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The Next GME: A Conclusive, Systematic Analysis To Determine Today’s SINGLE BEST Short Squeeze Opportunity
A bit of background first to afford some credibility to what I go on to explain: I haven’t been a Redditer for long. I majored in mathematics (think the likes of stochastic calculus and the Brownian motion), have been working in ‘high finance’ for all of my professional career, and have been trading the markets for over six years. I only joined Reddit a couple of days back to better understand what drove the GME story after being late to that rally, and with the sole purpose of finding out if there is still an opportunity for me (and the thousands of others out there who missed out on the GME glory run) that can be turn into cash in the bank. After understanding the mechanics of what drove GME, armed with the hitherto-unprecedented knowledge that a retail investor base can in fact bring hedge funds down to their knees in the very specific context of a short squeeze trade under the right circumstances, I decided to start from scratch and scour the US market for the best short squeeze opportunity out there NOW (01 Feb 21) without any bias towards any particular stock as I held nothing at this point and was on an unadulterated quest for the true best short squeeze trade - it could be GME, it could be AMC, or it could be something unheard of Using data from short side analytics subscription services, I started off by compiling a list of the top 50 names in the entire US market with the largest short interest. All the information I used is publicly available and I am not breaching any obligation or regulation if I present the data in a summarised format as I have below. To keep it this way, I will refrain from sharing longer spreadsheets of raw data or revealing the specifics around the specific data sources used. Rest assured, the data hasn’t been tampered with to serve an ulterior motive as
I have none
I’m pretty sure that’d amount to market manipulation which is a criminal and possibly jail-able offence
Some important points to note here:
Collecting and processing short-side statistics is not a hard science. Commonly used metrics like SI, DTC, utilisation, fees etc can vary depending on the sources of the underlying data. It would be worth noting that primarily, there are two types of short-side data viz. exchange-driven data which is based on the number of shorts traded in the market and lender-driven data which is based around quantifiable characteristics about the securities that are borrowed to facilitate said short. Since naked shorting is banned, the two are theoretically equivalent but in practice some differences are seen. This is also the reason that short-side data, which is critical to identifying short squeezing opportunities, is almost never real-time and the most reliable data, from my experience, has at least a one day lag.
Other things being equal, it is easier for a retail investor base to squeeze a short on a company with a smaller market cap than one with a larger market cap for the very simple reason that the former calls for a smaller investment outlay than the latter
The metrics:
Short float: This is the total number of a company’s shares that are traded short, commonly estimated by the number of shares being lent out
Short interest (SI): This is the short float as a percentage of a company’s free float and is one of the most important indicators of how heavily a company is shorted. The higher the SI, the more heavily the company is shorted
Utilisation: The only difference between SI and util is that the denominator of the latter is the number of lendable shares which in practice can be different (less than) the free float of a company
Days to cover (DTC): This is the company’s short float as a proportion of its recent volume, usually trailing 30 days ADTV (Average Daily Trading Volume). Other things being equal, the higher the DTC, the more difficult it would be for a short seller to cover their short without raising the price significantly (which in turn makes a short cover more painful i.e. expensive for the shorting party) - this is also coincidentally an explanation of what a short squeeze is for those who care
Borrow fee: Fees paid to borrow a security. The higher the fee, the more in-demand is a security’s borrow for directional (shorting) or arbitrage trading purposes
I built a squeeze metric which summarises much of the aforementioned data into one number which I then normalised into Z-scores making up my Squeeze scale. The higher a name ranks on this list, the more practical and compelling of a short squeezing opportunity it presents. Below (or attached titled, “Start of 2021”) are the top 10 names from the list as of the start of 2021. Short squeeze scale at the start of 2021 (higher the 'better') Many familiar names feature here, including our hero, GME. Also notice NAKD being in pole position although the short interest at this stage is not high enough to classify it as an easy-win that GME appears to be with its 90% + SI at this stage. Remember that I mentioned that processing short-side statistics is not a hard science and subject to multiple interpretations? Knowing this, I ran multiple iterations of the squeeze multiplier calculation after making a host of justifiable adjustments but to my surprise, it came up as THE best short squeezing opportunity at the start of the year despite its lower SI compared to its competition on the list - Why? Because of that tiny market cap. This again is quantifiable evidence especially for retail investor bases that the market cap of a stock makes a world of difference in terms of its allure as a short-squeeze trade. Now that we have some hindsight perspective, I ran the exact same model to answer our golden question: What is the CURRENT best short squeezing opportunity? The analysis is as of this weekend so some of the numbers below are as of 29 Jan 2021. However, this was refreshed thereafter and the results are unchanged (below/attached titled, “Current”): Current Short Squeeze Scale (Higher the 'better') Now, NAKD US has my full attention as should be the case for all of you by this point. You’ll also notice that GME has dropped off the top 10 list now (it is still in the top 25) because its market cap has burgeoned and short interest has tapered off palpably (on the back of Melvin and others covering their shorts in part at least), making better candidate-companies for short squeezing trades for those who don’t already have a position in GME or have taken profits (or losses) from GME. This already made a compelling case for NAKD but I wanted to be 100% certain that this is the BEST short-squeeze opportunity out there on the back of my analysis so did some additional work to come up with this (below/attached, titled “Charts”): Charts For this, I decided to compare the winner of our test, NAKD, a name that we recognise a symbol for what is probably the history’s first retail short squeeze success, i.e. GME, and the runner up of the above test, ATOS, for good measure. What GME had going for it was a lethal combination of high DTC and high SI, both of which have now tapered off - not to make it a bad trade but less alluring to alternatives now, chiefly NAKD, especially given GME’s high price. Sure, it could rise to $1,000 but would you rather make a 3X on GME now or a much easier to attain 9X on NAKD with it going to a paltry mid teen number? It was at this point that i jumped on Reddit to check if there was a following for this stock and sure enough there was a small but budding one (do join the sub-Reddit https://www.reddit.com/nakd/ - I will try posting this on multiple sub-Reddits to the extent that my karma allows me to). If I were fortunate enough to have made money on GME, I would use my profits from GME on the new GME that is NAKD now rather than try squeeze more out of GME. I must stress that this is not to undermine the efforts of our brothers on the GME frontline for whom i have great respect but is merely a rationalisation of what makes a fine short squeeze opportunity right now independent of other positions and also relative to its peers. My DTC data for NAKD is incorrect in the above chart so I added more accurate estimates from reverse calculations from the SI for the last three days. In terms of SI and price action, NAKD is now where GME was from early December 2020 up to around 20 Jan 2021. I would estimate that it could take anywhere between 1-3 weeks of continued, dedicated, diamond-hand buying and holding (the more done early on, the shorter that wait time will be) before this ripens into GME-like results. With regards to the c. 30M shares new offering in this name and concerns around how much this can dilute the price and SI: Normally, I would worry about the dilutive effects here but in this case, this is a direct offering so no new shares are created and in any case, it is too small to make a meaningful impact on the short float (even if there were new shares coming to the market, the estimated SI drop would be under 6%). It does mean that up to 30M additional shares can enter the lending pool allowing hedge funds to borrow up to another 30M shares that we might need to hold up against so may see a few more flat to down days like we did today but again, this is just 6% of SI and does not have any material impact on the short squeeze thesis here, in my opinion. If we continue to pile on the buying pressure (especially if liquidity remains low like it was today), NAKD will be a sure shot repeat of GME with no escape for the hedge funds shorting this name. All that is needed now is for more people to realise this to give it the momentum it needs to take it from being merely this ‘sure-shot’ as long as the aforementioned conditions hold to a position where we basically decide the price at which the hedge funds buy this back - then you’re talking your $15 or $50 or $100 or higher. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER - if this makes sense to you, please help me spread the word! This is an analysis purely from a short-squeeze angle but i know there is some fundamental analysis as well out there from some trustworthy sources to warrant an encouraging valuation if the above is not compelling enough. Now for the disclaimers: I am not a financial adviser and this is not financial advice. All of this is my personal opinion and encourage you to conduct your run your own due diligence before making any investment decision. Your capital is at risk but in my opinion, so is the risk of losing a once in a lifetime opportunity that buying NAKD presents now to realise the financial freedom that for me anyway would take years if not decades to achieve through conventional means. I wouldn’t have put my hard-earned money from over the years into this without doing all of the above as rigorously as I did and if i didn’t believe in the unbiased results that were found. I am doing this so that I can provide for my sibling who works an intolerably strenuous job involving a 5 hour commute every day and so that i can buy my parents a house worthy of being called their residence and I am sure you have similar aspirations as well. This is the stock market in which there is no such thing as a guarantee but this is quite possibly the closest thing we, as retail investors, can get to a guarantee if we unite and work towards a shared objective. he numbers speak for themselves so hey get out there and do what you have to do - feel free to share and re-post any of the above with whoever and wherever you please. I am not asking for any upvotes - all I want is for this to work for us all. #YOLO #NAKD #DD
Going to be editing this with info as I come across it. Please DM me if you have anything to add. Many of you have reached out and I've complied a lot of evidence. I realize now that these pumps originated in Discord groups, but this is something I am still actively looking into and won't be including here. Users of wallstreetbets (and also places like Stockwits, amcstock, and Youtube chats) attempted a coordinated pump on AMC (& GME) today, Feb. 3rd. These comments are still avaible. The fact they are still up and that I found them very easily means that the mods are not able to moderate their community well enough to stop coordinated pumps. There is not evidence that shows the mods were in on coordinated pump, but the fact that they were unable to stop it taking place shows that the subreddit has grown far too big to be managed by a team of 35 mods. There is evidence that some mods owned both AMC and GME, and it is possible they held these shares while the coordinated pump was happening in threads they were supposed to be moderating (proof of GME ownership at the bottom). Coldcutcombo69 was mod on WSB during the AMC coordinated pump. Here is them claiming that they were a mod on WSB. This image of mods before and after the day of the pump confirms they were a mod during the AMC pump-and-dump. Coldcutcombo69 posted a picture of them having a sell order on their AMC stock that never hit, making it possible they owned AMC shares during the coordinated pump. Coldcutcombo69 also posted some kind of DD thread about AMC two days ago, promoting the stock here. The content of this post has been removed. This post promoting AMC was made while Coldcutcombo69 was a moderator. Coldbutcombo69 was a moderator during the AMC coordinated pump. They are no longer a moderator as of the time of this post, only a few hours later. They confirmed this here. A WSB mod was posting comments and threads promoting AMC while possibly still holding AMC shares, and a pump-and-dump occurred in the daily threads that they (along with others) were supposed to be moderating. turdled is currently a WSB mod. They said, "We don't comment or promote trades. That's up to the subscribers and their upvotes/downvotes to decide." View it here. turdled's claim was false. Coldcutcombo69 had been a moderator for 25 days. During that time they posted comments and threads promoting AMC, while providing evidence that they actually owned AMC shares. A moderator (who may command more respect in a community of 8.5 million people) promoting a stock is wrong, and the mods clearly believe that is the case since they said they don't do it. But at least one of them did. It could be that Coldcutcombo69 was removed because they were promoting AMC, but they had been doing this for days and were only removed a few hours ago. ZJZ (a well known moderator) posted this today and was removed as a mod. The head mods also removed more mods, cutting the number of mods from from 62 mods to 37. Coldbutcombo69 was cut from the mod team at this time. It seems very suspicious to me that the head mods removed a bunch of mods from their positions after the events of today, especially because one of those ex-mods had been promoting AMC so much while being a mod. Note: there is some kind of extended purge happening within the mod team right now. The mod team started at 62, then was cut with ZJZ to 37, then 36, now it's down to 35. EDIT: Two new mods have been added, bringing the count back up to 37. One of them tried posting something in a WSB thread, but their comment was deleted by the auto-mod because they have never posted in WSB before. Here is some proof of what's going on there. ZJZ has exposed that there are bad actors on the mod team, using their power on the sub to try and make cash off movie deals and crypto scams. This at least adds weight to the points im raising in this thread. EDIT: There was a thread on WSB by a moderator trying to explain what happened with the mod team. You can see that thread here. There is a lot of push back in the thread. The mod's claim is that the profit from the movie deal would have been given to charity. This may not be true, as Discord logs show another mod asking what their profit will be from the movie deal, asking "What's our cut.". Infighting with the mods seems to be a continued issue with a mod changing the subreddit description from the classic "like 4chan found a bloomberg terminal" to this. This change was instantly reverted. MOD UPDATE 2/4: It seems that the moderator team has changed again. 