I just wanted to throw this out there in the middle of the outrage, in the hopes that someone can take it in and strategize, rather than be upset. Worked @ Merrill as an analyst from ** - **.
I also like to keep it concise so follow along. This ain't a fucking Qanon fan fiction.
Disclaimer: I own GME. This is not financial advice. This is just some dude chatting with his old buddies.
1) Robinhood, restrictions, suppression:
When you place an order through RH, Citadel or some other HFT front runs your trade and pockets the spread; However, the transaction is not complete.
Enter: Clearing house. The clearing house is the intermediary between the counter-parties. Because they stand between sellers & buyers, they have very defined levels of risk, risk management and regulation to be in front of. The clearing house is who gives you the "title" for your shares, the folks who make it official.
What Likely Happened: The risk department retard @ the clearing house, who does jack shit all year other than flag Stacy's trade so he can get some face time with her runs to the C-Suite frazzled; He has looked at option open interest expiring this week, has done the math and there simply isn't enough float for GME in anyway, shape or form; turns out WSB is printing out their stock certificates and burying them in the Mojave Desert. It's simply not enough.
In addition, they got a Snapchat from SEC/OCC which said hey, if you fucking keep selling open positions, you're on your own; we ain't gonna help you. SEC is sneaky like that; they like sending messages through the backdoor, not the front because they used to be hedgies themselves. If you're not following, Front door is making a public statement while the backdoor is a threat sent to an intermediary who you and millions of investors don't even know exists.
So, they call up the risk department at RH and tell em to stop fucking selling GME, there simply isn't enough float, the SEC told the clearing house they're on their own and who tf is gonna take the blame/liability if there's a "failure to deliver"?
2) Failure to Deliver:
This is a pretty big deal because it's basically a slam-dunk law suit.
Failure to deliver means that one of the counterparties (in this case, the firm who sold you the option, RH or the clearing house) has failed to deliver you a contractually obligated position, profit or certificate. Since there's no float and ITM calls get exercised by HFT bots at the end of the day, how in the fucking hell are they gonna deliver the option holders their contractually obligated merchandise if there is no merchandise to be delivered? There simply isn't enough for everyone.
It has been on the FTD list for a month already. Thousands (or possibly hundreds of thousands) of failures to deliver = big risk
3) Liability:
You must be asking so what? Fuck them; They should be the ones figuring it out and they gotta give me, the customer, the right to choose or whatever the fuck; That sounds great in a boomer fashion but it's not that simple. Robinhood is contractually obligated to deliver you those shares or positions. If they fail to, they become liable for any losses or profits that you may have endured and they will LOSE in court cause they FAILED to DELIVER. How many people have options on GME on RH? Half? Imagine if half of these fine RH customers were legally owed benefits and they were engaged in DDoS style lawsuits involving Robinhood or the clearing house. There would be no Robinhood left. There would likely be no clearing house left.
Robinhood is also a shitshow of a company, so they likely didn't even have additional collateral to put up to the clearing house for normal share buying and selling on the meme tickers and since they bank with T-Mobile, they had to pull the plug. This lack of collateral from Robinhood is important to note because the "music" never stops, trading low float/volatile shares just becomes much more collateral heavy on the side of the broker.
Hence: Bad Decision > Bankruptcy or worse (WSB finds Vlad's mom and becomes her boyfriend collectively)
I personally don't believe it was out of malice or a coordination for RH; there's definitely coordination all around, but occam's razor says this is not such an ordeal.
Couple of semi-related notes:
-Fuck Billionaires. Parasites of modern society, simply existing to leech off every slurp of alpha and take up resources meant for billions of poor people. Something is needed. Whatever is needed to discourage hoarding of resources of this tiny fucking planet.
-I very much doubt that Ken Griffin and Citadel (the HF) would engage in blatant market manipulation or coercion of Robinhood or other brokers to make a few bucks on Gamestop or AMC. They cleared over 6 billion net last year, so just logically, it seems pretty unlikely to risk it for this. It is also very unlikely that Citadel Securities would engage in illegal behavior for the profit of Citadel, simply because it's such a money maker. If you were an evil genius, would you let your money maker go to shit because you were getting squeezed on some short?
-The media just wants clicks and engagement, so they will bring the worst people on, simply to pad their own bottom line. Don't get engaged. Don't give in to them. Be the captain of your own ship and fuck over wall-street however you please.
-The restrictions on the others tickers is likely proactive, not reactive.

• TL;DR: There's simply not enough float and the brokeclearing house will fail to deliver on a large scale if they keep letting new positions be opened, hence restrictions.
  
• What will happen now:Based on my previous short squeezes, Friday (tomorrow) will be nuts; All this gamma has to go somewhere and since there's not enough float, I'm guessing up.
  

edit (2/1/21): Thanks for all the awards. I exited on Fri open. Now GME is likely in a holding pattern to crush IV. Best of luck to everyone.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This entire post represents my personal views and opinions, and should not be taken as financial advice (or advice of any kind whatsoever). I encourage you to do your own research, take anything I write with a grain of salt, and hold me accountable for any mistakes you may catch. Also, full disclosure, I hold a net long position in GME, but my cost basis is very low (average ~$67--I have to admit, the drop today was too tasty so my cost basis went up from yesterday)/share with my later buys averaged in), and I'm using money I can absolutely lose. My capital at risk and tolerance for risk generally is likely substantially different than yours. In this post I will go a little further and speculate more than I'd normally do in a post due to the questions I've been getting, so fair warning, some of it might be very wrong. I suspect we'll learn some of the truth years from now when some investigative journalist writes a book about it.
Thank you everyone for the comments and questions on the first and second post on this topic.
Today was a study in the power of fear, courage, and the levers you can pull when you wield billions of dollars...
Woops, excuse me. I'm sorry hedge fund guys... I meant trillions of dollars--I just briefly forget you control not just your own but a lot of other peoples' money too for a moment there.
Also, for people still trading this on market-based rationale (as I am), it was a good day to measure the conviction behind your thesis. I like to think I have conviction, but in case you are somehow not yet familiar with the legend of DFV, you need to see these posts (fair warning, nsfw, and some may be offended/triggered by the crude language). The last two posts might be impressive, but you should follow it in chronological order and pay attention to the evolution of sentiment in the comments to experience true enlightenment.
Anyway, I apologize, but this post will be very long--there's just a lot to unpack.

Pre-Market

Disclaimer: given yesterday's pre-market action I didn't even pay attention to the screen until near retail pre-market. I'm less confident in my ability to read what's going on in a historical chart vs the feel I get watching live, but I'll try.
Early in the pre-market it looks to me like some momentum traders are taking profit, discounting the probability that the short-side will give them a deep discount later, which you can reasonably assume given the strategy they ran yesterday. If they're right they can sell some small volume into the pre-market top, wait for the hedge funds try to run the price back down, and then lever up the gains even higher buying the dip. Buy-side here look to me like people FOMOing and YOLOing in at any price to grab their slice of gainz, or what looks to be market history in the making. No way are short-side hedge funds trying to cover anything at these prices.
Mark Cuban--well said! Free markets baby!
Mohamed El-Erian is money in the bank as always. "upgrade in quality" on the pandemic drop was the best, clearest actionable call while most were at peak panic, and boy did it print. Your identifying the bubble as the excessive short (vs blaming retail activity) is money yet again. Also, The PAIN TRADE (sorry, later interview segment I only have on DVR, couldn't find on youtube--maybe someone else can)!
The short attack starts, but I'm hoping no one was panicking this time--we've seen it before. Looks like the momentum guys are minting money buying the double dip into market open.
CNBC, please get a good market technician to explain the market action. Buy-side dominance, sell-side share availability evaporating into nothing (look at day-by-day volume last few days), this thing is now at runaway supercritical mass. There is no changing the trajectory unless you can change the very fabric of the market and the rules behind it (woops, I guess I should have knocked on wood there).
If you know the mechanics, what's happening in the market with GME is not mysterious AT ALL. I feel like you guys are trying to scare retail out early "for their own good" (with all sincerity, to your credit) rather than explain what's happening. Possibly you also fear that explaining it would equate to enabling/encouraging people to keep trying to do it inappropriately (possibly fair point, but at least come out and say that if that's the case). Outside the market, however...wow.

You Thought Yesterday Was Fear? THIS is Fear!

Ok short-side people, my hat is off to you. Just when I thought shouting fire in a locked theater was fear mongering poetry in motion, you went and took it to 11. What's even better? Yelling fire in a theater with only one exit. That way people can cause the financial equivalent of stampede casualties. Absolutely brilliant.
Robin Hood disables buying of GME, AMC, and a few of the other WSB favorites. Other brokerages do the same. Even for people on 0% margin. Man, and here I thought I had seen it all yesterday.
Side note: I will give a shout out to TD Ameritrade. You guys got erroneously lumped together with RH during an early CNBC segment, but you telegraphed the volatility risk management changes and gradually ramped up margin requirements over the past week. No one on your platform should have been surprised if they were paying attention. And you didn't stop anyone from trading their own money at any point in time. My account balance thanks you. I heard others may have had problems, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt given the DDOS attacks that were flyiing around
Robin Hood. Seriously WTF. I'm sure it was TOTALLY coincidence that your big announcements happen almost precisely when what has to be one of the best and most aggressive short ladder attacks of all time starts painting the tape, what looked like a DDOS attack on Reddit's CDN infrastructure (pretty certain it was the CDN because other stuff got taken out at the same time too), and a flood of bots hit social media (ok, short-side, this last one is getting old).
Taking out a large-scale cloud CDN is real big boy stuff though, so I wouldn't entirely rule out nation state type action--those guys are good at sniffing out opportunities to foment social unrest.
Anyway, at this point, as the market dives, I have to admit I was worried for a moment. Not that somehow the short-side would win (hah! the long-side whales in the pond know what's up), but that a lot of retail would get hurt in the action. That concern subsided quite a bit on the third halt on that slide. But first...
A side lesson on market orders
Someone printed bonus bank big time (and someone lost--I feel your pain, whoever you are).
During the face-ripping volatility my play money account briefly ascended to rarified heights of 7 figures. It took me a second to realize it, then another second to process it. Then, as soon as it clicked, that one, glorious moment in time was gone.
What happened?
During the insane chop of the short ladder attack, someone decided to sweep the 29 Jan 21 115 Call contracts, but they couldn't get a grip on the price, which was going coast to coast as IV blew up and the price was being slammed around. So whoever was trying to buy said "F it, MARKET ORDER" (i.e. buy up to $X,XXX,XXX worth of contracts at any price). This is referred to as a sweep if funded to buy all/most of the contracts on offer (HFT shops snipe every contract at each specific price with a shotgun of limit orders, which is far safer, but something only near-market compute resources can do really well). For retail, or old-tech pros, if you want all the contracts quickly, you drop a market order loaded with big bucks and see what you get... BUT, some clever shark had contracts available for the reasonable sum of... $4,400, or something around that. I was too stunned to grab a screencap. The buy market order swept the book clean and ran right into that glorious, nigh-obscene backstop limit. So someone got nearly $440,000 PER CONTRACT that was, at the time theoretically priced at around $15,000. $425,000 loss... PER CONTRACT. Maybe I'm not giving the buyer enough credit.. you can get sniped like that even if you try to do a safety check of the order book first, but, especially in low liquidity environments, if a HFT can peak into your order flow (or maybe just observes a high volume of sweeps occurring), they can end up front running your sweep, pick off the reasonable contracts, and slam a ridiculous limit sell order into place before your order makes it to the exchange. Either way, I hope that sweep wasn't loaded for bear into the millions. If so... OUCH. Someone got cleaned out.
So, the lesson here folks... in a super high volatility, low-liquidity market, a market order will just run up the ladder into the first sell order it can find, and some very brutal people will put limit sells like that out there just in case they hit the jackpot. And someone did. If you're on the winning side, great. It can basically bankrupt you if you're on the losing side. My recommendation: Just don't try it. I wouldn't be surprised if really shady shenanigans were involved in this, but no way to know (normally that's crazy-type talk, but after today....peeking at order flow and sniping sweeps is one of the fastest, most financially devastating ways to bleed big long-side players, just sayin').
edit *so while I was too busy trying not to spit out my coffee to grab a screenshot, piddlesthethug was faster on the draw and captured this: https://imgur.com/gallery/RI1WOuu
Ok, so I guess my in-the-moment mental math was off by about 10%. Man, that hurts just thinking about the guy who lost on that trade.*
Back to the market action..

