Taskmaster: the TV show (and book and board game).
Taskmaster is the BAFTA award-winning comedy show that sees 5 comedians/celebrities take on challenges across as series to find out who can be crowned champion of Taskmaster. Created by Alex Horne, originally for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the show is hosted by Greg Davies with Alex Horne serving as the Taskmaster's Assistant. This subreddit has heightened moderation during airing and is more relaxed with tediously-on-topic posts when off air.
GME Short Squeeze What Comes Next Part 3 Hello all, Before I begin I would like to address something I have been encountering on my posts in the comments section. I keep receiving some hate concerning my opinions and I want to be crystal clear that they are just that; opinions. I also want everyone to know that is is meant to be a dialog. I am not trying to pump this stock because truthfully, this goes far beyond us retail investors at this point. What I want is a dialog between all sides to examine this truly fascinating phenomenon that is occurring. I would also like to clarify something, I am not a bagholder. I do currently hold bags because I own 336 shares at a $194.34 cost basis, however, that total amount is house money that was used from my profits on the first go around. I also understand some people are tired of hearing about this because it's the same regurgitated form of someone else's post as it keeps circulating in an attempt to retain hype and drive future buying; this is not what this post is about. As investors and individuals involved in the world of finance, this situation should absolutely intrigue us whether or not we are involved. I am here to present my logic on the situation but encourage healthy discussion and debate. This brings me to my first claim. This is not over. Now, I am not claiming that a squeeze will still occur, I am simply claiming it is not over, for better or for worse. Several things need to take place for this to be completely over, at which point I will either post my gains or my losses from the adventure. When I say "it" I am referring to this entire phenomenon, not one short squeeze. I do not think these events, "it", is over. This is largely due to retail and institutional purchasing not really changing all that much since we found the bottom and established support at a staggering $60. This support was lost today and found new support at $50. There was very interesting ATH action and I'm not sure what to make of it. Millions of bag holders (not just WSB) are still holding and in fact, averaging down, thereby purchasing more. These same bag holders are absolutely refusing to sell for such massive losses and in turn are becoming long term investors on the stock if another squeeze isn't to occur. People are picking up speculative positions in the off-chance of another squeeze. Others are determining this as a fair value for the company, not fundamentally, but based on the future prospects of Ryan Cohen and team. Finally, it is nowhere near leaving the global stage with important upcoming dates that we will discuss later. To examine why it isn't over let's look at both sides of the argument:
Bulls claim it's not over for many reasons that you can find in the hundreds of other bullish posts, so I won't bore you with those details. My argument on the bull side is more along the lines of what I listed above.
Bears claim it is over because there was a 2250% price increase over the course of two weeks, therefore this must be a short squeeze.
I think we can all agree, bear or bull, that something happened. A 2250% increase certainly isn't nothing. The question is...what? I see several possibilities and would like to discuss them in the comments.
The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze.
The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze, but the price increase was mainly hype and gamma squeezes.
The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes.
Some combination of the above 3.
First, the data: Based on morningstar the short interest is showing 78.46%. Now, I think the website is having some issues storing cookies because it will show the outdated 226% unless you open it up in incognito. Market watch is showing 41.95% This spread is interesting for sure, my thoughts are some of these calculations are including "synthetic longs" introduced by S3. It is extremely possible to manipulate these numbers via illegal methods and even legal methods using options. Please see this SEC document to explain how this would work. I am not trying to convince anyone to fit my narrative, but these things occur far more commonly than one would expect. The reasoning is because the fines for committing the crime are far less costly than letting the event take place. Please see FINRA's website for the long, and frequent list of fines being dealt out due to manipulation. A common culprit? Lying about short volume. Let's use the absolute worst case scenario being reported of 41.95%, which mind you is still extremely high for one stock: The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze What's interesting here is even if the shorts 100% covered all of their positions, they very well could have shorted on the way back down. Why wouldn't you? It would be insane to not open a short position when this hit nearly $500 especially if you lost half of your companies money; what better way to get it back? For the remainder of this thesis, I will be assuming that some of the short positions that exist are newly opened positions at a higher price unless someone has a counter-claim as to why that wouldn't be possible/probable. That would mean 226% was covered on the way up and another 41.95% was reopened on the way back down. Based on the volume and price changes throughout the past two weeks this simply doesn't pass the math check. The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze. Again, using 41.95% this is highly likely and the most reasonable case. Some, probably the worst positions, were covered on the way up. I think this is precisely what happened, we had some partial shorts covering but for the most part it was gamma squeezes, hype, and FOMO whereby the price started climbing so rapidly it became smarter for the shorts to just wait out the bubble than to actually cover all of their positions. Again, we fall into a "what-if" scenario regarding shorting on the way back down. The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes. This scenario does not pass the math check using the 41.95% figure. If the data is being manipulated then this becomes very interesting because if some of the worst positions are still open then that means all of these HF's losses that were reported were strictly interest and they are simply waiting this out for as long as it takes making back their losses on their newly opened short positions in t $300-$400 range. Sadly, this puts us in the guessing range yet again. We can do the math and see it's possible this scenario exists, however, we would be comparing it against losses reported by the entities that were being squeezed. There are way to many what-if's for me to me consider this a possibility, but I can't write it off completely. Some combination of the above 3. Truthfully, this isn't worth examining just yet. There would be far to many "what-if's" to address, this is something that could be address at the later dates that we will get to shortly. Now, I've heard it a lot regarding the 02/09 data. "It's two weeks old". Well, that is always the case. The FINRA short data is always two weeks old and suggesting that we can't pull any information from it at all is asinine. Where it gets quite murky, is the data includes 01/27 information. This was a day unlike any other in this saga. I will take this moment to address the following upcoming catalysts and when I truly think this will be done; one way or the other. Today's data 02/09, was very important because if it showed an extremely low percentage then we know shorts have exited and did not re-enter and this is completely done. Given the data does not reflect that, we now must turn to several events that could act as catalysts for either a further squeeze or a complete shutdown. 02/19 - In my last post, I discussed the Failure To Deliver (FTD) conundrum. I do need some help figuring out the exact expiration date. From here "The close-out requirement states that a participant of a clearing agency needs to take immediate action to close 4 out a fail to deliver position in a threshold security that has persisted for 13 consecutive settlement days by purchasing securities of like kind and quantity." The exact date is slightly irrelevant because I highly doubt all of these FTD's are going to deliver on the same exact day. This site, while it isn't an official channel seems to be doing a good job of tracking data. If you want to learn more about FTD's and the implications there please visit that site or review my last post which has links to follow for further reading. 02/18 - Keith Gill aka u/DeepFuckingValue will testify before congress and RH CEO Vladimir will be attending. This can go several ways which can lead to an SEC trading halt on GameStop or with evidence that proves foul play occurred. Who knows? It will certainly be interesting and I don't even to speculate on the market reaction to this even because it could go a ton of different ways; it will be an important date nonetheless 02/24 - The next FINRA short interest information will be made readily available to the public. This will be far more interesting and helpful information because it won't include the insane volatility of January, but it will also highlight the newest short positions. This data will help further drive where I think this is all going to end. It's possible that shorts opened new positions at $50 thinking it was going back to $12. Let's not speculate too much here either, it's just another dataset that will bring light to the direction this is headed. 03/25 - GameStop ER. This is big too for several reasons. First, this will include the console sales cycle which historically has done well for GameStop. A typical buy the hype, sell the news event. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts leading up to this ER, maybe people won't even touch GME leading up to then due to the recent volatility, but if they do, and if there is still a lot of short interest, this too could force shorts to begin covering. Another critical part of this ER is Ryan Cohen. This will be the first time this new board addresses the public with their plans for the future and for the first time since this entire adventure began, the "dying brick and mortar" narrative will finally begin to change in the public eye. That is still the common misconception regarding GameStop, that it is a dying brick and mortar retailer where nothing has changed. This hasn't been the case for around 6 months now, but this will be the first time it is publicly address. The headlines surrounding GameStop's future plans will be very interesting to read and the markets reaction will be far more interesting. I have been asked a lot what my PT is and when I expect the squeeze to happen, but let me be clear. Very seldom do squeezes "just happen". In fact, short squeezes are far more common than one would think, they just typically happen over months, if not years and the shorts cover on dips so you don't even notice it's happening. In order to force a squeeze, you need to hold a decent amount of shorts underwater. Soon one will crack and start closing their position, this leads to a series of shorts closing their positions skyrocketing the price until more and more shorts need to cover. This is rare. I hope this narrative of purchasing heavily shorted companies comes to a close soon because a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money simply buying up companies because they are heavily bet against. Catalysts and massive changes need to occur like overhauling your entire business as is the case with GameStop. Normally, shorts will close their positions one at a time, covering on dips and you don't even notice it's happening. In times where you see a price rise of seemingly no news could very well be shorts closing their positions because their research led them to realize this company is on the road to recovery. I digress. Given the most recent data and the multiple upcoming catalysts I am still very bullish on a GME short squeeze. My post from quite some time ago illustrated the importance of catalysts regarding a short squeeze, this is still very much the case. The first run was interrupted and the second run won't happen with magic, it requires a catalyst. Another post was titled For those who do not understand the inevitable GME short squeeze, was at the time "inevitable" because math. That is no longer the case. It is no longer inevitable but it is still possible. I want to be clear: This is not nearly as close to a sure thing as it once was and it depends on a lot of different factors. One of the largest is the people. Granted, a lot of what's happening now is in the hands of institutions but millions of retailers holding their positions to the grave certainly helps the institutional buyers have more faith in their play to continue a squeeze. SO WHAT DO I THINK I think shorts certainly covered some of their positions, but not all. I also firmly believe a significant amount of short positions were opened on the way back down by both HF's and individuals. Some certainly positioned high, but based on sentiment, it appears a lot of people think GME is fairly valued around $20 (which I disagree with but let's use that for the time being). That would mean shorts would have no problem opening positions at 100,70,60, even $50. 42% is still very high which means a squeeze is inevitable so long as the company continues in a positive path. However, squeezes typically aren't as abrupt as people think. They are actually quite common, in fact another position I'm heavily invested in is SPCE and they have been going through a squeeze for several weeks and will continue to squeeze so long as news continues to be positive. How would we get an abrupt short squeeze? A massive bull run. The new shorts that entered at lower levels wouldn't be too hard to catch, however, they are probably low volume, so when they buy to close, it won't be large enough volumes for massive peaks, but a bull run very well could lead to these lower tiered shorts closing, triggering a gamma squeeze. If gamma squeezes are made week over week then shorts at the higher end would have two options:
Close early and take profits
Wait it out because they are positioned so well that interest means nothing and they don't think there is any hope of us rising to those levels.
In the first case, them closing early would be a nice short squeeze to probably several hundred dollars, but it wouldn't break $1000. To break $1000 we would need a big bull run to catch the shorts, trigger gamma squeezes, and keep momentum until they are caught and underwater. This is highly unlikely unless there is another global sentiment. NOTE: ALL OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS I AM MAKING ARE BASED ON THE 42% REPORTING. IF IT IS IN FACT 78% THEN THE POSSIBILITY IS TREMENDOUSLY INCREASED FOR THESE THINGS TO HAPPEN. SO WHEN DOES IT ALL END My though is if by the end of March these catalysts were not enough to reignite the hype and squeeze, then it will essentially be over except in the case of a few circumstances:
A VW/Porche moment occurs where a large buyer picks up a large portion of the company.
Some other currently unknown catalyst appears seemingly out of thin air
The data was in fact manipulated. Regardless of what the data says, if the shorts did in fact lie about their short int to take the fine over being squeezed, then they will be squeezed regardless.