23 mods now remain. OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR is now listed as the most senior mod, and they have allowed this thread to stay up. The mod reports that the Reddit admins have stepped in. Statement from Reddit admins, according to OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR: "After reviewing this situation based on input from both current and past moderators, we have decided to remove several moderators at the top of the list that were creating instability in the community." Source. NEW INFO: I've also been sent a good amount of evidence from multiple people indicating these types or coordinating buying and selling schemes were happening on places like Youtube, Twitch, and Discord. All of these groups seem to be composed of WSB/WSB spinoffs users. These users would spam hash tags, spam and raid Twitch channels, and coordinate these social media pushes with timed buying and selling of GME/AMC/BB/NOK. It is possible (and looks likely to me) that the timed pumps you see below were organized by a Discord group. I have collected a lot of evidence on this front, but this evidence of the real organizers of the pump is something I might have to pass along to someone who is more experienced at dealing with this stuff. The AMC Pump Here is evidence of the coordinated pump by users on WSB. The coordinated pump effort occurred in the daily thread, but also spilled out into some posts. Note: I have yet to see any comments/posts that moderators made showing them participating in the coordinated pump effort. It is not known if they knew about these comments or not. "AMC 1 pm LET FUCKING GO" - WildPhoenix55 58 upvotes. Posted around 12:00 PM CST. Not removed as of 8:40 PM CST. "AMC 2 DA MOON @ 1PM EST" - OutlandishnessOk4137 Posted around 12:00 PM CST. Not removed as of 8:40 PM CST. "watching that 1pm movie" At 1 PM, we’re going to the Moon! Get ready! 🚀 🚀 🚀Discussion *Note that this thread was 6 days ago. Still strange that it was not taken down Comments in this thread talking about 1 PM pump EVIDENCE THE 1 PM PUMP WORKED: 1 PM seems to be the main time that was set. You can actually see the coordinated pump spike the price of AMC up to $9.70 right after 1 PM. You can also see the massive amount of volume increase during that time as well. Volume between 1:00-1:05 shot up to 8,725,700. This was the highest volume for a 5 min period all day. Check it out here. It was also reported to me that some users received DM's about the pump. If you are reading this and received any kind of DM like this, please message me. After seeing the first pump work successfully, they tried it again 1 hour later. Here are a swarm of comments made coordinating the pump for 2 PM. "2 shares at 2 pm AMC!!" EDIT: This account has been deleted. You can view a picture of this post here. "Everyone buy 2 shares of AMC and 2pm let’s rush these heggies 💎💎💎💎🚀🚀🚀""AMC at 2 !!!!""2 AMC shares @2pm rush""AMC at 2. Let’s give them some payback🚀""do i buy now or at 2""Buy AMC at 2pm Eastern, 11am Pacific. 2pm is when it’s happening." The 2PM coordinated pump was not as successful. It could be that some users were confused with the time differences. Either way, there was still a marked increase of volume during the 5 min period of 2:00-2:05 which also resulted in the stock re-testing its daily high. Check it out here. You can actually watch a Youtuber Trey's Trades see the pump at 2 PM in action. He is reading comments on a WSB spin-off subreddit amcstock. You can see people spamming chat for people to buy at 2 PM. Here is the video. The fact that this guy's stream chat is filled with a pump-and-dump scheme and he did nothing about it is pretty telling. I've backed up the comments and info here. If you find anything else suspicious about this, please DM me. I want to make it clear that there isn't evidence that the mods participated in the pump. But the pump-and-dump (which is illegal) happened under the watch of the mod team. They may have tried to stop it, but 8.5 million people is a lot. If they didn't think they could keep the place running without illegal things happening in the comment sections, they should have set the sub to private and put in proper pre-cautions first. EDIT: This pump also occurred for GME and users in the GME thread were able to comment about it. None of these comments are removed and they exist in very large numbers. They are mostly heavily downvoted, but the fact they are able to stay up means the mods failed at their job. Comment 1Comment 2Comment 3Comment 4Comment 5Comment 6Comment 7Comment 8Comment 9Comment 10Comment 11 The volume spikes do show an uptick in volume around 1PM and around 2PM, but they are not as strong as the AMC boost in volume. The volume during these times were high, but they weren't the highest points in the day for GME. EDIT: I want to make it clear to people who are saying "those are just bot accounts." Bots are still controlled by humans. If bot spam cannot be caught and deleted, that means 8.5 million people are exposed to pump-and-dump schemes run by bots. It does not reflect any better on the mods if the comments are made by humans or made by bots controlled by humans. It is now a day later, and still none of the comments have been removed by a moderator or moderator bot. UPDATE: Wall Street Bets has completely removed any post talking about ZJZ and his post about the head mods trying to engage in crypto scams and strange movie deals. (EDIT: This has changed, see above.) The rising sections is now completely filled low-effort, small text posts that are only pushing $GME. Here are those threads. Low-effort threads like these are explicitly against WSB rules. Why are mods letting rule-breaking, ticker spamming posts stay up? Example 1Example 2Example 3Example 4Example 5Example 6 WSB mods are banning users for mentioning ZJZ and his post. (EDIT: This has changed, see above.) Mods Removing Negative GME Posts I started digging into this when I posted to Wall Street Bets with a post containing some information about GME. The post pushed back against some of the "GME revolutiuon" talking points. It was a pretty tame post, meet all the guidelines for posting, and contained enough content to warrant staying up. The post was removed by the mods, but you can still see it up here. The content of the post was a combo of these two comments I made. This comment here and this comment here. Somebody in the comments recommended I make the contents of the comment into a separate post- which I did until it was removed. The moderators removed this post, the removal states: "Moderators remove posts from feeds for a variety of reasons, including keeping communities safe, civil, and true to their purpose." I sent a DM to the mods asking why exactly the post was removed. I have not been given a reply. Does the content of the post I made (pt.1 / pt.2) break any of their rules? Why would the mods remove a post containing that info? Even worse, the exact contents of the post I made exist in comment form and are still up. If the info somehow breaks their rules, why leave it up in the comment section? Why haven't they removed the comments that contain the EXACT wording I used in my post? It seems very strange to me that a post I made that contained some research to counter act the "GME Revolution" narrative would be singled out removal for "keeping communities safe, civil, and true to their purpose." The front-page of Wall Street Bets is FILLED will positive memes and DD that supports GME. There is not a single negative post about GME on the entire front page that I can find. Why not leave up some negative DD and let the community downvote/upvote it? The mods will let the comment section of threads get filled up with misinformation (GME SI being 226% is a common one that is easily debunked, yet is posted every 5 min in daily threads). People are gambling their life savings on outdated information yet when I make a post to push back against some of the common GME arguments, it gets removed. Mods removing negative GME posts is unethical because WSB mods own GME shares. jamsi is a mod on WSB. They left this comment: "I just received this e-mail from Robinhood. I am no longer using Robinhood for any of my purchases. Only keeping my $GME - not selling." Here is the comment. Swedish_Chef_Bork_x3 is a mod on WSB. They left this comment: "Another $2k locked and loaded to buy in tomorrow. Feels like fucking Helm’s Deep in here. I have tomorrow off work, gonna get drunk and hope I don’t sleep through my alarm.". Here is the comment. rawbdor is listed as a mod under the Moderators section of Wall Street Bets. rawbdor posted a comment saying: "The price is going to plummet hard no matter what we do. The real question is, will they be able to steal our shares in the process. They can drop the price all they want on low volume. But they'll never be able to buy it back unless you sell it to them." A link to that comment is here. This comment makes it pretty obvious that rawbdor owns some shares in GME, right? Saying things like our shares implies they own some. ITradeBaconFutures is also listed as a mod. They made it clear that "Mods did not trade GME". You can find that comment here. turdled is listed as a mod. They said, "We don't comment or promote trades. That's up to the subscribers and their upvotes/downvotes to decide." View it here. One mod claims that mods don't trade GME, when its obvious from the three examples above that they did. Another says they don't comment or promote trades, which is also a lie. Other mods have been doing that. They also "promote" trades when they remove content that argues the other side of GME. If the only content they allow on the front-page is GME Positive content, they are promoting that content. WSB has a mod team of 35 accounts moderating 8.5 million people. CNBC gets about 200k viewers at peak hours, while WSB has almost a million viewing it at a time when the market is open. The mods could simply send me a DM and explain why my post was removed. They haven't. Market manipulation is bad. It's bad when investment firms do it and its bad when retail investors do it. The mods could DM me right now and say "Hey, here is the reason the post was removed." They haven't. If they do send me a DM, I will post an update here. TL;DR Now-former WSB mod ZJZ, in a removed & locked post, accused dormant top mods of coming back to siphon media coverage, potential movie rights, and springboard a cryptocurrency, while suppressing other mods Coldcutcombo69, a moderator on WSB, was posting comments and threads promoting AMC. A coordinated AMC pump happened in the daily threads and comments that this moderator (and others) were tasked with moderating. This mod was removed as a moderator after this thread was posted. Coldcutcombo69 held AMC stock before the pump, but it is unclear if they held or sold that stock around or after the time of the coordinated pump. Today, several users, but no mods, in a discussion thread attempted to push buys of AMC at 1 & 2 PM EST. Those times would later coincide with high volumes of stock trades for the day. Similar coordination was attempted by users (no mods) for GME. WSB's front page is filled with only positive coverage of GME (here's a snapshot), while they removed my post containing negative GME DD with no legitimate reason given. Mods are holding GME contradicting another high level mod's comment that "mods did not trade $GME". Mods made a false statement that they don't promote stocks, as one of them clearly did. You can also see the other mods comments about GME as also promoting stock. Tervia's comment here has good info on Reddit moderation.
Pass the bong and gather round, bros! We're gonna like....um....what were we doing again? Oh yeah, we're gonna talk about those Chronic stocks and how you Ganja Gorillas can avoid becoming Game Gibbons
Hay hay, Ay, listen up, B, lemme holler at you a minute. I notice you been eyeing that portfolio real luscious like, almost like you found a couple extra bananas under your tree, am I right? Cool, cool. So whatchu holdin', homey? Tillllllray? Aw yiss. Aphria? Yeah, she fine as hell. CGC? Oh lawd, dat ass is bangin'. ACB? Aw man, you like the classics, that's dope. OGI? Into the up and comers, respect young blood. SNDL? SNDL? For real? Dude.... Hi all, NrdRage here. You might remember me from such hits as "pegging $GME dead right multiple times during its bubble, making everybody rich on $RIOT, exposing the $PLUG infinite money glitch, accidentally helping start the $BB craze, never getting an $AMD weekly call right and being in an abusive relationship with the VIX" or maybe "The SEC and you: How you can just say no to having them shove a Mister Fister up your ass". Alright, apes, it's been a great few days being able to throw a dart at a wall of weed stocks and no matter where it sticks, you make money. It's been a great run. But if you're going to expand the acreage of your jungle and the amount of lady gorillas you earn the right to mate with, you gotta start thinking a bit. And that means - hear me out - thinking of how the hell you plan on getting out of SNDL alive. And yes, I realize I'm saying this right after it spiked almost a hundo percent in the last 24 hours. Look, I was playing it, too. I grabbed some 2/19 3c's and a shit ton of 1/22 1.5c's on Tuesday. I also got out of both of those today, though not as high up as I could have. If you check my history, you'll see I even said I was goingt to eye a re-entry. Then the market took a giant dump and gave me that entry, but I passed on it because I had done some research by that point. Whatever, profit's profit. Here's the TL:DR: It's basically a penny stock that's gotten pumped to hell. But the smart ape realizes when something has gone too mainstream and gets out of the way before the bulldozers wipe out his trees. Hey, I love shoving a share price around a bit as much as the next guy, I ain't gonna talk shit about that. But it seems like nobody has an exit strategy for this, and I'm starting to see a lot of really stupid shit about Holding to 42.69 and all the other ridiculous bullshit from people who clearly don't even know what they fuck they've invested in that the GME Gibbons fell for.
Here's the reality of SNDL:
The company was on the verge of bankruptcy around Thanksgiving, they have no other markets other than Canada, which is ridiculously oversaturated with weed to the point that wholesale prices are less than a dollar a gram. And they recently got forced to admit that their product fails to meet THC content requirements. In case you're wondering what that means, it means they sell skunkweed that they cut with paper and sawdust to make it cheaper. They sell garbage. And everyone knows it - their brand is associated with low quality crap. Plus, they actively solicited us to buy their stock to drive up the price, then diluted it to fuck with a billion share offering. Now, to their credit, this not only enabled them to become debt free, but also up their marketing budget and spend some time trying to create a brand. Don't get too excited, fucking Sam's Choice at Wal-Mart is a brand, too, doesn't mean you should stick a chub of their ground beef up your rectum. By reason of them selling skunkweed, their margins lag well behind that of their competitors. Looking at their financials, they've got 615 million in cash laying around. That's pretty good - except they're a company that burns 250 million a quarter. Which means they're going to dilute the fuck out of everyone again next month. They've got no exposure to the US market, but had no problem dropping "rumors" that they were going to break in to the US market through licensing deals - which turned out to be 1 pot shop in Bellingham, Washington. They have no real expansion plan anywhere in the world, for that matter.
B...bu.....bu.bu....BUT NRDRAGE! Stonk go up ! Look at it! SNDL to the moon! 🚀 🚀 🚀 ).
Yeah, I know. It's fucking crazy to talk shit about a stock when it's seemingly mid flight. But here I am anyways. Not to talk you out of the weed party - you should totally keep playing that for all it's worth - but rather to get people to see that they've probably outgrown skunkweed now. Look, the reason this thing mooned is because it was like a dollar. Hell, it was 13 cents not too far back. With a stock worth a dollar, it's easy to get a lot of other apes to throw a couple of bananas at it for the lulz. It's easy to shove around a penny stock with an extra 10 bucks you have laying around from another trade somewhere. But as the price goes up, so too goes up the perceived cost of entering. I can make a strong (unassailable, in fact), argument that $APHA at $25 is cheaper than SNDL at 3.25. But people are conditioned to like smaller numbers. Unfortunately, as the GME Gibbons learned, eventually you run out of buyers, and then things go tits up real fast. As the Prophet Biggie Smalls once said, Mo' Money Equals Mo' Problems. We all know this equation to be true. And here you are, sitting on bags of bananas you didn't know you were gonna have a week ago thanks to some stonk you hadn't heard of before yesterday. You don't think you've got a problem, but you do. Because those bags of bananas aren't edible until you turn them in to the bank for real cash. If you're sitting on bananas from the gold standard of the weed world (that would be, $TLRY), you're resting pretty easy that no other ape is gonna come by and steal your bananas. There are gonna be lots of bananas to go around, and mostly we're just taking bananas from fools who think their bananas will be less later. But you don't have that with SNDL. All the bananas are currently sitting with people who think the bananas will go higher. You can't all be right, especially when there are billions of bananas, and now your grandparents are starting to buy bananas because some Boomer on CNBC told them it would make their dick bigger and their friends think they were cooler.