A Ray of Light Through the Darkness

So I was worried watching the crazy downward movement for two different reasons.
On the one hand, I was worried the momentum pros would get the best discounts on the dip (I'll admit, I FOMO'd in too early, unnecessarily raising my cost basis).
On the other hand, I was worried for the retail people on Robin Hood who might be bailing out into incredibly steep losses because they had only two options: Watch the slide, or bail. All while dealing with what looked to me like a broad-based cloud CDN outage as they tried to get info from WSB HQ, and wondering if the insta-flood of bot messages were actually real people this time, and that everyone else was bailing on them to leave them holding the bag.
But I saw the retail flag flying high on the 3rd market halt (IIRC), and I knew most would be ok. What did I see, you ask? Why, the glorious $211.00 / $5,000 bid/ask spread. WSB Reddit is down? Those crazy mofos give you the finger right on the ticker tape. I've been asked many times in the last few hours about why I was so sure shorts weren't covering on the down move. THIS is how I knew. For sure. It's in the market data itself.
edit So, there's feedback in the comments that this is likely more of a technical glitch. Man, at least it was hilarious in the moment. But also now I know maybe not to trust price updates when the spread between orders being posted is so wide. Maybe a technical limitation of TOS
I'll admit, I tried to one-up those bros with a 4206.90 limit sell order, but it never made it through. I'm impressed that the HFT guys at the hedge fund must have realized really quickly what a morale booster that kind of thing would have been, and kept a lower backstop ask in place almost continuously from then on I'm sure others tried the same thing. Occasionally $1,000 and other high-dollar asks would peak through from time to time from then on, which told me the long-side HFTs were probably successfully sniping the backstops regularly.
So, translating for those of you who found that confusing. First, such a high ask is basically a FU to the short-side (who, as you remember, need to eventually buy shares to cover their short positions). More importantly, as an indicator of retail sentiment, it meant that NO ONE ELSE WAS TRYING TO SELL AT ANY PRICE LOWER THAN $5,000. Absolutely no one was bailing out.
I laughed for a minute, then started getting a little worried. Holy cow.. NO retail selling into the fear? How are they resisting that kind of price move??
The answer, as we all know now... they weren't afraid... they weren't even worried. They were F*CKING PISSED.
Meanwhile the momentum guys and long-side HFTs keep gobbling up the generously donated shares that the short-side are plowing into their ladder attack. Lots of HFT duels going on as long-side HFTs try to intercept shares meant to travel between short-side HFT accounts for their ladder. You can tell when you see prices like $227.0001 constantly flying across the tape. Retail can't even attempt to enter an order like that--those are for the big boys with privileged low-latency access.
The fact that you can even see that on the tape with human eyes is really bad for the short-side people.
Why, you ask? Because it means liquidity is drying up, and fast.

The Liquidity Tide is Flowing Out Quickly. Who's Naked (short)?

Market technicals time. I still wish this sub would allow pictures so I could throw up a chart, but I guess a table will do fine.
​

Date	Volume	Price at US Market Close
Friday, 1/22/21	197,157,196	$65.01
Monday, 1/25/21	177,874,00	$76.79
Tuesday, 1/26/21	178,587,974	$147.98
Wednesday, 1/27/21	93,396,666	$347.51
Thursday, 1/28/21	58,815,805	$193.60

What do I see? I see the shares available to trade dropping so fast that all the near-exchange compute power in the world won't let the short-side HFTs maintain order flow volume for their attacks. Many retail people asking me questions thought today was the heaviest trading. Nope--it was just the craziest.
What about the price dropping on Thursday? Is that a sign that the short-side pulled a miracle out and pushed price down against a parabolic move on even less volume than Wednesday? Is the long side running out of capital?
Nope. It means the short-side hedge funds are just about finished.
But wait, I thought the price needed to be higher for them to be taken out? How is it that price being lower is bad for them? Won't that allow them to cover at a lower price?
No, the volume is so low that they can't cover any meaningful fraction of their position without spiking the price parabolic almost instantly. Just not enough shares on offer at reasonable prices (especially when WSB keeps flashing you 6942.00s).
It's true, a higher price hurts, but the interest charge for one more day is just noise at this point. The only tick that will REALLY count is the last tick of trading on Friday.
In the meantime, the price drop (and watching the sparring in real time) tells me that the long-side whales and their HFT quants are so certain of the squeeze that they're no longer worried AT ALL about whether it will happen, and they aren't even worried at all about retail morale to help carry the water anymore.
Instead, they're now really, really worried about how CHEAPLY they can make it happen.
They are wondering if they can't edge out just a sliver more alpha out of what will already be a blow-out trade for the history books (probably). You see, to make it happen they just have to keep hoovering up shares. It doesn't matter what those shares cost. If you're certain that the squeeze is now locked in, why push the price up and pay more than you have to? Just keep pressing hard enough to force short-side to keep sending those tasty shares your way, but not so much you move the price. Short-side realizes this and doesn't try to drive price down too aggressively. They can't afford to let price run away, so they have to keep some pressure on at the lowest volume they can manage, but they don't want to push down too hard and give the long-side HFTs too deep of a discount and bleed their ammo out even faster. That dynamic keeps price within a narrow (for GME today, anyway) trading range for the rest of the day into the close.
Good plan guys, but those after market people are pushing the price up again. Damnit WSB bros and Euros, you're costing those poor long-side whales their extra 0.0000001% of alpha on this trade just so you can run up your green rockets... See, that's the kind of nonsense that just validates Lee Cooperman's concerns.
On a totally unrelated note, I have to say that I appreciate the shift in CNBC's reporting. Much more thoughtful and informed. Just please get a good market technician in there who will be willing to talk about what is going on under the hood if possible. A lot of people watching on the sidelines are far more terrified than they need to be because it all looks random to them. And they're worried that you guys look confused and worried--and if the experts on the news are worried....??!
You should be able to find one who has access to the really good data that we retailers can only guess at, who can explain it to us unwashed masses.

Ok, So.. Questions

There is no market justification for this. How can you tell me is this fundamentally sound and not just straight throwing money away irresponsibly?? (side note: not that that should matter--if you want to throw your money away why shouldn't you be allowed to?)
We're not trading in your securities pricing model. This isn't irrational just because your model says long and short positions are the same thing. The model is not a real market. There is asymmetrical counterparty risk here given the shorts are on the hook for all the money they have, and possibly all the money their brokers have, and possibly anyone with exposure to the broker too! You may want people to trade by the rules you want them to follow. But the rest of us trade in the real market as it is actually implemented. Remember? That's what you tell the retailers who take their accounts to zero. Remember what you told the KBIO short-squeezed people? They had fair warning that short positions carry infinite risk, including more than your initial investment. You guys know this. It's literally part of your job to know this.
But-but-the systemic risk!! This is Madness!
...Madness?
THIS. IS. THE MARKET!!! *Retail kicks the short-side hedge funds down an infinity loss black hole\*.
Ok, seriously though, that is actually a fundamentally sound, and properly profit-driven answer at least as justifiable as the hedge funds' justification for going >100% of float short. If they can be allowed to gamble INFINITE LOSSES because they expect to make profit on the possibility the company goes bankrupt, can't others do the inverse on the possibility the company I don't know.. doesn't go bankrupt and gets a better strategy from the team that created what is now a $43bn market cap company (CHWY) that does exactly some of the things GME needs to do (digital revenue growth) maybe? I mean, I first bought in on that fundamental value thesis in the 30s and then upped my cost basis given the asymmetry of risk in the technical analysis as an obvious no-brainer momentum trade. The squeeze is just, as WSB people might say, tendies raining down from on high as an added bonus.
I get that you disagree on the fundamental viability of GME. Great. Isn't that what makes a market?
Regarding the consequences of a squeeze, in practice my expectation was maybe at worst some kind of ex-market settlement after liquidation of the funds with exposure to keep things nice and orderly for the rest of the market. I mean, they handled the VW thing somehow right? I see now that I just underestimated elite hedge fund managers though--those guys are so hardcore (I'll explain why I think so a bit lower down).
If hedge fund people are so hardcore, how did the retail long side ever have a chance of winning this squeeze trade they're talking about?
Because it's an asymmetrical battle once you have short interest cornered. And the risk is also crazily asymmetrical in favor of the long side if short interest is what it is in GME. In fact, the hedge funds essentially cornered themselves without anyone even doing anything. They just dug themselves right in there. Kind of impressive really, in a weird way.
What does the short side need to cover? They need the price to be low, and they need to buy shares.
How does price move lower? You have to push share volume such that supply overwhelms demand and price therefore goes down (man, I knew econ 101 would come in handy someday).
But wait... if you have to sell shares to push the price down.. won't you just undo all your work when you have to buy it back to actually cover?
The trick is you have to push price down so hard, so fast, so unpredictably, that you SCARE OTHER PEOPLE into selling their shares too, because they're scared of taking losses. Their sales help push the price down for free! and then you scoop them up at discount price! Also, there are ways to make people scared other than price movement and fear of losses, when you get right down to it. So, you know, you just need to get really, really, really good at making people scared. Remember to add a line item to your budget to make sure you can really do it right.
On the other hand..
What does the long side need to do? They need to own as much of the shares as they can get their hands on. And then they need to hold on to them. They can't be weak hands either. They need to be hands that will hold even under the most intense heat of battle, and the immense pressure of mind-numbing fear... they need to be as if they were made of... diamond... (oh wow, maybe those WSB people kind of have a point here).
Why does this matter? Because at some point the sell side will eventually run out of shares to borrow. They simply won't be there, because they'll be safely tucked away in the long-side's accounts. Once you run out of shares to borrow and sell, you have no way to move the price anymore. You can't just drop a fat stack--excuse me, I mean suitcase (we're talking hedge fund money here after all)--of Benjamins on the ticker tape directly. Only shares. No more shares, no way to have any direct effect on the price whatsoever.
Ok, doesn't that just mean trading stops? Can't you just out-wait the long side then?
Well, you could.. until someone on the long side puts 1 share up on a 69420 ask, and an even crazier person actually buys at that price on the last tick on a Friday. Let's just say it gets really bad at that point.
Ok.. but how do the retail people actually get paid?
Well, to be quite honest, it's entirely up to each of them individually. You've seen the volumes being thrown around the past week+. I guarantee you every single retailer out there could have printed money multiple times trading that flow. If they choose to, and time it well. Or they could lose it all--this is the market. Some of them apparently seem to have some plan, or an implicit trust in certain individuals to help them know when to punch out. Maybe it works out, but maybe not. There will be financial casualties on the field for sure--this is the bare-knuckled capitalist jungle after all, remember? But everyone ponied up to the table with their own money somehow, so they all get to play in the big leagues just like everyone else. In theory, anyway.
And now, Probably the #1 question I've been asked on all of these posts has been: So what happens next? Do we get the infinity squeeze? Do the hedge funds go down?
Great questions. I don't know. No one does. That's what I've said every time, but I get that's a frustrating answer, so I'll write a bit more and speculate further. Please again understand these are my opinions with a degree of speculation I wouldn't normally put in a post.

The Market and the Economy. Main Street, Wall Street, and Washington

The pandemic has hurt so many people that it's hard to comprehend. Honestly, I don't even pretend to be able to. I have been crazy fortunate enough to almost not be affected at all. Honestly, it is a little unnerving to me how great the disconnect is between people who are doing fine (or better than fine, looking at my IRA) versus the people who are on the opposite side of the ever-widening divide that, let's be honest, has been growing wider since long before the pandemic.
People on the other side--who have been told they cannot work even if they want to, who wonder if congress will get it together to at least keep them from getting thrown out of their house if they have to keep taking one for the team for the good of all, are wondering if they're even living in the same reality.
Because all they see on the news each day is that the stock market is at record highs, or some amazing tech stocks have 10x'd in the last 6 months. How can that be happening during a pandemic? Because The Market is not The Economy. The Market looks forward to that brighter future that Economy types just need to wait for. Don't worry--it'll be here sometime before the end of the year. We think. We're making money on that assumption right now, anyway. Oh, by the way, if you're in The Market, you get to get richer as a minor, unearned side-effect of the solutions our governments have come up with to fight the pandemic.
Wow. That sounds amazing. How do I get to part of that world?
Retail fintech, baby. Physical assets like real estate might be a bit out of reach at the moment, but stocks will do. I can even buy fractional shares of BRK/A LOL.
Finally, I can trade for my own slice of heaven, watching that balance go up (and up--go stonks!!). Now I too get to dream the dream. I get to feel connected to that mythical world, The Market, rather than being stuck in the plain old Economy. Sure, I might blow up my account, but that's because it's the jungle. Bare-knuckled, big league capitalism going on right here, and at least I get to show up an put my shares on the table with everyone else. At least I'm playing the same game. Everyone has to start somewhere--at least now I get to start, even if I have to learn my lesson by zeroing my account a few times. I've basically had to deal with what felt like my life zeroing out a few times before. This is number on a screen going to 0 is nothing.
Laugh or cry, right? I'll post my losses on WSB and at least get some laughs.
Geez, some of the people here are making bank. I better learn from them and see if they'll let me in on their trades. Wow... this actually might work. I don't understand yet, but I trust these guys telling me to hold onto this crazy trade. I don't understand it, but all the memes say it's going to be big.
...WOW... I can pay off my credit card with this number. Do I punch out now? No? Hold?... Ok, getting nervous watching the number go down but I trust you freaks. We're still in the jungle, but at least I'm in with with my posse now. Market open tomorrow--we ride the rocket baby! And if it goes down, at least I'm going down with my crew. At least if that happens the memes will be so hilarious I'll forget to cry.
Wow.. I can't believe it... we might actually pull this off. Laugh at us now, "pros"!
We're in The Market now, and Market rules tell us what is going to happen. We're getting all that hedge fund money Right? Right?
Maybe.
First, I say maybe because nothing is ever guaranteed until it clears. Secondly, because the rules of The Market are not as perfectly enforced as we would like to assume. We are also finding out they may not be perfectly fair. The Market most experts are willing to talk about is really more like the ideal The Market is supposed to be. This is the version of the market I make my trading decisions in. However, the Real Market gets strange and unpredictable at the edges, when things are taken to extremes, or rules are pushed beyond the breaking point, or some of the mechanics deep in the guts of the Real Market get stretched. GME ticks basically all of those boxes, which is why so many people are getting nervous (aside from the crazy money they might lose). It's also important to remember that the sheer amount of money flowing through the market has distorting power unto itself. Because it's money, and people really, really, really like their money--especially when they're used to having a lot of it, and rules involving that kind of money tend to look more... flexible, shall we say.
Ok, back to GME. If this situation with GME is allowed to play out to its conclusion in The Market, we'll see what happens. I think all the long-side people get the chance to be paid (what, I'm not sure--and remember, you have to actually sell your position at some point or it's all still just numbers on your screen), but no one knows for certain.
But this might legitimately get so big that it spills out of The Market and back into The Economy.
Geez, and here I thought the point of all of this was so that we all get to make so much money we wouldn't ever have to think and worry about that thing again.
Unfortunately, while he's kind of a buzzkill, Thomas Petterfy has a point. This could be a serious problem.
It might blow out The Market, which will definitely crap on The Economy, which as we all know from hard experience, will seriously crush Main Street.
If it's that big a deal, we may even need Washington to be involved. Once that happens, who knows what to expect.. this kind of scenario being possible is why I've been saying I have no idea how this ends, and no one else does either.
How did we end up in this ridiculous situation? From GAMESTOP?? And it's not Retail's fault the situation is what it is.. why is everyone telling US that we need to back down to save The Market?? What about the short-side hedge funds that slammed that risk into the system to begin with?? We're just playing by the rules of The Market!!
Well, here are my thoughts, opinions, and some even further speculation... This may be total fantasy land stuff here, but since I keep getting asked I'll share anyway. Just keep that disclaimer in mind.