It is quite possible, that these catalysts and moments aren't enough to force a squeeze anymore especially if the shorts have repositioned really well. I will retain the mindset that this fateful January 2021 was not a short squeeze. However, that does not mean it will ever actually happen. SO WHAT IS YOUR PLAY HOOMAN? Well, I am long on GME which is why I didn't mind hopping back in even at outrageous prices. I will continue averaging down and don't plan on selling for quite some time, probably several years. The reason for this is I believe in Cohen and his team to turn this into something unexpected and I imagine an eventual ROI. Once this is all said and done and I think either the shorts truly have covered or they simply got away with it (Beginning of April), I will be posting my DD for GME as a long play regardless of the squeeze mechanics. Thank you all for joining me on this wild journey. I hope we can discuss some of these points in the comments like adults and truly try to grasp this wild situation we are all in. There are extremes on both sides from "get over it, the squeeze happened" to a cult like mentality on the other extreme. I hope through discussion we can find the moderate approach and further understand the market mechanics at play. Thanks for your time WARNING: Until the squeeze business is over for good, this is a very volatile and risky play. Joining now for the hope of a potential round 2 squeeze should only be done in a speculative manner with money you are willing to lose. This is more akin to a gamble than it is investing. I think the current market price is fair given the future prospects of the company but do your own DD, I will not be releasing any until this squeeze is put to rest. TL;DR: I am still bullish on this scenario even at 42%, if it really is 78% then I am extremely bullish. There are a plethora of upcoming catalysts that could reignite the squeeze but even if none are powerful enough, with Cohen's new direction we could expect good news for quite some time forcing shorts to exit on a more spread out timeline. Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I do not wish to sway your opinion in either direction. I simply seek to examine this interesting and volatile situation via crowd sourcing. What you do with your money is entirely up to you.
Note: BlackBerry is NOT a cyber security company. They are a security company. Revenue does not care about your AI driven autonomous machine learning EV car with DDs. People are using these terms loosely. A quick lookup for interviews with John Chen would prove that he explicitly avoids these terms as they do not define nor matter to the products/revenue of BlackBerry. QNX revenue does not depend on any of these terms, it's on installation on any device. This includes the space station, of which there is 1 of with obviously non-recurring revenue. Buying based on these basis would be gambling. Bull:
Business transformation: BlackBerry is now a software company, starting the transformation in 2015. The focus is security, the general term.
5 Products:
QNX: Embedded system OS.
Multi-OS housing: It has the capability to allow for multiple OSs on a single chip.
Real-time availability/software prioritization: Not all pieces of software operate on the same priority. Steering/braking would be higher priority than media, and QNX allows for that. Even if the thread/core is shared with other applications, when high priority software is requesting a resource it will be prioritized to ensure reliability.
Resource sharing: CPU, RAM, and GPU resource sharing between different applications capability. Two applications can share the same CPU core and bump each other based on prioritization.
Why not Linux? QNX has the highest certification for security available. Linux does not. CEOs would want to avoid liability and this certification allows for that.
Device agnostic: It can be installed on any device, not just cars. Any IoT and offline device can use QNX.
QNX Hypervisor: Consolidate multiple OSs on a single SoC using virtualization
SoC: System on a chip. Instead of using multiple ECUs, which is what car manufacturers currently do, they can use one single chip to run multiple high priority applications and multiple OSs. This is what Tesla does now.
Virtualization: Running an OS in a virtual environment. Think Linux environment inside of Windows. This helps with debugging for developers without having to have the actual hardware.
IVY: Scalable cloud-connected software platform for vehicles.
What is it a solution for? When a vehicle manufacturer wants a way to transmit the QNX/OS data safely, normalize it, and visualize it/interact with it. It also allows car manufacturers to own the data, unlike other OSs.
Scalable: AWS servers are capable of handling the load from many endpoints.
Software platform: There is currently no centralized software ecosystem for vehicles. IVY is providing that.
Non-BB developers would be able to use an SDK to develop applications on IVY for infotainment/general apps/others. IVY will also use ML to gain insight on unrecognized patterns by developers. An example of this is detecting if a car slipped, without having the developer connect multiple sensors to figure out if that event happened.
50/50 joint effort on revenue and effort to develop the ecosystem. Using AWS's knowledge in AI/ML for calculated sensors (slip, driver on seat, etc)
Usage by other vendors: A city can connect to the data from vehicles and detect when ice/slipping is happening. If brakes are getting overheated coming from a high elevation area. If a car had an accident, etc. An insurance company can provide an app to give discounts similar to the currently implemented OBD-2 readers. A maintenance provider can also connect to this data and check if an error is specific to maintenance, malpractice, or general misuse.
Spark: Endpoint management. Basically API security. Did not delve far into this, basic info.
Unified Endpoint Security: This is the endpoint where a laptop/phone/IoT device hits. It provides encryption and security around that. Continuous authentication is a part of it, where a device is learning the user behavior using ML and continuously checking if the behavior matches the original owner; if not, lock the device.
Unified Endpoint Management: Basically managing your API for devices.
Zero trust: I think this is specifically talking about continuous authentication. Basically, it's not an authenticate once and forget it. It's constantly tracking behavior to verify the user is the authenticated user.
AtHoc: Non-enterprise communication system.
Target customers: Government, healthcare, education, etc.
Solution: A communication system targeting non-enterprise businesses; specifically for Event management, cross organizational communication/collaboration, mass notifications.
Who does this benefit? You've seen the hacks in healthcare/educational/governmental sector. This is specifically for them.
SecuSUITE: Phone application to allow employees to use work related data in personal devices without cross communication (between personal and work data).
End to end encryption.
Separation of concerns between personal and work data. Employers CANNOT access your personal data.
Used by NATO; doesn't carry much value in my book but maybe in yours.
Customer oriented solutions: As you've seen in the products above, some products overlap and are just names to target specific customers. It allows customers to easily understand what product could solve their issue. Continuous authentication is a great example of this: Their customer complained that they kept re-authenticating, so they designed a solution allowing them to authenticate once and using ML they learned their behavior and can continuously check if the user is the owneauthenticated user. This kind of passion in leadership is good for business.
Liability: QNX has the highest security rating available. Most CEOs want to avoid liability when it comes to security, using QNX would help them avoid that in a similar way cloud services help them avoid being blamed for hacking.
Leadership: BBs leadership isn't one to play on famous words to drive the stock up. John Chen explicitly states this in his interviews and says they are a security company. Not cyber, doesn't mention AI or whatever. He explicitly avoids meme words and understands what the point of BBs business is.
Where I think growth can be made:
QNX in more cars. They can capitalize on the idea of less ECUs = less cost for OEMs + security.
IVY usage by OEMs along with QNX.
IVY ecosystem. Maybe application billing?
Professional services (support) for the products listed.
AtHoc increased market share in more governmental/healthcare/educational entities.
SecuSUITE for more enterprise customers with the idea being saving employers money from purchasing work phones for employees, and worrying about securing them.
Bear:
Revenue: It is not yet based on a subscription/usage basis. You can only produce so many cars, and they don't give an insight on how much do they charge per car for QNX. Anywhere from $2 - $20 is what was mentioned in transcripts. This is a growth area, but not at a trajectory that's excellent. IVY does work on a subscription/usage basis, but IVY can be used WITHOUT QNX. I'm worried about this, but still see it as an area that will generate revenue in the range of $400 MM - $600 MM at the price of $20 per 30M cars. The 30M per year is based on the listing of their customers and their yearly production rates. Keep in mind I stated any device, this does not include trucks or other IoT devices.
Market share: These are relatively new products. J.P. Morgan pointed this out as a priority for growth. This could end up not working out and growth never happens. This is a relatively low risk due to QNX and IVY providing SO MUCH value for car manufacturers Vs. other products in the market.
Patent revenue: They sold a chunk of their no longer relevant patents to Huawei. This makes up a small (<= 32%) of their revenue and is a one time sale. The coming quarter could be equal or less to the last quarter revenue due to either other sales making up the lost revenue from patents, or coming up short. It could come higher if they sold more services, but due to COVID and knowing that many car manufacturers have lowered their production due to chip shortage, the next quarter will most likely be lower.
VW.os: VW is making their own OS. VW.os is what they're calling it. They're currently using QNX, but that revenue could potentially stop. Personally I don't believe VW is capable of doing that. It's a marketing hype. Their companies are not capable of good collaboration or good implementation based on what I've read and researched (can't find article right now), but it's something to be concerned about.
QNX success: While IVY could be using QNX, it does NOT depend on it. There is potential for OEMs to use IVY without QNX. I think this is a low risk, but still risk. 19 OEMs are already using QNX.
Lack of Answers: I can't get much out of their earnings call. They don't delve into pricing for QNX, how they plan to grow it besides getting more car manufacturers and more cars post Corona. How they plan to do recurring revenue. A breakdown of each revenue segment would be helpful, but I don't see that either and there is hesitancy to delve into it.
Prediction: I think QNX can become a $1B revenue per year alone. $2B revenue per year as a company is not far fetched. Without a subscription/usage based model, it is difficult to see how growth can go beyond that. BB is good in 2-5 years, not this year. I can see their revenue growing to potentially $2B - $4B revenue per year. They did mention trying to figure out a subscription/usage based billing, if done then the revenue would be much higher. I think $18 is a fair price on the high end. It could grow further than that, but expectations would be HIGH. Resources:
Position: 1,500. Disclaimer: I don't know everything, I may be incorrect about some things. This is based on what I've researched and to the best of my ability. Do your own DD. Obligatory this is not an investment advice. Edit: This is the only sub with a lot of discussion. I appreciate y'all. 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 Edit 2: One day later, marked closed $18.03. Crazy.
There seems to be a lot of interest in stocks from young investors. I imagine that many will make their way from WSB to this sub because WSB is a bunch of monkeys flinging poo. You may have lost some money and now you want to explore stocks from less of a Meme and emotional perspective. There is nothing wrong with Meme stocks. Meme stocks can be fun. I have had fun with it. I am also a 42-year-old man with rental properties, commercial properties, and a few small businesses. BB, NOK, AMC, and even GME are all fine. The DD is fine behind all of them. The issue is that if I lose $1,000 then I can write myself a check from one of my businesses for $10,000 to make myself feel better. That is not a brag...it is simply sharing that people come from different places in life. You are just starting off life and probably have far fewer resources and every dollar matters more. I challenge anyone to CMV but I am not a big proponent of stocks as a core investment strategy. Here are my reasons why.
Information has a time-decay of value. Meaning that information becomes less valuable over time. Data is what is mined to often produce new Information. You are at a disadvantage when it comes to both data and information. The information that you get on a retail level has already lost much of its value. This is where the saying "if you read it in the news you are already too late"
You have no power. You simply cannot compete with whales and whales don't become whales by letting people glean the crumbs that are leftover. They have the power to move markets, you don't.
You have no control over outcomes. You have no control over the success of a company. You have no control over other investors. You have no control over anything.
The odds on options are not that great. Even compared to blackjack our betting the outside of a roulette table they are just not that good.
Many people that are far more intelligent than you are, lose money at stock investing.
Your emotions and FOMO will be a hindrance and problematic.
Most stock investors are too young to understand the market cycles
I like stocks as a small part of an overall investment strategy for young people for the following reasons.