Again, I'm not telling you to leave the party
But, if you recall your dorm room years, the best pizza you could afford was the Tony's school lunchroom style shit for a dollar. Then you managed to hide a few bucks from the people who collect your student loans, and you upgraded to Domino's. Maybe by now you're ordering from a local joint that makes it's own dough in house and the sauce is made with the love of an old Italian grandma who accidentally dips her sagging tiddies into the pot 3 times while making it. That just makes it taste better. That's science. But I digress. The point is, you can get better weed now. You don't have to smoke the skunk. So before you get the rug pulled out from beneath you and are stuck investing in shitty penny stocks again, maybe you should elevate your enterprise. Let's take a look at your options:
Canopy Growth
You could go with $CGC. They not only sell higher quality weed, but are an established brand and also sell oils and shit to those hippie fucks who still think Burning Man isn't just a brogrammer beatfest and go to an acupuncturist to enhance their "luck". They've captured that all important 65+ stoner demographic by marketing their shit as a cure for seizures, cataracts, and dry vag, so they've got a lot of revenue. They've also had a much more muted rise this week because they just haven't been on everybody's lips, which means they've got a lot of room to run. The downside here is they burn almost as much cash as SNDL, but they've also got more bullets.
Aurora
If you go with $ACB, you're going with a company that's already gone through its "shady as fuck" stage and has re-emerged healthy from it. You're also not only getting on weed, but the DIY urban chicken farmer types who want to grow their own weed. They, too, have had a strong run, but have a lot more runway than most because they've actually got a really strong path to dominance in the US market once it opens up to them.
Organigram:
Look, if your dick is still getting hard at the thought of playing a low dollar stonk or you've only got 28 dollars to invest, you could do a lot worse. They've got strong branding, large growth potential, a management structure that doesn't seem to act shady, and they've run almost as well as the other new generation of meme stonks, but lagged back enough because nobody can fucking rmeember their name to where they can rubber band a bit.
Tilray and Aphria:
I'm combining these because they're inexorably joined at the hip (or should be, more on that later) because the two of them are merging. For those who don't know, sometime in Q2, every share of $APHA you own will turn into .833 shares of $TLRY. Even though APHA is the one buying out TLRY. This is basically the gold standard of weed stonkery. When you start investing in these, you know you're a real investor. Here's the interesting thing with these guys, though. Even though APHIA should be just slightly trailing behind TLRY in terms of stock price, it's currently trading at less than half. With TLRY sitting at 73 a share as I write this, APHA should be at just over $60. But it's at 29. Now, obviously, this means that TLRY has a lot more momentum, and some of that is due to the fact that there's a mini (don't flog me for using the word, but it's true) short squeeze going on with that one, which has turned it into such a strong momentum play. But APHA, by virtue of actual math, needs to be within about 17% of TLRY's price. Which means APHA either needs to moon dramatically, or TLRY needs to fall precipitously. Now either of those things could happen, but the momentum of TLRY is hard to stop, which means it's more likely that APHA rubber bands to catch up to it in the coming months. Even if TLRY does falter, that means APHA still has to come up a bit to meet it. Making APHA kind of a "can't go tits up" situation. TLRY also has the benefit of having enough market cap to where fund bois will buy into it, whereas SNDL is too small to meet most of their requirements. Which can further propel TLRY (and thus, drag APHA with it). One of the interesting things that's been happening with this pair is that the order books, even though they should mirror one another, have completely inverted from one another numerous times in the last couple of days. This, of course, was a bull flag for TLRY every time it happened, leaving APHA to compensate to try and catch back up shortly thereafter. It's really easy money. Fundamentally, these guys have one HUUUUUUUGE advantage over the others: They secured the UK distribution, and now have the inside track to be the supplier for the rest of the Europoors across the pond who need to smoke a bond to help forget all the things wrong with them. And if you don't think they won't be able to leverage that to be the front runners out of the gate when the US opens for business, then you definitely ain't black.
Or, you can just stay where you are and do the 💎👐 thing
Ask the $GME Gibbons how well that worked out for them. The ones still holding that stonk are like that one dude sitting at the edge of the bar of the Viper Room, still rocking his mullet and chain wallet, just convinced that Warrant and Slaughter are going to ring in the glory days of hair metal once more and that Queensryche is going to start selling out stadiums again. It's just sad. You're flying right now, but a rug is gonna get pulled out from under you and then you're gonna have your own daily thread where you reassure yourselves that it's gonna be OK and that you're gonna ride it to a thousand one day. Lots of us (myself included) made a fuck ton of money on GME. And we've made a fuck ton on SNDL and the rest of the Weedies this week. But there are always people who Melvin it and hang on to their position too long and get stuck. That's gonna be a lot of you, but you shouldn't let it be you.
TL:DR: Smart apes should look at their much bigger pile of bananas from SNDL while you're way ahead and upgrade them to plantains before the other apes. Plaintains equals breeding with better apes, not low quality apes that cannibalize fellow apes and give ape diseases.
All my love -Chad Dickens EDIT 1: I forgot to list my positions CGC - None ACB - None OGI - 10,000 shares @ $4.23, 1000 1/22 5c, 500 2/19 7.5c TLRY: 20,000 shares @ 18.74, 100 2/12 65c, 500 2/19 65c, 500 2/12 42c, 5000 6/18 43c APHA: 500 2/19 26c, 500 2/19 25c, 5000 7/16 30c SNDL: Opted out today
Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/50006 This week at Bungie, we’re back in action. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Since the last TWAB, you’ve gotten your hands on Hawkmoon. The Dawning has come and gone. Next-generation consoles received some wonderful enhancements. You’ve released a crow from their cage, and Lord Saladin watched as you decimated your foes with Stasis in the Iron Banner. On the Bungie side of things, we took a breather. This last year has been full of challenges that none of us expected. Even through everything 2020 had in store, we were able to get Beyond Light and Season of the Hunt in your hands. This did come at a bit of a cost, though, and we needed some time to recharge our batteries for a new year. We have no doubt that 2021 will have mountains to climb and unexpected surprises, but we’re all excited to get back into the groove for a new year of Destiny development. So, let’s get this party started. We’ve got four TWABs between you and a fresh Season of Destiny 2 content. You’re hungry for what we've got planned, and we’re eager to dish out the goods. First up, we’ll be looking at a few changes to vendors, Dreaming City and Moon rewards, and some sandbox tuning for Hunter Stasis abilities in the Crucible.
Rewards Update: Dreaming City and the Moon
Since the launch of Beyond Light, we’ve been collecting what feels like a metric ton of feedback on various Destiny systems. While we’ve shared some plans related to rewards, DDoS protection on consoles, crossplay and transmog, we have new details on rewards from two of our more recent destinations: The Moon and the Dreaming City. Rewards Area Lead Justin Dazet will be walking us through some changes in response to player feedback.
Justin: Last month, Assistant Game Director Joe Blackburn spoke about some changes we were making to gear in Season 13 in response to some feedback. Today we’re going to briefly chat about what some of these changes are as they relate to our back catalog of expansions, and the reasoning behind them. First let’s review a list of what you’ll see starting in Season 13:
Reissued Dreaming City Reverie Dawn and Moon Dreambane armor.
These will also drop with high stats when earned in Shattered Throne or Pit of Heresy.
The final chest in Pit of Heresy will no longer drop a fully Masterworked Dreambane armor piece.
Instead, the Dreambane armor piece that drops will have 7 armor energy and is guaranteed to drop with at least a +16 in two different stats and higher stats overall.
Dreambane class items will not drop from this chest.
Reissued 4 weapons for Dreaming City with new Perk Pools.
Waking Vigil, Sleepless, Vouchsafe, and Retold Tale.
Dreaming City weapons that drop in the Shattered Throne dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
Reissued 4 weapons for the Moon with new Perk Pools.
Premonition (Pit of Heresy only), Heretic, Blasphemer, and Apostate.
Weapons that drop in the Pit of Heresy dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
Expanding Lost Sector Legend and Master rotation to 4 Moon Sectors.
K1 Logistics, K1 Communication, K1 Crew Quarters, and K1 Revelation.
We are making these changes to help preserve the relevancy of the destinations, specifically some of the pinnacle end-game activities that still exist there. To get more specific around the actual experience, activities where re-issues are acquired will be heavily weighted towards rewarding re-issued gear over capped gear -- though the exact weighting and mechanisms may differ. For example: In the Dreaming City if you have already obtained an infusion capped weapon, it will not drop for you again. Image Link While not every gear source or Legendary reward will be kept up to date for the entire lifetime these destinations are available, we do believe there’s high value in targeting some specific activity drops for continued relevancy to give you more options for where to spend time as you seek to improve your arsenal.
Turn in those Tokens
Since Destiny 2 launched, Guardians have been amassing vendor reputation tokens. These could be turned in for Legendary gear, which would usually be dismantled for Legendary Shards and materials. Looking to the future, the team is excited to update the ways in which you earn reputation with ritual vendors and the rewards that come from them. Dazet, back to you!
Justin: The rewards for continuous ritual playlist completion has been a subject that’s come up several times as we’ve looked over Beyond Light feedback, and we’re happy to announce some changes coming soon to Gambit, Crucible, and strike reward structure. Firstly, we’ll be adding two new unique weapon rewards to each of the three playlist rituals (so six total across all three activities). These weapons are in addition to the ones added in Season of the Hunt, and continue to have a small chance to drop at the end of each activity. Second, starting in Season 13 for Gambit and Crucible (Valor) and in a future Season for strikes, rank rewards will be visible on the ritual vendors. Each Season you’ll be greeted by a row of rewards, progression toward which will be earned automatically as you complete relevant playlist activities. Instead of having rank rewards dropped automatically into your loot stream, they now will be picked up manually from the vendor lists. We feel this gives much better visibility into what you’ll be earning as you progress, and helps you make better choices about where to spend your time. Image Linkimgur Progression is on a per-ritual basis. You can be on Rank 10 for Crucible and Rank 4 for Gambit, for example. You’ll reset your rank right at the vendor by picking up the final reward. Rewards for each individual ritual are as follows:
Rank 4: 3x Upgrade Modules
Rank 7: 3x Enhancement Cores
Rank 10: Seasonal Ritual Shader (changes to 3x Enhancement Cores after resetting your rank)
Rank 13: 2x Enhancement Prisms
Rank 16: Seasonal Ritual Emblem (changes to 2x Enhancement Prisms after resetting your rank)
Reset Reward: Ascendant Shard (changes to Exotic Engram after resetting your rank)
Every rank-up awards a base Ritual Engram just like before. Additionally, each of the above ranks also awards a Prime Ritual Engram. Image Linkimgur Due to this automated progression, Crucible Tokens and Crucible Token Gifts are no longer needed and will be deprecated into junk that will delete as a full stack starting in Season 13. So, cash those tokens in before the end of the Season, and get ready to earn some Masterwork materials!
Taking a pass: Revenant Shatterdive & Fissures
The conversation and feedback on rewards wasn’t the only thing we were tracking over the holiday break. Many of you have been spending time in the Crucible, experimenting with Stasis and all of the ways in which it can change the flow of a PvP match. Prior to the break, we had a round of tuning for Warlocks. Next up, we’re looking at Hunters, but also have some comments on our approach to future Stasis tuning as we head in to the new year. Please welcome Combat Area Lead Tomonori Kinoshita back to the TWAB to talk through our goals for Stasis abilities in PvP.
Tomo: Over the holiday break we saw Trials go live, and with that a wealth of valuable feedback from the community. Along with this feedback, we have been tracking data from Trials and identified some short-term changes, as well as more mid-term goals we are focusing on in the coming weeks and months. Short term goal: Address outlier Stasis abilities to keep subclass decision making interesting.
Reduce the potency of Shatter Dive + Whisper of Fissures against Guardians, going live with Update 3.0.2.
Shatterdive
Now has damage falloff vs. unfrozen targets
Max range damage reduced from 50 to 5
Damage reduction during ability reduced from 50% to 25%
Whisper of Fissures
Reduced max-min damage vs. non-super players from 42-22 to 30-4
Reduced max-min damage vs. super players from 42-22 to 16-2
Reduced detonation radius vs. players from 10m to 9m
Investigate the efficacy of the Stasis Titan Behemoth Super. We want to let the above change settle to see where the Behemoth stands in our PvP hierarchy, but this is next on our radar.
Mid-term goal: Improve PvP subclass usage and win-rate balance.
Addressing Stasis ability outliers will help us lower the ceiling, but we also want to pull up other underperforming Light subclasses.
Mid-term goal: Review our ability-to-gunplay balance in PvP.
Destiny is a game about both explosive space magic moments and intrinsically satisfying gunplay. Especially in our 3v3 playlists, the usage of abilities has climbed as we introduce more and more ways to charge them quickly.
We’re still in very early discussions, but we’re looking into restoring a better balance where proper gunplay is rewarding in these playlists.
A few of you noticed that prior to our holiday break, we were able to get a few sandbox changes delivered faster than expected. Thanks to changes on Destiny 2’s backend and the Destiny Content Vault, our patch pipeline is indeed better than before! That said, some changes won't happen at light speed, as our team wants the appropriate time to collect feedback, check the data, and test proposed changes. Once these changes have been validated, we’ll be eager to get you details via TWABs, blog articles, and more.
Worldwide Community
Sometimes, it can be difficult to think of how large the Destiny community has become since 2014. It seems no matter where you may be in the world, you might bump in to a fellow Hunter, Warlock, or Titan. Last year, we bolstered our efforts with the addition of two international community managers. Join us in welcoming a third to the team! Introducing our new Russian Community Manager, Ivan Yanyushkin.