A Study in Big Finance Power Moves: If you owe the bank $10,000, it's your problem...

What happens when you owe money you have no way to pay back? It's a scary question to have to face personally. Still, on balance and on average, if you're fortunate enough to have access to credit the borrowing is a risk that is worth taking (especially if you're reasonably careful). Lenders can take a risk loaning you money, you take a risk by borrowing in order to do something now that you would otherwise have had to wait a long time or maybe would never have realistically been able to do otherwise. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes it's due to reasons totally beyond your control. In any case, if you find yourself there you have no choice but to dust yourself off, pick yourself up as best as you can, and try to move on and rebuild. A lot of people had to learn that in 2008. Man that year really sucked.
Wall street learned their lessons too. Most learned what I think most of us would consider the right lessons--lessons about risk management, and the need to guard vigilantly against systemic risk, concentration of risk through excess concentration of leverage on common assets, etc. Many suspect that at least a few others may have learned an entirely different set of, shall we say, unhealthy lessons. Also, to try to be completely fair, maybe managing other peoples' money on 10x+ leverage comes with a kind of pressure that just clouds your judgement. I could actually, genuinely buy that. I know I make mistakes under pressure even when I'm trading risk capital I could totally lose with no real consequence. Whatever the motive, here's my read on what's happening:
First, remember that as much fun as WSB are making of the short-side hedge fund guys right now, those guys are smart. Scary smart. Keep that in mind.
Next, let's put ourselves in their shoes.
If you're a high-alpha hedge fund manager slinging trades on a $20bn 10x leveraged to 200bn portfolio, get caught in a bad situation, and are down mark-to-market several hundred million.. what do you do? Do you take your losses and try again next time? Hell no.
You're elite. You don't realize losses--you double down--you can still save this trade no sweat.
But what if that doesn't work out so well and you're in the hole >$2bn? Obvious double down. Need you ask? I'm net up on the rest of my positions (of course), and the momentum when this thing makes its mean reversion move will be so hot you can almost taste the alpha from here. Speaking of momentum, imagine the move if your friends on TV start hyping the story harder! Genius!
Ok, so that still didn't work... this is now a frigging 7 sigma departure from your modeled risk, and you're now locked into a situation that is about as close to mathematically impossible to escape as you can get in the real world, and quickly converging on infinite downside. Holy crap. The fund might be liquidated by your prime broker by tomorrow morning--and man, even the broker is freaking out. F'in Elon Musk and his twitter! You're cancelling your advance booking on his rocket ship to Mars first thing tomorrow... Ok, focus--this might legit impact your total annual return. You need a plan, and you know the smartest people on the planet, right? The masters of the universe! Awesome--they've even seen this kind of thing before and still have the playbook!! Of course! It's obvious now--you borrow a few more billion and double down again first thing in the morning. So simple. Sticky note that Mars trip cancellation so you don't forget.
Ok... so that didn't work? You even cashed in some pretty heavy chits too. Ah well, that was a long shot anyway. So where were you? Oh yeah.. if shenanigans don't work, skip to page 10...
...Which says, of course, to double down again. Anyone even keeping track anymore? Oh, S3 says it's $40bn and we're going parabolic? Man, that chart gives me goosebumps. All according to plan...
So what happens tomorrow? One possible outcome of PURE FANTASTIC SPECULATION...
End of the week--phew. Never though it'd come. Where are you at now?... Over $9000^\)!!! Wow. You did it boys, and as a bonus the memes will be so sweet.
^\)side note: add 8 zeros to the end...
Awesome--your problems have been solved. Because...
​
..
​
BOOM
​
Now it's EVERYONE's problem. Come at me, Chamath, THIS is REAL baller shit.
Now all you gotta do is make all the hysterical retirees watching their IRAs hanging in the balance blame those WSB kids. Hahaha. Boomers, amirite? hate when those kids step on their law--I mean IRAs. GG guys, keep you memes. THAT is how it's done.
Ok, but seriously, I hope that's not how it ends. I guess we just take it day by day at this point.
Apologies for the length. Good luck in the market!
Also, apologies in advance for formatting, spelling, and grammatical errors. I was typing this thing in between doing all kinds of other things for most of the day.
Edit getting a bunch of questions on if it's possible the hedge funds are finding ways to cover in spite of my assumptions. Of course. I'm a retail guy trying to read the charts and price action. I don't have any special tools like the pros may have.

First edit:
Fuck this thing blew up. in all my years of redditing I have never been overwhelmed with wholesomeness like today. Thank you moderators for pinning this post - I will keep updating this on the regular! Before I go, if anyone wants further information going back before 25th January, here's a chronology of events from pre-squeeze till 4th February written by yours truly.
Valentines Day 14/02 edit:
Thank you all for your positive feedback and for literally all the awards. In all my life I never got platinum, let alone Argentium, and then Ternion!!!
I had a few celebratory drinks last night and I woke up totally shitfaced. It's valentine's day and I will be spending the day with the gf (who as some of you noticed from my page-article, we are expecting by the end of the month and she is right about to pop so she needs extra care and attention). I will be reading all the comments during the day, every time the gf turns her head a bit from me. I'm saving the comments with links to DDs so that I can add them later on.
I urge each and every one of you to read the new section 'HOW CAN YOU HELP ME WITH THIS THREAD'
Again thank you for everything and stay positive! Make sure to let the ones who care about you know that you care about them too today! Happy Valentines Day!
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It took me a very long time to collect and create abstracts, but I finally finished. I'm totally exhausted but quite proud of myself for bringing you everything you need to know so far in one thread.
I would love for this thread to be stickied, and if it does I plan to continue to update the same thread every day. If it does not I will continue posting updated versions every day. I also have my own website where I will keep updating this list.

Please help spread this around - knowledge is power. If you have a link to more DD leave a comment!

Please note that all Dates and Times posted are Central European Times (CET)
Obligatory: This is not financial advice. I am a smooth-brained holder of GME 🚀💎🤲 We like the stock!
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Doing your part

The Congress hearing will be streamed online on the 18th of February. Please email your representatives before this day.
What else can I do?
Make sure that you are not allowing shorts to borrow your shares to short-sell them!
​

How Can You Help Me and This Thread

First of all, THANK YOU. If you really want to help me and our brothers, here's what you can do:

1. Read and provide criticism, help me make better summaries and one-liners for the links to make it as readable as possible (think: ELI5)
2. Share this post to everyone you know - link this thread in WSB threads as comments so that we can educate the ignorant. We can link it in a way such as this: " Here’s a link to the motherload of DD for our favorite stonk " Empower others with knowledge
3. Look for any DD I have missed, old and new, especially in OG WSB from before the coup - send them to me as links in comments AND AS CHAT MESSAGES. I am going through all messages and I will update later today
4. We need to find a way to archive all the DD links from WSB so that if the mods of WSB catch on, we can have a backup of the threads before they delete them!
5. Collect more information on the coup, such as the info that was present from wallstreetbetstest and u/zjz posts. The retaliation messages, proof of removals of threads, bans for no reason ...etc.
6. Collect fake media articles that we can disprove so that I can compile a full list of bullshit media providers and articles
7. Let me know how I can better organize this thread.
8. and finally, don't forget to REPORT SHILLS. I would love to become a moderator and be able to investigate and ban shills myself. I applied but I don't think it will happen for now.

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Backdated posts added later in edits:

• 11-02 03:00
• Added the Chronology of events from pre-squeeze to 4th February.
• 09-02 12:45
• 22-01 13:55

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The List of DD Begins Here:

13-02 18:10 Shills on reddit being paid up to $650/week.

• More proof of shills
• More proof of shills
• More proof of shills

13-02 17:45 Level 2 data shows that at certain moments during trading days we may be just a few thousand shares away from hitting the high asks.
13-02 15:51 Citadel may have a long position in TSLA and will probably have to sell if it comes to liquidity when having to cover shorts (or bail out HFs again).
13-02 15:50 Intensive thesis on the Congress hearing this Thursday 18th Feb, investigating DTCC and Brokers for their complicity in enabling naked shorting, and likely collusion to shut down trading on the 28th Jan. You can help out by contacting representatives with the points mentioned in the thread.

• On Thursday you can watch the live stream here.

13-02 07:50 IV changes in options indicate that a $50 support level is established with a possible $50-72 channel. Analysing option prices shows that another run-up is coming.
13-02 06:30 At this point, if manipulators pushed the price down too hard it would have taken more shares off the market through puts, reducing the liquidity further, making it harder for the HFs.

• Price target prediction end of next week 19th Feb @ $58-59, with peaks above $60 to issue further Calls (to get paid the premium) then hold it below this line.
• The following week 26th Feb will end below $70 as there is a large off-set of calls vs Puts at this strike price, and a gain from 50-70 in two weeks will bring in more retail investors again.

13-02 05:15 We are currently in a liquidity crisis and shorts cannot cover in such an environment. Manipulators fought hard to keep it below $55, which was the strike price that would have hurt them the most.

• Tool to analyse the max pain price.

13-02 04:50 Prediction that during the Congress hearing this Thursday 18th Feb, GME trading may get halted until the hearing is over. DFV will hopefully explain all the fuckery that has happened so far, and the web of lies will begin to unravel. This would bring back retail investor interest and push the price back up.
13-02 04:00 A ranting reminder that any time someone is being an aggressive bully, they are operating from a place of vulnerability. Once you know this it’s easy to spot the chink in their armour that they’re trying to compensate for. We have the power.
13-02 03:00 GME is only where it is now because of manipulation. More importantly, if you think that HFs and the manipulators are planning to give up and ‘settle’ to cover at $50 you are wrong. They’re continually doubling down and won’t rest until they bring GME down to $0.
​
12-02 22:50 WSB Warzone - Since the most discussed ticker was GME, the post was deleted.
12-02 17:10 Compilation of Due Diligence

• The surge up to $480 was likely not short-squeezing, but reducing liquidity along with massive retail investment along with Gamma squeeze covering naked options.
• HFs liquidated significant positions of major holdings causing red days to have cash for covering positions.
• Shills, bots and crooked mods have infested WSB to spread FUD and delete posts and users fighting the good fight.
• Massive amount of $800 Calls expiring March 19th, along with massive amount of Puts for TSLA - as GME spiked TSLA tanks
• We will likely not see a massive squeeze, but a slow cover similar to TSLA short squeeze.

12-02 08:20 Shorting halted by most Brokers

• In fact iBorrowDesk only saw a 100k share movement from the 1.4M shares available to borrow all through the trading day.

12-02 07:00 FTDs: HFs naked short positions opened after 1st Feb (after the FINRA report data) and not before so that they do not get accounted for in the latest FINRA report. These new positions will have to be covered by 24th Feb if they do not want them to be shown in the next report.
12-02 02:00 Data assimilation (extractions from FINRA and Yahoo Finance) showing December 2020’s short positions that are in the red, and probably are not covered by now at significant losses (the real bagholders).

• Shorts were betting that GME wouldn’t pass $20.

​
11-02 16:40 GameStop Executives held the line and did not sell any shares at peak, even though they had the option to.
11-02 16:00 Why we don’t need a squeeze to win, Ryan Cohen’s changes to the company operation will blow up the company’s value.
11-02 15:00 Implied Volatility surges, particularly for $800 Calls expiring Feb 26th, indicating higher volatility in the days to come.
11-02 14:45 Calculations showing that:

• ~40M shares held by retail investors (~80%)
• ~54M shares held by institutions (~113%)
• ~48M shares as float (this is probably incorrect as Morningstar reports a float of 27M)
• GME detained at 193% total
• Real short interest at 138% (if Morningstar is correct, the SI would actually be 248%)

11-02 12:30 ETFs went on a buying spree, reducing float, and diamond handing.

• Link contains breakdowns of institutional shares held and changes

11-02 05:10 A list of potential upcoming changes to company operations that will make the stock much more interesting for retail investors.
11-03 03:50 A reminder from an older investor to always stick to your original plan and not get distracted by some shiny object. If you find something and ten people tell you that it’s worthless, then it isn’t.
11-02 03:00 The state of WSB since the moderator coup
11-02 01:35 Shorts could have covered on the upswing on the 10th Feb, then released fake news on Fidelity selling their shares then started short-selling and short-laddering to drop the price again.

• They start pumping weed stocks as a distraction on WSB.
• GME is inversely following SPY - liquidation.