Time is valuable and you have the most time
Compound interest is the "force" behind all investing and compound interest compliments the stock market very well
Certain strategies can complement long-term wealth building
Building wealth through stocks is like trying to build a house one brick at a time...just you, and you are gathering the straw, digging the mud, and pressing each brick by hand. When it rains many of your bricks will wash away. If the sun shines for enough days then you will make good progress. The problem is that all markets cycle. The housing market cycles. Petroleum and natural gas cycles. The stock market cycles. I believe that a full market cycle is around 18 years with around 7-12 years in an up cycle and 6-11 in a down cycle. In the stock market, they call these bull and bear markets. We are currently in one of the longest bull markets on record due to interest rates and the feds printing money. No one has a crystal ball but sooner or later the market will peak. When this happens Boomers will be the first to pull money out and put it into bonds or CDs. Boomers are as big of a whale as retail can get. Anyone and I mean anyone could have made money in the current market. If ten years ago you had asked a five-year-old to pick five of their favorite things and invested in their choices you would have made money. That could be Barbies, YouTube, Pizza, Sprite, and their Dog. They would have made money on any stocks you picked around those five things. There will come a day sooner or later when Boomers and GenX will see trends in the market that they don't like. Boomers own multiple houses and are deep into retirement. GenX is a small but powerful generation that is now on the back Nine Holes of life. Gen X will largely inherit the wealth of the Boomers. There will come a shift towards mitigating losses and that shift is not far away. When they move their money from markets so goes the market. Is it fair to say that one of the longest bull cycles on record could transition to one of the longest bear cycles? Let's look at Millenials...a generation that is struggling to just buy a home. Boomers own a few. GenX may own a couple and Millenials that are now entering into their forties struggle with one. Millenials are a massively sized generation that I believe is now bigger than both GenX and Boomers combined because Boomers are dying at a rapid pace. Millenials are the generation that were adults starting life and careers in 2008 and full-blown families with Covid-19. Maybe one of the unluckiest generations. GenZ is this very talented and intelligent generation. Y'all are creating disruptions in culture, in politics, and in Wall Street. You are savvy and demanding. Giving billionaires the finger while pissing on the front door of their mansions. But you need to be careful. Stocks are not the key to your success. They are just a single tool in your toolbox. A better tool may be early homeownership or owning a small business. Life is about options...and I am not talking about the gambling options of Wall Street. I am talking about the options of having equity in a home to adapt to economic swings. I am, talking about the options of owning a small business where your day to day decisions make you smarter and more valuable. Where you own assets that make you money. Most importantly you have control over your own destiny. I am not telling you not to invest in stocks. I am just telling you that it should be a limited part of your overall strategy in life. Unless someone has been through two complete cycles of the stock markets then I would take their advice with a grain of salt. General advice:
Don't sell stocks that you have taken a loss on
Buy when everyone is selling and sell when everyone is buying
Invest in stocks with a strategy based on your knowledge and experience
Invest only what you can afford to lose
Stocks work best with time. Leave them alone
Be a value investor
Invest with a purpose
Number seven is important. For example, I like Robotics, AI, and Automation. I like these is two specific areas....transportation and mining. I operate in the Transportation industry. I know that very soon human drivers will be eliminated and self-driving trucks will take over. Trucks will be loaded, driven, and unloaded without a single human being doing any of that work. With that will come an entire supporting industry. Tow trucks will need to be automatically dispatched when trucks break down or in accidents. AI will need to be involved in decision making. I will see these changes before I am dead and I am 42. I like underwater mining. Our oceans are the next frontier and the next gold rush. We have areas of sea bottom that has very little life but is rich in gasses, minerals, and thermal energy. Automation, AI, and robotics will play a huge role in underwater mining. I will see this transition start in my lifetime and I am 42. Beyond that, once we have machines that are capable of underwater mining then we have the basics for machines that can mine inner-system planetary objects. From nearby asteroids to the moon, to thermal energy collection closer to the sun, to Mars and beyond. The wealthiest person in existence will be the person that is able to start the first off-planet mining operation. Where there is no EPA, no taxes on land, where we are not building sub-divisions next to mines. Where we don't have to worry about the ecosystem. Where gasses and pollutants are not pollutants because there is nothing of consequence to pollute. The largest land-owners in existence will be the owner of off-world mining operations. That may not happen in my lifetime...but it may in yours. I like investing in Meme stocks because they are fun. But I also invest in Robotics, AI, and automation with one-single question....is this company taking humanity one-step close to automated transportation or underwater mining? I invest with a purpose. Sure I will grab up some value stocks every now and then. People are going to be flying more than ever in a few years. People are going to be more social than ever in a few years. Shoot Condom manufacturers are a buy right now because people will be..........you get the idea. The whole reason that I wrote this excessively long post is to maybe get you into thinking about your strategy....what is it? And to caution you on being "all-in" on stocks. Stonks don't always go up.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial advisor. This is a DD (Due Diligence) post in regard to the upcoming squeeze aimed at AMC. The information is a collection of research from credible sources with some of my personal thoughts on the topic. NOTE: ANYONE WHO IS INFORMED ON THE MARKET AND HOW IT WORKS, SKIP TO PART 2. This DD will cover more than average DD's since WSB has gained a large following of new traders who can benefit from a full description. Part 1: $AMC, what is it? 🎞️🎟️ ---Source--- AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. is an American movie theater chain headquartered in Leawood, Kansas, and the largest movie theater chain in the world. Founded in 1920, AMC has the largest share of the U.S. theater market ahead of Regal and Cinemark Theatres. Part 1.2: What is a squeeze?🤏🏼 A squeeze in the market ($GME, $AMC) is a phenomenon that occurs when shorts have to be covered, especially by high class traders (hedge fund managers). Part 1.3:What are shorts, why are they popular with the top 1%? In short selling, a position is opened by borrowing shares of a stock that the investor believes will decrease in value by a set future date . The investor then sells these borrowed shares to buyers willing to pay market price. Before the borrowed shares must be returned, the trader is betting on the prices decline and then can purchase them at a lower cost. This stategy is HIGH RISK HIGH REWARD. Part 1.4 (final intro peice): Why do squeezes cause losses up top? Simple. In the case of $GME the hedge funds bet that $GME would fall. Logically, they should have been right. But as I'm sure everyone knows, WSB and working class investors from all over the world flipped the trend on its head. So, since the hedge funds bet on a fall they had to cover the losses caused by their BORROWED positions becoming absolutely useless (nice). Part 2: The stats on $AMC. 📈🧠 ---Paraphrased from "Yahoo Finance", Some IMO.--- AMC has 44.6 million shorted shares and a grand total of 101.95 million shares. Now what everyone is waiting for it when shorted shares become useless and the hedge funds have to cover what they bet and lost on. Today's target (1/29) was to beat $8.63 and we closed at $13.29! This short will expire in 0.5 trading days (Feb 1/21) So Monday when they're forced to cover the $8.63 they will have to buy it at its current price to cover their bet. Raising the price up even higher from said stimulus. There are 9 different short stocks between $1.98-$5.96. Over the next few trading days it is going to be a strong squeeze. $AMC is standing where $GME did a week ago. Hold your ground. Gains coming in hot next week. Part 3: What are our targets for buying and selling?💵📈💵 THIS REQUIRES DIAMOND HANDS 💎👐 From what I have read, buying into $AMC at $17 or below is a safe bet. My exit plan is to secure some profit next week as the squeeze reaches it's height, and reinvest (into $AMC) a comfortable amount based on collected gain. I plan to keep shares for up to 12-18 months so long as $AMC keeps on the track we can see now. AGAIN, I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR. MY WORD IS NOT LAW. Part 4: Beware The Big Man (Reason for Holding)🏦🚫 Big money managers and short sellers are going to manipulate the stock in the after hours session to scare us investors out of buying and holding with the intent of executing their shorts as planned or to cushion the blow from failed investment. Again, 👐💎. Part 5: The Conclusion on $AMC in short (wording wise) 🚀🚀 •The statistics on this stock are legit. •The company is longstanding (70+ years) •The company is legit •A squeeze is seemingly inevitable •Being the largest theatre company, post COVID gains are likely as cinemas will re-open. •The hedge funds are in a position to be bent over again via their shorts in $AMC. •Last but not least, I know alot of you autists lost alot of money gambling during highs on $KTOV, $XSPA, $GNUS, and many others... So why not get some tendies for once. AGAIN I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR, THIS IS A COLLECTION OF DATA AND RESEARCH BASED ON RECENT TRENDS AND $AMC's POSITION IN THE MARKET AS OF CLOSE ON (1/29/21) I AM NOT LIABLE FOR LOSSES OR THE REASON FOR GAIN. THIS POST IS STRICTLY FOR SHARING INFORMATION GATHERED. TL/DR: 💎👐📈🚀🌑 (typed on mobile, computer format may be fucked up) Edit: Monkey brain was on overdrive while typing, I know shorts do not expire but monkey brain like thinking about put options. I am also aware alot of us are receiving different numbers regarding floating shares and shares outstanding. I included the name of my source, take it up with yahoo not me. Just trying to help the people who need it.
For ALL THOSE WHO MISSED ON GME, LOST MONEY OR BAGHOLDING...THIS IS THE ENDGAME 🚀
ALL CREDIT GOES TO u/hooman_or_whatever GME Short Squeeze What Comes Next Part 3 Hello all, Before I begin I would like to address something I have been encountering on my posts in the comments section. I keep receiving some hate concerning my opinions and I want to be crystal clear that they are just that; opinions. I also want everyone to know that is is meant to be a dialog. I am not trying to pump this stock because truthfully, this goes far beyond us retail investors at this point. What I want is a dialog between all sides to examine this truly fascinating phenomenon that is occurring. I would also like to clarify something, I am not a bagholder. I do currently hold bags because I own 336 shares at a $194.34 cost basis, however, that total amount is house money that was used from my profits on the first go around. I also understand some people are tired of hearing about this because it's the same regurgitated form of someone else's post as it keeps circulating in an attempt to retain hype and drive future buying; this is not what this post is about. As investors and individuals involved in the world of finance, this situation should absolutely intrigue us whether or not we are involved. I am here to present my logic on the situation but encourage healthy discussion and debate. This brings me to my first claim. This is not over. Now, I am not claiming that a squeeze will still occur, I am simply claiming it is not over, for better or for worse. Several things need to take place for this to be completely over, at which point I will either post my gains or my losses from the adventure. When I say "it" I am referring to this entire phenomenon, not one short squeeze. I do not think these events, "it", is over. This is largely due to retail and institutional purchasing not really changing all that much since we found the bottom and established support at a staggering $60. This support was lost today and found new support at $50. There was very interesting ATH action and I'm not sure what to make of it. Millions of bag holders (not just WSB) are still holding and in fact, averaging down, thereby purchasing more. These same bag holders are absolutely refusing to sell for such massive losses and in turn are becoming long term investors on the stock if another squeeze isn't to occur. People are picking up speculative positions in the off-chance of another squeeze. Others are determining this as a fair value for the company, not fundamentally, but based on the future prospects of Ryan Cohen and team. Finally, it is nowhere near leaving the global stage with important upcoming dates that we will discuss later. To examine why it isn't over let's look at both sides of the argument:
Bulls claim it's not over for many reasons that you can find in the hundreds of other bullish posts, so I won't bore you with those details. My argument on the bull side is more along the lines of what I listed above.
Bears claim it is over because there was a 2250% price increase over the course of two weeks, therefore this must be a short squeeze.
I think we can all agree, bear or bull, that something happened. A 2250% increase certainly isn't nothing. The question is...what? I see several possibilities and would like to discuss them in the comments.
The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze.
The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze, but the price increase was mainly hype and gamma squeezes.
The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes.
Some combination of the above 3.