Ivan: Privet! My name is Ivan and I'm the latest community manager added to the team for Russian speaking Guardians. In Destiny 2 I enjoy making raids more complicated by doing them with fewer than six people and endlessly roaming around Europa on my Warlock, which for me is a meditating experience. Some of you might know me from my past work at Blizzard Entertainment, where I worked as a community manager for different titles. This experience will help me, but I will also be thankful for your guidance. Feel free to reach out to tell me what works, what doesn’t, and how things can be improved for the Destiny community. One day, when real-life gaming events finally become possible again, I will be happy to meet you in person. But for now, let’s stay in touch on Twitter, VKontakte, and on the Russian Bungie Forums. It’s an honor to work with such an amazing community. My job will be to pass the voice of the players to developers, help local content makers grow, manage Russian social media channels, and take care of many other duties. I’ll do my best to be Ivan the Great not the Terrible! P.S. Hopefully one day I’ll even get used to the fact that Hydras explode after death :) Spasibo.
Keeping You Updated
Image Linkimgur Through the holiday break, Destiny Player Support was at the ready, providing vital information to players encountering bugs, seeking workarounds, or just asking for help with their network setup. This week, their eyes turn towards an upcoming Hotfix, preparing you all for the incoming update. This is their report. UPDATE 3.0.2 Today, January 14, background maintenance for Update 3.0.2 will begin. Below is a timeline of events:
January 14, 10 AM PST (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance for Update 3.0.2 begins.
January 14, 2 PM PST (2200 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance for Update 3.0.2 completes.
January 19, 8 AM PST (1600 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance for Update 3.0.2 begins.
January 19, 8:30 AM PST (1630 UTC): Players are removed from activities and won't be able to log back into Destiny 2 until 9 AM PST when Update 3.0.2 is available.
January 19, 9 AM PST (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Update 3.0.2 is rolled out across all platforms and regions. Players can log back into Destiny 2 at this time. Ongoing maintenance is expected to conclude at 10 AM PST.
January 19, 10 AM PST (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is expected to conclude.
UPCOMING RESOLVED ISSUES Below is a list of some issues expected to be resolved with Update 3.0.2:
Hive bosses, In Ananh, Brood Queen and Xillox, were not counting as Hive boss kills in bounties.
Some players couldn't respawn if they died during the boss fight of the Inverted Spire strike.
Players could get out of environment in several Crucible maps.
Some quest items were not dropping in the Moon Freeroam activity. This prevented completion of several "Essence" quests, such as Essence of Rage, Essence of Insanity, and Essence of Servitude.
The Unrelenting perk was not triggering health regeneration.
MIDA Multi-Tool's catalyst wasn't dropping from Competitive Crucible wins.
Taken Psions were replicating too rapidly in some Prophecy dungeon encounters.
Garden of Salvation flawless completions were not awarding the “Inherent Perfection” Triumph.
The High Celebrant sometimes wouldn’t take damage nor go to the Ascendant Plane.
Fixed an exploit where players could have "Shelter From the Storm" permanently applied in the Deep Stone Crypt raid.
Fixed an issue where Cloudstrike hits on the Divinity cage counted as two precision hits.
Fixed an issue where the Grandmaster Nightfall timer was set to 30 minutes.
Fixed an issue on PlayStation 5 preventing clan rosters from loading.
DUST AND ECHOES Almost nine years ago, stats and files from our previous franchise, Halo, stopped getting updated on Bungie.net. Since then, all stats, files, and other data from Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach have lived on in remembrance at halo.bungie.net. On February 9, the halo.bungie.net website will be taken offline permanently. Everyone is welcome to save their stats and files, however they can, if they'd like to save anything. Please keep in mind that our News articles, Forums, and Groups were imported into the current version of Bungie.net back in 2013. KNOWN ISSUES While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:
The Exotic Ship Reward from the High Celebrant mission is not properly showing that it is a “Rare” chance reward in the activity description. Chances for this reward increase with each activity completion.
Portals aren't opening when the High Celebrant leaves because the black orbs take no damage. Players can mitigate this issue by not using Sidearms and not shooting the orb as it immediately spawns.
Enemies in Crucible and PvE aren't colorblind-friendly when highlighted.
The Special Finisher mod no longer unlocks for new players.
Bomber mods don't work when Hunters have the Dragon's Shadow Exotic equipped.
The Overload Shot on Auto Rifles doesn’t proc if you hold down the trigger right after reloading, even though it does the Overload animation.
Some players receive the BIRD error code trying to get to the Wall of Wishes in the Last Wish raid.
Sometimes the Vault encounter in the Last Wish raid won't let you read icons nor spawn enemies after slamming on a plate or finishing a phase.
Sometimes Riven doesn't get stunned on the second level in the final encounter of the Last Wish raid.
The Forfeit Shrine Ascendant Challenge completion doesn't count towards the Ascendant Champion or Honed for Speed Triumphs, blocking the Cursebreaker Seal.
The Run the Gauntlet Triumph doesn't unlock when completing the time trial in the Cimmerian Garrison Ascendant Challenge.
Ahamkara Bones are missing in the Shattered Throne dungeon and multiple Ascendant Challenges.
Players will sometimes go into a Nightfall with 16 people when they try loading into the Tower.
Sometimes dialogue gets cut off at the end of a Wrathborn Hunt.
For Hunters using the Way of the Warrior subclass, Combination Blow sometimes stops working and doesn't give Gambler's Dodge back.
Non-Exo characters are receiving Exo specific dialogue on Europa.
The Light of the Dawning emblem cannot equip stat trackers.
The Coaxial Bonds ornaments for Ophidian Aspect causing the bottom-left of the screen to glitch/flicker.
For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.
Home Streaming Device
Image Linkimgur It’s been a little over nine months since I’ve been to a theater. While I definitely miss the smell of fresh(ish) popcorn and mind-blowing visuals on a massive screen, I’ve been keeping myself busy with Destiny clips, montages, and videos from our amazing community. Let’s see what we’ve got this week: Movie of the Week: Confectionary Ghost Video Link Movie of the Week: Deep Stone Lullaby Cover Video Link Movie of the Week: Goodbye 2020 – A year of Crucible Video Link Movie of the Week: Cloudstruck
Make sure to put a link to your Bungie.net profile in the description of your video. Why? We have a sweet emblem to grant you for your troubles. As always, upload your finished product to the Creations page.
Doodling
Image Linkimgur Since we’ve kicked off the weekly artist features, I’ve found myself doodling more often. Thinking of what my Guardian would look like in the heat of battle, or just chilling on a couch after getting some sweet loot. Thank you to all who continue to inspire members of the community to embrace art! Let’s kick off the year with some fun pieces. Art of the Week: Rogue Hunter
If you’d like to be featured, make sure to tag your art with #Destiny2Art on Twitter, Instagram, or wherever you happen to post it! While we may not be in the office, it feels great to be back in the saddle. Always enjoy diving through feedback, discussing the future of Destiny with the team, and figuring out how to tackle the challenges of a new year. Cheers to all who’ve walked this path with us since 2014. It’s always crazy to think how far we’ve come, and we still have so far yet to go. See you in the wild. Cheers, dmg04
Kickoff with Drew McIntyre returning and making his way down to the ring. Drew says it feels good to back, and thanks all the fan for their get well wishes. He says he got so lucky with his symptoms, he was able to train by day four, and wants to dedicate his match this Sunday to everyone who is fighting this disease. Speaking of other things people are sick of, Bill Goldberg. Drew says he isn't going to look at Goldberg lightly, he destroyed Hogan, the Rock, and then came back years later to start a new streak which Drew vows to end this Sunday. Drew says he's pumped up when Miz and Morrison come out. Miz says Drew vs Goldberg will be the WWE equivalent of Kong vs Godzilla, but when there is a conflict of that magnitude, there are consequences. One or both of them could end up injured, and whoever wins will be a sitting duck for Miz and Morrison to beat the holy hell out of. Then Miz will cash in his Money in the Bank and be the new WWE Champion. Goldberg makes his way down to the ring, and simply tells Drew he's next. Miz and Morrison try to egg McIntyre and Goldberg on but the two of them grab Miz and Morrison throw them into the ring. Goldberg spears Miz, and Drew Claymores Morrison, before they go face to face again and Drew holds up the title.
Backstage Charlotte is interviewed about her upcoming match with Shayna Bazler, she says it's one thing to call yourself a queen it's another to be one. She says she'll be defending the tag titles, and entering the Rumble and is going to bet on herself to win the Rumble once again. She says her father hanging around with Lacey Evans is the darkest place Ric has ever been in.
After Charlotte is attacked by Nia Jax, Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke run down to give her some back up against Nia and Shayna. Mandy and Dana are able to distract them but Lacey comes out and attacks Charlotte.
Mustafa Ali says the greatest moment in Kofi's life happened because of the worst moment in Ali's, Kofi took his spot at Elimination Chamber and stole his Wrestlemania opportunity.
Xavier Woods tries to escape after beating Slapjack but is cut off by T-Bar and thrown back into the ring where he and Mace double chokeslam Woods. Mace and T-Bar hold a dazed Woods while Slapjack gets a chair for Ali, Ali is about to hit Woods but stops and sits down. He says he is the king and like any good king he will show mercy, but he wants Woods to send a message to Kofi that his Royal Rumble spot has been forfeited, and he has been replaced by Mustafa Ali.
Riddle runs into R-Truth who says the Hurt Business have a birthday surprise for him in the VIP Lounge. Truth says they're gonna give him 24 karats, but mixes them up with carrots.
It's time for the VIP lounge with The Hurt Business. MVP says Bobby has something important he needs to bring to their attention, but first he tells Cedric and Shelton to focus on Riddle tonight. Bobby says sometimes you have to believe in someone else's belief in you. The Hurt Business is loaded with gold and this is just the beginning. Shelton starts to speak but he's cut off by Cedric who says the Hurt Business is on a roll thanks to MVP. Bobby says they wanted to give MVP a token of their appreciation, since they all have gold, they'll give MVP some gold of his own. MVP opens a box with a necklace that looks like one of MVP's classic medallions, but with THB instead. Cedric takes credit for working with the designer but Shelton cuts him off. R-Truth comes out and MVP is irate, asking why R-Truth is out there. Truth says he is there for the surprise party but MVP says he isn't on the list. Cedric tells Truth this has nothing to do with him, but Truth says the "THB" stands for Truth Happy Birthday. Shelton says this isn't the time and Truth wants to start a dance party. Lashley says he actually has a gift but it's in the ring. Truth is about to enter when a horde of wrestlers rush down to try and win the 24/7 Championship. Lashley takes care of them but Riddle is able to sneak into the ring and hit the Final Flash on MVP.
Backstage R-Truth says he wants to show he deserves an opportunity of getting in the Money in the Bank ladder match. AJ Styles and Omos come by and say he'd gladly give R-Truth a chance to prove himself because he's so benevolent. Truth that's cool that AJ is benevolent, he's a Capricorn and asks if Omos is a Taurus. He then talks about the time he and Road Dogg broke down their taurus on the way to a show.
After Morrison is defeated, Miz challenges Sheamus to face both him and Morrison in a handicap match right now and Sheamus agrees.
Shayna says she is going to through out everyone in the Royal Rumble just like she did to Mandy Rose last week, even her own tag partner. Nia takes offense to this and says she carries their team.
Jeff Jarrett is at his home and gives us his prediction as to who will win between Goldberg and Drew McIntyre. He says we'll see a spear, a jackhammer, and 1, 2, 3 a new WWE Champion.
Shanya and Nia are arguing backstage when Charly stops by to interview them. They admit they've never gotten along even when they were champions. Shayna figures with Charlotte being distracted by her father, now would be the perfect time to get a rematch for the titles.
Charlotte is interviewed, she says she has been accused of living off her last name, and now a woman is literally wearing her dad's robes and taking advantage of her dad's name. Charlotte says Lacey can wear the robe but she'll never take her crown.
Adam Pearce tells Ricochet if he wins against AJ Styles tonight he could earn a spot in the Royal Rumble. AJ and Omos come by and wonders who in their right mind would take advise from a coward like Adam Pearce who ran away from his match with Roman. At least Ricochet will lose with some dignity tonight. Ricochet AJ is forgetting what happened at TLC and that AJ will need more than a 7 foot giant to stop him tonight. AJ says he doesn't think he likes Adam Pearce anymore, and if he doesn't like him them Omos doesn't like him.
Backstage Ric Flair is teaching Lacey how to reverse out of some holds when Charlotte walks in on them. She tells Lacey to leave. Ric says just because Charlotte is a big star doesn't mean there's no place for for him in the lockeroom. Charlotte says this is the Ric that would spend money on everyone but his family and that this isn't cute anymore, he isn't a legend, he's becoming an old man. She says she isn't the bad guy and wants him to know that. As she leave Lacey hits her with the Woman's Right and woos as she walks off with Ric.
Alexa Bliss is in the middle of the ring singing the "how does your garden grow?" nursery rhyme and says she had so much fun last week. She talks to the empty swing and watches her burning Randy's face on an old TV. She then says she just wanted to have some fun with Asuka in her playground, but she mentioned him. She rewatches her victory over Asuka from last week and her mid-match transformation. She asks if we liked her trick and says he taught her that, and that she can't wait to see him again so she can thank him. Tonight she has the opportunity to win a shiny new toy, and just like last week she doesn't feel like playing nice. Alexa starts creepily singing ring around the rosey, then stares into the camera as images of The Fiend flash over her face, and finishes with Bray's voice saying let me in.
After the gauntlet match Bobby Lashley attacks Riddle from behind and locks in the Hurt Lock.
