Posted on 01/30/2021 10:05:16 PM PST by Technocrat
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Viral Reddit Post From ‘Robinhood Insider’ Claims White House Pressured Broker to Block Buying of GameStop Shares
WallStreetBets community warns post may be a ploy to panic people into selling.
Seems it would be quite different in commodities than stocks. If you own a silver mine, or a corn farm, I see nothing wrong with selling the future output either as a hedge or to raise cash to complete the harvest. But that’s because you have an expected delivery. Of course that comes with some financial risk if total production is higher than expected and the prices fall by expiration date, it is still a valid trading mechanism and keeps the production side (at least) fluid.
With stocks, there are many other mechanisms available. If you short you don’t have any expectation of future delivery. You could theoretically hold the short position indefinitely. Otherwise, you have to go out and actually buy it in the open market later on (close the short by covering the trade) at the then market price. It’s just a bet on the direction of the stock. And clearly people can do the same with commodities, like Duke & Duke. And clearly people with no farms or mines are trading in commodities.
Why would they do that?
I don’t even know how one would naked short an option or what that means. I was talking about naked shorting stocks via use of the market maker exemptions.
Thanks for that information.
Condition is almost everything when you're talking about paper currency. Sometimes, just a single crease will destroy the numismatic value. Year of printing, and most importantly, the series letter is also important. The series is critical, because they don't actually change the year printed each year like they do on coinage. IIRC, the 1953 series ran for about 4 or 5 years. A 1953A might be more valuable than a 1953b.
There is also weird stuff that can make an otherwise uninteresting bill more valuable, like the serial number. Some folks try to collect bills with repeating digits. A silver certificate with 8-2s in the serial number might bring considerably more than the same bill with some random string, or if you were lucky enough to have a SN with 12345678.
In general though, folks who really collect paper money look at condition, and series.
There are some really beautiful engravings on some 19th century currency. If I were into paper, I that's the kind of thing I'd be most interested in.
Someone I know who is a (very) successful senior trader sent me this in reply to the “Reddit ready to short squeeze silver” story. My question to him was: “Is this article legit?” His answer:
“NO. JP Morgan has 6m oz. of physical in the vault and a massive short position offsetting it, they will let these “youngsters” run a little, then turn around and crush them. There seems to be no silver coins offered today ex some @ $80. Remember Morgan IS the FED they can print all the paper shorts they want to offset these green horns. Gary Gensler, a former Obama goon, is in charge of SEC, they can raise margin requirements to 100% to buy silver or just shut down Reddit if they want to. They can get away with this on some stocks, but never silver, the FED won’t allow it. Remember when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market in 1980? ….. they got crushed. Also Warren Buffet tried in 2011 and the big boys told him to sell if he wanted to stay in the club. If you want you could take a small position in SLV or PSLV, but don’t get greedy, hold til silver is around $50, then sell it. I’ve seen this movie too many times before. I did the same paper play in 2011, made $200k and got out at $48, before they crushed silver back to $10. The crooks can’t and will not let gold and silver rise as they are the ultimate inflation barometers, they are also gonna go after SHIT-COIN and try and shut it down, then they can issue their own digital currency and we are are screwed. I will keep all my physical, but I might go short SLV once it runs up to $60-$80 while the longs eat it. Remember Matt, these are “virtual” markets, and have nothing to do with price discovery. Morgan accumulated those 6m ounces for this very reason, worst case is they have to sell some, then they short it and buy it back even cheaper. None of these kids understand the silver market, they will get crushed. Well, at least these kids understand who their true enemy is, in order to take them down they need sovereign like China, China is playing for time and doesn’t want to crush the dollar yet.”
Just posting this for your thoughts.
See 148 above.
Yeah it seems that a storm is brewing. We’ll see what happens but many reports of a run on physical silver on the retail side over the last few days. And the price of spot silver closed up $2 from $25 to $27 from Wednesday’s close and Friday’s close. All of this is conspicuous evidence, but not proof, that some traders may be mounting a run on it.
The (conspiracy?) theories about JP Morgan cornering the market on silver has been out there a very long time. I remember hearing about it at least 15 years ago. And it probably goes back further than that - perhaps back to the days when we went off the gold/silver standards for paper money. Only now, it seems that perhaps a flash mob has bought into the theory and thinks it can beat the game. Again, we’ll see.
Demand for nickel for electric car batteries has been increasing.
Dude, I know! I do not understand the premium for k-rand silver at all. Eagles, Maples, and Brittanias are more reasonable by a long shot.
I noticed several months ago that some mint was making gold coins in the style of the coins used in the John Wick films. I thought it was a great idea, but am not willing to pay any significant premium above spot for it.
If they are using the futures market to sell forward, no cash exchanges hands until settlement. And why would higher production be a problem. Lower production would be a problem, i.e. promised to deliver 100K bushels and a flood wiped out 50k so trouble. The farmer would have to go into the market and buy 50K to deliver. In real life they would go flat on those 50K before expiration and pay the cash difference.
Well I agree I wouldn't call it an explosion, but it is up $2 since Wendesday's closing price of $25. Now $27. And reports that retail sellers and their wholesale suppliers are very short on inventory are all over the place. I checked a couple of online sellers, there is almost nothing available for immediate delivery (except collectibles, which have massive premiums over the spot price that investors in the value of physical silver won't buy). So this is suggestive that there may be some type of move in the works. Or just speculation that a move is in the works. It could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody wants to miss a second chance at an opportunity of a lifetime. :-)
I said if actual production is higher, the price will go down. But yes, that’s a problem for the buyer, not the seller.
Can someone explain what this means as though epxlaining to an eight year old child?
Same thing happened at the beginning of the pandemic. They apparently don't hold as much as I'd have thought. I was lucky and had some actually in transit when everyone started freaking out about toilet paper. What was really weird about it was the the spot price was dropping while demand supply literally dried up completely. I'm absolutely convinced there was something really weird going on in the metals markets at the time.
Some do, but most don't.
And yes, I think some, maybe many are going to get crushed and lose some $.
And then what? Are they going to come after people to take some of their money?
We'll see.
Bought some on Friday as part of monthly buy I do. Then went back on Saturday to check prices - what I normally buy (AEs) - not available.
So people are purchasing physical silver. I hope recent purchasers are going to buy and hold.
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