And now that we have a much more full picture of exactly what has been going on with the numbers of Failures to Deliver (since December), and better understanding of hedging strategies and income generating strategies (selling covered calls, buying protective calls with cash reserved for exercise), it appears that there isn't really any fraud here, no evidence of widespread naked shorting, no evidence of rolling of naked shorts in danger of hitting failure to deliver limits (which the SEC actually does actively pursue enforcement of and considers to be sham transactions).
My key takeaways here are that there was probably a little fraud (maybe someone found a bug in some broker that let them do some sort of infinite shares glitch), maybe a little rolling of shorts (but not by anyone big), and probably a lot of writing of covered calls by the likes of Fidelity and Blackrock as a way to get income generation while at the same time acting as a limit sell order (albeit one that you can't take down). Coupled with some early botched PR and celebrity pumping etc, and even my own speculation, this feels almost Q-like in it's explosive growth and conspiracy-theory oriented thinking.
After everything I've seen this week I think I actually have the highest faith I've had in a long time in our financial system.
My key takeaways here are that there was probably a little fraud (maybe someone found a bug in some broker that let them do some sort of infinite shares glitch), maybe a little rolling of shorts (but not by anyone big), and probably a lot of writing of covered calls by the likes of Fidelity and Blackrock as a way to get income generation while at the same time acting as a limit sell order (albeit one that you can't take down). Coupled with some early botched PR and celebrity pumping etc, and even my own speculation, this feels almost Q-like in it's explosive growth and conspiracy-theory oriented thinking.
After everything I've seen this week I think I actually have the highest faith I've had in a long time in our financial system.