Edge says 2020 has taught him that you can't sleep on tomorrow, if you have a dream you gotta fight for it everyday because tomorrow is not guaranteed. Sometimes you just have to stand up and dust yourself off so you can keep walking forward. Ten years ago he went to sleep as the World Heavyweight Championship, a week later he had to forfeit that title and his career. Edge says he never can forget when he told his mom he wanted to be a wrestler and she told him to go do it. Those words are what allowed him to fight for nine years to get his dream back. At Backlash Randy Orton killed his triceps, and reminded him that everything you hold dear can be ripped away in a moment. You can't live in that space though, you gotta fight. He remembered what his mom said, and with that in mind he is entering the Royal Rumble. He says it won't be last year because the stakes are higher, he knows his window is closing and he has to use this as an opportunity to win back the title he never lost. Edge says he will fight with every fiber of his being to make this dream a reality. He says a world without dreamers and fighters is a much less magical place, and brings up a Henry Ford quote, "if you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." Edge says he can.
During Alexa vs Asuka, Alexa's music starts to play and Alexa appear back in her original form, visibly afraid and confused. Asuka rushes her but Alexa sends her into the turnbuckle. The lights in the Thunderdome go out, and a creepy music box plays, causing Alexa to turn into her dark form from last week. She locks in the Mandible Claw on Asuka but Randy Orton appears behind her to hit her with an RKO before Asuka can pass-out.
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 ~$45/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. First, thank you everyone for the comments and questions on my first post on this topic. Given the traffic and sheer volume of questions, I figured writing another post would be better (and actually something I can manage). I wanted to focus this post on a few common themes I saw in the comments to the first post, as well as questions people were asking me directly, and related themes I saw on other posts and subs that I believe would be informative for this sub. First, a simplified recap of the 1/27/2021 trading day as I saw it. The following is my interpretation of events, and may include personal opinions, assumptions, and outright errors. Apologies for the length, but I hope this helps some of the newer traders thinking about jumping into the water with these sharks. I honestly don't think that you should, but you make your own decisions. I'll just try to help provide some information to help if I can.
Euro Market Hours: Retail Euphoria & The Setup
After-hours and Euro market activity rockets the stock in an essentially unbroken streak from ~$146 to $365. GME long social media is going ballistic. Volume is too low. There is no sell-side pushback. Allowing consolidation at these prices would be a major setback for the short-side, yet they are doing nothing on volume they could easily push back. I smell a rat. This is too easy.
5am Eastern: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
If you ask most retail market participants about how quants with their algorithms, hedge funds with their trading strategies, sophisticated experienced traders, etc., conduct their operations, you will probably get responses about sophisticated programs and high frequency trading, fundamental analysis, risk hedging strategies, lots of math, etc. That is largely true, but it is critically incomplete. The most successful hedge fund managers also deeply understand that beneath the surface, the primal forces driving markets are fear and greed, and they know how to best leverage information asymmetry to play other investors--and especially retail investors--like fiddles. As retail sentiment reaches fever pitch, Andrew Ross Sorkin gets a call from Melvin Capital just before the start of CNBC's Squawk Box, by far the most-watched pre-US market show and files a breaking news alert at the start of the show. (Paraphrasing) Melvin Capital is out. They didn't go bankrupt but they came close and took a huge loss. Congratulations WSB, you've won and you've burned the house down, and now that the shorts are out this whole thing is going to crash and burn all the retail investors you dragged along with you. "Who's going to be left holding the bag?... uh, the thing that concerns me most, at this point, is whether some of these investors will actually start to get out today--they'll look at this and say 'we won the game'--if that's winning, uhh unclear, you know, where the finish line is, uh in that regard, but uh, as much pain as they may have uh, created for Melvin Capital for example, umm, my-my great anxiety at this point is the number of-of retail investors that have been jumping into this uhh.. in literally the last 24 hours who very well may get hurt, uh, far more, and lose far more than some of the hedge funds that were involved, uh in this. Um, let's just show you where we are now..." "Where are the regulators.. and is this just the beginning?" Meanwhile, as if it had been choreographed and rehearsed, the Squawk Box team are outraged--absolutely outraged at what is going on, while a big graphic of GME price crashing off a cliff dominates 2/3 of the screen and social media is flooded with messages and posts skillfully crafted to stoke the fear. In WSB, other subs, and other social media sites, dozens of bots start posting bogus messages purporting to mock the retail investors with messages like "Thanks for the free gainz retards!". The fear is almost palpable coming through my monitor. People start trying to sell, then start asking why their market sell orders won't go through while they're watching a practically vertical dive on the GME chart next to Joe Kernan as he says "If you think there's speculation in crypto [...] and-and-now they're looking for the next mark, right? They'll-they'll find another Gamestop, once they're done with Gamestop, but in the meantime, there's gonna be BLOOD". Congratulations Squawk Box--you beautifully played your part in engineering peak, nigh-hysterical fear among the less experienced retail investors, and basically shouted "FIRE!!!" in the market equivalent of a locked theater. I truly believe your feelings were sincere, and you truly do have concern for the retailers who have been and will be hurt in all of the volatility, but that made your actions all the more effective in driving many try to lock in losses. C'mon, you can do better--I've seen you do good work and am thankful for what you did getting good info out during the peak of the pandemic--please do some investigation before spreading only one side of the narrative handed to you by financially conflicted parties. You have analysts doing your background research--any of them could tell you the short interest in GME would take more than an entire trading day to unwind even if the buy-side of every single transaction that day was to close a short position and no new short positions were initiated. Also, any of them could tell you that it's unlikely Melvin Capital held 100% of all short interest in GME. Melvin leaving is not equal to all shorts being covered--and you didn't even get confirmation that Melvin actually covered! Get them to say it themselves on air rather than carrying their water and letting them ride on your reputation and providing cover from an SEC stock manipulation investigation. Most retail brokerages don't open pre-market trading until around 7am. All those people could do was watch their positions bleed as GME plummeted over the remainder of the next 2 hours, hitting the floor of $182, nearly 50% down from the peak about 3 minutes before retail brokerages open pre-market trading. Wow. I have to hand it to the short-side hedge funds. Some of your traders must have studied drama for their undergrad or something--that is almost perfect timing. Almost, but not quite.
Pre-Market Tears... of Joy and Relief
The engineered crash was probably intended to run right through the open of retail pre-market, with the idea of getting panicking retail to sell into the low liquidity environment for more violent downward price moves without the benefit of Limit Up/Limit Down halts, causing a stampede for the exits. Man, how many hours did you guys spend thinking this strategy up? I'm honestly impressed. Two minutes prior to pre-market open, however, some deep conviction, deep pocket players, understanding the market mechanics and fundamentals behind the recent wild ride in GME started raking in the shares at discount prices they probably never thought they'd ever see again during this campaign. I'm sure tears of joy were shed, as they realized floor-to-close of regular trading gains of nearly 100%. Whoever you are, well played. I would note here that those people could easily have waited for the engineered crash to drain the blood of the fearful retailers who would have punched out, which would have allowed them to lock in greater share volumes at even lower prices, but they stopped the crash early instead. I don't know if that was their intention, but a lot of retail people were probably saved because of that. With the almost literally last-minute reversal, price rode green candles upward through the retail pre-market open, and many who would have despaired and punched out to lock in losses instead white-knuckled through the chop and held, with very bullish action through to the market open. Those who survived the day--good on you, I know it couldn't have been easy.
Chamath
Let's let the man speak for himself (and speak up for retail). Well worth spending 30 minutes to watch if you have the time. I have to give Scott Wapner credit--he asks tough questions and he repeatedly brings on guests that he know will go toe-to-toe with him with the gloves off to ensure that there is a good, vigorous debate representing diverse viewpoints. Be on the right side of history big boy, lol. Skirmishing continues at lower volume than the last 2 trading days. Bullish patterns everywhere--buying up on high volume, straggling down on low volumes. Liquidity is running out. Short-side is rationing, saving ammo for the end-of-day push.
Shenanigans, End of Day, More Shenanigans
At various points throughout the day, levers are pulled to flush retail positions out by margin calling profitable accounts across many of the retail brokerage firms, changing margin requirements with no notice. Short-side attacks coincide with ominous warnings on news media about potential regulator action, short-side touts spreading FUD across mainstream media. Short-side's rationed insufficient shares to make meaningful progress on the last tick of regular trading. This is key, as prime brokers of highly levered players pay a lot of attention to the status of accounts at the end of regular trading each day. After hours it looks like more retail traders are dumped out of their profitable portfolios due to margin change requirements--right into the abyss of super-low after-hours volume. Had their brokers at least liquidated their accounts toward the end of the main trading day into meaningful trading volume they would have gotten much better returns. Dumping them into no volume means the last few accounts took massive losses vs mark to end of trading day market price. Thank, you brokerages, for protecting those people from themselves. Hopefully they took lower profits vs being dumped into the red. Some people see the diving ticker and panic again. One thing that was particularly irritating to me is that people were all over CNBC multiple times a day, making outrageous claims of how retail traders were slamming risk into the market via leveraged trades even as the retail brokers changed their policies in realtime to disallow use of any margin in accounts holding GME, and dumped those retail traders out of their positions. I knew what kind of volatility to expect, so I had maintained a net cash position in my account ever since buying, just in case something like this happened--thank goodness.
Technical Analysis for the Day
I wish this sub would allow charts, but I'll describe instead. On the daily chart, RSI has been in an ascending channel since April '20(!), and rocketed to 98+(!!!) at the end of the trading day. Price is dislocating wildly higher every day for the past 4 days into descending volume. My read of the chart is that it shows massive buy-side dominance into worsening sell-side weakness and lower liquidity. I read this as mind-meltingly, parabolically bullish, and something that would not be possible if not for the distortion of the supercritical mass of short interest, and I guess this is what a short squeeze looks like when you have access to all the data retail fintech can provide. The technicals tell me to expect massive volatility, but also that this is possibly the most asymmetrical risk environment imaginable. I feel bad for the retail shorts that I know were out there. I saw a few posts about people taking short positions because Andrew Left got on TV and told them GME is going bankrupt, it's going back to $20, and he's an expert unlike you reddit amateurs, and by the way about 30 other experts followed and backed him up over the past few days. For this reason I'm glad that many of the retail brokerage firms have disallowed shorting GME and other volatile names. I hope they got out before their accounts got obliterated.
Lessons Learned
I wondered what kind of things you might see when billions of dollars were on the line, and I have to say that the short-side guys know how to go all-in and pull surprise after surprise out of the hat. They are good at manipulating people, letting them build up euphoric feelings only to slam them in the face with nonstop fear. They do it in media, and they do it in sudden price-crushing rushes, slamming the ticker down to try to get weak hands to fold. As I stated earlier, I am trading deep in the money, on capital I can afford to lose, and even I can't avoid feeling it. I honestly don't know how some of you trading on borrowed money meant for next month's rent can handle it. The short-side players are running out of ammo, but they don't just go toe-to-toe in the market--they'll blanket media and even flood your discord server, message board, and social media with well-coordinated bot attacks. You will face those moments of stark terror--they are good getting people to feel fear. If you're thinking of getting into this trade--please understand that before deciding whether to jump in. You might not think that a stock that's been going basically vertical could leave long-side casualties on the field, but believe it--fear and volatility can get you to zero your account (or worse!) in any environment.
FAQs from the First Post (comments and messages)
(answers are my opinions only--do not take as financial advice. I've consolidated common themes.)
I'm afraid I'm missing out on a unique opportunity to make returns that could change my life trajectory in a positive way. Should I buy in at this point?
First, each person decides on their own what trades they choose to make. However, I will say this: Fear is giving you this anxiety. Maximum FOMO is when you see green candles going up until the fear makes you punch the buy order in. Maximum despair and fear of life-altering losses hits peak during deep downward price movements, making you punch out to avoid losing your entire position. Fear makes you buy high and sell low. HFT houses are full of algorithms designed to exploit fear through the price movement, and find gaps in your risk mitigation strategy (e.g. stop-loss hunting algorithms, etc.). If fear is driving you to trade, I urge you not to swim in low-liquidity waters with sharks who specifically make their money exploiting fear.
I am a regular investor holding broad ETFs or mutual funds for my retirement. I do not actively trade, but I am concerned that what's happening here might impact the broader market, and maybe even my retirement account. Have you thought of that while you're having all this fun? What about systemic risk?
You may be surprised to hear that I, and likely many others have thought quite a lot about these things. In fact, I hold about 75% of my capital in the same type of boring IRA and 401(k) accounts you're talking about, and I maybe rebalance them a few times a year and don't even check the balances regularly otherwise. As for what kinds of impacts there may be--in all honestly, no one knows. Specifically, no one knows because no one knows exactly what the levered hedge funds involved hold, how they trade, etc. The massive short interest in GME is basically a deliberately engineered market distortion that is now blowing off, and distortions blowing off are always scary, and can spell financial damage or disaster for the unprepared. That, however, is part of the market. To paraphrase Dr. King and Keynes, the arc of the market may be long (and longer than you can remain solvent), but it bends toward efficiency, given the right conditions. The US stock market is pretty good in this respect. Now I won't deny that these hedge funds are run by smart people, but they occasionally get either arrogant or too clever for their own good and get caught. In GME they essentially voluntarily engineered themselves into a short squeeze entirely on their own while no one was even looking. In fact, the only way the trade works is if no one ever finds out and GME quietly goes bankrupt. In the meantime, a legitimate fundamentals-based turnaround story came to light and just lit the fuse. They’re crying now about being cornered, but they walked into that corner themselves, then dug themselves in so deep that the only way out was GME bankruptcy, and sat there for a year just assuming GameStop would go bankrupt while no one was paying attention and they’d take their free money and walk. If this doesn't make sense, and you have a free 20 minutes and tolerance for mild profanity, I suggest you watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EUbJcGoYQ4 Anyway, That being said, market "corrections" are aptly named, even if painful, because they are, in essence, corrections of various distortions in the market. The longer they go uncorrected, the harder, faster, and more drastic the move when it does happen--with usually worse consequences (see the 2008 financial crisis, which was a distortion 10+ years in the making before blowing off).