11-02 01:10 A comparison of Short Interest data from providers.
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10-02 08:30 Shorts have most probably been buying $800 Calls to make it seem like they ‘cancel out’ their short positions.
10-02 08:20 Figures, calculations and logic showing that the Short Interest is higher than anything reported.
10-02 07:50 An overview of what happened so far, with psychology and reasoning of HFs along the way.
10-02 06:15 DD on possibilities of covering and outlook of potential outcomes.
10-02 06:10 Crunching Finra’s SI report shows that SI is over 117%, and that there were 112% more shares shorted than were actually available to purchase on 27th January. It’s possible that between 1/13-17 about 7M shorts were covered, but they had to have continued to short like crazy since then to push the price down.
10-02 05:20 Naked shorting was probably aided by DTCC who probably shut down buying to stop the squeeze to avoid a scandal. Shorts likely hid their open positions via a loophole which generated synthetic longs. If this is correct there is a large amount of counterfeit shares floating in the market.
10-02 04:22 Finra reports 78% SI, while institutions own 206% (144M shares) of all outstanding shares. This could mean that actual SI is around 150%.
10-02 03:00 Finra releases SI data: 78.5%
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09-02 20:00 A compilation of manipulative tactics and logical fallacies to help you identify when they are being attempted against you.
09-02 12:45 Biden administration cannot allow itself to lose trust at the beginning at the term, and HFs Brokers WS and the media may be in a worse position than we thought.
09-02 08:45 Cramer exposed - video from 2006 shows how himself (when he managed an HF) and other HFs manipulate markets.
09-02 08:20 Shares being bought around $270 after hours.
09-02 02:00 Proof that FINTEL are altering short data, with replies from CEO.

• More Proof.
• Further proof.

​
08-02 17:00 Shorts may provide fake data to FINRA for a relatively small fine which could help save them millions-billions.
08-02 14:15 Compilation of DD showing that nothing has changed no matter what the media is saying.
08-02 09:50 They are losing $2B ever 2.5 days
08-02 01:45 Why to buy GME regardless of a squeeze. The future of GameStop is bright.
​
07-02 16:45 Hypothesis that Melvin is just a tool for larger hedge fund to take over Citadel and take trillions from them.
07-02 16:40 Evidence shows the HFs likely use a loophole trick to appear as if they covered their shorts using synthetic longs generated from options.
07-02 13:30 A very useful spreadsheet to track and analyse stocks
07-02 03:45 There is no mathematical way shorts covered for Jan 13, 22, or 25 as is being reported by SI data providers - they are lying.
​
06-02 22:00 The interstellar yo-yo theory: every 13 days (settlement days) stock price increases and pushes back by selling more synthetic long positions (fake shares into the market), FTDs increase
06-02 18:20 Institutions hold 177% of float, proving the existence of a huge amount of synthetic longs.
​
05-02 23:40 HFs want you to think that they repositioned and covered their shorts, but calculations show that this was impossible and the conditions were not ideal to do this without incurring massive losses.
05-02 19:30 GME and AMC graph comparison, showing the exact same movement.
​
02-02 23:30 Analysis of 265,000 rows of SEC data shows massive amount of FTDs compared to the rest of the market - likely that it is a result of massive illegal share counterfeiting by shorts.
02-02 05:30 The market may collapse due to the creation of a massive number of preexisting synthetic longs that were bought and held. To fix it, market makers decided to make more, but their cure is also a poison they can't stop taking.
02-02 04:00 Melvin claims to have closed out their positions, but used an illegal loophole to make it seem like they have.
​
01-02 23:20 Short Interest appears to have fallen but in truth is being shoved under the rug of option traders.
01-02 20:45 A list of misinformation articles inducing FUD
01-02 20:30 Following the crumbs: How GME is exposing illegal activity
01-02 17:15 Psychological warfare - FUD and manipulated dips along with further short-selling to make you believe that you’ve missed the peak.
01-02 10:20 Evidence of massive naked short selling fraud.
01-02 02:30 Public data suggest massive securities fraud creating more shares than exist, and that retail investors may hold more than 100% of all outstanding shares.
​
31-01 09:10 Wall Street is freaking out because they are about to get caught doing extremely illegal shit that may implode the whole system - fake shares in the float.
25-01 23:30 Today’s co-ordinated attack: let the price run up only to jack up margin requirements, then dumped.
22-01 13:55 Make sure that you are not helping shorts borrow your shares and short sell by opting out with your broker! Some brokers settings are by default, so you have to change it yourself.
​
A chronology of events pre-squeeze till 4th February written by yours truly.

GME Short Squeeze What Comes Next Part 3
Hello all,
Before I begin I would like to address something I have been encountering on my posts in the comments section. I keep receiving some hate concerning my opinions and I want to be crystal clear that they are just that; opinions. I also want everyone to know that is is meant to be a dialog. I am not trying to pump this stock because truthfully, this goes far beyond us retail investors at this point. What I want is a dialog between all sides to examine this truly fascinating phenomenon that is occurring.
I would also like to clarify something, I am not a bagholder. I do currently hold bags because I own 336 shares at a $194.34 cost basis, however, that total amount is house money that was used from my profits on the first go around.
I also understand some people are tired of hearing about this because it's the same regurgitated form of someone else's post as it keeps circulating in an attempt to retain hype and drive future buying; this is not what this post is about. As investors and individuals involved in the world of finance, this situation should absolutely intrigue us whether or not we are involved. I am here to present my logic on the situation but encourage healthy discussion and debate.
This brings me to my first claim. This is not over. Now, I am not claiming that a squeeze will still occur, I am simply claiming it is not over, for better or for worse. Several things need to take place for this to be completely over, at which point I will either post my gains or my losses from the adventure.
When I say "it" I am referring to this entire phenomenon, not one short squeeze. I do not think these events, "it", is over. This is largely due to retail and institutional purchasing not really changing all that much since we found the bottom and established support at a staggering $60. This support was lost today and found new support at $50. There was very interesting ATH action and I'm not sure what to make of it.
Millions of bag holders (not just WSB) are still holding and in fact, averaging down, thereby purchasing more. These same bag holders are absolutely refusing to sell for such massive losses and in turn are becoming long term investors on the stock if another squeeze isn't to occur. People are picking up speculative positions in the off-chance of another squeeze. Others are determining this as a fair value for the company, not fundamentally, but based on the future prospects of Ryan Cohen and team. Finally, it is nowhere near leaving the global stage with important upcoming dates that we will discuss later.
To examine why it isn't over let's look at both sides of the argument:

1. Bulls claim it's not over for many reasons that you can find in the hundreds of other bullish posts, so I won't bore you with those details. My argument on the bull side is more along the lines of what I listed above.
2. Bears claim it is over because there was a 2250% price increase over the course of two weeks, therefore this must be a short squeeze.

I think we can all agree, bear or bull, that something happened. A 2250% increase certainly isn't nothing. The question is...what? I see several possibilities and would like to discuss them in the comments.

1. The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze.
2. The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze, but the price increase was mainly hype and gamma squeezes.
3. The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes.
4. Some combination of the above 3.

First, the data:
Based on morningstar the short interest is showing 78.46%. Now, I think the website is having some issues storing cookies because it will show the outdated 226% unless you open it up in incognito.
Market watch is showing 41.95%
This spread is interesting for sure, my thoughts are some of these calculations are including "synthetic longs" introduced by S3.
It is extremely possible to manipulate these numbers via illegal methods and even legal methods using options. Please see this SEC document to explain how this would work. I am not trying to convince anyone to fit my narrative, but these things occur far more commonly than one would expect. The reasoning is because the fines for committing the crime are far less costly than letting the event take place. Please see FINRA's website for the long, and frequent list of fines being dealt out due to manipulation. A common culprit? Lying about short volume.
Let's use the absolute worst case scenario being reported of 41.95%, which mind you is still extremely high for one stock:
The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze
What's interesting here is even if the shorts 100% covered all of their positions, they very well could have shorted on the way back down. Why wouldn't you? It would be insane to not open a short position when this hit nearly $500 especially if you lost half of your companies money; what better way to get it back? For the remainder of this thesis, I will be assuming that some of the short positions that exist are newly opened positions at a higher price unless someone has a counter-claim as to why that wouldn't be possible/probable.
That would mean 226% was covered on the way up and another 41.95% was reopened on the way back down. Based on the volume and price changes throughout the past two weeks this simply doesn't pass the math check.
The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze.
Again, using 41.95% this is highly likely and the most reasonable case. Some, probably the worst positions, were covered on the way up.
I think this is precisely what happened, we had some partial shorts covering but for the most part it was gamma squeezes, hype, and FOMO whereby the price started climbing so rapidly it became smarter for the shorts to just wait out the bubble than to actually cover all of their positions.
Again, we fall into a "what-if" scenario regarding shorting on the way back down.
The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes.
This scenario does not pass the math check using the 41.95% figure.
If the data is being manipulated then this becomes very interesting because if some of the worst positions are still open then that means all of these HF's losses that were reported were strictly interest and they are simply waiting this out for as long as it takes making back their losses on their newly opened short positions in t $300-$400 range.
Sadly, this puts us in the guessing range yet again. We can do the math and see it's possible this scenario exists, however, we would be comparing it against losses reported by the entities that were being squeezed.
There are way to many what-if's for me to me consider this a possibility, but I can't write it off completely.
Some combination of the above 3.
Truthfully, this isn't worth examining just yet. There would be far to many "what-if's" to address, this is something that could be address at the later dates that we will get to shortly.
Now, I've heard it a lot regarding the 02/09 data. "It's two weeks old". Well, that is always the case. The FINRA short data is always two weeks old and suggesting that we can't pull any information from it at all is asinine. Where it gets quite murky, is the data includes 01/27 information. This was a day unlike any other in this saga.
I will take this moment to address the following upcoming catalysts and when I truly think this will be done; one way or the other.
Today's data 02/09, was very important because if it showed an extremely low percentage then we know shorts have exited and did not re-enter and this is completely done. Given the data does not reflect that, we now must turn to several events that could act as catalysts for either a further squeeze or a complete shutdown.
02/19 - In my last post, I discussed the Failure To Deliver (FTD) conundrum. I do need some help figuring out the exact expiration date. From here "The close-out requirement states that a participant of a clearing agency needs to take immediate action to close 4 out a fail to deliver position in a threshold security that has persisted for 13 consecutive settlement days by purchasing securities of like kind and quantity."
The exact date is slightly irrelevant because I highly doubt all of these FTD's are going to deliver on the same exact day. This site, while it isn't an official channel seems to be doing a good job of tracking data. If you want to learn more about FTD's and the implications there please visit that site or review my last post which has links to follow for further reading.
02/18 - Keith Gill aka u/DeepFuckingValue will testify before congress and RH CEO Vladimir will be attending. This can go several ways which can lead to an SEC trading halt on GameStop or with evidence that proves foul play occurred. Who knows? It will certainly be interesting and I don't even to speculate on the market reaction to this even because it could go a ton of different ways; it will be an important date nonetheless
02/24 - The next FINRA short interest information will be made readily available to the public. This will be far more interesting and helpful information because it won't include the insane volatility of January, but it will also highlight the newest short positions. This data will help further drive where I think this is all going to end. It's possible that shorts opened new positions at $50 thinking it was going back to $12. Let's not speculate too much here either, it's just another dataset that will bring light to the direction this is headed.
03/25 - GameStop ER. This is big too for several reasons. First, this will include the console sales cycle which historically has done well for GameStop. A typical buy the hype, sell the news event. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts leading up to this ER, maybe people won't even touch GME leading up to then due to the recent volatility, but if they do, and if there is still a lot of short interest, this too could force shorts to begin covering. Another critical part of this ER is Ryan Cohen. This will be the first time this new board addresses the public with their plans for the future and for the first time since this entire adventure began, the "dying brick and mortar" narrative will finally begin to change in the public eye. That is still the common misconception regarding GameStop, that it is a dying brick and mortar retailer where nothing has changed. This hasn't been the case for around 6 months now, but this will be the first time it is publicly address. The headlines surrounding GameStop's future plans will be very interesting to read and the markets reaction will be far more interesting.
I have been asked a lot what my PT is and when I expect the squeeze to happen, but let me be clear. Very seldom do squeezes "just happen". In fact, short squeezes are far more common than one would think, they just typically happen over months, if not years and the shorts cover on dips so you don't even notice it's happening. In order to force a squeeze, you need to hold a decent amount of shorts underwater. Soon one will crack and start closing their position, this leads to a series of shorts closing their positions skyrocketing the price until more and more shorts need to cover. This is rare.
I hope this narrative of purchasing heavily shorted companies comes to a close soon because a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money simply buying up companies because they are heavily bet against. Catalysts and massive changes need to occur like overhauling your entire business as is the case with GameStop.
Normally, shorts will close their positions one at a time, covering on dips and you don't even notice it's happening. In times where you see a price rise of seemingly no news could very well be shorts closing their positions because their research led them to realize this company is on the road to recovery.
I digress. Given the most recent data and the multiple upcoming catalysts I am still very bullish on a GME short squeeze. My post from quite some time ago illustrated the importance of catalysts regarding a short squeeze, this is still very much the case. The first run was interrupted and the second run won't happen with magic, it requires a catalyst. Another post was titled For those who do not understand the inevitable GME short squeeze, was at the time "inevitable" because math. That is no longer the case. It is no longer inevitable but it is still possible.
I want to be clear: This is not nearly as close to a sure thing as it once was and it depends on a lot of different factors. One of the largest is the people. Granted, a lot of what's happening now is in the hands of institutions but millions of retailers holding their positions to the grave certainly helps the institutional buyers have more faith in their play to continue a squeeze.
SO WHAT DO I THINK
I think shorts certainly covered some of their positions, but not all. I also firmly believe a significant amount of short positions were opened on the way back down by both HF's and individuals. Some certainly positioned high, but based on sentiment, it appears a lot of people think GME is fairly valued around $20 (which I disagree with but let's use that for the time being). That would mean shorts would have no problem opening positions at 100,70,60, even $50.
42% is still very high which means a squeeze is inevitable so long as the company continues in a positive path. However, squeezes typically aren't as abrupt as people think. They are actually quite common, in fact another position I'm heavily invested in is SPCE and they have been going through a squeeze for several weeks and will continue to squeeze so long as news continues to be positive.
How would we get an abrupt short squeeze? A massive bull run. The new shorts that entered at lower levels wouldn't be too hard to catch, however, they are probably low volume, so when they buy to close, it won't be large enough volumes for massive peaks, but a bull run very well could lead to these lower tiered shorts closing, triggering a gamma squeeze. If gamma squeezes are made week over week then shorts at the higher end would have two options:

1. Close early and take profits
2. Wait it out because they are positioned so well that interest means nothing and they don't think there is any hope of us rising to those levels.

