Rooting for Trump to fail has made his stock shorters millions

Rooting for Donald Trump to fail has rarely been this profitable.

Just ask a hardy band of mostly amateur Wall Street investors who have collectively made tens of millions of dollars over the past month by betting that the stock price of his social media business — Truth Social — will keep dropping despite massive buying by Trump loyalists and wild swings that often mirror the candidate’s latest polls, court trials and outbursts on Truth Social itself.

Several of these investors interviewed by The Associated Press say their bearish gambles using “put” options and other trading tools are driven less by their personal feelings about the former president (most don’t like him) than their faith in the woeful underlying financials of a company that made less money last year than the average Wendy’s hamburger franchise.

homesweethomeMrL,

Cripes, what a mug.

thisorthatorwhatever,

I don’t think that the Saudi prince or Chinese operative really care how the stock does. The problem is do you think you can short the Middle or China, or do you think that’ll they’ll keep dumping money in…since it’s pennies to them and they earn favor with potentially the next POTUS.

profdc9,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c37cddf6-2eef-4079-a588-a91377a58b0d.png

Corkyskog,

Jesum Crow. Taking a short position on a stock that is massively overvalued is not speculation

profdc9,

It’s glorified gambling, not investing in companies to provide them capital so they can generate profits and reward shareholders. I can’t really sympathize with people to make money gambling or speculating for that reason: they didn’t do anything of value or provide anything of value to someone who needed it or could use it, they just took a risk and happened to win.

figjam,

Sir, this isn’t a Wendy’s.

Wooster,
@Wooster@startrek.website avatar

This reads like a damage control spin.

We’re losing, but actually winning!

AmidFuror,

Can you elaborate? I don't know what you mean.

NOT_RICK,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

Made less money than the average Wendy’s hamburger franchise

lol

makyo,

I read somewhere that there are individual Youtubers who made more than Truth Social did last year.

NOT_RICK,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

I find that less surprising than Wendy’s tbh

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

Much worse than that. Had less revenue than the average Wendy’s hamburger franchise.

fastcompany.com/…/traders-hating-trump-media-maki…

It’s all there in the Sarasota, Florida-based company’s 100-page financial report: A firehose of losses, $58 million last year, on minuscule revenue of $4 million from advertising and other sources.

Your average Wendy’s hamburger franchise may have more than $4 million in revenue a year, but it definitely isn’t losing $58 million a year.

dogslayeggs,

I’m just surprised more people didn’t do this.

I am in a position where I can invest in the market and have an account at etrade, so I might be able to short stocks? But I don’t know how I would go about doing that. I knew from day one this would be a fantastic short opportunity, but I didn’t know how to do that so didn’t bother.

ours,

Don’t bother, it’s one of the most shorted stocks right now so the price to short it is comparably high.

IWantToFuckSpez,

If you don’t understand how shorting stocks work then don’t do it. Better to just buy a bunch of put options or derivatives that go up in value when the stock drops and have a built in stop loss.

If you short a stock directly the theoretical losses are infinite and the max profit is only the money you received from the short sell.

disguy_ovahea,

Unsurprisingly, the put options were crazy expensive at IPO.

catloaf,

Pro tip: if you’re reading about it on mainstream news, it’s probably too late to jump on the train.

Tarquinn2049,

Gambling is still gambling no matter how much of a “sure thing” it seems like it would be. The more “obvious” something is, the less pay-off and higher cost there would be.

Plus, the money from gambling on the stock market comes from all the people being financially ruined by choosing wrong. Is that where you want your money to come from? Would you be able to stomache that?

djsoren19,

Plus, the money from gambling on the stock market comes from all the people being financially ruined by choosing wrong. Is that where you want your money to come from? Would you be able to stomache that?

In any normal circumstances, no, but I’ve very little empathy for anyone who still supports Donald Trump. Someone will inevitably take their money because they’re idiots, it might as well be me.

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

It’s either gonna be Trump or shorters, so…

dogslayeggs,

The only people who actually believe DJT is worth anything (both the person and the stock) are typically the kind of person I’m OK with screwing over. They gleefully cheer when harm comes to people I love, so I have no problem doing the same to them. Plus, his tax cuts for the wealthy actually increased my taxes a noticeable amount (the hard limit on tax exemption for high state tax areas), so I would feel like I’m just getting mine back from the people who voted for him.

paddirn,

I’ve dabbled in stocks and made some good/some bad choices (with a small amount of “play” money I was comfortable with losing if it all went to shit), but some of these gambling investment strategies, I just don’t understand how you’re even supposed to initiate them and I’m guessing I’d get into more trouble than it’d be worth.

themeatbridge,

Shorting a stock is riskier than most bets, because theoretically there is no limit to your loss. In practice, we’ve discovered that during a short squeeze, institutional investors can suspend trading and manipulate prices by kiting fake transactions. Of course, if you or I tried to skip out on covering our shorts, we’d probably go to prison.

aniki,

You’re confusing two different types of shorts.

www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/call-vs-put

Omegamanthethird,
@Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world avatar

Well, if enough people short it, people can hold onto stocks knowing you have to buy them back. Then you’re actually encouraging stock prices to go up, screwing yourself.

Buddahriffic,

Obvious shorts can be dangerous because they can always be squeezed if too many people try to get in on it. Holding puts is much safer because your broker can force you to close a short position if it doesn’t like the risk involved in it (infinite downside potential). Holding a put has no risk (the only downside is the up front cost to buy the put, so you’re already in for that regardless of what the price does). But that said, you can still lose 100% of whatever you put into it easier than you’ll lose 100% of a stock investment.

That’s why I didn’t touch DJT or RDDT, despite being pretty confident that they will fail in the long run. Short and medium term prices are unpredictable and become more likely to go up the more people bet they’ll go down.

Brokkr,

Shorting a stock can be fairly risky, and if you’re not familiar with it then don’t do it.

However, if you are willing to risk some money and think a stock will go down within a certain time frame, then you could buy a put. Owning a put will allow you to get some of the gains from the stock falling for a fixed price. The risk is defined because you can’t lose more than you buy the put for. So if the stock price goes up, you will have a defined loss.

The other wrinkle with puts (or calls) is that they expire (which a short stock does not). So you need to be aware of how the price will change with time as well. It is worth doing some reading on this subject. Getting the basic idea isn’t too hard, but it is necessary before you make a purchase.

Chainweasel, (edited )

It’s a HUGE gamble, if it goes up you could be millions in debt.
It seems obvious it would go down right?
But, there’s always the possibility that a foreign entity (Russia) launders money to him by buying up a shit ton of his stock and drives the price up.
That would ruin the lives of people trying to make money by shorting it.
I wouldn’t encourage anyone to gamble in this economy, but especially not on a con-man with connections to very rich foreign governments who have a vested interest in making sure he makes money.

Corkyskog,

Just look at Tesla. Not as absurd as this, but still absurd. People have lost entire fortunes betting against wildly overvalued stocks…

The market can remain irrational longer than I can remain solvent.

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