It looks like maximum gains on this trade would have started if you bought in at $4. Should I be looking for names at <$4 to find another opportunity like this? I heard some people made a lot of money on Hertz. Is this like Hertz?
I have no idea. I wasn’t looking at Hertz at the time. Obviously it's different in that GME is not going bankrupt despite what some people on the news might say (honestly, I don't understand their apparent conviction on this given most of them profess to not even know any details about Gamestop). The sense I get is that some people realized that many stocks had their prices artificially suppressed by the pure panic in the market at the time, and were likely to bounce back. Stocks crushed down to penny stock land could easily bounce back multiple hundreds of percent just by moving back up by $1, and if you had a good reason to think they'd survive, that's a pretty good deep value trade. Some people seemed to jump on that bandwagon with the mistaken idea that you should basically just scan all stocks for things <$5 today that used to be >$20 or whatever and assume the 90+% drop will result in a bounce off the floor, even if it’s a “dead cat” bounce on the way to $0. DO NOT TRY TO TRADE THIS. The theory is that a $100 stock that drops to $10 on its way to bankruptcy could bounce back to $15 first—a return of 50% if you time the floor and the bounce perfectly. In practice almost everyone who tries this loses all their money much sooner rather than later. By the same token, people who “know” a company is heading to bankruptcy get their accounts wiped out when they short something on margin right as it hits a floor on the way down, get margin called on the bounce, and subsequently join the company in insolvency as they end up owing their broker more than they put in. Being right in the end is cold comfort at that point.
Could Gamestop just issue shares to bail out the short sellers?
I guess it could, speaking entirely theoretically. That being said, consider the following: They’ve already filed to issue $100mio worth of shares, or 500k shares using $200/share as a price assumption. I don’t know if they’ve begun to execute on that. That was just to give them the runway required to take bankruptcy completely off the table. As you note, at these prices, using stock to finance a turnaround is absolutely feasible. There are, however, a few things to consider:
They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. They need to be able to justify how issuing even more shares is ultimately beneficial for the company and shareholders. “Because our stock price is high right now” is not typically a compelling reason, though maybe these circumstances are an exception to that rule given the extremity of the price.
While a healthy balance sheet would be an improvement, debt is usually cheaper than equity when it comes to financing a company’s activities. If they can secure solvency with the $100mio stock issue already authorized, and leverage the healthier balance sheet and insanely improved market cap to instead borrow what they need to restructure, especially in this ultra low interest rate environment, that would be better for the company and shareholders.
They can’t just make a snap judgment to do so. It takes time, board approvals, regulatory paperwork that is public, etc. There is a lot of work and potential risk in this process—particularly for this company.
Even if they did this, the incredible total volume of short interest being squeezed means that in practice it would be hard for the share issue to change the trajectory of the stock. The main effect might be to terrify some retail longs into bailing out of their position depending on how the news is presented to them.
_______ securities pricing theory/model means short interest has no impact on a security's price, short positions can be held infinitely so there really is no obligation to cover, so the thesis behind the short squeeze trade is invalid, etc. Mathematically long and short positions are the same thing.
That may be true in some ideal theory assuming you are trading in some kind of mathematically ideal market using very specific assumptions, but you’re trading in a real market that includes things like counterparty risk, regulatory and contractual limits on ability to borrow (at least in theory--Hello SEC, threshold securities list??), interest cost, etc. that make trading in an real market different. I'll build on Box by saying all models are wrong, but some are useful--within the bounds of certain assumptions. The situation playing out now tells you that the short interest of GME is wildly outside the bounds of whatever models the hedge fund people are using to model position risk. You can, in theory, infinitely roll your debt forward if you can continue to find willing lenders and are ok paying interest forever. Maybe this works out to be mathematically preferable to a squeeze to infinity. But, step away from pure theory for a moment. We don't even have to look at empirical evidence in real markets. All we need to do is build a stochastic model of an equity market sophisticated enough to model margin limits and dynamic account balances tied to securities being traded as they are in real markets and you’ll see the probability of continuing to carry a short position converges to 0 over time. The only question is which happens first: you cover proactively, the underlying company goes bankrupt (and you cover for $0 less interest paid to borrow the stock), or you’re margin called and forced to cover with potentially unlimited downside. Take bankruptcy off the table as we have in the case of GME and you have one of two choices--get out or eventually get squeezed out. There is no such thing as infinite ability to roll borrowing forward in real markets, and if your risk models assume that I feel sorry for you.
Is this illegal? Will the SEC step in somehow?
I am not a lawyer. I do not give legal advice. And, honestly, I have no idea. I can't think of any securities regulation that at least I may have violated, but I also don't have the ability to lobby the SEC on international news.
So what will happen next?
I don't know, and most likely anyone who tells you they know is kidding themselves. All I see is a good fundamentals-based position I bought into at a reasonable but bullish valuation followed by the most bullish chart I've ever seen from a TA perspective. I have theories, but there are doubtless other people better qualified to opine on that. All I can say is if you're in the trade, strap in and prepare for a wild ride. If you're watching from the sidelines get out the popcorn. The rate at which liquidity is disappearing means whatever is going to happen will happen soon (assuming the SEC doesn't step in with an extended pause in trading to bail out the hedge funds). Thank you for reading, and good luck with your trades. *Update from Original Draft, 1/28 Pre-Market\* We're seeing tons of retail brokerages limit trading on GME to only allow selling, even when current positions and intended trades would be cash only? Wow, I mean it kind of occurred to me in some sort of theoretical, abstract sense that somehow limiting large swathes of retail to sell-only was actually better than a general 2-way trading suspension, but who knew the short-side people could actually get retail brokers to do something so bonkers?? I guess you really do find a way to try basically anything when you're about to lose that much money. *edits to fix formatting issues*
Village Farms (Aka $VFF aka $🍅) DD; One of the best Cannabis 2021 plays available.
TLDR poem; 🚀's are red 🍅's are red 🚀🍅🚀 🍅's 🌈🐻's soon to be 💀 (Real TLDR's at bottom) ”Why the !@&? would I want that 🍅 growing stock?" Yo, brother, calm down that anger. I'm not providing investment advice so stop right here if you like. We're just having a casual conversation about a bunch of things on a stock I'm personally YOLOing 65k on. (Aka my positions, no ban!) If you're unaware though, this 30 year produce (🍅) growing company has been utilizing their decades of experience to grow Cannabis with stellar results so far and with 2021 looking to be really good for them. Specifically, this will be on show these first two quarters of the year. An important side note is that as of November 2nd, they now privately own the full 100% of Pure Sunfarms, their Cannabis subsidiary. "Oh I should get in NOW, huh? I see that $🍅 ran recently, why would it keep running?" Great question brother! Of course, that's up to you! But... $🍅 actually has multiple aspects as to why this has a very likely chance to run, then stay at a price that is probably higher than you would think "reasonable," and then still have more runs throughout the year. First way to try and back this up, is pointing out that this low float stock of only 77,820,000 shares has a CEO that owns 12% of the stock himself, and a total of 13.6% owned by the Management and Board. On top of that, another +12% of the float is held by institutional holders for an immediate 25% of this already low float stock off the table. More on the float in a moment, but with that quick knowledge we next just need to take a quick peek at how $🍅's main competition's Share Price (SP), Share Count and Market Caps (MC) compare. AFTER EACH COMPANIES MARKET CAP (MC) IS HOW MUCH EACH COMPANIES SHARE PRICE (SP) CAN GROW PER MARKET CAP GAIN OF $1 BILLION. As of close on February 5th: Canopy Growth: SP - $42.93 - 373,730,000 Shares
$16,044,228,000 Market Cap with SP growth of $2.68 per $1B MC
Cronos Group: SP - $12.01 - 356,190.000 Shares
$4,277,842,000 Market Cap with SP growth of $2.81 per $1B MC
Aphria: SP - $16.67 - 312,570,000 Shares
$5,210,542,000 Market Cap with SP growth of $3.20 per $1B MC
Tilray: SP - $25.72 - 148,260,000 Shares
$4,070,447,000 Market Cap with SP growth of $6.32 per $1B MC
Aurora: SP - $12.88 - "183,660,000 Shares"
$2,365,541,000 Market Cap with SP growth of $5.44 per $1B MC
$🍅/Village Farms: SP - $15.09 - 77,820,000
$1,174,304,000 Market Cap with SP growth of $12.85 per $1B MC
So, not only are they way behind in Market Cap, even to Aurora, but the amount that $🍅 can gain in Share Price to get there is unmatched. I'm not saying the other companies should go down... I'm just sayin... look at this... VFF - $2,000,000,000 Market Cap? $🍅 - $25.70 VFF - $3,000,000,000 Market Cap? $🍅 - $38.55 VFF - $4,000,000,000 Market Cap? $🍅 - $51.40 VFF - $16,000,000,000 Market Cap? $🍅 - $205.60 ”So what? They are THAT much behind the competition." Hey, I get it brother, we've only talked only about superficial stock related info so far. Just setting the base in understanding it's growth potential based on their industry competitiors. We're getting there, I promise! Just one more thing about $🍅's current positioning though, which factors in a bit of a short squeeze. Now, don't get it twisted, this is not a post about some one-time short squeeze, just a brief mention. Just, in this moment, it so happens the timing could cause a little extra pop for this incoming next fundamental and technical run that will establish $🍅's new base level. Check it out, from 1/22 - 2/2 an average of 50% of the daily volume was short. Averaging about 25% of volume going short daily on either side of it as well. This heavy shorting came at the heals of a recent company action that caused quick downward pressure on the Share Price and in turn gave greedy 🍅🌈🐻's ability to try and push it down unreasonably. Did you notice the most recent closing price is $15.09 on Feb 5th? You might not have noticed though, that on January 14th, $🍅 had a mini run and peaked at $15.05. The next day, on January 15th, $🍅 dropped for a close of $12.65. Closing above that previous mile stone means every short since the raise is now underwater. Just sayin'. ”What happened that caused that drop?" Good things happened, brother. Good things. And... they got shorted for it...? $🍅 announced a direct share offering that injected US$135Million cash to the bank @ $12.60, giving shorters a bit of strength over the last two weeks of January. This semi large difference between the offering and Share Price at the time is indicative of something very important about this raise. This was a planned raise that had nothing to do with the run $🍅 was going on IMO. IMO, don't mistake this raise, that closed on U.S. Inauguration Day, as anything other than preparation for growth and expansion. They are already executing profitably, they in no way needed this for normal functions. You have to understand, our ol' 🍅 is extremely diligent and resourceful in their approach to Cannabis so far, and will continue to going forward. Their lack of splash is probably why you likely haven't heard or considered them yet, but the precise and profitable execution is why you should do DD on them. Oh, by the way... $🍅 has some of the best positioning and assets for the now inevitable U.S. legalization of Cannabis. ”How is this Canadian LP, $🍅 , any better set for the U.S. market than their competition?" Again, stellar question's brother. And, again, multiple factors to this. Our first factor is a direct shout out to that $135M raise. Quoting the 🍅 CEO from their most recent earnings report conference call and in reference to potential U.S. strategies, "...we're prepared to look at, if we have to do acquisitions or strategic partnerships and other locations..." That $135M putting them +$200M in bank is taking a certain type of vision, to me. ”What, I'm suppose to believe your opinion that they have U.S. potential from a quote and your speculation?" Naw brother, you're suppose to understand that fact because they already have 5.7 Million SqFt of "Hemp" grow space ready to go in Texas. Speculation and understanding how this company functions is part of my YOLO call strikes though. A heads up, Cannabis uses the same growing system and could "be rapidly converted to cannabis production" the moment ready. - 🍅 CEO Even beside the U.S. Blue Wave that will have some type of effect on Cannabis, Texas has put forth multiple pieces of legislation up for up for debate on it's own. With, or without my personal speculation on their raise, their Texas assets are shaping up to be extremely valuable for them in the likely near-term future. Icing on the cake of it all is simply that they are in no rush at all for when it happens. They're currently profitable, and growing from their Canadian and other international positions as well, so U.S. legalization is simply a massive bonus whenever it happens, not a necessity. Like for some unnamed others... ”Yeah, so what? That still doesn't say WHY $🍅 would keep running outside of hype." Hey, absolutely that's fact. So far. Now that we understand their comparative surroundings and asset ready U.S potential, let's bring in some internal 🍅 Cannabis biz facts. Here are a couple of the most recent earnings, Q3's, Cannabis specific highlights: 75% increase in Net Sales 81% increase in Gross Profits Impressive as that is, it's important to understand this is not some one-off fluke, but the first point in the provable continuation of their launching point for growth, which was Q3's the prior quarter, Quarter 2 2020. I say launching point because of the execution of strategy over the last year and they have a lot of factors on why they will continue to see growth in their numbers. The key to understanding the earnings and $🍅 share price growth potential is in the timeline details of their release approach for new strains, products, product segments, and accessibility. ”What, a few random new products is you're point?" Well, it's a part of the main reason on timing of the moments before earnings, yes. Because brother, it's not just any new products, but specific new segments of products that are brand new pies of profitability to eat from for extra growth potential generally... ...and also how they set up their earnings reports for "surprise" growth effects with a specific style of WHEN they release their new products. This upcoming Quarter 4 Year End 2020 report with be the first quarter to have their 2.0 products available for a FULL quarter. Our feature earnings growth products for Q4 are Vapes and Oils. Being released mid-September, the very end of Q3, that Q3 report got a nice C$1Million boost in Net Sales from the roll out and because of the timing of release Q4 will see an exponential effect of growth from that segment due to that timeline of release. Similarly, Quarter 1 2021, aka right now, will have TWO additional new segment effects! On December 21st, just before the end of Q4, they started offering their products for Medical for the first time through a deal with Shoppers Drug Mart. An important key to this Medical deal is this is their first entry into Quebec, the last 30% of Canada they need. 