In the first case, them closing early would be a nice short squeeze to probably several hundred dollars, but it wouldn't break $1000.
To break $1000 we would need a big bull run to catch the shorts, trigger gamma squeezes, and keep momentum until they are caught and underwater. This is highly unlikely unless there is another global sentiment.
NOTE: ALL OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS I AM MAKING ARE BASED ON THE 42% REPORTING. IF IT IS IN FACT 78% THEN THE POSSIBILITY IS TREMENDOUSLY INCREASED FOR THESE THINGS TO HAPPEN.
SO WHEN DOES IT ALL END
My though is if by the end of March these catalysts were not enough to reignite the hype and squeeze, then it will essentially be over except in the case of a few circumstances:

1. A VW/Porche moment occurs where a large buyer picks up a large portion of the company.
2. Some other currently unknown catalyst appears seemingly out of thin air
3. The data was in fact manipulated. Regardless of what the data says, if the shorts did in fact lie about their short int to take the fine over being squeezed, then they will be squeezed regardless.

It is quite possible, that these catalysts and moments aren't enough to force a squeeze anymore especially if the shorts have repositioned really well. I will retain the mindset that this fateful January 2021 was not a short squeeze. However, that does not mean it will ever actually happen.
SO WHAT IS YOUR PLAY HOOMAN?
Well, I am long on GME which is why I didn't mind hopping back in even at outrageous prices. I will continue averaging down and don't plan on selling for quite some time, probably several years. The reason for this is I believe in Cohen and his team to turn this into something unexpected and I imagine an eventual ROI. Once this is all said and done and I think either the shorts truly have covered or they simply got away with it (Beginning of April), I will be posting my DD for GME as a long play regardless of the squeeze mechanics.
Thank you all for joining me on this wild journey. I hope we can discuss some of these points in the comments like adults and truly try to grasp this wild situation we are all in. There are extremes on both sides from "get over it, the squeeze happened" to a cult like mentality on the other extreme. I hope through discussion we can find the moderate approach and further understand the market mechanics at play.
Thanks for your time
WARNING: Until the squeeze business is over for good, this is a very volatile and risky play. Joining now for the hope of a potential round 2 squeeze should only be done in a speculative manner with money you are willing to lose. This is more akin to a gamble than it is investing. I think the current market price is fair given the future prospects of the company but do your own DD, I will not be releasing any until this squeeze is put to rest.
TL;DR: I am still bullish on this scenario even at 42%, if it really is 78% then I am extremely bullish. There are a plethora of upcoming catalysts that could reignite the squeeze but even if none are powerful enough, with Cohen's new direction we could expect good news for quite some time forcing shorts to exit on a more spread out timeline.
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I do not wish to sway your opinion in either direction. I simply seek to examine this interesting and volatile situation via crowd sourcing. What you do with your money is entirely up to you.

My original post: https://www.reddit.com/MarvelStudiosSpoilers/comments/lhj5xy/wandavision_episode_6_possible_script_leak/
Here's the archive link
http://web.archive.org/web/20210211121433/https://pastebin.com/TYzjEXVA There you go!
The OP also shared a screenshot with me as proof he is legit. It has been verified by the mods!
WANDA: {\i1}Previously on {\i}WandaVision...
You made no effort\Nto conceal your abilities.
-Well, I'm tired of hiding, Vis.\N-What aren't you telling me?
You have to stop her.
Just make her stop!
You can't control me the way you do them.
Can't I?
DARCY: {\i1}She has the world's{\i}\N{\i1}only vibranium synthezoid{\i}
{\i1}playing Father-Knows-Best-In-Suburbia.{\i}
What happens when he learns the truth?
You've taken an entire town hostage.
Well, I'm not the one\Nwith the guns, Director.
-(GUNS COCKING)\N-Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
I had a brother.
His name was Pietro.
GERALDINE: {\i1}He was killed by Ultron.{\i}
Long lost bro get to squeeze\Nhis stinkin' sister to death or what?
She recast Pietro?
(OPENING THEME SONG PLAYING)
{\i1}Wanda{\i}\N{\i1}Wanda Vision{\i}
{\i1}Don't try to fight the chaos{\i}\N{\i1}Don't question what you've done{\i}
{\i1}The game can try to play us{\i}
{\i1}Don't let it stop the fun{\i}
{\i1}Some days it's all confusion{\i}
{\i1}Easy come and easy go{\i}\N{\i1}But if it's all illusion{\i}
{\i1}Sit back, enjoy the show{\i}
{\i1}Let's keep it going{\i}
{\i1}Let's keep it going{\i}
{\i1}Through each distorted day{\i}
{\i1}Let's keep it going{\i}
{\i1}Though there may be no way of knowing{\i}
{\i1}Who's coming by to play{\i}
Halloween's a magical holiday.
All about family, friends, and the thrill\Nof getting to be someone else for a day.
Wrong! Halloween's about candy.
And scaring people, but mostly candy.
Where's your costume, Tommy?
This is my costume. I'm the cool twin.
-What does that make me?\N-Hmm...
(GAME MUSIC PLAYING)
-Whoa!\N-(LAUGHS)
A dorksaurus rex.
-Not a real dinosaur.\N-(CHUCKLES)
(SNORING)
Man
He even snores cool.
-I'm gonna go wake him up.\N-(WHISPERS) Don't!
You scared?
He's our uncle. Why would I be scared?
'Cause it's four o'clock in the afternoon.
You're secretly afraid he's a vampire.
-No, I'm not.\N-Yes, you are.
No, I'm not.
-Blood is thicker than water! I show you!\N-(BILLY AND TOMMY SCREAMING)
-(ROARING)\N-(SCREAMING)
Oh! Somebody better be\Nbleeding, broken, or on fire.
-Whoa, Mom. Are you old Red Riding Hood?\N-(PIETRO SNORTS)
I'm a Sokovian fortune teller.
Wow. That is so...
-(CHUCKLING) Rad.\N-...lame.
"Lame."
Worse than the costumes mom\Nmade us the year we got typhus.
(BOTH SPEAKING SOKOVIAN)
(EXCLAIMS)
(SPEAKS SOKOVIAN)
(IN ENGLISH) That's not\Nexactly how I remember it.
You probably\Nsuppressed a lot of the trauma.
Mom has been weird\Nsince Uncle Pietro got here.
I think it's because\Nshe hasn't seen him in a long time.
And he's what you call, "a man child."
-(SIGHS WEARILY)\N-Whoa! Sweet costume bro-ham-in-law.
Let me guess. Uh, traffic light.
-(SIGHS)\N-Half-shucked corn.
A booger!
-Yes.\N-Yes!
Well, thank you for humoring me\Nand wearing this ridiculous get-up, honey.
Well, there were no other\Nclothes in my closet, so...
-You are incorrigible, darling.\N-(CHUCKLES)
I know you have a secret\Nthing for Mexican wrestlers.
{\i1}Mi gusta mucho.{\i}
{\i1}Chili con carne.{\i}
Ooh! (GIGGLES)
What do you say, boys?
Who's ready for that first hit\Nof high fructose corn syrup?
-Yes! Headlock!\N-Get out of here, get out of here.
Never told me much about your brother.
I had no idea he'd be so...
Go!
-Great with kids.\N-(ALL BURPING)
Yeah. He's just full of surprises.
Well, you have fun tonight, darling.
What? What do you mean?\NYou're all dressed and ready to go.
I'm undercover.
Halloween is a bacchanal\Nfor adolescent trouble-makers
and the neighborhood watch\Nis the only thing that stands
between the trees and the toilet paper.
-No, that's not what you're supposed to--\N-What?
Well... (SIGHS)
You didn't tell me you had plans.
Well, I am telling you now.
Mom and Dad have been,\Nnot fighting, just, like, different.
It's their first Halloween.\NYou have to be there.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's the big dealio?
Big guy has a conflict,\Ntwins need a father figure for the night.
Don't sweat it, sis.\NI got the old XY chromosome.
-(CHUCKLES)\N-Uncle P to the rescue, huh?
There you go. Problem solved.
You have a spooky time tonight, kids.
-Goodnight, Dad!\N-Bye, Dad.
(VIDEO GAME BEEPING)
Wanda?
Be good.
I smell crime.
(SCREAMS)
Don't do that!
Where do you keep your water balloons?
What? We don't have water balloons.
Where are we gonna\Nput all this shaving cream?
Oh.
-It was Billy's idea.\N-I'm Tommy.
And don't you forget it!
You don't even have a costume.
(SCOFFS)
Okay, but... (SIGHS) Just remember\Nthat this is a respectable family.
If I see any funny business,
I am going to magic\Nyou into a pickled herring.
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
(ELECTRICAL BUZZING)
I wanna see a full work-up\Ninside the hour.
-SOLDIER: Yes, sir.\N-Hayward.
Hayward!
You cut us off at the knees,\Nsending in that missile.
Now we know who we're dealing with.
Hey, there he is.
The guy who almost\Ngot murdered by his own murder squad.
You work for me?
-I actually don't know.\N-She's with me.
I see. And which one\Nof you is the sassy best friend?
There is no time for you\Nto diminish your colleagues
when you're about\Nto start a war you can't win.
Maximoff was never\Ngonna negotiate with us.
We take her out,\Nthis whole nightmare ends.
MONICA: We don't know that.
We actually have no idea
what will happen in there\Nor out here if Wanda dies.
So, what? We just surrender to that?
Not happening.
We can't outgun her.
And clearly antagonizing her\Nis only making things worse.
If Wanda is the problem,\Nshe has to be our solution.
Captain Rambeau, you have become\Nan impediment to this mission.
(SIGHS)
Constantly advocating\Non behalf of super-powered individuals.
Yes, I know\Nyour history with Carol Danvers.
You know, you people who left,
still have the luxury of optimism.
You have no idea what it was like.
What it took to keep the lights on.
Don't use the last five years\Nas an excuse to be a coward.
Maybe it's a good thing\Nyou weren't here when your mother died.
Because clearly\Nyou don't have the stomach for this job.
Get her off my base. Now. All of 'em.
SOLDIER: All right. Come on. Let's go.
Hayward is way overstepping\Nhis provisional authority.
He was looking\Nfor a reason to sideline us.
He's up to something.
SOLDIER: Let's go. Everybody in!
(GRUNTS)
-(MONICA YELLS)\N-(SOLDIER GROANS)
(PANTING)
Why didn't anyone tell me the plan?
-You okay?\N-Yeah. Let's move.
This is it. Game time.
It's not a competition, Tommy.
-It is if you're a winner.\N-Tommy.
(SHOUTS) Unleash hell, demon spawn.
(CHUCKLES SOFTLY)
Do you remember when we were\Nat the orphanage after mom and dad died?
What was the name of that kid\Nwho was always trying to steal your boots?
You know, he was the one...\NHe had the... He had the skin thing.
You're testing me.
No, I'm not.
Hey, it's cool. I know I look different.
Why do you... look different?
You tell me.\NI mean, if I found Shangri-La,
I wouldn't wanna be\Nreminded of the past either.
(LAUGHS) Next house, Mom.
Junior entrepreneur, over here.
How about you let Uncle P help you\Nmaximize your candy acquisition, huh?
(CHUCKLING) Yeah. Kick-ass!
"I feel the need..."
-"For speed."\N-(BOTH YELP)
Kick-ass.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER OVER RADIO)
-Oh, hey, Herb.\N-Oh, hey!
How's patrol going?
Eh, quiet, so far. Hold up, will you?
-(MAN TALKING OVER RADIO)\N-Say again.
-(MAN TALKING OVER RADIO)\N-All the candy has disappeared?
What? Who took my candy?
And now all\Nthe jack-o'-lanterns have been smashed.
(PIETRO, BILLY AND TOMMY CHEERING)
And now everyone's\Ncovered in silly string?
PIETRO: Whoo!
Sorry, Wanda, I gotta bounce.
Well, maybe Vision\Ncan help you out. (CHUCKLES)
Vision? Oh, he's not on duty.
Oh! I... I thought he...
Is there something\NI can do for you, Wanda?
Do you want something changed?
(CHUCKLING) No. It's fine. Never mind.
(CHUCKLES) All right. Peace.
WOMAN: Hey! How's it going?
Happy Halloween.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
I'm so hungry, I'd eat anything.
Hungry? I remember hungry.
I used to be like that all the time.
What did you do?
Snacked on Yo-Magic, bro.
Now I have time to hang fin.
Can I have some?
Here you go, little dude.
(GRUNTS)
(GASPS WEAKLY)
SHARK: {\i1}Yo-Magic! The snack for survivors!{\i}
This is so lame. I can't believe\Nyou're making them return all the candy.
I can't believe\Nwhat a bad influence you are.
Who beefed in your borscht?
I'm just trying to do my part, okay?
Come to town unexpectedly,\Ncreate tension with the brother-in-law,
stir up trouble with the rugrats,\Nand ultimately give you grief.
I mean, that's what you wanted, isn't it?
What happened to your accent?
What happened to yours?
Details are fuzzy, man.
I got shot like a chump\Non the street for no reason at all
and the next thing I know,\NI heard you calling me.
I knew you needed me.
Uncle P, guess what?\N(CHUCKLES)
They've got full-size candy bars\Na few blocks up. Mom, can we go?
Next stop, Cavity Town.
Right on, little dude.
Chip off the old Maximoff block.
You've got super speed!
-I do?\N-Yeah!
WANDA: It's okay, baby.
You can take it slow, and you can--
(CHEERING)
If you're gonna break the sound barrier,\Nplease just take your brother with you.
-Really?\N-Really?
Really. Yeah.\NAnd please just remember to--
BOTH: Don't go past Ellis Avenue.
We know, Mom. We know.
Hey! Be careful.
PIETRO: {\i1}I'm just trying{\i}\N{\i1}to do my part, okay?{\i}
{\i1}Come to town unexpectedly,{\i}\N{\i1}create tension with the brother-in-law...{\i}
MONICA: Who is that?
Wanda's brother came to town.
He brought the wrong face.
AGENT WOO: Over here.
{\i1}-What happened to your accent?{\i}\N{\i1}-What happened to yours?{\i}
(DARCY SIGHS)
MONICA: We shouldn't\Nhang out here too long.
DARCY: Uh, give me two seconds.
I just need to hack into\Nthe secure network on the base.
Donezo.
Now, should be able to access\Nthe data on Hayward's devices.
Oh. That's interesting.
Guys, Hayward figured out\Na way to look through the boundary.
And he didn't share it with the group.
AGENT WOO: Is this Wanda, right here?
No. The program is tracking\Nthe decay signature of vibranium.
Vision. Wait.
Why is Hayward tracking Vision?
I don't know.\NThis is all I can access so far.
These other dots,\Nthose are Westview residents?
The ones in Vision's\Nimmediate vicinity, yeah.
Hayward must have\Nan accurate headcount by now.
MONICA: Hmm.
AGENT WOO: And some sense\Nof their well-being.
Huh... These people,\Nnear the edge of town...
They're barely moving.
Are they alive?
(MONITOR BEEPING)
(DOG BARKING IN DISTANCE)
VISION: Say, excuse me.
Ma'am?
Are those your children?
Are you waiting for something?
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
WOMAN: Happy Halloween!
Trick-or-treat?
Agnes?
What are you doing here?
Town Square Scare. Where is it?
Oh, well, the Town Square.\N(CHUCKLES SOFTLY) I expect.
(CHUCKLES EMOTIONLESSLY)
Took a wrong turn.
Got lost.
In the town you grew up in?
(GASPS)
-It's all right.\N-(GASPS)
(SOFTLY) You...
You're one of the Avengers.
You're Vision.
Are you here to help us?
I am Vision. I do want to help.
But what's an Avenger?
What?
Why don't you know?
(BREATH TREMBLING)
Am I dead?
No, no. Why would you think that?
Because you are.
'Cause I'm what?
Dead.
Dead.
(SHOUTS) Dead!
Dead!
Agnes, it is my intention\Nto reach those outside of Westview
and make sense of our situation.
(SOFTLY) How?
No one leaves.
Wanda won't even let us think about it.
(CHUCKLING)
All is lost.
-Agnes...\N-(LAUGHING MANIACALLY)
Agnes, please calm down.
-Agnes! Please...\N-(CONTINUES LAUGHING MANIACALLY)
(LAUGHING STOPS)
I will fix this, Agnes. I promise.
Okey-dokey, neighbor.
(TIRES SCREECH)
Happy Halloweenie!
{\an8}(CELL PHONE RINGING)
That's it.
My way back into the Hex\Nwill be here in an hour.
Just gotta meet my guy over the ridge.
Let's roll.
You can't do that.
Sure we can.\NI'm a whiz at hot-wiring cars.
You can't go back into the Hex.
Worst case scenario,
Wanda removes my free will\Nand puts me in ultra-low-rise jeans.
Hayward has your blood work.
You've gone through\Nthe boundary twice already, Monica.
The energy inside has re-written\Nyour cells on a molecular level twice.
It's changing you.
Seen enough lab results\Nto last me a lifetime.
Cells metastasizing, cells in remission.
I know what Wanda's feeling\Nand I won't stop until I help her.
Okay.
Okay.
But I'm staying here.
-Wait, you can't stay here. It's not safe.\N-What? Darcy, what are you talkin' about?
I haven't made it through\NHayward's last firewall.
There's something big here.\NSomething that can help us. I know it.
Fine. Fine.
I'll drop you the location,\Nyou meet us out there as soon as you can.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-PIETRO: Holy shmacaroni.\N-(WANDA CHUCKLES)
PIETRO: Wow!\NWANDA: Isn't it great?
PIETRO: Damn it, if Westview, New Jersey\Nisn't charming as hell.
Now, I know that you think\Nthat I've have gone full soccer mom.
-Yeah.\N-But it really is nice, right?
Yeah. (SIGHS HEAVILY)
I think Mom and Dad would've loved it.
Yeah. I think they would have.
(CHILDREN LAUGHING)
Where were you hiding\Nthese kids up till now?
-What?\N-I assume
they were sleeping\Npeacefully in their beds.
No need to traumatize beyond the\Noccasional holiday episode cameo, right?
-No...\N-You were always the empathetic twin.
-I don't... I didn't...\N-Don't get me wrong.
You've handled the ethical considerations\Nof this scenario as best you could.
Families and couples stay together,
most personalities aren't far off from\Nwhat's underneath, people got better jobs,
better haircuts, for sure.
-You don't think it's wrong?\N-What, are you kidding?
I'm impressed! Seriously.
It's a big leap\Nfrom giving people nightmares
and shooting red wiggly-woos\Nout of your hands.
How'd you even do all this?
Hey, I'm not some stranger\Nand I'm not your husband.
You can talk to me.
I don't know how I did it.
I...
I only remember\Nfeeling completely alone.
Empty. I just...
Endless nothingness.
(SNIFFLES)
(GASPS)
Are you okay?
I'm fine.
Uh-huh.
(ELECTRONIC BEEPING)
Hayward, you sneaky bastard.
Move out.
Vision. What's he doing?
(VISION GRUNTING)
He really does want out, doesn't he?
(GRUNTING)
(GRUNTS)
Oh, no.
Why aren't you helping him?
-Stop! He's coming apart!\N-Hey!
(GRUNTING LOUDLY)
HAYWARD: {\i1}He really does want out{\i}\N{\i1}doesn't he?{\i}
-Whoa, Billy!\N-Shh!
Are you okay?
(VISION SCREAMING)
Mom!
Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!
What? What is it, Billy?
(PANTING) I hear Dad in my head.\NHe's in trouble.
(GRUNTING)
DARCY: Let me go! What are you doing?
Help him! Let me go!
Help!
(SHUDDERS)
The people need help.\N(GRUNTS)
(GASPS)
(WHIMPERS)
(GROANS)
I don't understand.\NWhat's happening to me?
Where is he? Where's your dad?
Hey, don't sweat it, sis. It's not like\Nyour dead husband can die twice.
-(GRUNTS)\N-(YELPS)
Billy, I need you to focus.
(SHUDDERING)
I can't tell. I see these...
-(GRUNTS)\N-...soldiers.
(SCREAMING)
They think he's dying.
(CHATTER STOPS)
Jimmy. Jimmy, do you see that?\NSomething's happening!
It's moving! Go, go!
(RUMBLING)
Go, go, go! Move, move, move!
Are you serious right now?
SOLDIER: Hey! Stop!
(GRUNTS) Oh, fudge.
(SOLDIERS SCREAMING)
(CLOWNS CHUCKLING)
(ALL SCREAMING)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Push it! Faster!
(ENGINE ROARING)
(TIRES SCREECHING)
Come in. Anyone read me?
Anyone hear my voice?
Does anyone read me?
Anyone read me? Over.