First, the data: Based on morningstar the short interest is showing 78.46%. Now, I think the website is having some issues storing cookies because it will show the outdated 226% unless you open it up in incognito. Market watch is showing 41.95% This spread is interesting for sure, my thoughts are some of these calculations are including "synthetic longs" introduced by S3. It is extremely possible to manipulate these numbers via illegal methods and even legal methods using options. Please see this SEC document to explain how this would work. I am not trying to convince anyone to fit my narrative, but these things occur far more commonly than one would expect. The reasoning is because the fines for committing the crime are far less costly than letting the event take place. Please see FINRA's website for the long, and frequent list of fines being dealt out due to manipulation. A common culprit? Lying about short volume. Let's use the absolute worst case scenario being reported of 41.95%, which mind you is still extremely high for one stock: The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze What's interesting here is even if the shorts 100% covered all of their positions, they very well could have shorted on the way back down. Why wouldn't you? It would be insane to not open a short position when this hit nearly $500 especially if you lost half of your companies money; what better way to get it back? For the remainder of this thesis, I will be assuming that some of the short positions that exist are newly opened positions at a higher price unless someone has a counter-claim as to why that wouldn't be possible/probable. That would mean 226% was covered on the way up and another 41.95% was reopened on the way back down. Based on the volume and price changes throughout the past two weeks this simply doesn't pass the math check. The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze. Again, using 41.95% this is highly likely and the most reasonable case. Some, probably the worst positions, were covered on the way up. I think this is precisely what happened, we had some partial shorts covering but for the most part it was gamma squeezes, hype, and FOMO whereby the price started climbing so rapidly it became smarter for the shorts to just wait out the bubble than to actually cover all of their positions. Again, we fall into a "what-if" scenario regarding shorting on the way back down. The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes. This scenario does not pass the math check using the 41.95% figure. If the data is being manipulated then this becomes very interesting because if some of the worst positions are still open then that means all of these HF's losses that were reported were strictly interest and they are simply waiting this out for as long as it takes making back their losses on their newly opened short positions in t $300-$400 range. Sadly, this puts us in the guessing range yet again. We can do the math and see it's possible this scenario exists, however, we would be comparing it against losses reported by the entities that were being squeezed. There are way to many what-if's for me to me consider this a possibility, but I can't write it off completely. Some combination of the above 3. Truthfully, this isn't worth examining just yet. There would be far to many "what-if's" to address, this is something that could be address at the later dates that we will get to shortly. Now, I've heard it a lot regarding the 02/09 data. "It's two weeks old". Well, that is always the case. The FINRA short data is always two weeks old and suggesting that we can't pull any information from it at all is asinine. Where it gets quite murky, is the data includes 01/27 information. This was a day unlike any other in this saga. I will take this moment to address the following upcoming catalysts and when I truly think this will be done; one way or the other. Today's data 02/09, was very important because if it showed an extremely low percentage then we know shorts have exited and did not re-enter and this is completely done. Given the data does not reflect that, we now must turn to several events that could act as catalysts for either a further squeeze or a complete shutdown. 02/19 - In my last post, I discussed the Failure To Deliver (FTD) conundrum. I do need some help figuring out the exact expiration date. From here "The close-out requirement states that a participant of a clearing agency needs to take immediate action to close 4 out a fail to deliver position in a threshold security that has persisted for 13 consecutive settlement days by purchasing securities of like kind and quantity." The exact date is slightly irrelevant because I highly doubt all of these FTD's are going to deliver on the same exact day. This site, while it isn't an official channel seems to be doing a good job of tracking data. If you want to learn more about FTD's and the implications there please visit that site or review my last post which has links to follow for further reading. 02/18 - Keith Gill aka u/DeepFuckingValue will testify before congress and RH CEO Vladimir will be attending. This can go several ways which can lead to an SEC trading halt on GameStop or with evidence that proves foul play occurred. Who knows? It will certainly be interesting and I don't even to speculate on the market reaction to this even because it could go a ton of different ways; it will be an important date nonetheless 02/24 - The next FINRA short interest information will be made readily available to the public. This will be far more interesting and helpful information because it won't include the insane volatility of January, but it will also highlight the newest short positions. This data will help further drive where I think this is all going to end. It's possible that shorts opened new positions at $50 thinking it was going back to $12. Let's not speculate too much here either, it's just another dataset that will bring light to the direction this is headed. 03/25 - GameStop ER. This is big too for several reasons. First, this will include the console sales cycle which historically has done well for GameStop. A typical buy the hype, sell the news event. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts leading up to this ER, maybe people won't even touch GME leading up to then due to the recent volatility, but if they do, and if there is still a lot of short interest, this too could force shorts to begin covering. Another critical part of this ER is Ryan Cohen. This will be the first time this new board addresses the public with their plans for the future and for the first time since this entire adventure began, the "dying brick and mortar" narrative will finally begin to change in the public eye. That is still the common misconception regarding GameStop, that it is a dying brick and mortar retailer where nothing has changed. This hasn't been the case for around 6 months now, but this will be the first time it is publicly address. The headlines surrounding GameStop's future plans will be very interesting to read and the markets reaction will be far more interesting. I have been asked a lot what my PT is and when I expect the squeeze to happen, but let me be clear. Very seldom do squeezes "just happen". In fact, short squeezes are far more common than one would think, they just typically happen over months, if not years and the shorts cover on dips so you don't even notice it's happening. In order to force a squeeze, you need to hold a decent amount of shorts underwater. Soon one will crack and start closing their position, this leads to a series of shorts closing their positions skyrocketing the price until more and more shorts need to cover. This is rare. I hope this narrative of purchasing heavily shorted companies comes to a close soon because a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money simply buying up companies because they are heavily bet against. Catalysts and massive changes need to occur like overhauling your entire business as is the case with GameStop. Normally, shorts will close their positions one at a time, covering on dips and you don't even notice it's happening. In times where you see a price rise of seemingly no news could very well be shorts closing their positions because their research led them to realize this company is on the road to recovery. I digress. Given the most recent data and the multiple upcoming catalysts I am still very bullish on a GME short squeeze. My post from quite some time ago illustrated the importance of catalysts regarding a short squeeze, this is still very much the case. The first run was interrupted and the second run won't happen with magic, it requires a catalyst. Another post was titled For those who do not understand the inevitable GME short squeeze, was at the time "inevitable" because math. That is no longer the case. It is no longer inevitable but it is still possible. I want to be clear: This is not nearly as close to a sure thing as it once was and it depends on a lot of different factors. One of the largest is the people. Granted, a lot of what's happening now is in the hands of institutions but millions of retailers holding their positions to the grave certainly helps the institutional buyers have more faith in their play to continue a squeeze. SO WHAT DO I THINK I think shorts certainly covered some of their positions, but not all. I also firmly believe a significant amount of short positions were opened on the way back down by both HF's and individuals. Some certainly positioned high, but based on sentiment, it appears a lot of people think GME is fairly valued around $20 (which I disagree with but let's use that for the time being). That would mean shorts would have no problem opening positions at 100,70,60, even $50. 42% is still very high which means a squeeze is inevitable so long as the company continues in a positive path. However, squeezes typically aren't as abrupt as people think. They are actually quite common, in fact another position I'm heavily invested in is SPCE and they have been going through a squeeze for several weeks and will continue to squeeze so long as news continues to be positive. How would we get an abrupt short squeeze? A massive bull run. The new shorts that entered at lower levels wouldn't be too hard to catch, however, they are probably low volume, so when they buy to close, it won't be large enough volumes for massive peaks, but a bull run very well could lead to these lower tiered shorts closing, triggering a gamma squeeze. If gamma squeezes are made week over week then shorts at the higher end would have two options:
Close early and take profits
Wait it out because they are positioned so well that interest means nothing and they don't think there is any hope of us rising to those levels.
In the first case, them closing early would be a nice short squeeze to probably several hundred dollars, but it wouldn't break $1000. To break $1000 we would need a big bull run to catch the shorts, trigger gamma squeezes, and keep momentum until they are caught and underwater. This is highly unlikely unless there is another global sentiment. NOTE: ALL OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS I AM MAKING ARE BASED ON THE 42% REPORTING. IF IT IS IN FACT 78% THEN THE POSSIBILITY IS TREMENDOUSLY INCREASED FOR THESE THINGS TO HAPPEN. SO WHEN DOES IT ALL END My though is if by the end of March these catalysts were not enough to reignite the hype and squeeze, then it will essentially be over except in the case of a few circumstances:
A VW/Porche moment occurs where a large buyer picks up a large portion of the company.
Some other currently unknown catalyst appears seemingly out of thin air
The data was in fact manipulated. Regardless of what the data says, if the shorts did in fact lie about their short int to take the fine over being squeezed, then they will be squeezed regardless.
It is quite possible, that these catalysts and moments aren't enough to force a squeeze anymore especially if the shorts have repositioned really well. I will retain the mindset that this fateful January 2021 was not a short squeeze. However, that does not mean it will ever actually happen. SO WHAT IS YOUR PLAY HOOMAN? Well, I am long on GME which is why I didn't mind hopping back in even at outrageous prices. I will continue averaging down and don't plan on selling for quite some time, probably several years. The reason for this is I believe in Cohen and his team to turn this into something unexpected and I imagine an eventual ROI. Once this is all said and done and I think either the shorts truly have covered or they simply got away with it (Beginning of April), I will be posting my DD for GME as a long play regardless of the squeeze mechanics. Thank you all for joining me on this wild journey. I hope we can discuss some of these points in the comments like adults and truly try to grasp this wild situation we are all in. There are extremes on both sides from "get over it, the squeeze happened" to a cult like mentality on the other extreme. I hope through discussion we can find the moderate approach and further understand the market mechanics at play. Thanks for your time WARNING: Until the squeeze business is over for good, this is a very volatile and risky play. Joining now for the hope of a potential round 2 squeeze should only be done in a speculative manner with money you are willing to lose. This is more akin to a gamble than it is investing. I think the current market price is fair given the future prospects of the company but do your own DD, I will not be releasing any until this squeeze is put to rest. TL;DR: I am still bullish on this scenario even at 42%, if it really is 78% then I am extremely bullish. There are a plethora of upcoming catalysts that could reignite the squeeze but even if none are powerful enough, with Cohen's new direction we could expect good news for quite some time forcing shorts to exit on a more spread out timeline. Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I do not wish to sway your opinion in either direction. I simply seek to examine this interesting and volatile situation via crowd sourcing. What you do with your money is entirely up to you.
Hello pennypeople, this is my 2nd DD :) Last one is up 38% in 2 trading days! The company I looked at is Kintara Therapeutics Market cap is only $51.79m! ABOUT Kintara Therapeutics ($KTRA) is a clinical stage drug development company. They focus on developing and commercializing anti-cancer therapies to treat cancer patients. They are developing two late-stage, Phase III-ready therapeutics, including VAL-083, a DNA-targeting agent for the treatment of drug-resistant solid tumors. Catalyst Q1 data announcement on:
Market cap $51.79m (low market cap shows potential for price growth)
Avg volume: 736.61K
Shares outstanding: 24.66M
Short interest 154.88K
Public float: 18.24M
At September 30, 2020, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of approximately $22.6 million. In August 2020, the Company completed the private placement of Series C Convertible Preferred Stock for gross proceeds of approximately $25 million, or net proceeds of approximately $21.6 million. The cash and cash equivalents at September 30, 2020, along with the proceeds from warrant exercises received subsequent to September 30, 2020, are expected to be sufficient to fund the Company's planned operations into the fourth quarter of calendar year 2021. For the quarter ended September 30, 2020, the Company reported a net loss of approximately $19.5 million, or $1.33 per share, compared to a net loss of approximately $1.6 million, or $0.21 per share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2019. The increase in the current quarter was largely due to the recognition of $16.0 million of non-cash expenses related to the acquisition of in-process research and development costs associated with the Adgero transaction. PRICE TARGET The average price target is $5.75 with a high forecast of $7.00 and a low forecast of $5.00. The average price target represents a 273.8% increase from the last price of $2.10. Analyst target: KTRA has a rating of buy on marketbeat, yahoofinance, marketwatch. Their Platform Strategy "Our platform strategy is built on a robust understanding of cancer biology. We use modern approaches in our laboratory studies to determine where we can solve problems in the treatment of drug and immune resistant cancer. Our team has identified niches in the continuum of care where our therapeutic may address an unmet need. By showing that our treatments are active where others fail, we can implement clinical studies to demonstrate that our therapies may have the ability to improve patient outcomes." Sources: https://www.kintara.com/about https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/KTRA?p=KTRA https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/ktra/insider-activity https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/ktra/analystestimates?mod=mw_quote_analyst https://www.biopharmcatalyst.com/calendars/fda-calendar?# My position: 6.2% of portfolio @ 2.06 NB! I'm not a financial advisor. This is for gambling purposes only EDIT: If you can get an entry below 3 ur a lucky bastard :D Good luck on withdrawing profits and rejecting all the women who are after your money!
Losing touch extended version - now with ideas for changes
Hello all Some days ago I made a post that got a bit of attention (scopely_you_are_losing_touch_with_your_playerbase). But my post did not focus enough on what can be done to help alleviate some of the problems we are seeing in the game right now. So therefor I will try to do a better job of that in this post. It’s not going to be perfect, probably not even close, but I really hope it can spark a discussion that Scopely, Cerebro in particular, can take some points from and try to make this game that we like so much, and make it that much better. Before we go into the nitty gritty, I would like to say thank you for all the positive feedback I got on the last post. I had feared that it there would be a lot people throwing mud at each other or starting to bash Scopely. But most of you kept it sober and constructive, so I hope we can keep that tone. With that said, this post can be a bit more dividing of the community, cause we all have one thing that we think is the most important thing to fix. And some of the solutions I am going to propose might not hit the spot for you or at all, but I hope it sparks a discussion. This is going to be a long post, and I know that it will not go down as well as the first one, for one it is simply too long, but also because it gets too focused on what changes I would like to see. Cause we can all agree on that we want changes, but when we then have to discuss what those changes are, then we get more divided. I really want to point out that I don't expect everybody to agree on what I have written. And also that my native language isn't English, but I hope that my points still gets across. But lets get into it...
