I think the SEC made a prudent decision earlier this year in response to the "meme stocks" whose prices seem to sway wildly not based on the market, but based on market manipulation via social media. This manipulation, and these artificial, wild swings in prices are not good for the public.
Make no mistake, the people "short" on GameStop are making that decision rationally - the price of the stock is not supported by its fundamentals. It's the people who are "long" that are hoping to make a big profit off of a stock that is trading at a price not related to its value. They are hoping a bunch of lemmings will help them drive the price up, then jump off before it comes back down. The circuit breakers are in the public's interest.
@artradley how do you explain this?
“2020, Ryan Cohen Is a Firestarter
In December 2020, Ryan Cohen made large purchases in Gamestop to acquire a stake in the company.
The following dates are the most crucial:
Trade Date Pre-Split Share Amount Post-Split Share Amount
|| || |2020-12-17|470,311| 1,881,244|
|| || |2020-12-18|500,000| 2,000,000|
|| || |2020-12-18|256,089|1,024,356|
|| || |Total Shares:|1,226,400|4,905,600|
Data Source:
https://fintel.io/n/us/gme/cohen-ryan
In the course of two days, Ryan Cohen purchased 1.2 Million shares in an extremely illiquid market. The total share count for Gamestop was much lower than today as this purchase was performed after several stock buy-backs.
So you would expect that this massive purchase would have an effect on the price.
very little price movement for millions of shares purchased
However, we see no abnormal movement in historical charts on these purchase dates.
The date of RC's purchases, the stock opened and closed at:
(Split Adjusted)
12/17/2020 - Open $3.49 Closed $3.71 (High of $3.75)
12/18/2020 - Open $3.95 Closed $3.91 (High of $4.08)
I personally attribute the small increase to the stock price to the general uptrend GME was experiencing in the back half of 2020. The company had performed several stock buy-backs and some investors (i.e. Keith Gill) realized early that Gamestop could turn itself around. Investors were starting to enter the game and a bullish uptrend began.
But where did Ryan Cohen's purchase go? A purchase that large would absolutely have an affect on the price due to just how few shares were available at the time. Well, thanks to 3 years of DD we can see exactly where they went.
1/21 - 1/26 Settlement Period
Ryan Cohen's shares were not purchased on 12/17 and 12/18 as the Market Maker invoked its privilege's to purchase at a later date. This created a time bomb that would eventually detonate exactly 35 days + 3 Bank Holidays later.
https://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/regsho.htm
Rule 204 provides an extended period of time to close out certain failures to deliver. Specifically, if a failure to deliver position results from the sale of a security that a person is deemed to own and that such person intends to deliver as soon as all restrictions on delivery have been removed, the firm has up to 35 calendar days following the trade date to close out the failure to deliver position by purchasing securities of like kind and quantity.
12/17/2020 - 470,311 Shares (1,881,244 shares post split) FTD Settlement Limit 35 Days + 3 Bank Holidays = 1/25/2021 (Possibly Pre-Market 1/26)
12/18/2020 - 500, 000 Shares (2,000,000 shares post split) FTD Settlement Limit 35 Days + 3 Bank Holidays = 1/26/2021 (Possibly Pre-Market 1/27)
12/18/2020 - 256,089 Shares (1,024,356 shares post split) FTD Settlement Limit 35 Days + 3 Bank Holidays = 1/26/2021 (Possibly Pre-Market 1/27)
It is my belief that the algorithms that run on Gamestop deal with FTDs in a "slow purchase" method in which they purchase shares over these 35 day periods in a manner that will not cause the stock to deviate wildly. In a successful scenario, the algorithm is able to clear outstanding FTDs far before they reach the 35 day (+ Bank Holidays) limit. Using this "slow purchase" method, they are able to spread out purchase lots to route them in small batches off exchange as well as short into any purchases they need to make on the LIT market.
However, in black swan cases, an extremely large share purchase occurs. This causes the algorithm to "slow purchase" leading up to the 35 day (+ Bank Holidays) legal limit. The systems are designed to deliver the shares
no matter what by that hard limit. It is in these specific cases that we see increased volume and buy pressure in the days leading up to the settlement period, and a massive jump on the settlement period limit dates as the algorithm rushes to clear the remaining fails in order to remain regulation compliant.
The following days' parabolic run up is most likely caused by the gamma ramp that suddenly came into being as thousands of options contracts were suddenly and violently In-The-Money. The SEC already confirmed via the Gamestop report that "short positions closing" was not the cause of this run up. As the options contracts were hedged by Market Makers, the demand for shares increased, spiking the price. In the following days, a large option sell off conjoined with a short attack would drop this price back to $10 (post split).
The stock was already increasing due to buy-backs and improving sentiment; however, Ryan Cohen's purchase is the primary cause for creating the initial gamma ramp sneeze.
The subsequent stock price rises are partially due to the continued FTDs the Market Maker creates on each run up. There are many additional factors for each rise; however, FTDs are a major part of this 3 year cycle.
But now that Ryan Cohen is officially on the board for Gamestop, he is no longer able to affect the share price via sudden purchases and assist in shaking off short positions. Whether he cares about these short positions or not, he is no longer the
main characteras his major stock play has completed.
In order to have an effect on the price, the purchaser needs enough capital to make a massive share purchase. A big enough purchase that would prevent the "slow purchase" FTD settlement algorithm from clearing these FTDs before the settlement period limit. So Gamestop needs a new investor to jump in with a large purchase.“