This is a story of how patience is key, and how letting someone else get revenge for you is by far easier than doing it yourself.
The setup
I live in one of those doubled up houses where they build two houses adjacent to eachother with mirrored layout, so we share a wall but are otherwise completely separate.
For years, the house next to me belonged to a nice old lady who you never really noticed or had any trouble with. When she died and the house was resold, the troubles began.
The target is someone who I will refer to as Jack Sparrow, for reasons that will become clear later. Jack owns a sizeable construction business, does some real estate on the side. He buys the house and rents it to a bunch of foreign construction workers that work for his business. I say foreign because it is relevant to the story: there are rumors Jack is doing some shady stuff to have these work for him dirt cheap, by claiming that they're national workers in their native country (and paying them according to that wage, and not the much higher minimum wage of my country). Not exactly on the up and up. Possibly unreported labour as well.
Anyways, he stuffs 4-6 of these in said house for them to live while they work here.
Now I do not have anything against foreign construction workers. But these guys living next door have two traits that are very problematic: they are extremely loud and they do not give a fuck about anyone else. We're talking non stop music and partying starting Thursday evening throughout the entire weekend, untill they leave at 5 am Monday morning to go to work. Seriously I dont know how or when they sleep, it is literally non stop. We're talking 'I'm wearing headphones but still cannot hear my own sound over their music' loud, since it would appear that they've designated the living room (adjacent to the shared wall) as the party room where the fun happens.
At first, I do the neighbourly thing and just suck it up, thinking 'its just one party, just one weekend'. After the third one in a row, I go over to ask them to turn it down, since y'know, night disturbance, its technically illegal to blast music this loud (hearable on the street and across the street by my other neighbours who have also complained).
I'm met with a halfhearthed 'so sorry, will fix'. Except nothing changes. I go over several more times, each time angrier, each time met with 'but its not loud'. If I can hear your music in my own house, over my own tv and music, I would say that it is in fact, too loud.
I contact Jack, since he is their landlord, and explain the situation, after which I'm met with an abrupt 'sorry not sorry, not my fucking problem'. Basically Jack told me to get fucked.
So I involve police, and call them every time things get out of hand. After about a dozen calls, sometimes even twice in the same night, it is clear that even regular police interference doesn't help the situation.
I should mention that I am a lawyer, so I know what the next legal steps are. I also know that other than a token paper from a judge saying 'their music is too loud' I'm not really going to get anything. Things would (like they already sometimes had) become a cat and mouse game where they would blast their music extremely loud to piss me off or to wake me up, for a few brief moments, so that by the time I could get proof or police show up, there would be no music.
I'm deadlocked with my only further option being pretty useless and a waste of time.
At this point I'm biding my time and just waiting till something changes. I'm not saying that I condone people who bludgeon their neighbour to death with a rusty pipe, but I do somewhat understand what would drive someone to that point.
The mistake
One day I'm at home and I notice quite a lot of ruckus next door, more so than usual. Suddenly, I see through my garden window that a wall is being partially torn down. You see, sometime over the years, the neighbours had built a small adjacent sidebuilding adjoining the main house. It was right on the border between us, and when the gardens were being refenced, the wall was used as a divider to save on fencing. Said wall was now in the process of having its top part ripped off by a crane.
I was not informed of any of this, which, while not technically needed, would have been the nice thing to do. I go take a walk so I can take a look at what we're doing and see that they've torn down the entire sidebuilding, the remaining wall between our gardens is the only part that has been kept intact (and even then, not the top part).
Being a lawyer, and specifically, a construction/permit lawyer, I know two things:

• Shit like this is not allowed without a pre-approved permit from the city
  
• There is no way in hell they have said permit, as I would have seen the application for it (I regularly have to check the online (public, accessible by everyone) application to see what permits are being applied for my job, and when I do I tend to look over to my own area, just so I can keep up with what is being planned in my area)
  