🍅's brand was also the first brand to offer anything in the Ounce size for the Shoppers consumers. Seeing the ~1 week effect medical might be interesting!... to me.... Our other brand new segment that is now fully rolled out is edibles! Earlier in January, 🍅 announced a deal with White Rabbit, an edible company with a vegan, gluten-free craft gummy company with a manufacturing process call EAT ME. With this, 🍅 has started offering White Rabbit products as of about mid January. By establishing this parternship, 🍅 now has access to that process and as of February 5th now released their own branded edibles as well. Pretty forward thinking and sustainable to ensure to grab a good tasting vegan and gluten-free craft gummy. This win-win situation means no messing with growing pains, straight to the bottom line move. Love it. ”Again, so what? Wha.." Don't mean to be rude, but I wasn't done yet... Both the upcoming Q4 and Q1 have additional bonus growth factors! For Quarter 4, first week of October, aka first week of Quarter 4, saw the release of their newest higher THC and higher priced Pink Kush and D.Bubba strains were release in their large 14g and 28g formats. When these strains released for the 7g and less formats on a similar timeline fashion, the small format sizes saw an increase of 33% on Net Sales over the Volume sold. Like I said, simply bonus growth factors from the decades old 🍅 company that understands the importance of showing growth Quarter over Quarter in a flooded industry with such tremendous potential. For Quarter 1, early January also saw the release of their High THC vapes in addition to their current offerings. **”Bro, are you done yet?"* Okay okay jeez, I get it. There's still just like one-ish more things though... On a very quick view of some Marco-level elements, many provinces had extra legal red tape on providing licenses with Ontario being one of them. Ontario also just so happens to be 🍅's biggest customer, and had also been known for being a province with the least amount of stores for the amount of population they have. In August 2020, they upped the number of store licenses they were issuing from 20 to 40 per month, just in time for Q4... In December 2020, they doubled it again to 80 licenses a month, just in time for Q1... To put a little perspective on that, by the end of the most recently reported quarter, Q3 2020, about 190 licenses were issued. By Q3 2021, approximately 1,070 licenses will have been issued. Generally, about ~90% of the licensees have their stores up and running each time Ontario reports its updates. That's a lot more stores brother. This matters because we also know the 🍅's brand is increasing in popularity for Ontario as well. After being +13% of the OCS's volume from October 2019 to October 2020, October 2020 specificallywas 15% of the dried flower volume going 🍅 brand. Aka increasing in popularity. On top of that, we were also told their brand new segment, vapes, was about top ~3 ish for Quarter 4 in the OCS as of November. ”This still doesn't really explain why they will grow... does it?" Look brother, it's a Reddit post that's already too long but I believe I've shown a lot of 🍅 positive factors to add on top of what was already going to see growth by itself. The Cannabis industry is hot right now you guys. Beyond retail, their Wholesale segment experienced a +140% surge in volume and sales in Q3 as well, with indicators that Q4 will continue steady growth in that cornerstone of additional revenue. Being the cheapest producer in the game will continue to have it's benefits. If you think it's Aphria, you are incorrect. Aphria is solid, but the 🍅 beats them out pretty easily. Aphria Market Cap is also $5B to 🍅's $1B... When it comes down to it, this Quarter 4 earnings report needs to speak for itself. I have my own personal opinion on what it might look like. Do your own research for your own opinion, brother. Finally, just so you're in-the-know, my last notes are some recent analyst price targets for $🍅 Global Alliance - $20 Roth Capital - $22 Raymond James - $26 Beacon 1-year target - $35 Some supposedly big German Stock magazine - $30 Random people on Twitter - $+20 Well, fun conversation brother! Don't forget, this was in zero ways financial advice, but if you wanted more not intended to be the basis of any investment decision $🍅 related information, or wanted to try and argue some point you think I jumped to,I wrote a very deep dive VFF analysis with Q4 predictionpotentially worth checking out first (+40% Gross Sales and +60% Gross Profit conservatively predicted). TLDR; 1 ) Comparatively, Village Farms (🍅)'s Market Cap is 1/16 of Canopy, 1/4 of Cronos, 1/5 of Aphria, 1/4 of Tilray, and 1/2 of Auroras. 2 ) Being a low float stock with 25% institutional holders and massive recent shorting that is now underwater will likely cause an extra short squeeze on top of the incoming technical/fundamental run. 3 ) 5.7 Million Sq Ft of grow space in Texas ready for quick and immediate Hemp to Cannabis conversation at the drop of any U.S. Legislation. Also, $🍅 cashed up for acquisition potential. 4 ) Release time line for Vapes, Oils, High THC Large Format Offerings, Medical (with Quebec), High THC Vapes, 3rd Party Gummies and 1st Party Gummies will all have debut showings on these upcoming Quarter 4 2020, Quarter 1 2021 and Quarter 2 2021 earnings reports. 5 ) Massively increasing store number from 🍅's best consumer, continued best-in-industry grow process for continued Wholesale strength, increasing quality and popularity of their products show positive trends of growth from their current segments as well as all the new ones. 6 ) Scroll up a smidge to check some analyst price targets. Still TLDR; $VFF = $🍅 = a stock that I like = 🚀🍅🚀 = opinion = 🌙 PS: In case you didn't check my positions link near the top, I have 3k shares and 85 call contracts. I'm likely near to never going to sell my 3k shares @ $6.21, but I will be flipping my Feb and March calls at the end of this next run. Doubt I'll touch my June or 2022 calls.
Kickoff with Randy Orton in a pitch black room, he says those who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes. We see Orton is wearing a white mask and says the voices in his head have been getting louder. This mask now encapsulates his fate, three weeks ago he showed Alexa Bliss a side of himself he didn't know, compassion. Orton says the hatred he felt for himself had to be redirected to the next lamb to the slaughter, until she interrupted. They show the ending to last week's Raw where Alexa interrupted Randy's fight with Triple H. Randy says this is the damnation he received for his compassion, he can't even go to sleep because when he closes his eyes all he sees is the ball of fire going towards his face. The feeling of the fire melting his flesh will never go away and any shred of compassion has left his body. Randy says he is wearing the mask to protect himself and to protect everyone else from seeing the horror he endured. Despite the agony he felt lucky, he received 1st degree burns when he could have been permanently disfigured. He doesn't blame Alexa, he blames The Fiend. Alexa was merely the vehicle, and he knows exactly what The Fiend wants, he wants to stop Randy from achieving the inevitable. Footage is show of Orton's two Royal Rumble wins. He knows everyone in the locker room enjoyed seeing his face burned since they assumed it would take him out of the Rumble, but even if all his limbs were chopped off he'd still compete. Orton says the pain fuels his every move. He tells everyone to thank The Fiend when he burns their Royal Rumble dreams to ashes. Orton lights a match and stares into it before blowing it out.
We see Lacey Evan and Ric Flair arriving to the arena together. Lacey is appalled that Charly Caruso is even trying to interview her, and says there is a reason Ric is called the dirtiest player in the game, and last he was living up to his name. She is simply learning from one of the greatest of all time and her and Ric are going to watch Peyton Royce beat Charlotte.
During Peyton vs Charlotte, Ric Flair comes out with Lacey Evans wearing one of his robes.
Backstage the Hurt Business insult Riddle, but he says he wants to take the the high road. Riddle says they're looking sharp with Creddy Cheddy, Shelton making Benjamins, and says Bobby isn't looking slobby. The Hurt Business walks off but Bobby tells Riddle he likes the flip flops but worries they may hurt his feet. Bobby stomps on Riddle's foot and Riddle says he's gonna put his foot up Lashley's ass later.
Lucha House Party are asking Riddle if he'll still be good for their match later. Riddle assures them back in high school his cousin ran over his foot and he still was able to go to prom.
Mustafa Ali says Kofi suffering from a broken jaw isn't enough, he wants to break his spirit too. He says he hopes Kofi missed Elimination Chamber and Wrestlemania so he can feel the same pain Ali felt two years ago when Kofi took his dreams from him.
Backstage Asuka says she doesn't know what to expect from Alexa's playhouse, but a recap video is played during the middle of the interview so we only hear her say something about Alexa's dark side at the end.
It's time for Alexa's playground with special guest Asuka. Alexa welcomes us and says she is so excited but first she has to address the viper in the room. She says she just wanted to talk to Randy last week, but things got a little heated. Alexa says if Randy needs an suggestions for sunblock just let her know. Alexa welcomes out Asuka to the playground, Asuka makes her way down and is about to sit on the other swing but Alexa says that isn't her seat. Alexa asks if they're okay and Asuka says she's okay but Alexa says she isn't talking to her. Asuka decided to stand off to the side and the two of them laugh awkwardly. Alexa says she has some big news and announces she is entering the Royal Rumble. Asuka wishes her luck, while Alexa realizes if she wins she may face Asuka at Wrestlemania. Asuka says she's a big fan of hers and Alexa accepts the compliment. Asuka says yowie wowie but Alexa turns to the empty swing and says she shouldn't have said that. Asuka tries to have some fun and dances to her music but Alexa yells at her to stop. Alexa apologizes and says if he was still there everything would be fine. Asuka says it's okay and says The Fiend is still here. Alexa gets angry and tells Asuka not to say His name. Asuka ducks out of the ring as a rocking horse starts moving on its own.
Backstage Miz and Morrison are interviewed, Miz says he won't give any spoilers and everyone will have to tune in to see what they have in store for Goldberg tonight.
Shayna says she is going to through out everyone in the Royal Rumble just like she did to Mandy Rose last week, even her own tag partner. Nia takes offense to this and says she carries their team.
Jeff Jarrett is at his home and gives us his prediction as to who will win between Goldberg and Drew McIntyre. He says we'll see a spear, a jackhammer, and 1, 2, 3 a new WWE Champion.
Shanya and Nia are arguing backstage when Charly stops by to interview them. They admit they've never gotten along even when they were champions. Shayna figures with Charlotte being distracted by her father, now would be the perfect time to get a rematch for the titles.
Charlotte is interviewed, she says she has been accused of living off her last name, and now a woman is literally wearing her dad's robes and taking advantage of her dad's name. Charlotte says Lacey can wear the robe but she'll never take her crown.
Adam Pearce tells Ricochet if he wins against AJ Styles tonight he could earn a spot in the Royal Rumble. AJ and Omos come by and wonders who in their right mind would take advise from a coward like Adam Pearce who ran away from his match with Roman. At least Ricochet will lose with some dignity tonight. Ricochet AJ is forgetting what happened at TLC and that AJ will need more than a 7 foot giant to stop him tonight. AJ says he doesn't think he likes Adam Pearce anymore, and if he doesn't like him them Omos doesn't like him.
It's time for the Dirt Sheet with Miz and Morrison. Miz says this is the biggest edition in Dirt Sheet history, Morrison says it is extra dirty. Miz says their guest is the biggest in the history of their show and calls him a hero to many superstars of today. Miz introduces Goldberg, his music hits, and security rushes the stages only for GILLBERG TO APPEAR! Morrison says he looks bigger than ever and Miz asks how he'll train for the Royal Rumble. Gillberg says he is going to run his head into a wall, blow smoke out his nose, and fire out his ass. Drew McIntyre's music hits but a small fat man holding a tiny sword comes out. Not-Drew plants the sword and small fire bursts out. Not-Drew says he is here to meet his opponent face to face. Miz says he doesn't want this to devolve into into fisticuffs, they got to settle things with words. Not-Drew says he is going to kick Goldberg's ass back to 1998 and then eat some haggus. John says Not-Drew isn't doing a good enough Scottish accent and so he asks to do another take. Miz tells him it's live and asks where Morrison got this guy. John says New Jersey and Miz says you should only hire actors from New York, Hollywood, or Cleveland. Morrison says nothing ever good comes from Cleveland and the two of them argue until Gillberg comes up and growls at them. They tell him to shut up and Miz says it doesn't matter who win at the Royal Rumble, he's going to cash in his MitB and that he will be next.
Elias tells Ryker they better not have any mix ups this week. Jaxson apologies for last week but Elias says this isn't the place for mistakes and asks him what his goal is tonight. Ryker says he is going to finish what he started and make Jeff Hardy accept the universal truth. Ryker asks if Elias is sure he won't help him tonight but Elias just shoos him off.
Jaxson Ryker and Elias after his match, with Ryker saying he didn't need his help. Jeff uses this opening to attack Ryker and hit the Twist of Fate.
During Alexa vs Asuka, a creepy song plays and all the lights go out after they start to glow purple. We return from the ad break with Alexa just standing in the middle of the ring as Asuka circles them, the arena bathed in a purple light. Alexa is also now wearing a black shirt instead of the pink one from before, and her hair is different. After the match the screen flickers and Alexa returns to her appearance from before the match and we hear The Fiend's voice say "let me in".
Exploiting: ROBLOX'S Fault and Responsibility; NOT DEVELOPERS'!
(burner account, obviously)Let me preface this by saying that I am not the subject of ROBLOX moderation, I am a game developer who is sick and tired of ROBLOX ignoring our cries for help simply because they don't have to do anything to make a quick buck.
Final Edit: I'm going to stop replying to comments now as I think I've touched on everything I need to clear up. Keeping up with this post has been quite exhausting, I'll check in on it again in a few days.
