When short sellers push a stock down it hurts many more small retail investors than when the short sellers lose. Many more live much more destroyed.
Shorts may be detrimental to society as well, but two wrongs don't make a right.
The money being used to sell shorts isn't rich peoples money, it's other poor people's money (pension funds).
The rich people they hare here are the custodians and they don't necessary actually lose anything.
It's satire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_lawI disagree with you
buying a put your loss is limited to what you paid for it
with short selling the stock the loss is not capped
You're right, but with true short selling, WSB would've never known.
I saw some talk about SLV Is it possible for them to do a short squeeze on a commodity?
Sure, a commodity is the same as a stock and any other asset. I believe there is a traded fund that is compelled to buy silver and ship it physically to Canada whenever there are capital inflows, and I'm sure there are many similar.
The difference with commodities is it that banks hold positions and can be hurt, whereas stocks are mostly only hedge funds.
Curious to hear opinions - I bought blackberry about 9 months ago, probably about $4 and change. Was strongly considering selling once I hit the 1-year mark anyway...wondering if this recent upheaval is going to hurt things over the 3-6 month range.
IMHO it should bring more people into the market and drive valuations up across the board (as will stimulus bills), unless a crash is resounding enough to drive a market wide selloff.