Red Stars
We are going to start out with what I personally find to be the biggest issue in the game right now. I know that RTA is a more hot topic right now, but I find red stars to be the biggest issue. Right now red stars are a double edged sword. Cause when you get the 5+ red drop on the new character you of course get happy. But with the droprates in mind, most of the time red stars leave you with a sour taste. Getting 3 red stars or lower on a new good character is so deflating that even id you got good pulls on your last 2 characters, that goodwill is out the window straight away. So what can we do to make red stars a bit better? I think the solution is in the silvegold promotion credits. If silver credits was added to red stars so that when you get a duplicate character, then you also get some promotion credits. Here is how one solution could be, the numbers might have to change a bit, but this is just the general idea. 1-2 star dupe: 1 silver promotion credit 3-4 star dupe: 2 silver promotion credit 5 star dupe: 3 silver promotion credit 6 star dupe: 1 gold promotion credit 7 star dupe: 2 gold promotion credit These are just numbers to showcase the idea. If we look at my pulls for Bishop then this is what it would have netted me (all my pulls where dupes apart from the 3 star Bishop): 20 1-2 star pulls = 20 silver credits 19 3-4 star pulls = 38 silver credits 6 5 star = 18 silver credits Total = 76 silver credits. Now that is not a lot, and I don’t think that would break the promotion system. But I do think that it would help with the bad feeling about red stars. With this system red star orbs are still the driving factor, and if you get lucky then you still get happy, but now when you get unlucky, then at least you progressed a bit still by having more promotions credit. I would also like to get rid of the promotion store. We have enough randomness in the game. If we could promote characters straight from the character screen, then the system would feel a lot better. I get that the store is probably there to make people burn some cores when they are chasing that on character they want to bring up. Also, let us update them way faster. Right now over a month passes on most new characters before they are even added to the store. I think the worries from Scopely is that we would start hoarding, and then only spend on the “best” new characters. But I really don’t see that as a problem in the long run. Cause with the added focus on wider rosters you will still have to bring up more characters instead of focusing on a few.
RTA and the Battlepass
So this is the hottest topic right now, at least with the people that I talk to. If we look to other games battlepasses are generally a positive thing, but in almost all of them they are also something that you can get done by playing the game as usual. I play PUBG and while the battlepass here is something that divides the community a bit, it is one that I like. Some days I just have to get some kills and I progress. Other days I have to get kills with a crossbow (I’m not good enough to get that done), but its all something I can do by playing the game as usual, I just have to pick up some other weapons than the “meta”. Battlepasses are created for two things: · Have people log in every day. But in MSF people already have to do that, so the battlepass doesn’t do anything at all for that. · Have people spend extra money, especially in FTP games. If spenders got the possibility to buy all the prizes we get from the battlepass for 20$ without having to grind it out, then I am 100% sure that way more people would buy it. But with the current way its tied to the RTA I actually think you are just losing money. The current form of battlepass that is implemented is really just an offer with extra steps. In MSF you have tied the battlepass to a single gamemode, and that takes all the possible fun out of that game mode. No people I have talked to likes RTA, not 1 person has something positive to say about it actually. But when you ask around, then a lot of people really started to like the balanced draft. So what can we do to make this a bit better? Solution 1: make us able to complete the objectives in other gamemodes. And if you really want us to grind the RTA also, then make it count double so that there is an incentive to play it if you want to get it over with as fast a possible. And that is where I think the biggest problem with RTA is right now. Its not fun, it is only a grind. The way I play it is to open RTA and press auto when I’m at work. I don’t even look at it, I just wait for the winneloser screen to pop up, and then go in and do it again. I get annoyed when people are slow, or if they don’t load in. As I see it there are 0 positive things about RTA right now. And the biggest problem I have is that no one I asked could actually find a way to make RTA fun with the current setup. Leagues and events could be a saving grace. But since we don’t even know what Scopley have in mind about these we can’t event try to make that better. I’m afraid that events is just like the battlepass, but I think that leagues could take RTA in the right direction. Cause if you make RTA about winning and trying your best, then its suddenly competitive instead of just a mindless grind. And I think it goes without saying, but I’m going to do it anyways, please revert the changes you made in 5.1 about quitters.
Doom raid
After my original post I was told that the Doom raid wouldn’t actually be for a limited time. And that changes my view a lot. Cause I do like that there are new and hard/almost impossible challenges. I was only worried if it was a limited that most people wouldn’t ever be able to get in there before it was taken down. But if its there to stay, then I don’t mind the current difficulty, even though I won’t step in there for at least another 6 months at best. But the point about the prizes still stand. They are simply not enough. Not even close actually. And right now only the top alliances are even able to get them, so you have created a “the rich getting richer” scenario, cause the prizes in there are what makes you able to compete in there.
Availability of new characters
I personally don’t mind the cadence of new releases of characters, new characters are what drives the game forward. But you have to make them available faster. The last couple of releases we have seen them added to orbs pretty fast (Longshot or Shatterstar was even added as their event was going on), and that is a small step in the right direction. But lets take a look at the most grievous current unfarmable character, Beast, he has been in the game for over 7 months (possible longer, I couldn’t find the exact date he was released.) without being farmable. That is simply not good enough. I know that he didn’t sell that well, and that Scopely has probably tried to wait with making him farmable to see if they could make more money of him, especially now that he actually seems to have a good place on the Axmen, I get it. I personally unlocked Beast at 3 stars, and I have not used him in anything than a throwaway blitz team. Is that fun? Is that something that makes me want to invest further into him? I think you know the answer. A possible solution to this problem is to add them to some of the stores faster. I understand why you are hesitant to add anything newish to the blitz, raid or arena store. Cause people now have so many credits stockpiled that any further income on them once they are added are out the window. But I think you can add them at a much higher price point in the stores. That does two things: You now give people something to use their credits on that they actually want, and at a higher price you are getting people to deplete their resources faster and taking both the blitz and arena store economy to a place where we once again have to make decisions on what to invest into. But at least you are giving us something to invest into. As of right now I have 150k blitz credits, so when you added Electro at 500, that wont even make a dent into that economy. But if you added new characters faster at a premium price, lets say 5-10,000 credits. Then you are giving us something to invest in, and you are bringing the economy to a better place. They of course shouldn’t stay at the premium price forever, at given intervals they should have their prices reduced until they hit the 500 credits that normal characters in the store has. I personally don’t mind that a few select characters are orbs only for a while. I get why they are that. But I also understand the frustration that a lot of players feel about orb only characters. I only mention this so that a discussion can spark from it. If we look at the prices on buying new characters I think we can all agree that they are too high. But I get why they are high and I don’t think that will change. I personally don’t find it to be that big of a problem, but I understand why a lot of people do. I also think the problem would be alleviated a bit, if we could start farming them in one way or the other sooner. Then players who really want the newest characters can pay and be ahead of the meta, and the people who can’t/won’t pay can still try to catch up without having to wait half a year, where the ones they can now farm are probably power crept anyway.
New player problems
This is only something that I have heard a bit about, and only mention it so that others can chime in. But right now there is a huge scarcity of blue ability mats. And there is no real good way of farming or even buying them. I think the problem stems from the powerlevel of characters, so now newer players don’t have to spend time on the lower raids that actually give these mats like we did when we started out. It doesn’t take a long time for a new player to be able to get into an alliance that does at least U6 or even U7, where these mats aren’t something they get. A simple solution that I could see working out is to simply remove green and blue ability mats from the game. I doubt that Scopley are making any money on these mats, and for people that have played a long time these mats are a non issue and never will be cause we have pretty much infinite of them. As I said, I don’t know too much about this problem as I only just heard about it on a stream not so long ago. But I wanted to add it to the list anyways. And there are probably more new player problems that I don’t even know of. So please add that to the discussion below, but also please try to be constructive about it, not just “We want more”.
Skillitary/new teams videos
We like that we can see new teams in action, but when you showcase them you have to be upfront about them. Skillitary has left a sour taste in the mouth of most people who bought into them. Yes, they can win against Marauders if brought up to the same level, but its still a gamble and more luckbased than playing with actual skill (on pun(isher) intended). But if you miss that first disrupt on Stryfe, then the whole team just crumbles. So if you showcase a new team as the new team to take out the “big bad”, then they have to at least be able to punch up a bit on them. I’m not saying that they should just win 100% of the time, but with Skillitary they even struggle on punch downs. If Shadowlands turn out to be as big of a letdown as Skillitary I think that will make you lose a lot of goodwill and at this point in the game, that will be very hard to gain back.
War
I am generally pretty fine with war and how it plays out. There are two pain points that keeps popping up tho. The most obvious one is the matchmaking sometimes makes you go up against unwinnable opponents. And that does make it feel very bad. But I also understand why you can’t always have it close to your own TCP. Cause who would the top alliances ever face if it was only trying to match on TCP? If it was changed to only factor in TCP, then we would suddenly have alliances in the top leagues, who where a 10th of the biggest alliances, but they would never have to face them because of the TCP difference. So the current matchmaking system is probably the lesser of the two evils. And yes, I know that it is very demoralizing to get 50m+ punch-ups week after week. But I think that stems from a problem that is unfixable, and that is the huge TCP difference between alliances. If we take a look at Legion_of_Cabal they currently have a combined TCP of 400 million. If we look at the 100th most powerful alliance they right now have a combined TCP of 251 million. That is such a huge difference that war matchmaking will just not ever be perfect. The second pain point of war is time spent. And in that also when you have to spend that time. Luckily my own alliance aren’t too focused on war, we are only G4. Most of the time we face alliances that wont clear us and we wont clear them. But higher up in the leagues, clearing as fast as possible is the only way to win. And that means getting on every time new energy is available, also if that means disrupting your sleep schedule to do that. I personally would never do that at where I am in life, but I understand why. I was fighting for world first in WoW back in the day, so I get why people do it. The problem is that they have to do it 3 times a week. Instead of just, in the case of WoW, when new content comes out. Its just not healthy. I don’t have any experience in high level war in MSF, so I hope that some of you that do can weigh in on this with ideas how to make it better.
Resource bottlenecks
This is a sore point for everybody in the game. I think we all understand why bottlenecks are a thing, and we all probably understand that it is also a necessary thing in a game to have something to grind for. But in the current state of the game, there are simply way too many bottlenecks. My proposed solution would be as follows: Get rid of green and blue ability mats. They serve no purpose anymore other than hindering new players from catching up. Then when the next level of ability levels are introduced, then you can add new currency for that and have us start out on the same level. Spenders will then be able to get a head start as always, and that is fine. Also take away the gold cost for leveling up abilities, or at least lower them. Get rid of training mats all together. Or change it so that they are the only currency needed to level up characters. It simply can’t be both gold and training mats unless they are giving them out a bit more freely. And I know it’s a balancing act, cause you don’t want people to have too many resources, and if we had infinite resources, that would also be bad for the game, as there is nothing fun in having everything given to you. If the above are implemented, then I don’t even think you have to make any changes to the gold we gain now. We of course don’t know how much money you make out of creating these scarcities, and I get it if the metrics show that you can’t just make them go away. But then at least acknowledge the problem that players are feeling about the bottlenecks. You don’t have to fix it in one big swoop. Gear is another bottleneck, but one that I personally find better balanced. Sure, right now getting G15 isn’t easy, but I also don’t think it should be easy. A change that I would love to see however is a better way to be able to focus on the gear that we need. Right now its all random, even the offers you made us are random. But again, I get if your metrics show something else and that you are doing this to make the most profit. But sometimes the most profit is not the way to go, if the cost is that you lose players by doing it.
Help us help you
In my first post I stayed away from mentioning bugs on purpose. Bugs will happen, and if you address them as fast as possible then that is probably ok. But you have a limitless amount of people who would gladly help you test upcoming patches for free. Right now you even have an envoy program that you clearly aren’t using to its full potential. Have them help you out with testing new features. Just look at ISO8, when you first announced it people where up in arms about it. But you decided to have the envoys weigh in, and it has been the best and most polished feature you have ever brought out.