Towards the end of this post, I will mention several solutions to secure the ROBLOX platform. I am not pulling random ideas out of the air, I am a career cyber security professional who has implemented similar systems for clients on numerous occasions and saw massive success. I am sick and tired of ROBLOX's malicious ineptitude when it comes to moderating their own platform and then blaming developers, they dispense moderation unevenly across the players. For example, the fact that there are literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of ROBLOX 'burner' accounts does not seem to bother them, but if you upload an image with a misplaced letter, your account will be suspended post haste. ROBLOX's entire business model is based on the ability for them to hire as FEW moderators as possible, and then sit back and watch the cash pour in. They repeatedly mention in several official corporate documents that their player base is appreciably larger than their competitors, but they don't seem to mention that you can automate account creation so well, that individual games are having an absolute nightmare tip toeing around the developer TOS but still trying to have a functional game. Let me make this as clear as I can, with no exceptions, moderating the community is the responsibility of ROBLOX's official moderators, and they do an absolutely TERRIBLE job at it. For the most part, the built in report system is ignored because 90% of the time nothing is done. "Filtering Enabled" did NOT solve the issue, and it only barely scratched the surface of securing the game environment for players; this was 2 years ago. ROBLOX needs to abandon their leitmotif of ignoring cries of help from the community, and actually invest some money in making their games playable. IT SHOULD NOT BE GAME DEVELOPERS' RESPONSIBILITY TO SPEND HOURS AND HOURS DOING ROBLOX'S JOB, MAKING BARELY FUNCTIONAL ANTI EXPLOIT SYSTEMS THAT QUICKLY BECOME OUTDATED. THE ENTIRE POINT OF HAVING A PLATFORM LIKE ROBLOX IS TO AVOID DEALING WITH SOME OF THE UGLY PARTS OF GAME DEVELOPMENT, BUT IF THEY AREN'T DOING THEIR JOB, WHY ARE WE PAYING THEM ROYALTIES?
And now since I am not one to bring up issues without a viable solution, here are several that can be simply and cheaply implemented, and that I believe will be extremely effective.
The game launcher needs to be secured. However you wish to go about this, third party applications should not be allowed to interfere with the ROBLOX launcher. This will appreciably decrease the amount of exploiting software that will be able to run smoothly.
The website needs to be secured against botting. Here's a very simple solution. Account creation should be limited to a maximum of 30 or so accounts per IP address, and block account creation on publicly available VPNs entirely. This will greatly decrease the amount of botted accounts on the platform, and will restore sanity to many game developers. Since this is a root cause of moderation not being effective, as for every account we ban, 5 more appear, this will ALSO make moderation easier, more affordable, and more effective.
ROBLOX should implement the feature of IP BANS for end user developers. Since this is currently against the TOS, a system should be implemented where developers can send an API request to ROBLOX to bar an IP from joining that game, WITHOUT THE NEED FOR GAME DEVELOPERS TO HAVE ACCESS TO THE IP THEMSELVES. This is EASILY done, and ROBLOX just needs to keep an updated list of banned IPs on their servers per Place ID.
Additionally, and this is not related to exploiting per say, but ROBLOX needs to implement better two factor authentication, preferably Time based one time passwords compatible with apps like Authy and Google Authenticator. ROBLOX has a really rocky track record when it comes to being resilient against social engineering attacks, there have been a few popular youtubers who have explained the issue pretty well, and after reviewing the issue I believe that ROBLOX ACCOUNT RECOVERY SUPPORT SHOULD BE ON AN IP WHITELIST SYSTEM. If the IP that submits the support request has never logged into your account, the request will not be allowed.
I doubt that my post will gain traction, but if anyone from ROBLOX ends up reading this I plead with you on behalf of the community to implement some, if not all of the suggestions I have laid out for you. They are simple, they are easy, and they are cost effective, there's no reason you should be unable to do what I have described.
Edit: Changed the number of maximum accounts per IP address from 2 to 30, which will effectively do the same job of blocking bad actors, whether they are end users or account farms.
Edit 2: I appreciate all of the attention people have given this post, I hope that someone at ROBLOX will do something.
Also, if I don't reply to your comment it's because I already debunked / explained your concerns / questions in another, very similar comment, so you can try searching for it. But I will add in a few of the common concerns:
IP BANS ARE TERRIBLE OMG DYNAMIC IP BLA BLA - For those of you who are unaware, your IP address changes every so often (every few weeks / every few months). This is a normal and expected behavior. This should not affect IP bans AT ALL, if you're concerned about innocent players being banned because their ISP recycled a ban IP address to them, don't be, the odds of that happening in the grand scheme of things is astronomically low, and to account for this I would even feel comfortable with a 6 month IP ban which is the typical life of a dynamic IP address, this would still shut down the account farms which are causing big problems. Additionally, the IP ban system would be PLACE SPECIFIC, someone had a concern that low quality games might IP ban someone, but the system I proposed would only ban them FROM THAT GAME, which the game developers have a right to do. ALSO: for IP based account recovery system, for the vast, overwhelming majority of the community they will have logged in under their new IP address before the issue occurs. People should not be forgetting their credentials every day, and the odds of someone forgetting their password AT THE SAME TIME THAT THEIR IP CHANGES IS SO RARE it should not prevent a system like this from being implemented.
ROBLOX IS DOING EVERYTHING THEY CAN OMG WHY WOULD YOU CRITICIZE LORD AND SAVIOR ROBLOX (aka the game launcher is already secured / they're doing everything they can) - Nope, nope and nope again. The game launcher is most definitely NOT secured to the best of their ability, NOR IS THE ACCOUNT CREATION PROCESS OR WEBSITE AS A WHOLE. The fact that they THEMSELVES think their website is so crappy that developers have to wait AN ENTIRE MONTH TO CASH OUT because of the OVERWHELMING amount of scamming and cheating they allow is absolutely insane for a company that is taking A HUGE PERCENTAGE OF MY PROFITS. If I were to guess, I would say that their technical furtherance team is lead by (the only member) named Jared, who is 45 and probably vapes. Jared doesn't give a crap about the community's experience because he knows that they have a MONOPOLY and players have NOWHERE ELSE TO GO.
Stop defending ROBLOX, their business practices are unethical and if I had to guess I would say borderline ILLEGAL, considering their monopoly in the market space and their prices.
Beermoney for Busy People! (2021) - No Disqualifications!
Beermoney for Busy People! (2021)
Hi! I try to make this post each year about sites that don't have DQs and are worth your time to use even if you have a busy life! I have removed sites and apps that no longer exist and have also added a new one I am using this yea! I am a full-time student and work while in school so I don't always have time to grind out surveys for hours at a time. To qualify for this list, the sites can't DQ and have to be worth your time to use! Hope these help! Let's get into it.
CrowdTap is a great site for short polls and surveys that is available online and in a mobile app on iOS and Android! The questions are about things such as consumer goods, food products, and services. The polls pay 1.5 cents each and the short answer questions pay 10 cents each (converted from their points system). Some of these polls are combined into longer surveys, and some are single one question polls. All of them are well worth it for the time that they take and there are no DQ’s of any sort. Reward options include Amazon, Target, Walmart, Steam, Xbox, and more. You can cash out starting at $5 and I am able to cash out about once a week. Make sure to give quality answers and look out for attention checks because people have been banned for not giving quality answers. Definitely add this one to your routine if you have not yet.
This is a site with short surveys and no DQ’s. There are short surveys (10ish questions) to collect demographic data that pay $0.10. As you do these, your trait score increases. Having a high trait score makes it more likely to get high paying surveys. You have to be patient, and you might go weeks without a survey, but once you get to max trait score it is definitely worth it. I have a max trait score and I get at least one survey (if not more) per day. The real surveys that aren’t just for demographics can pay upwards of $2. You can cash out at $15 via PayPal, Amazon, or Walmart. Just as some inspiration to stick with it, after hitting max traitscore I am on track to make $150 on here this year!
Pinecone is a great survey site with surveys about consumer products and food that don’t DQ and pay $3 per 10ish minute survey. I get an average of one a week. They also sometimes send you samples of the products to review and I have gotten several of these this year! The catch is that you have to find an invite to join the panel. These can be found on offers or banner ads on GPT sites so keep an eye out for one! It is well worth your time to sign up. You can cash out for PayPal and many gift cards at a $5 minimum.
This one is great. You take academic surveys for universities and researchers and get paid in cash. I have been getting tons of surveys on here right now about Covid-19. As long as you don’t miss attention checks you won’t ever get disqualified. Some people get multiple surveys a day and others get only a few a week based on demographics. Usually it slows down in the summer because school isn’t in session, but they’ve had a lot of surveys available this summer. Many surveys pay at least minimum wage. Pro tip, if you ever have a problem with a survey or miss an attention check that you noticed, try contacting the researcher and often they can fix the problem for you. You can cash out with PayPal with no fees (for U.S. users).
Zogo is an iOS and Android app that pays you to learn about personal finance. It is backed by a variety of established banks and is actually quite interesting to learn through. While in the past it required a sponsor to be able to cash out, now anyone can earn in the app. You earn by answering a set of questions once daily through the “pineapple party” (the name for their currency). You earn pineapples based on your performance. You can cash out for a wide variety of gift cards such as Amazon and Target at $5. It is fun and worth it because you are learning valuable lessons about finance as well!
YouGov is a survey site/app that pays anywhere from $0.50 to $2 per survey. You never disqualify. I get a couple surveys a week. Most of the surveys are about public policy, politics, or general opinions of companies. You get the best value for your points if you save up for the $100 cash out. They offer the $100 cash out in bank transfer and Amazon. The Amazon gift card option used to be a physical mailed card but now its an e-gift card so that makes it even better! They offer other gift cards but they are for smaller values at worse rates so I would avoid them. Available online, on android, and on iOS.
E-poll is a survey site with surveys that don’t DQ. They send you surveys via email when they are available. The surveys are often about pop culture, TV shows, and celebrities. Some of them pay better than others for the time it takes to complete them, but most are well worth your time. Make sure to complete the surveys soon after you get the email, because some fill up within a day or so. You can cash out for several gift card options including Amazon and Starbucks. You get better rates with the higher valued gift cards so I always save up for the highest ones.
Forthright is a survey site with a nice twist. You sign up and receive invitations to surveys via email. I don’t usually do their “partner surveys” because they often DQ and you can get stuck in an endless loop, which doesn’t really fit with the point of this post.. Their non-partner surveys are awesome. They pay well for the time spent but they also have one of the best disqualification bonuses I have ever seen. Every three surveys you take, regardless of whether you disqualify or not, you get a $2 bonus. That is $0.66 per survey on top of its base pay regardless of whether you qualify or not. The base pay for the surveys ranges from $1-3 depending on length, which varies from 10-30 mins. They usually take much less time than the estimated length. I get a non-partner survey about once every 1-2 weeks and made around $50 here last year with minimum time spent. They pay instantly with PayPal, Amazon, or Bitcoin with no minimum.
Perksy is an app that sends you short surveys that they call “stacks”. These surveys generally pay anywhere from $0.30 to $1.00 and I get about one a week. You can’t DQ from these and they only take a minute or two. The minimum cashout is pretty high at $25 but when you sign up you get a signup bonus that gets you pretty close to your first cashout. I am able to cash out about once a year. They offer a lot of different gift cards but the most notable ones are Amazon and Target.
This one is quite popular and most of you have probably heard of it. This app is run by Google that will send you short surveys. If you have the app on iOS you can cash out to PayPal at $2, but on Android you can only cash out to Google Play balance. People who travel a lot or use a lot of Google services may get more surveys than others. I make $10ish dollars a year on here but I’ve seen others make more.
This is one of my favorites. The app will send you “Pulses” that you can answer for cash. The surveys start out paying around $0.25 each but as you level up your account they pay more. Mine currently pay $0.34. They have non-paid pulses that can level up your account but those aren’t really worth doing. The minimum cash out is $20 via PayPal. I have made about $10 here just in the last week due to pulses about Covid-19.
This is an app that is owned by SurveyMonkey, the popular survey development company. It offers short surveys that pay anywhere from $0.25 to $0.50 depending on length. The surveys take no longer than 3-5 minutes. They technically can DQ, but this happens very rarely and only at the very beginning of a survey. The nice thing about the surveys is that they use SurveyMonkey's survey software so they are consistent and easy to complete. While they do send notifications, earnings on here depend on how often you check the app because they don't always notify you. I try to check the app at least once or twice a day. You can cash out at $5 for Amazon with instant payments.
SurveyMini is a little different. The app sends you surveys when you visit different stores to review your experience there. They ask you about your satisfaction with the store, what areas you bought from, etc. The surveys usually pay $0.10 and take about a minute, but some can randomly pay up to $0.75. The more you visit stores, the more surveys you will get. You can cash out at $10 but you get slightly better rates the more you save up. They offer e-gift cards such as iTunes, Xbox, and Visa, but sadly no Amazon. I am on pace to cash out for $25 twice this year.
This is a new one this year and has easily become the most worthwhile receipt apps out there. All you have to do is submit either 10 paper or email receipts per month to earn a $10 Amazon gift card at the end of the month. I have also received a short survey from them that paid in Amazon cards as well. While this app has a waitlist, go ahead and join. It only took me a couple weeks to get accepted. A dollar per receipt is extremely high for a receipt app!
This app has surveys with a more personal and fun spin. You get paid via PayPal for each task that you finish. There aren’t always tasks available but when there are, they often pay well. I had one for testing an app that paid $9! It’s a nice option for something a little different than traditional surveys.
Thanks for reading! Hope these beermoney sites/apps help you make better use of your beermoney earning time! Let me know if there are any sites that I didn't include that would fall into those categories. Give my profile a follow for more beermoney related posts in the future! If you want to read more of my posts, here's one of my favorites to get you started!
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