WSB vs Wall Street / Gamestop Stock and others blown up by Subreddit

nimic

something nice
Scout
Joined
Aug 2, 2006
Messages
31,439
Location
And I'm all out of bubblegum.
I'm not sure it's that easy. They need people to come in and buy shit.
People do buy consoles there still, which is basically what is keeping them alive (PS5 atm). Not particularly future proof, though.

I buy my games online and my hardware online. Peripherals too, though if I wanted to get them immediately I wouldn't even have to go to a dedicated store like GameStop. Regular hardware or electronics stores here like Clas Ohlson and Elkjøp are stocking gaming headsets, keyboards, mice, etc - and in some cases more (Elkjøp, who sell vacuum cleaners, TVs, phones and other appliances, are one of two retailers selling the new Nvidia graphics cards in Norway. Well, in theory, they were both sold out immediately months ago).
 
Last edited:

MTF

Full Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
5,243
Location
New York City
Even selling more consoles is no real way to ensure success. Sony and Microsoft if you'll remember don't make good money on the consoles, even at times selling the latest launches at a loss to them (don't know if it's the case with the latest one, but was the case early in the PS3 life). So they're not willing to be at all generous with the retailers. The gross margins (price - product cost) on selling consoles are ~10%. For comparison the margin Gamestop makes on used games is ~30% iirc. That's always been the business that justified their existence, and the one that fades as people buy more games online.
 

caid

Full Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
8,315
Location
Dublin
How many people writing off gamestop have been in one in the last decade? I realise thats a problem in itself but they dont really sell videogames anymore and haven't for a while. They have a hell of a lot more floorspace given to t shirts than videogames. They sell game merchandise primarily these days and seem fairly popular to be honest. They'll have six foot of wall space given to each console and new releases and a few bins for 2nd hand. 2/3rds to 3/4s of the rest of the store is other stuff.
 

Sky1981

Fending off the urge
Joined
Apr 12, 2006
Messages
30,060
Location
Under the bright neon lights of sincity
People do buy consoles there still, which is basically what is keeping them alive (PS5 atm). Not particularly future proof, though.

I buy my games online and my hardware online. Peripherals too, though if I wanted to get them immediately I wouldn't even have to go to a dedicated store like GameStop. Regular hardware or electronics stores here like Clas Ohlson and Elkjøp are stocking gaming headsets, keyboards, mice, etc - and in some cases more (Elkjøp, who sell vacuum cleaners, TVs, phones and other appliances, are one of two retailers selling the new Nvidia graphics cards in Norway. Well, in theory, they were both sold out immediately months ago).
Buying physical is not an options anymore with patches and DLC.

If ps4 made physical patch able the 2nd hand market is still there. But atm same price, patch capability, cloud stream and download anywhere means physical dont stand a chance.

There's literally no advantage of buying physical while the downside almost made it unplayable.
 

Snowjoe

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Staff
Joined
Jan 14, 2013
Messages
30,322
Location
Lake Athabasca
Supports
Cheltenham Town
Buying physical is not an options anymore with patches and DLC.

If ps4 made physical patch able the 2nd hand market is still there. But atm same price, patch capability, cloud stream and download anywhere means physical dont stand a chance.

There's literally no advantage of buying physical while the downside almost made it unplayable.
you still get patches for physical games, I don’t think that’s ever not been the case
 

Snowjoe

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Staff
Joined
Jan 14, 2013
Messages
30,322
Location
Lake Athabasca
Supports
Cheltenham Town
Did i miss something? Serious question.

How do I patch ps4 games i bought 2nd hand physically?
Over the internet like every other patch, it’s automatic and saved to the internal storage. I buy most of my games physical and you get all the same patches
 

Snowjoe

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Staff
Joined
Jan 14, 2013
Messages
30,322
Location
Lake Athabasca
Supports
Cheltenham Town
What's stopping me from borrowing a cd and let my 10 friends copy it?

I always thought patching only works for ps4 games bought at psstore
I have no idea about copying discs tbh

But most of the time the game is installed to the hard drive even with a physical disc, you just need the disc in the console to allow you to play it. Some games the game doesn’t even come on the disc it actually downloads the whole thing anyway!
 