Finishing remarks
Right now the game is in a rut, I don’t think that is up for discussion. It is natural for a 3 year old game, mobile at that, to lose players over time. But I still believe that you, Scopley, have the bones of a game that could live on for a long time. But you need to treat it a bit more as a game than as moneymaker. It can be both, and it can be successful at both. Make it fun again, that’s what games are about, entertainment. There has to be things that are hard or almost impossible to get, but it just can’t be every aspect of the game. You said you wanted to look at reducing the low quality screen time, and then added RTA. I hope you can see how that makes us have trust issues. I know this post isn’t perfect in any way, and I am very well aware that it might not change a thing. But I do hope that will, I really really do. If you made it all the way to the end, then thank you for reading it all, or at least skimming the points that you feel are the most important. And please, again, lets have a civil discussion about the issues we as players feel. And remember that even if we feel something is wrong, it might not actually be wrong for the game.
My blissful, hilarious and wacky financial journey…. I hope you all learn something THE FIRST 10 YEARS OF MY LIFE I learn how to sell, how to read and write. I play money a lot. And I enjoy it. Play selling and teaching too. Enjoyed them all. I lost my dad and I hate my mom. She did a lot of mean things to him based on her stories. I hate her for doing that to him. She is mean. I discover that writing can always help me. Like I have a best friend. I know there is God. I hate to be poor. I am so ashamed of it. I feel guilty asking for money for the things that I like. Mudra made me feel this way. Her message is we are poor. I cannot have money. Some were spoken. Some were not. I made kupit from mom's box of money. The excess from the kupit, I throw beneath the sleeping place. I do not like who I am. I formed a belief that I am not worthy, I am dirty. I know I am also kind and smart. THE NEXT 10 YEARS (11-20) I know what I want. A happy family, wealth, and being somebody. I want to measure up, to belong. I know I am not deserving of anyone. Nobody will love me. My male playmates did something they should not do that made me feel this way. I read a lot. I enjoy it. Magazines, stories. I want to help my mom and my sisters. I finished college. At 20, I had my first and last boyfriend. Got married. THE NEXT 10 YEARS (21-30) At 21, I gave birth to my first son, at 23 to my second child, a baby girl, at 25 to my 3rd child, a girl again, and at 28 to my 4th child, another girl. All through a C- Section. You can imagine how much it cost that the last girl had to be in a public hospital where you have to buy your things from gloves to anesthesia and everything. Libre nga lang dr at the hospital! At 22, live on our own, me the hubby and the first child. Plain housewife. At 24, the hubby lost the job with 2 kids around. Life happens. Prepare. Learn a lot from other people who had the same story. Started incurring debts. Move into parents with 3 kids, move out, and accumulated lots of debts, starting this and that (business). For those who lost a job. My first advice is to get one. If you do not have ipon do not loan to start a business. And even if you have ipon, do not gamble it on starting a business you hardly knew about. Learn first. Make money from your high paying skills. I read a lot. Enough to inspired me. We joined a community as couple. A big help in passing through the early test of married life. THE NEXT 10 YEARS (30-40) At 32, I gave birth to my youngest son. Last na to!!! I go back to my profession. Work in the hospital as a nurse for 3 years. Still accumulating debts. Change job from being a staff nurse, to becoming a clinical instructor. Teaching this time. A lot bigger salaries but still not enough to raise 5 kids, in elementary and hs and one in college. Renting home. Our 9th move in since the time we got married. I learn the value of giving tithes and had my income doubles and triples in the next few years. From 8,000 working as a staff nurse to 48,000 teachings on nursing students and hundreds of thousands to millions in the next years to come. AT 40 – TILL 49 I sell real estate. I leave work at school teaching nursing students. I bought my own home. I have a happy family. Sometimes not so happy. We bought a second-hand car. I started investing in stocks, equities, and real estate. I encouraged my OFW sister to learn about stock investing. She listens. She now has more than a million portfolio. Thanks God she did. She is now buying her fifth real estate, 3 in the Philippines, 2 in Italy. I am now starting to teach the younger one, an OFW also. A bit emotista than the other one. They were both married living abroad with their families. They both have a son. Also at 40, I earned my first millions but still creating a lot of debts. I can only pay a few I bought life insurance for one year and St. Peter then blows it all up. I was not able to continue paying the following years. I screwed up. I almost lost everything. The only one left was the house we currently live in. It is fully paid. I have very bad records on lending institutions, cooperatives, and the likes. My credit score is soooo bad. Here’s what I found out. I started debiting for the fear of not having enough. When I was able to work out on those fears there’s more. The guilt. I need to feel guilty making money. My lesson takes away- money will make more of what we keep inside. If you are afraid before the money, more money will make you more fearful. Work on the inside first. I hated my mom and repeated her cycle of debting. By the way, it took time before I realized this. She is more than 12 years gone now. Don’t get me wrong. I deal with my issues with her and I am eternally grateful for having her as my mom. Our strongest emotion moves us unknowingly. Both the pleasant and the unpleasant. I lost my eldest son (damn heartbreaking and financially draining. Memorial lots etc.. but the pain is the worst. Life happens again. Prepare. I don’t know-how. Read Tuesdays with Morrie. I’m glad I did before I lost my son. I published a book and started a blog. I sent to college 3 of my daughters. All working now. I sell all my stock investments to my eldest daughter. We started a business. 3 of my children are on their way to starting their financial journey. I am starting again, done with the inside. I have money now every month coming from the board and lodging fees I am charging with my three working girls. They are still living with us. I’m nauseous thinking about the roller coaster ride I went through on my finances. I hope you all learn. NOW AT 50? I COULD HAVE MADE A LOT OF WEALTH HAD I GOTTEN MY SHIT TOGETHER EARLIER IN LIFE. Back to real estate again, the love of my life. Got some very good deals. Done with emotional intelligence. Writing. An international publisher takes notice of my book. Doing some allotment for marketing expenses. Figuring out which life insurance to buy. The financial nightmare I’ve been through made most of my blood chemistry high. Those were some of the things I accumulated over the years of stress! Cholesterol, Increase BP, etc. So I have to buy my life insurance today in case I depart pre-maturely. I’ll have something to leave for my youngest who is still in Senior High today. Knock on woods. I'm drinking malunggay tea everyday and walking! I write my financial plan some 18 years ago, which I never follow. You can guess what I am doing now. More stories later. Most of you are very lucky. You are learning early. Good luck everyone. PS…...(a day after I made this post) I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I never thought my financial story would create this kind of engagement from all of you, truly grateful. I promise to answer all your insightful questions in my upcoming post here. And for those who would like to read more of my stuff. just visit my blog. https://thehappyoikos.com/ You see your old dog here is a bit running out of time. I’m turning 50 remember? So I decided to only do the things that truly matter to me moment by moment, well don’t worry because that includes writing and making people happy. So you can expect to read a post that will answer your query. Thank you again, everyone!! Sending you all my love and hugs! Aui V.
Debrief From My Third Annual 100 Hearts in 30 Days Challenge. (127!).
Hi, I’m sharing data from my recent 30-day a20 heart kill challenge. I was able to kill 127 hearts in 212 runs, a substantial increase both in total hearts killed (previous best was 102) and winrate (don’t remember previous but it wasn’t very close to 60%). This is my third time attempting the challenge. It’s mostly just a ton of fun. It isn’t intended to be a competitive category and I’m sure that it’s possible to go much higher still, especially with strategies that sacrifice winrate, for example forfeiting at the end of bad act ones. Runs are played rotating through characters. I started on Ironclad and ended on Watcher. These runs can mostly be interpreted as me trying to win as often as possible, with the obvious caveats that I’m also trying to complete runs in <1.5 hours and playing 8+ hours a day without a day off for 30 days. Quite a few runs in the dataset were lost to simple calculation errors because my brain was melting, or to not pursuing lines which would trade time for marginal advantages like a better number on Ink Bottle. On a more macro level I tended slightly toward taking high-risk/high-reward lines in runs which were falling behind in order to either get them over with or give myself a higher chance of winning if I continued - stuff like taking more Act 2 Elite fights, fighting Double Orb Walkers, etc. - I don’t think this had a large effect on my winrate (mostly I did this in spots where both options seemed very close in value anyway) but it’s worth noting because it is different from how I’d play when trying to purely maximize my chance to win. You also may want to ignore the runs where I bought Prismatic Shard or took early Signature Move and tried to kill every enemy with it if you’re interested in analyzing “serious” play xD. But I think there are only three of those or something like that. I have been known to meme a little at times. Link to Folder of Run Histories Link to IMGUR album of in-game Run History screens Overall thoughts on the attempt: It took me a while to switch into 1.5-hour run mode. I’d been playing 2-3hr runs for the last 4 months, and the first few days involved a LOT of calculation errors and turns where I spent a long time looking for very specific lines, which works if I’m giving myself a comfortable amount of time to play but fails when I’m time-crunching myself. There were turns where - for example - I’d look for lethal for five minutes when it was immediately obvious that I could just full block and kill next turn, or spend five minutes trying to work out a good reshuffle that was only ~5% likely to be doable to begin with, and spending mental energy on these lines compounded into making mistakes when I didn’t make time to spend mental energy on the things which were more generally important in the run. To give you a numerical idea, I started the challenge 39w-41l over the first 80 runs. Variance definitely exists in a dataset of that size, but that is a LOT worse than how well I was doing once I settled in. Once I dialed in I started doing much better. Especially in the middle of the challenge, lines felt effortless to find and maximizing the minutiae of the game (Ink Bottle on right number types of things) was often automatic. I also started to vibe very well with the limits of each run - there were very few runs where I was dying to elites I could have avoided, or building decks which ultimately couldn’t handle the late-game boss gauntlet. Some of the wins in this period were VERY good wins which I’d be proud to have played even in a non-challenge settings. I managed 52w-26l rotating during this period, including holding 75% winrate for 50+ runs, an 11-0 rotating winstreak (new world record at the time - congrats to Baalor and Terrence, who managed 11-0 and 13-0 respectively later in the same week! Completely insane!, and to CrimsonBlur who managed 10-0 last year on a much harder patch), a 12-0/18-1 Watcher streak (new personal best), and a 9-0 Defect streak (one run short of my previous best from late last year). My Silent and Ironclad did quite well here too. I’ve had moments when I’ve been sharper on calculations or more dialed in on specific characters, but in terms of overall rotating play this is the best period of play I’ve ever managed. Then there was the decline. Turns out doing this involves some mental fatigue. I put a ton of my remaining mental energy into my 11-0 winstreak and never got back to full. I closed out the challenge with 23w-17l, including MANY losses to extremely simple mistakes. Things like not resting before an elite when it was very obvious I was taking 30+ against Gremlin Nob, or entering Wrath with no way to leave it on the turn before the Heart attacked me. What was most interesting to me during this final “exhaustion” period was how many runs I lost on Defect and Watcher to misevaluating my deck’s ability to perform in important fights. I don’t usually have to think at all to be able to have a good idea of whether my deck can win a fight like Book of Stabbing or Time Eater, but at this point in the challenge I was often getting things like that completely wrong, or my brain just wasn’t even registering that it needed to consider them. These mistakes were accompanied by building some quite bad decks which leaned heavily into trying to do things that weren’t actually good enough to overcome the challenges they faced, and an uptick in calculation errors didn’t help at all. I finished the challenge VERY tired but very glad to have committed to it. One of the most enjoyable months of my life, and there were times in there where Slaying the Spire felt like seeing the Matrix. I can’t wait to do it again. Ironclad-specific thoughts (25w-28l): I was 15-5 over my last 20 with Ironclad before the challenge and was expecting to win a lot with him, but I ran poorly and played poorly for a lot of the challenge. Probably the simplest way to describe it would be that I had a string of runs with poor Act 1’s, which led to me overcompensating and putting too much stuff into my deck for