I'm no fan of the current administration, but this particular loss seems to be a failing of military strategy and leadership, not civilian ineptitude. It's not like the Whitehouse would have picked this staging area or directly controlled other logistics involved.
Seriously. The only way to use it is to be a very religious person. You have to pray every single time you use it that your system doesn't become compromised.
I'm not missing it at all. Whatever the damn price is (of course it fluctuates) the only way you can make a bet that the price will go down further, is if someone else thinks it's going to go up. Therefore for every single short, WHATEVER THE PRICE, there's an exact same amount of optimism and pessimism. It's the only way a sale is made.
So you can focus on the pessimism if you want. But the point you're missing, is it's exactly offset by an equal amount of optimism (based on that price). One side is betting it will go down further, the other side is betting it will go up.
It turns out there's soon going to be a 20% to 30% increase in the number of stocks available to be traded, and people are betting that those holders will cash out now that they're vesting. So this is all more about market factors than intrinsic company fundamentals anyway.
But people want to always focus on the negative, and get too hung up on the fluctuations of a stock price like it's a message from God or something.
Anyway, it's been enjoyable talking with you and others, it seems we're not going to have a meeting of the minds on this one.
There is pleasure in completing things. In actually producing something, and moving on to the next thing. It isn't enjoyable to have paralysis by analysis... too afraid to take the next step, because you have less than perfect information. In the pathological case (since we never really have perfect information), there are people who never get anything done.
> What you're essentially saying is that "every gallon of milk is sold to a person". This is not useful information.
Only because you're ignoring the other option, that the gallon of milk DIDN'T sell. It tells you that there was demand for the milk you had to sell. If there was no customer, the milk would have spoiled. There are still people who want to drink milk. There are still people who believe you're not selling poison, that milk is a worthy thing to buy from you. That is useful information.
> And every (short) sale is proof that the market thinks it's a bad investment at that price, which logically nullifies your point.
No it doesn't. It's the flip side of the one you want to focus on, and all i've been saying is that it's not the ONLY side. If it nullifies my point, it also nullifies yours. They cancel EACH OTHER out.
> There isn't infinite liquidity at every price point.
Sure, but so what? That is true of literally every product sold. The price isn't zero, so there is enough liquidity to cover every short that was actually sold. You've already admitted to that. The fact that the price goes down, (and can sometimes move back up) is immaterial.
No, you're just working very hard to miss the point. Nobody can place the pessimistic bet, unless there is someone equally optimistic in the other direction. The fact that you're fixated on the price varying as each side attempts to do the best it can is just a commitment to a narrative, not a useful insight.
Here's the simple way to know you're wrong. The stock price isn't zero. That means there people willing (at some price) to put their money where their mouth is, that the people betting against the stock at that price are wrong.
But at that point they're both just making bets.. all it says is that there are an equal number of dollars willing to gamble at that price point. It says nothing about which side of the gamble will win.
Shorts don't exist in a vacuum. They literally can't be made, unless there was someone in the market who thinks that at the short price, the stock is a good investment opportunity. Every trade is proof that the market thinks the stock is a good investment at that price. I don't know why you have such a hard time facing up to that fact, even after you admit it is one.
People respond to market forces. When they see that there are other people making irrational valuations, they may wait to buy even lower. It's not a judgment about the intrinsic value of the stock at the current price, but of opportunities in the market.
It's still a hard fact that for every single trade, there is someone as fully optimistic, to perfectly match the pessimistic side. And people have to be pretty committed to a narrative to deny that fact.
Yes, stocks go up and down; hardly revelatory. The point, regardless of the imprecise wording of my alternate title, remains. There are people who think they are getting a valuable investment, at the price short-sellers are willing to sell at. There's just as much optimism as pessimism about the stock, at that price. And that's my complaint about the title, it wants to only highlight one side of the trade -- for narrative reasons.
I never intended to imply that the law of supply and demand was nullified.
And I didn't say that the price was unaffected, just that there is as much money
thinking they're getting a valuable long term investment, as there is as money
shorting the stock.
It has nothing to do with the shares being borrowed. That's a separate transaction that comes with a fee. The point is that the share is then sold. It's sold to someone who is taking the long position. The original owner of the share, from whom it was borrowed, makes their money in fees, and by investing any security deposit given by the borrower. They are not taking a long or short position.
You're absolutely correct, and I should have been more precise. The value is always identical, but the number of participants, need not be the same for each position. Mea culpa.
That's exactly the point. The clickbait title wants you to forget that fact and draw an incorrect conclusion. It could have also been, "SPCX is the most purchased new stock", but that wouldn't have fed the desired narrative.
They're illegal, and you can look at them just as the broker making a long bet themselves. Since they'll have to pay off the short seller, if the stock goes down.
Every single shorted stock, was purchased by someone else who is taking the long side of the trade. So there's as many people betting the stock will go up. This says more about volatility and volume of trading, than anything else.