Posted on 01/30/2021 12:18:23 PM PST by SteveH
what think ye, fellow amd beeches and wannabees? :)
for silver, i have junk silver (and lots of it).
a 1oz silver bar is ~1” wide
a 5oz silver bar is ~1.5” wide
an unleaded gasoline filler tube is approx. 1.5” wide.
can a 5oz silver bar fit into an auto gasoline tank filler tube (keeping in mind bar thickness as well as width)?
also there is probably some practical maximum for feeding a gas tank with silver beyond which the mechanical strength of the strap holding the gas tank to the chassis is exceeded (anyone have a ballpark estimate?).
a better way to go might be gold bars or rounds for any long distance transit (a 1 troy oz gold bar is 095” wide).
(note: a regular oz is 28.35 grams; a troy oz is 31.1 grams; 14.61 troy oz / lb. gold density = 19.32 g/cc; gasoline density = 0.7489 g/cc (yikes))
... or better yet, diamonds (like hunter lol) (gets one past airplane metal detectors relatively unmolested, at least in theory lol)...
(1) Short sales do NOT have to be covered at the end of every month. Dozens of people at Free Republic seem to believe that crap. Short sales can open or cover on any trading day at any time.
(2) A stock that has 100% (or more than 100%) of its shares shorted does NOT mean that every person who owned GameStop stock on Friday is going to get paid $325 for each share. That is pure crap.
(3) GameStop stock is worth $20 a share - or less. GameStop stock is going straight back to $20 - probably on Monday.
(4) A few people got rich on this alleged anti-Wall Street populist rebellion. Everyone else who bought GameStop stock above $20 is going to break even or lose money.
Yep.
While I am generally not thrilled about crypto, you are correct that is excellent for moving money out of the country if that is the plan.
Many Chinese have used it to get their assets away from Chinese authorities.
But—if you are going to move out of the country, you really don’t want to take too long.
At the end of the day, if the assets are not physically in your possession they are at serious risk.
Ammoseek is your best resource.
7.62x39 is still relatively reasonable at $550/1,000.
Everything else is ridiculous.
Anyone having to buy now is way behind the curve.
One of the exploits that both sides of this phenomenon used was the fact that trades don’t settle for investors until 3 days after it executes; and the market makers have 10 days to cover naked shorts (shorts made without a borrow); and the options market makers desire to keep their books neutral (called Delta Hedging).
Shorts have exploited the naked shorting 10 days to cover and the Delta Hedging to get their hands on “shares” that never existed - they were never borrowed or ever sold by the company. Market makers are permitted to do this, and can get around the 10 day rule by simply closing and re-opening a new trade instantaneously. So you could have, in theory, way more than 100% or 200% of “shares” trading - you have the “real” shares, you have the “short borrow IOUs” trading, and you have the naked short shares trading. But the people on the short side need to have 100% collateral available. Short at $20 you need $20 in equity. If the stock jumps to $60, you are not only down 200% on paper, you need to raise another $40 per share in collateral. If it jumps to $400 a share, you need $380 in collateral for every share you shorted at $20. Thus, when the squeeze was on the brokers called their hedge fund clients (as required by regulations) and said “cover or get more cash” and it becomes a squeeze as old shorts are forced to buy in. The rise in price encourages new shorts to take positions and if the frenzy continues, the cycle continues. The options market makers, where ever contract is worth 100 shares, who sold $30 options for 10 cents when the stock was $20, suddenly found the stock at $300 and staring down the barrel of a $28,000 for every contract they sold, also had to jump in and buy $1000’s of dollars worth of real shares to hedge their risk. It is all based on long-standing risk mitigating strategies, largely automated these days with computers. So they also fed into the frenzy.