Act 1 and Act 2. Then I died a lot to Act 3 and 4, whoops. I adjusted properly for the middle of the challenge, then fell off a cliff when I started getting exhausted. I think the fact that he got played after Watcher runs, which are often calculation-heavy and also which often impose a sense of invincibility on the player, didn’t help much. I relic-swapped the vast majority of these runs, which I found to be less good than it used to be with the buffs to self-damage synergies. Toward the end of the challenge I was only relic-swapping if there wasn’t a very good other option. I still find that Ironclad performs very well on 4 energy, but it’s rough that his character-specific relics aren’t great and that the sustain from his regular starter relic matters a bit more now that Rupture and Hemokinesis are so much better, since you're often taking extra damage in hallway fights in order to have extra power in boss fights. Most of my Ironclad wins are built on strong Act 1 relics and boss relics. His synergies mostly don’t feel strong enough to win on their own, unless you assemble a Corruption or Barricade exodia and/or get multiple Offerings to get everything online. It’s hard to draw cards with him to accelerate your deck, and it’s hard to deal damage without taking damage and hard to block while achieving anything else. It also lowkey tilts me that several of his best cards don’t get better in multiples. If Defect gets offered a second Echo Form it massively improves the deck, but if Ironclad gets offered a second Corruption or Barricade it’s like… maybe you take it to get it in play earlier, sure, but it definitely doesn’t let you play your first three cards twice every turn. General advice: just get Snecko Eye and Corruption every run, ideally with Reaper and Feed alongside. Failing that, the best ways to combine damage and survivability are usually going to be Strength + Reaper with some passable Block cards and good Max HP or Block + Anything; Body Slam isn’t the be-all end-all here, if you have the ability to survive turns with copies of Shrug It Off+ and Exhaust + Feel No Pain you have enough time to kill enemies with a variety of things. Silent-specific thoughts (34w-19l): Not a fan of the Blade Dance buff. Prior to it Silent was possibly my favorite character. The tension between generally needing attack-based damage to survive Act 2 but having difficulty scaling it enough to defeat the endgame gauntlet often led to runs where every floor felt challenging (with the exception of Wraith Form runs. Imagine having a card just make the player invincible for >50% of the game). Now it feels generally easy to not only demolish Act 1 and 2 with attacks, but also scale them into a lategame deck. By the end of the challenge I was building a deck around an attack-generating common that I sometimes hadn’t even gotten one of yet instead of picking Crippling Cloud+’s I was offered, which was not a good feeling at all. I don’t think there’s ever been a common that dominated a character’s strategic space this heavily before. Keep in mind that this is alongside other buffs as well. It used to be that a deck that dealt damage with a lot of attacks needed creative solutions to Time Eater and the Heart and stomped everything else, but now it’s often the case that it just stomps everything full-stop. It doesn’t help that Silent’s starter relic plus Acrobatics and Calculated Gamble were already so strong at accelerating. Now you can play your attack common on turn 1 and discard four Shivs to draw four more cards toward your copies of Adrenaline and Footwork etc., so not only does it deal 16 for 1, count as five cards for Ink Bottle, play four attacks for Shuriken, and have the ability to be targeted at separate enemies, but it can also combine with a strong Uncommon to be Skim+. This is too strong :/. General advice: Take enough damage cards/relics to kill things and then make sure you can survive 40 incoming damage on the turns you need to - relics and potions are sometimes all you need, but damage options are also so strong that you can get away with dedicating a significant portion of your deck to mitigation. Also: don’t Relic swap unless the other options are incredibly bad. Bag of Preparation is insanely good and with this character you can get two. Defect-specific thoughts (29w-24l): Defect is a beautiful character right now and often provided the most entertaining run of the day. The general yin-yang pull of needing to be able to survive vicious fights in Act 2 and 3 but also needing to be able to scale into a deck that beats the lategame gauntlet compartmentalizes into lots of interesting decisions about when it’s okay to add so-so orb-scaling cards to your deck, and how exactly you’re going to throw together a combination of 25 atrocious attack cards, Ball Lightning, Doom and Gloom, and Electrodynamics to deal damage to things. (My advice is to just get offered Ball Lightning, Doom and Gloom, and Electrodynamics so you don’t have to think too hard. Static Discharge does okay sometimes too). I love the way runs “typically” revolve around fairly normal attack-based clears of low-hp enemies into fairly normal block-scaling to survive lategame fights long enough to kill them however you’d like, but sometimes completely go off the rails. I got to play a ridiculous 3x Hyperbeam/3x Meteor Strike run (without Snecko Eye), for example. I also love being offered Stack. Hello World + Stack scaling led to a couple of other immensely enjoyable wins. It’s very funny to me to have a Defragment+ and Glacier in my deck, be thinking “oh yeah, I have premium uncommons that block super well!”, and then be offered Stack and be forced to admit that an unupgraded common usually blocks better than they do. I think Defect is the best-positioned character in terms of Whale Bonus balance right now. I’ve found it to generally be correct to relic swap unless there is a very strong alternative or a path which allows me to get a lot of value out of my Lightning Orb. General advice: Kill early and midgame stuff with whatever option gets in the way of your lategame scaling least. Compile Driver and Sweeping Beam draw cards, Electrodynamics and Static Discharge remove themselves from your deck (also Static is OP with Frost Orbs against multiattacks), Ball Lightning and Doom and Gloom are 2+ attacks worth of damage in one card, etc. Then make sure you scale and can accelerate into that scaling. Fission, Seek, Skim+, Turbo+, Bag of Preparation, Bottles, etc. to get your deck to a point where it’s outputting 40+ block per turn and the run is over. Watcher-specific thoughts (39w-14l): The great thing about Watcher is that almost every run you lose is entirely your fault. Probably somewhere between one and three of these runs were lost to an unlucky result of close-to-correct play, and every other one was me building my deck wrong for a fight, piloting it wrong, picking the wrong potion or relic, etc. I haven’t generally enjoyed Watcher in the past, and have mostly not been playing her for the last year (or when I have I’ve been occasionally forfeiting Act 3 because I’m bored of clicking on Cut Through Fate and Tantrum over and over again), so I felt like I actually learned a significant amount about the character in this challenge. My general Watcher-heuristics right now are: Pretty much every type of synergy draws cards, makes block, and some of them even make energy, so it’s fine to have lots of different synergies in the same deck as long as they aren’t too awkward to get rolling. If you just take the best card offered to you every time you should still easily be winning 70+% of your runs. Getting better at Watcher seems to largely be about first realizing that Talk to the Hand, Mental Fortress, Tantrum, and Rushdown are obscenely overpowered, and then realizing the ways in which every single other card is obscenely overpowered as well. (Except Pressure Points, lol). Hexaghost can kill you if you don’t take enough damage cards, Act 2 Elites can kill you if you don’t have enough health banked for them or didn't take attacks properly, Time Eater can kill you if your deck is very bad at dealing damage or very bad at blocking, and the Heart can kill you on turn 2 or 3 if you are bad at accelerating your synergies. Other than that it’s unclear that Watcher can ever die unless you click the cards wrong or get incredibly incredibly incredibly unlucky AND don't have potions available to compensate for it. I actually quite enjoyed Watcher this challenge and look forward to playing her more. The lategame gauntlets were sometimes a lot more interesting than I thought they would be, with my win to go 10-0 in my 11-0 streak being one of the coolest Heart fights I’ve ever played. It’s just a bit unfortunate that like, her cards are so strong that I take Pandora’s Box over anything, the most interesting thing about most fights she plays is working out how to Lesson Learned with Ink Bottle on the right number, and the times that you do legitimately lose are to ridiculous things like drawing three copies of Omniscience in your opening hand. (And that she’s so strong that you find yourself questioning if that was your fault and you should’ve not taken the third Omniscience so that this couldn’t happen when that happens to you). I personally tended to avoid Boss Relic swap on her because it didn't seem like I needed four energy to win anyway, and the upsides that the Boss Relics turn off often seemed more impactful than the bonuses they were providing, but you can certainly win almost every run with her by Relic swapping too. Overall Takeaways: The game is a bit easier than I’d like right now. It seems hard for the devs to add more ascensions, but balance is starting to break a bit at a20 and I hope they go very easy on the buffs in the future. The Blade Dance buff was a massive correction to a problem that I don’t think was actually a problem. I don’t like that Boss Relics are so strong that trading Boss Relic is a common start, and don’t like that the cardpools have gotten so strong that Transforming cards is generally correct. Balancing such that high-variance options are correct leads to an increase in the frequency of runs where the balance breaks very quickly. I'd personally prefer if these options were usually slightly -ev, so that they were available for runs where you needed a chance to highroll but incorrect the rest of the time. Last challenge I felt like I was engaged ~80% of the time, with ~10% of the time I was unengaged being because the run was completely won already and ~10% of the time I was unengaged being because the run was almost certainly lost and I was treading water until something killed me. This time those numbers were more like 75/20/5. Game is very very good though, and I hope you enjoy this set of runs if you decide to check them out! <3, jorbs
EDIT: the post has been re-activated on stocks please comment there as it has the most traffic so I’m not jumping back and forth trying to respond. Appreciate everyone! GME Short Squeeze What Comes Next Part 3 Hello all, Before I begin I would like to address something I have been encountering on my posts in the comments section. I keep receiving some hate concerning my opinions and I want to be crystal clear that they are just that; opinions. I also want everyone to know that is is meant to be a dialog. I am not trying to pump this stock because truthfully, this goes far beyond us retail investors at this point. What I want is a dialog between all sides to examine this truly fascinating phenomenon that is occurring. I would also like to clarify something, I am not a bagholder. I do currently hold bags because I own 336 shares at a $194.34 cost basis, however, that total amount is house money that was used from my profits on the first go around. I also understand some people are tired of hearing about this because it's the same regurgitated form of someone else's post as it keeps circulating in an attempt to retain hype and drive future buying; this is not what this post is about. As investors and individuals involved in the world of finance, this situation should absolutely intrigue us whether or not we are involved. I am here to present my logic on the situation but encourage healthy discussion and debate. This brings me to my first claim. This is not over. Now, I am not claiming that a squeeze will still occur, I am simply claiming it is not over, for better or for worse. Several things need to take place for this to be completely over, at which point I will either post my gains or my losses from the adventure. When I say "it" I am referring to this entire phenomenon, not one short squeeze. I do not think these events, "it", is over. This is largely due to retail and institutional purchasing not really changing all that much since we found the bottom and established support at a staggering $60. This support was lost today and found new support at $50. There was very interesting ATH action and I'm not sure what to make of it. Millions of bag holders (not just WSB) are still holding and in fact, averaging down, thereby purchasing more. These same bag holders are absolutely refusing to sell for such massive losses and in turn are becoming long term investors on the stock if another squeeze isn't to occur. People are picking up speculative positions in the off-chance of another squeeze. Others are determining this as a fair value for the company, not fundamentally, but based on the future prospects of Ryan Cohen and team. Finally, it is nowhere near leaving the global stage with important upcoming dates that we will discuss later. To examine why it isn't over let's look at both sides of the argument:
Bulls claim it's not over for many reasons that you can find in the hundreds of other bullish posts, so I won't bore you with those details. My argument on the bull side is more along the lines of what I listed above.
Bears claim it is over because there was a 2250% price increase over the course of two weeks, therefore this must be a short squeeze.
I think we can all agree, bear or bull, that something happened. A 2250% increase certainly isn't nothing. The question is...what? I see several possibilities and would like to discuss them in the comments.
The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze.
The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze, but the price increase was mainly hype and gamma squeezes.
The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes.
Some combination of the above 3.
