Who would have thought a bunch of individuals on an Internet group could take on the hedge funds at their own game and win. There’s a movie in this one. Unlike the big short I suspect the outcome here will be less simple for the system to control.

The concept is beautiful. Select a company that’s been highly shorted by a big hedge fund (that’s where they borrow shares they don’t own, sell them in the hope the price will fall soon and they will make a profit, then wait for the price to drop to buy back at an agreed time (where they HAVE to buy the stock and give it back to the original owner)…. Well the group of individuals agreed to focus on GME an American bricks and morter game selling shop that was not doing so well on the stock market and was heavily shorted. They managed to push the price up by a huge multiple, hence forcing the hedge funds to buy back stock at the inflated price and lose billions.

I’ve never agreed with shorting. It’s a vulture tactic that greedy trader use to effectively make a quick buck. Hopefully what has happened this week with GME will put an end to the practice.

As always there will be losers on both sides of this particular battle but hopefully overall some good will come from it.

As you all know I’m a remainer. Totally anti-brexit and a European at heart. I absolutely see myself setting in Europe somewhere for my retirement. I have a European passport and oppose all anti-european sentiment. But (there’s always a but) all this rhetoric coming from the EU recently about vaccine shipments and triggering extreme article 16 measures to stop the UK from getting vaccine is casting a very poor light on the bloc.

The British government did nothing wrong here. They haven’t told a supplier to stop sending product to the EU. All they did was sign contracts and ordered vaccine for their population as any government would do. The EU on the other hand blocked progress with bureaucracy and lengthy approval processes resulting in them being one of the last Western blocs to approve vaccine. Now they are trying to cover that up by creating this war that makes it look like it is another government actors issue. That’s bad juju.

I suspect even without brexit the UK would have gone it alone with signing contracts for vaccine as its always acted in parallel to EU institutions. The fact that other bloc members decided not to is a matter of discussion for themselves.