Sky1981

Fending off the urge
Joined
Apr 12, 2006
Messages
30,060
Location
Under the bright neon lights of sincity
I have no idea about copying discs tbh

But most of the time the game is installed to the hard drive even with a physical disc, you just need the disc in the console to allow you to play it. Some games the game doesn’t even come on the disc it actually downloads the whole thing anyway!
Hmm...might need to double check mine
 

11101

Full Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
21,315
Has Gamestop the company been saved though?
See Blockbuster video and HMV. It's delaying the inevitable.

There's a chance the PS5 is the last physical console, if not then the PS6 certainly will be. They are the VHS videos and DVD players. The next gen will be online and Gamestop will be a game store with no games to sell.
 

Grinner

Not fat gutted. Hirsuteness of shoulders TBD.
Staff
Joined
May 5, 2003
Messages
72,287
Location
I love free dirt and rocks!
Supports
Arsenal
See Blockbuster video and HMV. It's delaying the inevitable.

There's a chance the PS5 is the last physical console, if not then the PS6 certainly will be. They are the VHS videos and DVD players. The next gen will be online and Gamestop will be a game store with no games to sell.

Any business with high street retail as it's core is probably a bad bet.
 

NotThatSoph

Full Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2019
Messages
3,787
Just saw someone saying they're planning to buy more GME to lower their $300 average and my mind exploded.
 

NinjaFletch

Full Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2009
Messages
19,818
Buying physical is not an options anymore with patches and DLC.

If ps4 made physical patch able the 2nd hand market is still there. But atm same price, patch capability, cloud stream and download anywhere means physical dont stand a chance.

There's literally no advantage of buying physical while the downside almost made it unplayable.
You realise you can download patches for games that come on a physical disk, right?

Like, why would you think you wouldn’t be able to?
 

Sky1981

Fending off the urge
Joined
Apr 12, 2006
Messages
30,060
Location
Under the bright neon lights of sincity
You realise you can download patches for games that come on a physical disk, right?

Like, why would you think you wouldn’t be able to?
Still. There's no incentive for me to go out and buy physical.

Actual retailer dont always follow sales on psstore. The options are limited.

And i dont even have to go to gamestop or any other retailer.
 

NinjaFletch

Full Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2009
Messages
19,818
Still. There's no incentive for me to go out and buy physical.

Actual retailer dont always follow sales on psstore. The options are limited.

And i dont even have to go to gamestop or any other retailer.
There’s plenty of incentive. The most obvious and basic one being that you actually own the product rather than purchasing a licence to play a game. There are a number of upsides that come with that: you can sell the game on when you’re finished, you can lend it to a friend, you don’t lose access to a game if your account is banned, and some people like having the physical box.

And I’m not sure that PSN sales are a selling point for digital! They’re always crap in my opininion and you can invariably find better prices from retailers with a bit of googling. At any rate, if all you were left with was the PS store those deals are bound to get worse. There’d be no incentive for them to compete.

There’s no doubt buying a game from your sofa is more convenient, but until consumer rights catch up you’re getting a significantly worse product for (often) more money.
 

ThierryHenry

wishes he could watch Arsenal games with KM
Joined
Feb 8, 2009
Messages
13,717
Location
London Town
This will be studied in the future as a great example of; 1) How quickly and aggressively a financial bubble can be created, 2) Mass hysteria (on the r/wsb forum)

The poor misinformed 'investors' who were throwing their money at this at $300-400+ to 'squeeze the shorts' and 'get back at Wall St for 2008'. They didn't have a clue what they were doing.
 

Sky1981

Fending off the urge
Joined
Apr 12, 2006
Messages
30,060
Location
Under the bright neon lights of sincity
Short sales are fictious stocks. It doesn't exist. Only exists in books

If i short -1 it just have to buy +1 and cover the differences.

The profit or lost is against the long position. Not against the actual stock owner beyon 100 percent.

Which is why you can be 140 percent over short.

So it's not as simple as gamestop shares getting up.

These shorts needs to be balanced out on maturity. There's bound to be a deep dive nearing maturity
 

edcunited1878

Full Member
Joined
Sep 3, 2014
Messages
8,935
Location
San Diego, CA
This will be studied in the future as a great example of; 1) How quickly and aggressively a financial bubble can be created, 2) Mass hysteria (on the r/wsb forum)

The poor misinformed 'investors' who were throwing their money at this at $300-400+ to 'squeeze the shorts' and 'get back at Wall St for 2008'. They didn't have a clue what they were doing.
The sad thing, more like reality of it, is that the 'investors' were throwing cash and not credit. It's a cash game and if you can't afford losing cash or at least ride the rollercoaster for a long while, don't get on the ride for a quick buck.
 