This is it. The moment I have been waiting for, the situation has changed and the time has come to exact revenge.
A quick email sent to the municipal authorities lets me do my civic duty of reporting a potential crime, the fact that someone is building or demolishing shit without a permit. Since this is a simple report, no response happens since I'm not an official victim or anything yet.
Since no further construction happens for a few days and everything was removed, I assume that was that and they would only tear down the side structure since it was starting to fall apart due to age.
Neighbours have moved all their stuff that was in said building onto their lawn and haphazardly covered it with a tarp.
The next week, more construction materials are being delivered and construction starts. I send a new email to city services, with new pictures, saying that apparently, there is more planned, and that I hope they undertake the appropriate action. Instant response less than an hour later: They'd called Jack after the first time to inform him that what he was doing required a permit, and he had ensured them that he didnt know that (BS, he's in construction, of course he knows) and that he would stop construction and request a permit. They called him again after my email, reprimanded him for not following his earlier promise and he said again he would shut it down.
I happened to be working from home that day, and had to stop myself from waving to the construction crew as they left.
Later that day I get an angry phonecall from Jack, who accuses me of reporting him and that I would be sorry, he would come after me for damages for his delays. I respectfully inform him that even if I reported him (reports are in my name, but not published and anonymised in later files) I wouldnt have done anything wrong, because from the looks of it he didnt have a permit and should have known that before he started working illegally without one.
I end the call before I start to sound too happy with things.
Jack has at this point, no idea what I have initiated with this. He is Jack Sparrow and I have just rung the bell that awakens the kraken that will destroy him, he just doesn't know it yet.
The kraken
You see, there is a good reason why most people consult an expert and or a lawyer when they want to apply for a permit. The rules involved are so convoluted and needlessly complex that navigating them as a non professional is extremely hard and time-consuming, and a single mistake can torpedo your entire case, forcing you to do it all over. I have killed entire projects (and have seen clients projects killed) by pointing out that on page 127, section 35-1-A, something was left blank that should have been answered.
I did some digging and found out that the previous owners of the houses had actually consulted eachother about the sidebuilding, and agreed on making the wall (part of) the divider between their gardens. So much so, that they shared the costs of it. And the ownership. That wall that he destroyed part of? It was also my wall. Which of course, means I'm entitled to damages, but that is not the important part.
The important part is that he needs my permission, to do anything to that wall. So when he applied for a permit a few weeks later (added bonus, rowdy neighbours stuff is still out in the open, covered by just a tarp, since they expected this to be a quick smash and replace job that would take a few weeks at most) I went to city center and looked at the application. Noticed that they were planning to do some stuff to said wall that I own 50 %.
So I filed a complaint, following proper procedure, about the permit, namely that even if granted, it could never be executed, since Jack needed permission from me in regards to the wall, and he didnt have it (nor was I intending to grant it). This should kill his permit, since permits cannot be granted if you know in advance they cannot be realized. No sense granting a permit to build a certain kind of house when you know they're never actually going to build it.
Now, Jack was a bit of a smooth talker, and as a construction entrepreneur, had his connections, and permits are a political decision here just as much as a legal one. So despite a 100% correct legal objection that should have killed his permit, it went through. He actually called me about it to gloat a little.
No worry, one can appeal a permit in my country. The only requirement is that you pay a 100 euro fee, which I gladly paid. The appeal instance is a subnational instance, and does not care one bit about Jacks political ties or the half hearted bullshit that the city officials wrote to justify granting the permit in spite of the concerns I raised.
They terminate his permit without any hesitation on the aformentioned legal grounds.
Jack sees his permit blocked untill he fixes the issue, which he can't, because I'm not really inclined to agree with his plans for our wall, you see.
At this point, going through two lenghty procedures, it has been over 7 months. The neighbours have had an unfinished construction project in their yard the entire time, forced to store their stuff elsewhere, something that was always supposed to be 'a temporary thing for a few weeks while we build' turned into something that was taking months, with no end in sight.
But wait, theres more
The above was the administrative part of the matter, him getting the permit.
Now doing construction work without a permit is also a criminal offense. And of course, my report got passed around to the appropriate instances, so now Jack was also the subject of a criminal procedure for construction offense. Not only did he risk fines and jail time, he was a construction business and used his own construction business for the work he did on the property. So his company was also on the hook, and one of the sentences that can be given in these types of crimes is to be prohibited to do construction or construction related activity as a business, either permanently or temporarily. Not only was he personally on the line, his entire business was as well.
During this debacle, Jack tried to sell the property. This didnt really go too well because of a few reasons. One, the property was inflicted with an illegal situation: the demolished sidebuilding was torn down illegally, and untill said illegal status was resolved, it would stick to the property. Which tends to kill the property value quite a bit, since nobody wants to buy something that they'll have to spend time and money on to make legal again by either rebuilding the torn down building, or getting a regularisation permit for it. Made even worse by the fact that he applied for said permit and had it denied, so he couldn't even claim that said permit would be super easy to get.
Secondly, is Jack never intended to sell the property in its current state. What he, as I now know, has done in the past is buy cheap old houses like the one next to me. He puts some of his crew in it, who can't complain about the sub par accommodation. They thrash the place because they dont care and he lets them, then when the place is done, he tears it down and sells it to a developer or develops it himself.
However due to his construction crime and the accompanying status for the property, step two was not an option. He couldn't renovate it the way it needed to be (small renovations would not be enough), because covering the crime was always a requirement in any permit he would request for the building, and because of me, he couldnt cover it.
Couldn't sell it either, because the place was trashed, and any developer looking at it would dip out when they realized there was a construction issue and a vocal neighbour who would oppose anything big that they would try to do there, lost of easier properties to develop than that one.
In conclusion
Anyway, that is where we are today. Jack is staring down the barrel of a criminal court procedure that is about to happen where he is risking his business and livelyhood. His existing projects also gather special attention from city services now, since he is now outed to them as someone who cuts corners on permits and regulations.
He cannot really sell the property unless he cuts a massive loss, since in its current state it is absolutely trashed. He cannot develop it or sell to a developer because all development plans involve the adjoining wall, which he cannot use in big ways unless he gets my permission.
The rowdy neighbours are stuck living in a smaller house than what they had, in a place they trashed but that cannot really be renovated or fixed in the major way that it needs. They have quieted down a lot, possibly because Jack blames them for his current situation (which isn't wrong, I suppose).
I have awakened the kraken and set it off on Jack Sparrow, and it utterly ruined him. And the best part is that I had do to very little to do it. All I really did was nudge the abomination that is municipal bureaucracy and point it in his direction, and they did the rest.
I could tell you that he called me to complain and even beg about letting him use the wall the way he needs it to, so that he can get on with his business and fix the issues and use them to show his good faith in court in the criminal procedure, that he was losing money and customers over this and was in danger of losing his entire business, and that I then smugly replied with 'not my fucking problem'.
But he didnt, so for now we'll just have to imagine that he did.

This little story of revenge is about how I got even with a former boss, and how I destroyed his and his business partner's life in the process.
Many years ago I worked at an electronics repair store that will not be named. It was the only one in our smallish town so everyone came there. I worked my way up from lowly tech to store manager in roughly six months. A few months after I made store manager, one of the owners who we will call Dennis, insisted on bringing his nephew in as a part-time employee. Don't get ahead of me redditers!
I initially didn't have any issues with the kid, he had come to the store on multiple occasions and we would all sit around in the back and talk. So again, I had no issues with bringing him on part-time. For a good month or two, the kid who we will call Kevin busted his behind, did everything right, he could solder an HDMI port on a PS4 in minutes (one less thing for me to do). Profits for the store were skyrocketing and things seemed rather fine from where I was standing, I was due to make a fairly large bonus that year as long as the store kept turning the amount of money it was turning.
I figured at this time, we could make Kevin our assistant manager and I could go back to doing paper work, inventory orders and such and leave the running of things to him. Well, mistakes were definitely made. I had a bad habit of writing down my login pin because Dennis and his business partner Jay were idiots and wanted the pin to be 9347893247349 digits long. These pins were required to access everything from sales data, to the cash register and more. Anyway, around the time that I was turning over the majority of stuff to Kevin to do, I also started taking classes at the local university, so again, me being the idiot that I was would leave to go to class before coming back and finishing my shift. Dennis and Jay were fine with this as long as I left someone competent in charge.
Fast forward to the end of the month when accounts receivable numbers were run. And wouldn't you know it, we were short. By thousands that month. I discussed everything with Dennis and Jay and we assumed it was a computer glitch. There was no way after almost a year of working there that the numbers were off. I had never had this happen before. The next month we were once again off. It was around this time that Dennis and Jay came to me and started accusing me of stealing from them. They pointed out all of the days that the numbers didn't match up and saw that I was always closing that night.
When I tried to explain to them that I was in class on those days when the money came up missing and suggested that they look at Kevin, Dennis blew his top. He said how dare I accuse his nephew of anything, that it was my pin used to access the register, etc. Needless to say, I was fired, luckily they didn't call the cop because in Jay's words, I had made them a boatload of money.
Plan:
A couple of years had passed since I was working there, I graduated college with a degree in Business and had moved on with my life or so I thought. One night while I was out at the store, I heard from behind me "Yo thief!", as I turn around I see Kevin and Dennis with a sh-t-eating grin on their faces. I shrug it off, and walk away continuing to hear their childish taunts. While in my car, I began to formulate a plan. I was going to crush these mother f--kers no matter how long it took.
It took me two months of planning but finally I figured that I would use my social engineering skills and my business savvy to completely crash their business. I broke the HDMI port on my PS4 on purpose and took it into have it fixed. Kevin and a girl that had started there a few weeks earlier were the only two working.
Kevin: Hey welcome to such and such, oh, it's you thief, what can I help you with? Me: First off you can stop calling me that, you and I both know it's bullsh-t. Kevin: Sorry dude, Dennis told me to call you that. I'm sorry how everything went down. What can I help you with? Me: My HDMI port broke, do you guys still repair them? Kevin: Yeah we still repair them, it's $115 Me: Damn you guys went up in price? Good on you, so, how's everything been since I left? Kevin: You mean since you were fired for stealing? Me: Yeah, whatever, we both know that's bullsh-t.
I knew Kevin was trying to impress the girl, but, didn't care at that minute. We'll come back to her.
As I glanced around I saw that they had added some new things to the store, including Otterbox cases and such.
Me: Whoa, that's new! How did you guys manage to get in with Otterbox? Kevin: Oh we didn't, they kept turning us down, so I found a Chinese distro. We get them for $5 and sell them for $30. Me thinking to myself (This dude loves to blab, I need him to keep it up) Me: So, how much have the prices gone up on other things? Kevin: Oh? quite a bit actually, you thought you were turning this store a profit, let me show you something.
He showed me their new price list which was insane on the pricing and also a
BIG MISTAKE!!!!
REVENGE IS MINE!
I never believed in ripping anyone off, so I always convinced Dennis and Jay our pricing was fair. And that they didn't need to charge a lot for repairs. Since they were the only game in town they had everyone by the balls.
After the work was finished I said goodbye and made sure to wave to the girl as I walked out. This is when my plan really went into motion, I had everything I needed to crush these mother f--kers. All except a building, the next day I looked around for a location to begin to dismantle their monopolistic hold on the town. As luck would have it a location right across the street from their store was coming up for rent. I quickly signed the lease and began to distribute flyers letting the town know about our coming grand opening on the flyer I was offering 90% off the first repair, basically I was doing the work for free just all they had to do was pay the part price.
Opening day comes and I have 60 people there to get repairs. Ranging from iPhone screen repairs, to simple pc tune ups. This went on like this for months, sure I was taking a loss on the building rent, but this being a smallish town, the rent was easily manageable.
After things started to settle down and business became steady, Dennis and Jay started losing massive business due to the new guy in town. (They still hadn't realized it was me), Jane walked in as I was closing up shop, Jane if you recall was the girl who worked for Dennis that Kevin was trying to hit on, apparently she had been let go that night and was looking for another job. I immediately gave her the job, because she knew her sh-t. I asked her what all happened over there, and she said everything has gone to sh-t and that the store has been losing tens of thousands since this place opened and that she would have left sooner if she didn't need the job. Kevin apparently really liked her and couldn't keep his hands to himself.
A month after Jane came in, Dennis and Jay came in to see who their new comp was. As they walked in I greeted them as I do any customer.
Me: Welcome to new guys electronic repair, how can I help you? Dennis: Does the owner know he hired a thief? Me: Oh, I'm sure he knows you're full of sh-t on that one. Dennis: Get me your manager you piece of sh-t thief. Me: Sir, I am the manager, how can I help you? Dennis: Well is the owner here?Me: Yes sir he is. Dennis: Good then go get him, so that I can tell him what a thief you are. Me: Sure, one minute.
I walk into the back and start talking to Jane, we both enjoy a laugh because she overheard this dude.
I walk out of the back and look at Dennis.
Me: How can I help you? Dennis: You can stop playing games and get me your owner. Me: Pointing to the sign behind me, yeah that's me, how can I help you? Dennis: You're the one that has been taking all of our business!?!!? Me: Yep, you called me a thief, when you knew all along it was your piece of sh-t nephew that was stealing from you. I made it my life's mission to destroy you, the day you and Kevin called me a thief in the store. You couldn't leave well enough alone. Jay: You mean to tell me that this is HIS FAULT? Looking at Dennis. Me: Yep, and yours as well, you had a chance to stick up for me and didn't. If I can't assist you gentlemen with a repair or anything, I kindly ask that you leave my store. Dennis: F--k you, you haven't heard the end of us.
This quite literally cracked me up, the dude trying to talk tough. I laughed as they stormed out of my store. About this time, Jane came from out of the back area, and dropped her phone. I bent down to pick it up and noticed that it was the fake Otterboxes that the other store was selling.
I made an anonymous tip to Otterbox regarding them selling counterfeits. Boy, let me tell you, Otterbox doesn't f--king play. Within a week the other store was raided, Kevin, Dennis and Jay were all arrested for selling counterfeit items and were sued into bankruptcy.
As for Jane and I, well, we just welcomed out first child into the world and have been married for a year and half.
If you're reading this Kevin - Little f--king thief, not only did I cost you and your uncle everything, but, I also took your woman. Go suck a dick.
TLDR: Accuse me of stealing from you, when it was your nephew. I will take your business, your woman and ruin your f--king life.
EDIT1: Cannot believe that I have to add this in here, because some people cannot read between the lines. Otterbox is the one who got them raided by the police. Otterbox doesn't do the raiding.
EDIT2: Fixed the formatting issues, sorry about that.

Hi. I tried to keep things as compact as possible but it turned out quite long.
TL;DR - ex thinks I'm sending him and his wife old nudes of myself. I am not. Received creepy anonymous messages with sensitive information about my personal life, and a contact's details changed without me doing anything. Could this mean anything? Need advice.
Backstory: When I was 16 I had a FWB-type relationship with a man (let's call him Tom) who was at the time 26. We lived in different cities so would hookup whenever I came to visit. We spoke every day but had nothing official. I had no illusions about our relationship but we could really open up to each other which was nice and supportive in my teen years. At 18 I moved to his city to join the University. Initially, we met up casually, I started seeing people till at some point he asked me to be his girlfriend, apologizing he hadn't done it earlier. I declined and he wanted no contact with me after that. We still followed each other on social media and at some time in that year I could see that he had a new girlfriend, and a while later they got married. At some point I realised he had blocked me on instagram, which was fine by me.
About 2 years ago I'm in the subway and I bump into them. He ignores me full on and walks past me. I just tried to say hi.
Soon after this they started calling me, screaming that I should stop sending them pictures and to leave them alone. This and their manner really came as a surprise because I hadn't been sending anyone anything - but the calls were often short and involved him yelling and not listening. I have no real idea what they're mad about. Some time later his girlfriend sends me an IM once again 'confronting' me, but this time she shows me some of the pictures - they were semi-nude pictures of myself (as a teen, without my face thankfully), and some of him which he had sent me long ago. I have no idea who would have these photos. so...bla bla bla I deny everything, tell them they can go to the police if necessary, eventually I went to the police myself to see if there was anything they could do but apparently not. I blocked them everywhere after this.
anyway, half a year of silence, till November when I opened up my Tumblr and found a string of anonymous messages threatening to send the pictures to my mother and workplace. Anon was saying that Tom was an idiot and he used me to get over someone else, and so on. What really frightened me, however, was the questions "does your mother know you are into older guys? does your boyfriend know you are seeing another person?" - this is extremely sensitive information. I have an open relationship but am incredibly discrete, my boyfriend has no idea when I ''see other people'' and it's not something I/we share with anyone AT ALL - not even in our own social circles. There would literally be no trace of this unless this person literally followed me or could read through my whatsapp messages.
I am writing this today because I was looking through my Whatsapp chats and came across Tom's thread, I had blocked him ages ago but for some reason, it had been renamed to 'Apple'. I check my phone's contact list and there's a separate contact with his same number, but again 'Apple' - along with an additional landline phone number which never belonged to Tom's contact details.
I found this quite spooky, and have no idea how it happened. The landline number does not pop up online and has nothing to do with the Apple stores in my country.
​
-------
As far as I know there is no way to check the IP address of an anon tumblr user. Part of me hurts to have someone believe I'm doing nasty things when i'm not - but the anon messages were a little too close for comfort. Does anyone have any advice?

