rescued due to fears of contagion. Note the market hit all time highs after this fund failed.

2008 Crash - In early 2007 - New Century blows up ... starting a cascading series of failures. The S&P hits new highs throughout 2007 after New Century, until it finally starts to crash in late 2007 leading into the 2008 recession.

And now we have Archegos, which failed earlier this year and new highs in the stock market this week.

I am watching for more failures. One of the major contributing factors to Archegos' failure was WAY too much leverage. There is a ton of money sloshing around the system right now, and margin debt has hitting all time highs.

Crypto is also going blow up and take a lot of retail with it. If you get a stock crash and folks get margin called you could see a lot of crypto selling to cover that margin.

Uber drivers I think. TikTokers are a global phenomenon and some will know what they're doing on any subject. I doubt a lot of successful traders drive Uber.

Uber passengers. In 2014 (as an Uber driver) I told my passenger (who was a financeBro into stocks) to buy GoPro at 40, since it would go to at least 60. It went to 90. He told me to buy Prana biotech, which collapsed from ~50 to 11 and now doesn't exist.

The idea is the most unlikely people are talking stocks. With Uber passengers it depends on the passenger, if your passenger is a finance bro is doesn't fit the shoe shine boy analogy.

My coffee shop barista recommended TEAM to me at $100 in 2019 and now it's $267.

Hacker News

Lumber mania is sweeping North America (May 6, 2021. 119 points)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27036557

Lumber price peaks May 7, 2021.

https://imgur.com/ynWJtwQ

source: https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/commodities/lbs

The lumber bubble burst. Here’s what comes next (June 22, 2021)

https://fortune.com/2021/06/22/lumber-prices-bubble-burst-pr...

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