First, the data: Based on morningstar the short interest is showing 78.46%. Now, I think the website is having some issues storing cookies because it will show the outdated 226% unless you open it up in incognito. Market watch is showing 41.95% This spread is interesting for sure, my thoughts are some of these calculations are including "synthetic longs" introduced by S3. It is extremely possible to manipulate these numbers via illegal methods and even legal methods using options. Please see this SEC document to explain how this would work. I am not trying to convince anyone to fit my narrative, but these things occur far more commonly than one would expect. The reasoning is because the fines for committing the crime are far less costly than letting the event take place. Please see FINRA's website for the long, and frequent list of fines being dealt out due to manipulation. A common culprit? Lying about short volume. Let's use the absolute worst case scenario being reported of 41.95%, which mind you is still extremely high for one stock: The shorts in fact covered and this was a short squeeze What's interesting here is even if the shorts 100% covered all of their positions, they very well could have shorted on the way back down. Why wouldn't you? It would be insane to not open a short position when this hit nearly $500 especially if you lost half of your companies money; what better way to get it back? For the remainder of this thesis, I will be assuming that some of the short positions that exist are newly opened positions at a higher price unless someone has a counter-claim as to why that wouldn't be possible/probable. That would mean 226% was covered on the way up and another 41.95% was reopened on the way back down. Based on the volume and price changes throughout the past two weeks this simply doesn't pass the math check. The shorts partially covered and this was a partial short squeeze. Again, using 41.95% this is highly likely and the most reasonable case. Some, probably the worst positions, were covered on the way up. I think this is precisely what happened, we had some partial shorts covering but for the most part it was gamma squeezes, hype, and FOMO whereby the price started climbing so rapidly it became smarter for the shorts to just wait out the bubble than to actually cover all of their positions. Again, we fall into a "what-if" scenario regarding shorting on the way back down. The shorts didn't cover anything and this was a globally hyped price increase in conjunction with several gamma squeezes. This scenario does not pass the math check using the 41.95% figure. If the data is being manipulated then this becomes very interesting because if some of the worst positions are still open then that means all of these HF's losses that were reported were strictly interest and they are simply waiting this out for as long as it takes making back their losses on their newly opened short positions in t $300-$400 range. Sadly, this puts us in the guessing range yet again. We can do the math and see it's possible this scenario exists, however, we would be comparing it against losses reported by the entities that were being squeezed. There are way to many what-if's for me to me consider this a possibility, but I can't write it off completely. Some combination of the above 3. Truthfully, this isn't worth examining just yet. There would be far to many "what-if's" to address, this is something that could be address at the later dates that we will get to shortly. Now, I've heard it a lot regarding the 02/09 data. "It's two weeks old". Well, that is always the case. The FINRA short data is always two weeks old and suggesting that we can't pull any information from it at all is asinine. Where it gets quite murky, is the data includes 01/27 information. This was a day unlike any other in this saga. I will take this moment to address the following upcoming catalysts and when I truly think this will be done; one way or the other. Today's data 02/09, was very important because if it showed an extremely low percentage then we know shorts have exited and did not re-enter and this is completely done. Given the data does not reflect that, we now must turn to several events that could act as catalysts for either a further squeeze or a complete shutdown. 02/15ish - In my last post, I discussed the Failure To Deliver (FTD) conundrum. I do need some help figuring out the exact expiration date. From here "The close-out requirement states that a participant of a clearing agency needs to take immediate action to close 4 out a fail to deliver position in a threshold security that has persisted for 13 consecutive settlement days by purchasing securities of like kind and quantity." I am missing two pieces of information to answer this.
Does the 13 day countdown begin after T+2, or are those two days counted in the total number?
Are settlement days business days only?
Depending on the above information, starting at 01/29 we are looking at these possibilities:
If T+2 is not included and weekends are: 02/15
If T+2 is not included and its business days only: 02/19
If T+2 is included and weekends are: 02/13 (Saturday)
If T+2 is included and its business days: 02/17
The exact date is slightly irrelevant because I highly doubt all of these FTD's are going to deliver on the same exact day. This site, while it isn't an official channel seems to be doing a good job of tracking data. If you want to learn more about FTD's and the implications there please visit that site or review my last post which has links to follow for further reading. 02/18 - Keith Gill aka u/DeepFuckingValue will testify before congress and Robinhood CEO Vladimir will be attending. This can go several ways which can lead to an SEC trading halt on GameStop or with evidence that proves foul play occurred. Who knows? It will certainly be interesting and I don't even to speculate on the market reaction to this even because it could go a ton of different ways; it will be an important date nonetheless 02/24 - The next FINRA short interest information will be made readily available to the public. This will be far more interesting and helpful information because it won't include the insane volatility of January, but it will also highlight the newest short positions. This data will help further drive where I think this is all going to end. It's possible that shorts opened new positions at $50 thinking it was going back to $12. Let's not speculate too much here either, it's just another dataset that will bring light to the direction this is headed. 03/25 - GameStop ER. This is big too for several reasons. First, this will include the console sales cycle which historically has done well for GameStop. A typical buy the hype, sell the news event. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts leading up to this ER, maybe people won't even touch GME leading up to then due to the recent volatility, but if they do, and if there is still a lot of short interest, this too could force shorts to begin covering. Another critical part of this ER is Ryan Cohen. This will be the first time this new board addresses the public with their plans for the future and for the first time since this entire adventure began, the "dying brick and mortar" narrative will finally begin to change in the public eye. That is still the common misconception regarding GameStop, that it is a dying brick and mortar retailer where nothing has changed. This hasn't been the case for around 6 months now, but this will be the first time it is publicly address. The headlines surrounding GameStop's future plans will be very interesting to read and the markets reaction will be far more interesting. I have been asked a lot what my PT is and when I expect the squeeze to happen, but let me be clear. Very seldom do squeezes "just happen". In fact, short squeezes are far more common than one would think, they just typically happen over months, if not years and the shorts cover on dips so you don't even notice it's happening. In order to force a squeeze, you need to hold a decent amount of shorts underwater. Soon one will crack and start closing their position, this leads to a series of shorts closing their positions skyrocketing the price until more and more shorts need to cover. This is rare. I hope this narrative of purchasing heavily shorted companies comes to a close soon because a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money simply buying up companies because they are heavily bet against. Catalysts and massive changes need to occur like overhauling your entire business as is the case with GameStop. Normally, shorts will close their positions one at a time, covering on dips and you don't even notice it's happening. In times where you see a price rise of seemingly no news could very well be shorts closing their positions because their research led them to realize this company is on the road to recovery. I digress. Given the most recent data and the multiple upcoming catalysts I am still very bullish on a GME short squeeze. My post from quite some time ago illustrated the importance of catalysts regarding a short squeeze, this is still very much the case. The first run was interrupted and the second run won't happen with magic, it requires a catalyst. Another post was titled For those who do not understand the inevitable GME short squeeze, was at the time "inevitable" because math. That is no longer the case. It is no longer inevitable but it is still possible. I want to be clear: This is not nearly as close to a sure thing as it once was and it depends on a lot of different factors. One of the largest is the people. Granted, a lot of what's happening now is in the hands of institutions but millions of retailers holding their positions to the grave certainly helps the institutional buyers have more faith in their play to continue a squeeze. SO WHAT DO I THINK I think shorts certainly covered some of their positions, but not all. I also firmly believe a significant amount of short positions were opened on the way back down by both HF's and individuals. Some certainly positioned high, but based on sentiment, it appears a lot of people think GME is fairly valued around $20 (which I disagree with but let's use that for the time being). That would mean shorts would have no problem opening positions at 100,70,60, even $50. 42% is still very high which means a squeeze is inevitable so long as the company continues in a positive path. However, squeezes typically aren't as abrupt as people think. They are actually quite common, in fact another position I'm heavily invested in is SPCE and they have been going through a squeeze for several weeks and will continue to squeeze so long as news continues to be positive. How would we get an abrupt short squeeze? A massive bull run. The new shorts that entered at lower levels wouldn't be too hard to catch, however, they are probably low volume, so when they buy to close, it won't be large enough volumes for massive peaks, but a bull run very well could lead to these lower tiered shorts closing, triggering a gamma squeeze. If gamma squeezes are made week over week then shorts at the higher end would have two options:
Close early and take profits
Wait it out because they are positioned so well that interest means nothing and they don't think there is any hope of us rising to those levels.
In the first case, them closing early would be a nice short squeeze to probably several hundred dollars, but it wouldn't break $1000. To break $1000 we would need a big bull run to catch the shorts, trigger gamma squeezes, and keep momentum until they are caught and underwater. This is highly unlikely unless there is another global sentiment. NOTE: ALL OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS I AM MAKING ARE BASED ON THE 42% REPORTING. IF IT IS IN FACT 78% THEN THE POSSIBILITY IS TREMENDOUSLY INCREASED FOR THESE THINGS TO HAPPEN. SO WHEN DOES IT ALL END My though is if by the end of March these catalysts were not enough to reignite the hype and squeeze, then it will essentially be over except in the case of a few circumstances:
A VW/Porche moment occurs where a large buyer picks up a large portion of the company.
Some other currently unknown catalyst appears seemingly out of thin air
The data was in fact manipulated. Regardless of what the data says, if the shorts did in fact lie about their short int to take the fine over being squeezed, then they will be squeezed regardless.
It is quite possible, that these catalysts and moments aren't enough to force a squeeze anymore especially if the shorts have repositioned really well. I will retain the mindset that this fateful January 2021 was not a short squeeze. However, that does not mean it will ever actually happen. SO WHAT IS YOUR PLAY HOOMAN? Well, I am long on GME which is why I didn't mind hopping back in even at outrageous prices. I will continue averaging down and don't plan on selling for quite some time, probably several years. The reason for this is I believe in Cohen and his team to turn this into something unexpected and I imagine an eventual ROI. Once this is all said and done and I think either the shorts truly have covered or they simply got away with it (Mid March-ish), I will be posting my DD for GME as a long play regardless of the squeeze mechanics. Thank you all for joining me on this wild journey. I hope we can discuss some of these points in the comments like adults and truly try to grasp this wild situation we are all in. There are extremes on both sides from "get over it, the squeeze happened" to a cult like mentality on the other extreme. I hope through discussion we can find the moderate approach and further understand the market mechanics at play. Thanks for your time WARNING: Until the squeeze business is over for good, this is a very volatile and risky play. Joining now for the hope of a potential round 2 squeeze should only be done in a speculative manner with money you are willing to lose. This is more akin to a gamble than it is investing. I think the current market price is fair given the future prospects of the company but do your own DD, I will not be releasing any until this squeeze is put to rest. TL;DR: I am still bullish on this scenario even at 42%, if it really is 78% then I am extremely bullish. There are a plethora of upcoming catalysts that could reignite the squeeze but even if none are powerful enough, with Cohen's new direction we could expect good news for quite some time forcing shorts to exit on a more spread out timeline. Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I do not wish to sway your opinion in either direction. I simply seek to examine this interesting and volatile situation via crowd sourcing. What you do with your money is entirely up to you.
States Where You Can Gamble at 18+ And Up. There are a number of states that legally allow casinos to offer their services to players who are 18 and over. As mentioned above, within this list of states, there are varying policies and regulations tied to the 18+ casino gambling laws. For instance - your casino allows 18 year olds, but your state requires you to be 21. That means you cannot join unless you are 21, as per your state's regulations. On the other hand, if your state will allow 18 year olds but that particular gambling site requires you to be 21, you will have to be 21 - regardless of your state's requirements. Indian casinos are the best you'll get to gamble at 18...best way to find out is to call and ask if they have a bar at the casino. If they do, odds are, it's 21 and over. The non-alcohol serving... In most states you have to be either 18 or 21 to gamble for real money. Today there are 22 states where 18-year olds can legally gamble and 35 which only allow 21+. To gamble in the Bahamas, you must be at least 18 years old (although by law you must be 21 years old). The same goes for ordering and drinking alcohol so you can get the most from your time there. The atmosphere in this place is amazing, with people coming from across the world to try out this gorgeous location. Minimum Age to Gamble in United States of America Below you will find the minimum legal age to gamble in various locations around the U.S., Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. In the 50 American states, some times you'll see a variance, this usually is due to Indian casinos having different age requirements in their casinos than state regulated casinos. If you are 18, you may be able to gamble in your state, so you will have to check your local and state laws before you try to engage in any form of betting. Each online gambling site also has its own choice to determine if you can gamble online at age 18. Some USA Online Casinos, such as Cherry Red, take a strict 21+ only rule. Yes, there are casinos in which you can legally gamble at 18. It depends on the individual state laws. Almost all state controlled casinos require you to be 21 years old, Native American casinos 18-year-olds do have access to casino games such as poker and blackjack. Minnesota: Tolerant of most forms of gambling including sports betting, horse racing, and tribal gaming. Poker can be played from small stakes ($200 or less). 18-year-olds can access the same casino games as 21-year-olds.
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