First edit:
Fuck this thing blew up. in all my years of redditing I have never been overwhelmed with wholesomeness like today. Thank you moderators for pinning this post - I will keep updating this on the regular! Before I go, if anyone wants further information going back before 25th January, here's a chronology of events from pre-squeeze till 4th February written by yours truly.
Valentines Day 14/02 edit:
Thank you all for your positive feedback and for literally all the awards. In all my life I never got platinum, let alone Argentium, and then Ternion!!!
I had a few celebratory drinks last night and I woke up totally shitfaced. It's valentine's day and I will be spending the day with the gf (who as some of you noticed from my page-article, we are expecting by the end of the month and she is right about to pop so she needs extra care and attention). I will be reading all the comments during the day, every time the gf turns her head a bit from me. I'm saving the comments with links to DDs so that I can add them later on.
I urge each and every one of you to read the new section 'HOW CAN YOU HELP ME WITH THIS THREAD'
Again thank you for everything and stay positive! Make sure to let the ones who care about you know that you care about them too today! Happy Valentines Day!
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It took me a very long time to collect and create abstracts, but I finally finished. I'm totally exhausted but quite proud of myself for bringing you everything you need to know so far in one thread.
I would love for this thread to be stickied, and if it does I plan to continue to update the same thread every day. If it does not I will continue posting updated versions every day. I also have my own website where I will keep updating this list.

Please help spread this around - knowledge is power. If you have a link to more DD leave a comment!

Please note that all Dates and Times posted are Central European Times (CET)
Obligatory: This is not financial advice. I am a smooth-brained holder of GME 🚀💎🤲 We like the stock!
______________________________________________

Doing your part

The Congress hearing will be streamed online on the 18th of February. Please email your representatives before this day.
What else can I do?
Make sure that you are not allowing shorts to borrow your shares to short-sell them!
​

How Can You Help Me and This Thread

First of all, THANK YOU. If you really want to help me and our brothers, here's what you can do:

1. Read and provide criticism, help me make better summaries and one-liners for the links to make it as readable as possible (think: ELI5)
2. Share this post to everyone you know - link this thread in WSB threads as comments so that we can educate the ignorant. We can link it in a way such as this: " Here’s a link to the motherload of DD for our favorite stonk " Empower others with knowledge
3. Look for any DD I have missed, old and new, especially in OG WSB from before the coup - send them to me as links in comments AND AS CHAT MESSAGES. I am going through all messages and I will update later today
4. We need to find a way to archive all the DD links from WSB so that if the mods of WSB catch on, we can have a backup of the threads before they delete them!
5. Collect more information on the coup, such as the info that was present from wallstreetbetstest and u/zjz posts. The retaliation messages, proof of removals of threads, bans for no reason ...etc.
6. Collect fake media articles that we can disprove so that I can compile a full list of bullshit media providers and articles
7. Let me know how I can better organize this thread.
8. and finally, don't forget to REPORT SHILLS. I would love to become a moderator and be able to investigate and ban shills myself. I applied but I don't think it will happen for now.

______________________________________________
Backdated posts added later in edits:

• 11-02 03:00
• Added the Chronology of events from pre-squeeze to 4th February.
• 09-02 12:45
• 22-01 13:55

______________________________________________

The List of DD Begins Here:

13-02 18:10 Shills on reddit being paid up to $650/week.

• More proof of shills
• More proof of shills
• More proof of shills

13-02 17:45 Level 2 data shows that at certain moments during trading days we may be just a few thousand shares away from hitting the high asks.
13-02 15:51 Citadel may have a long position in TSLA and will probably have to sell if it comes to liquidity when having to cover shorts (or bail out HFs again).
13-02 15:50 Intensive thesis on the Congress hearing this Thursday 18th Feb, investigating DTCC and Brokers for their complicity in enabling naked shorting, and likely collusion to shut down trading on the 28th Jan. You can help out by contacting representatives with the points mentioned in the thread.

• On Thursday you can watch the live stream here.

13-02 07:50 IV changes in options indicate that a $50 support level is established with a possible $50-72 channel. Analysing option prices shows that another run-up is coming.
13-02 06:30 At this point, if manipulators pushed the price down too hard it would have taken more shares off the market through puts, reducing the liquidity further, making it harder for the HFs.

• Price target prediction end of next week 19th Feb @ $58-59, with peaks above $60 to issue further Calls (to get paid the premium) then hold it below this line.
• The following week 26th Feb will end below $70 as there is a large off-set of calls vs Puts at this strike price, and a gain from 50-70 in two weeks will bring in more retail investors again.

13-02 05:15 We are currently in a liquidity crisis and shorts cannot cover in such an environment. Manipulators fought hard to keep it below $55, which was the strike price that would have hurt them the most.

• Tool to analyse the max pain price.

13-02 04:50 Prediction that during the Congress hearing this Thursday 18th Feb, GME trading may get halted until the hearing is over. DFV will hopefully explain all the fuckery that has happened so far, and the web of lies will begin to unravel. This would bring back retail investor interest and push the price back up.
13-02 04:00 A ranting reminder that any time someone is being an aggressive bully, they are operating from a place of vulnerability. Once you know this it’s easy to spot the chink in their armour that they’re trying to compensate for. We have the power.
13-02 03:00 GME is only where it is now because of manipulation. More importantly, if you think that HFs and the manipulators are planning to give up and ‘settle’ to cover at $50 you are wrong. They’re continually doubling down and won’t rest until they bring GME down to $0.
​
12-02 22:50 WSB Warzone - Since the most discussed ticker was GME, the post was deleted.
12-02 17:10 Compilation of Due Diligence

• The surge up to $480 was likely not short-squeezing, but reducing liquidity along with massive retail investment along with Gamma squeeze covering naked options.
• HFs liquidated significant positions of major holdings causing red days to have cash for covering positions.
• Shills, bots and crooked mods have infested WSB to spread FUD and delete posts and users fighting the good fight.
• Massive amount of $800 Calls expiring March 19th, along with massive amount of Puts for TSLA - as GME spiked TSLA tanks
• We will likely not see a massive squeeze, but a slow cover similar to TSLA short squeeze.

12-02 08:20 Shorting halted by most Brokers

• In fact iBorrowDesk only saw a 100k share movement from the 1.4M shares available to borrow all through the trading day.

12-02 07:00 FTDs: HFs naked short positions opened after 1st Feb (after the FINRA report data) and not before so that they do not get accounted for in the latest FINRA report. These new positions will have to be covered by 24th Feb if they do not want them to be shown in the next report.
12-02 02:00 Data assimilation (extractions from FINRA and Yahoo Finance) showing December 2020’s short positions that are in the red, and probably are not covered by now at significant losses (the real bagholders).

• Shorts were betting that GME wouldn’t pass $20.

​
11-02 16:40 GameStop Executives held the line and did not sell any shares at peak, even though they had the option to.
11-02 16:00 Why we don’t need a squeeze to win, Ryan Cohen’s changes to the company operation will blow up the company’s value.
11-02 15:00 Implied Volatility surges, particularly for $800 Calls expiring Feb 26th, indicating higher volatility in the days to come.
11-02 14:45 Calculations showing that:

• ~40M shares held by retail investors (~80%)
• ~54M shares held by institutions (~113%)
• ~48M shares as float (this is probably incorrect as Morningstar reports a float of 27M)
• GME detained at 193% total
• Real short interest at 138% (if Morningstar is correct, the SI would actually be 248%)

11-02 12:30 ETFs went on a buying spree, reducing float, and diamond handing.

• Link contains breakdowns of institutional shares held and changes

11-02 05:10 A list of potential upcoming changes to company operations that will make the stock much more interesting for retail investors.
11-03 03:50 A reminder from an older investor to always stick to your original plan and not get distracted by some shiny object. If you find something and ten people tell you that it’s worthless, then it isn’t.
11-02 03:00 The state of WSB since the moderator coup
11-02 01:35 Shorts could have covered on the upswing on the 10th Feb, then released fake news on Fidelity selling their shares then started short-selling and short-laddering to drop the price again.

• They start pumping weed stocks as a distraction on WSB.
• GME is inversely following SPY - liquidation.

11-02 01:10 A comparison of Short Interest data from providers.
​
10-02 08:30 Shorts have most probably been buying $800 Calls to make it seem like they ‘cancel out’ their short positions.
10-02 08:20 Figures, calculations and logic showing that the Short Interest is higher than anything reported.
10-02 07:50 An overview of what happened so far, with psychology and reasoning of HFs along the way.
10-02 06:15 DD on possibilities of covering and outlook of potential outcomes.
10-02 06:10 Crunching Finra’s SI report shows that SI is over 117%, and that there were 112% more shares shorted than were actually available to purchase on 27th January. It’s possible that between 1/13-17 about 7M shorts were covered, but they had to have continued to short like crazy since then to push the price down.
10-02 05:20 Naked shorting was probably aided by DTCC who probably shut down buying to stop the squeeze to avoid a scandal. Shorts likely hid their open positions via a loophole which generated synthetic longs. If this is correct there is a large amount of counterfeit shares floating in the market.
10-02 04:22 Finra reports 78% SI, while institutions own 206% (144M shares) of all outstanding shares. This could mean that actual SI is around 150%.
10-02 03:00 Finra releases SI data: 78.5%
​
09-02 20:00 A compilation of manipulative tactics and logical fallacies to help you identify when they are being attempted against you.
09-02 12:45 Biden administration cannot allow itself to lose trust at the beginning at the term, and HFs Brokers WS and the media may be in a worse position than we thought.
09-02 08:45 Cramer exposed - video from 2006 shows how himself (when he managed an HF) and other HFs manipulate markets.
09-02 08:20 Shares being bought around $270 after hours.
09-02 02:00 Proof that FINTEL are altering short data, with replies from CEO.

• More Proof.
• Further proof.

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08-02 17:00 Shorts may provide fake data to FINRA for a relatively small fine which could help save them millions-billions.
08-02 14:15 Compilation of DD showing that nothing has changed no matter what the media is saying.
08-02 09:50 They are losing $2B ever 2.5 days
08-02 01:45 Why to buy GME regardless of a squeeze. The future of GameStop is bright.
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07-02 16:45 Hypothesis that Melvin is just a tool for larger hedge fund to take over Citadel and take trillions from them.
07-02 16:40 Evidence shows the HFs likely use a loophole trick to appear as if they covered their shorts using synthetic longs generated from options.
07-02 13:30 A very useful spreadsheet to track and analyse stocks
07-02 03:45 There is no mathematical way shorts covered for Jan 13, 22, or 25 as is being reported by SI data providers - they are lying.
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06-02 22:00 The interstellar yo-yo theory: every 13 days (settlement days) stock price increases and pushes back by selling more synthetic long positions (fake shares into the market), FTDs increase
06-02 18:20 Institutions hold 177% of float, proving the existence of a huge amount of synthetic longs.
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05-02 23:40 HFs want you to think that they repositioned and covered their shorts, but calculations show that this was impossible and the conditions were not ideal to do this without incurring massive losses.
05-02 19:30 GME and AMC graph comparison, showing the exact same movement.
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02-02 23:30 Analysis of 265,000 rows of SEC data shows massive amount of FTDs compared to the rest of the market - likely that it is a result of massive illegal share counterfeiting by shorts.
02-02 05:30 The market may collapse due to the creation of a massive number of preexisting synthetic longs that were bought and held. To fix it, market makers decided to make more, but their cure is also a poison they can't stop taking.
02-02 04:00 Melvin claims to have closed out their positions, but used an illegal loophole to make it seem like they have.
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01-02 23:20 Short Interest appears to have fallen but in truth is being shoved under the rug of option traders.
01-02 20:45 A list of misinformation articles inducing FUD
01-02 20:30 Following the crumbs: How GME is exposing illegal activity
01-02 17:15 Psychological warfare - FUD and manipulated dips along with further short-selling to make you believe that you’ve missed the peak.
01-02 10:20 Evidence of massive naked short selling fraud.
01-02 02:30 Public data suggest massive securities fraud creating more shares than exist, and that retail investors may hold more than 100% of all outstanding shares.
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31-01 09:10 Wall Street is freaking out because they are about to get caught doing extremely illegal shit that may implode the whole system - fake shares in the float.
25-01 23:30 Today’s co-ordinated attack: let the price run up only to jack up margin requirements, then dumped.
22-01 13:55 Make sure that you are not helping shorts borrow your shares and short sell by opting out with your broker! Some brokers settings are by default, so you have to change it yourself.
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A chronology of events pre-squeeze till 4th February written by yours truly.