MTF

Full Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
5,243
Location
New York City
Short interest report for Jan 29th finally out today, shows that shares shorted was down to 21.4 million on that date off of a high of 71.2m a month before (the famous 140% of float), and 61.8 mid-month. So was down to 43% of float shorted, still very high for stocks in general but not the potential infinite-loss-inducing 140%.

Also proves that in general shorts did significantly reduce/close their positions for big losses in that last week of January when this all blew up. Probably should teach people to put less trust in conspiracy theory peddling posters on reddit or elsewhere, but I doubt that lesson will be learned.
 

Vidic_In_Moscow

rectum-faced pygmy
Joined
Sep 19, 2010
Messages
19,578
Location
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Supports
i stink
So this revolt against the bankers of Wall Street by the common man resulted in... let's see.... most of the common men losing money and loads of bankers making money.
Were they the common man or were they freaks and ghouls who go on Reddit?
 

Zarlak

my face causes global warming
Joined
Apr 30, 2010
Messages
45,407
Location
Truth like rain don't give a feck who it falls on.
Just saw someone saying they're planning to buy more GME to lower their $300 average and my mind exploded.
If they're turning their holding into a long play then that isn't a bad idea at all. A look at the fundamentals and some analysis of the company shows they clearly have a good chance at a decent future so if you plan to hold long then reducing your average to offload down the line will reduce your losses.
 

MTF

Full Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
5,243
Location
New York City
If they're turning their holding into a long play then that isn't a bad idea at all. A look at the fundamentals and some analysis of the company shows they clearly have a good chance at a decent future so if you plan to hold long then reducing your average to offload down the line will reduce your losses.
It's a terrible idea. They have an outside chance of a decent future, that's if at these prices their activist investors even care to try a turnaround. They'd be arguably more rational to sell their positions as soon as they're able to considering they probably got in to make 4-5x their money in 3-5 years and got that in a few months without having to do any work. You buy speculative opportunities at discounted prices, that's what the activist and others did. You don't want to buy speculative opportunities at premium prices.

Also mathematically your losses can't be reduced by just lowering the average price. It all depends on the price of each incremental buy vs the price of the final sell. If you buy at a price that's lower than your initial buy, but still higher than your eventual sale price, you've increased the amount of your losses.
 
Last edited:

11101

Full Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
21,315
If they're turning their holding into a long play then that isn't a bad idea at all. A look at the fundamentals and some analysis of the company shows they clearly have a good chance at a decent future so if you plan to hold long then reducing your average to offload down the line will reduce your losses.
It's a bad idea even at $50. Full of risk and already seen the best returns it's ever likely to. There are far better opportunities to be going after.
 

Zarlak

my face causes global warming
Joined
Apr 30, 2010
Messages
45,407
Location
Truth like rain don't give a feck who it falls on.
It's a terrible idea. They have an outside chance of a decent future, that's if at these prices their activist investors even care to try a turnaround. They'd be arguably more rational to sell their positions as soon as they're able to considering they probably got in to make 4-5x their money in 3-5 years and got that in a few months without having to do any work. You buy speculative opportunities at discounted prices, that's what the activist and others did. You don't want to buy speculative opportunities at premium prices.

Also mathematically your losses can't be reduced by just lowering the average price. It all depends on the price of each incremental buy vs the price of the final sell. If you buy at a price that's lower than your initial buy, but still higher than your eventual sale price, you've increased the amount of your losses.
Not sure how the math is working out there. Pulling figures out of my ass, let's say some people got in at 300 for 10 shares, 3k total. They're currently losing 2500 if they sell right now at 50. If they truly believe that GME has a good future ahead of it as the fundamentals indicate (and not just desperately gambling on the chance to offset their losses) and so get 10 more at 50 then they're on 20 total for 3.5k total, if the stock rises to 100 down the line they sell for 2k and make a 1.5k overall loss instead of 2.5k. More than 10 units further reduces the potential loss down the line. It depends on if they value the stock long. People who say things like 'they're a company in a dying brick and mortar business' obviously haven't actually looked at the company. If people value the stock long, the moves being made by Ryan Cohen etc then it's not the worst idea.