On the long side, look at TSLA as an example of how some long investors used the options market to force market makers to continuously buy more and more shares of stock by purchasing out of the money short dated call options, then “forcing” the MMs to have to also buy millions of shares by moving the stock. A relatively small move in the stock price could force an options market maker to make a disproportionately large purchase of stocks to mitigate their risk of losing. There is a buyer for every seller and seller for every buyer but sometimes a broker-dealer Market Making desk happens to be on the other side and they generally try to avoid taking sides. Their job is to provide liquidity. But if the stock moves 5% the Delta on an option could move 25%, thus the MM would have to buy 4x more shares to hedge their risk. I personally think TSLA longs - trading at 1000x EBITDA with an $800 billion market cap - have been gaming the system for several years now basically this same way... and the rise in price draws in new players so it’s not like the game ends on options expiration day. The players keep rolling over month after month and the frenzy feeds on itself.
In theory I agree with you, these stocks/companies will eventually settle down again and unless they raise capital on this bubble have real going-concern problems; but it’s not going to happen in a just a few days because many of the trades have not even settled yet and the market makers and broker dealers are still sorting their own books out and have 10 days (by the rules) to figure it out - and can keep rolling that over indefinitely by closing and opening a new position until they can figure out how they are going to deliver all the shares they need to settle the naked short shares they put out there. They will not tolerate a loss, so it is in their interest to keep churning and burning as many shares as they can until they get back into the black.
Long story shortened: The people on Reddit know all this, and much more, and saw that the short interest and option interest was so sky high that these handful of stocks were absolutely ripe for a squeeze IF somehow a flood of demand for shares were to materialize. So they argued their case openly and publicly. At the same time, the DOJ/SEC will probably argue that this was securities manipulation. Even though they openly stated their objective, and why, and how the market mechanisms are defective would benefit this adventure... well you know how sensitive our ruling class is to unauthorized criticism and uncontrolled opposition.
Intel keeps more American jobs going.
If you know or have those three things, and can get access to the internet, anywhere on the planet, you have access to your funds in what ever coin you have your funds in.
In some places, you can exchange crypto directly for goods and services, or exchange it for the local currency either openly or on the black market.
There has never been anything like crypto as a means of exchange. And best of all, you don't need government, or banks. I think that is why it frightens them so.
I think governments and the extreme wealthy would rather take us back to the jungle than give up the power and wealth they currently enjoy. But technology and people's desire for freedom marches on - so back to the jungle is where we're probably headed.
Good for you Steve. I think your family is lucky to have someone like you to look out for them in the coming days.
Same here ref. advice, but I would look at the number of stocks sold. One of the reasons this worked so well was due to the amount of naked shorts. Simply put, there were more stocks sold than available. The naked shorts were caught with their pants down, and had to buy at market or lose their shorts at market price, anyway. :)
Oh yeah. The Naked Short selling is not a new thing. Patrick Byrne, founder of Overstock, was all over this 2 decades ago. He started a website called Deep Capture. People lambasted him. In a post above I explained some of the forces involved.
Shorting is inherently destructive. No value added. Naked shorting which is permitted if you are a broker-dealer or market maker, makes it all even worse and has been exploited by unscrupulous market players for decades. It is essentially no different than printing your own money on an ink-jet printer. You don’t even have to locate or borrow a share, they are allowed to just sell shares that don’t exist. And the hedge funds bully the dealers into playing along.
They just got mugged by a bunch of crowd-sourced online hooligans who simply played by the rules others created and exploited for years and years. And I am actually glad, because maybe now we will see meaningful reform in the regulations. There is simply no rationale for being able to sell a a single share that you do not own, or cannot even locate let alone borrow.
Lots of short shares on AMD
If you buy online you are creating a defacto record of what guns you own.
QQQ is where it’s at!
I gave up on mutual funds. There’s usually a comparable ETF that usually have lower expenses.
Don't box them in...boxes are for piss-ants.
Dont buy one of these shorted stocks.
For a large percentage, if a firearm was purchased at a FFL, all they have to do is sieze the shop's records.
PA state police have been keeping a database of those who have gone through the NICS check for years.
They aren't having any luck in commie states like NY, CA, MA and NJ.
The serfs are supposed to turn in their "non compliant" weapons and magazines but only a small number have done so.
> I wanted to go with InFidelity but my wife said no.
ta-dum!
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