It's a bad idea even at $50. Full of risk and already seen the best returns it's ever likely to. There are far better opportunities to be going after.
It saw the best returns it ever will at $500, but I don't believe it won't rise in the future to an appropriate price for their future performance. The $50 price it's sat at right now seems about right however it appears to have a good future ahead of it. It's true that there are better opportunities to be going after for those who know what they're doing, but if someone yolo'd into this at a high price then let's face it those people aren't going to be identifying those better opportunities.
 

MTF

Full Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
5,243
Location
New York City
Not sure how the math is working out there. Pulling figures out of my ass, let's say some people got in at 300 for 10 shares, 3k total. They're currently losing 2500 if they sell right now at 50. If they truly believe that GME has a good future ahead of it as the fundamentals indicate (and not just desperately gambling on the chance to offset their losses) and so get 10 more at 50 then they're on 20 total for 3.5k total, if the stock rises to 100 down the line they sell for 2k and make a 1.5k overall loss instead of 2.5k. More than 10 units further reduces the potential loss down the line. It depends on if they value the stock long. People who say things like 'they're a company in a dying brick and mortar business' obviously haven't actually looked at the company. If people value the stock long, the moves being made by Ryan Cohen etc then it's not the worst idea.
I'm sure how the math is working. In your example if the stock is then down to $20 and they finally sell the entire position, their buy of 10 shares @ $50 is costing them an additional $300 ((20-50)*10).

I've looked at the actual company. I'm an investment analyst and I covered GME for 4 years. Cohen bought at like $10-15. That's the entire point, you can take a punt on a turnaround if you buy at $10 and you make it a good business worth $50 even if your odds of success are below 50%. At $50 you'll find that all its potential (that remains speculative) is priced in.
 

Zarlak

my face causes global warming
Joined
Apr 30, 2010
Messages
45,407
Location
Truth like rain don't give a feck who it falls on.
I'm sure how the math is working. In your example if the stock is then down to $20 and they finally sell the entire position, their buy of 10 shares @ $50 is costing them an additional $300 ((20-50)*10).

I've looked at the actual company. I'm an investment analyst and I covered GME for 4 years. Cohen bought at like $10-15. That's the entire point, you can take a punt on a turnaround if you buy at $10 and you make it a good business worth $50 even if your odds of success are below 50%. At $50 you'll find that all its potential (that remains speculative) is priced in.
I never argued with you that if the stock goes down they lose, that's obvious. That's an argument against taking a long position on any company ever so obviously not relevant. As I stated, if they believe in the fundamentals and future growth of the company, then the math for lowering their average would work in their favour. If they're doing it purely as a gamble then obviously not, which I also said.
 

11101

Full Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
21,315
It saw the best returns it ever will at $500, but I don't believe it won't rise in the future to an appropriate price for their future performance. The $50 price it's sat at right now seems about right however it appears to have a good future ahead of it. It's true that there are better opportunities to be going after for those who know what they're doing, but if someone yolo'd into this at a high price then let's face it those people aren't going to be identifying those better opportunities.
$50 is not the right price. It's been a $10 stock for years, maybe $20. Ive not seen any reputable analyst say its worth anywhere north of about $30. Nothing fundamental has changed to justify a 400% rise to $50, and if the new management do transform it, where should it go from that original $10 level? $30? $50? It's already there. 10x and it gets to $100? The chances of that happening are (let's say) 10%, but the return from an investment made today is only 2x. That's not a good investment, the risk of $100 not happening vastly outweighs the potential return if it does happen.

If you're banking on it becoming the next Amazon, go and find another one that hasnt got so much of the upside already priced in. There is a saying 'dont throw good money after bad'.
 

NotThatSoph

Full Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2019
Messages
3,787
If they're turning their holding into a long play then that isn't a bad idea at all. A look at the fundamentals and some analysis of the company shows they clearly have a good chance at a decent future so if you plan to hold long then reducing your average to offload down the line will reduce your losses.
It's a good idea to buy at whatever price if you thing future price will be higher than that price, what your average is is irrelevant.

If you buy at 280 to reduce your current average, then you'd just lose more even with a lower average if the price ends up lower.