It has >5,000 stores, primarily in malls, across North America, Europe, and Australia.
The business has struggled to modernize, hurting its financial and stock performance.
THREAD: The story of the week in finance is how a group of retail traders at @wallstreetbets, with assists from @ElonMusk and @Chamath, took down the establishment short sellers at GameStop.
A thread on the underlying mechanics of the $GME saga...
It has >5,000 stores, primarily in malls, across North America, Europe, and Australia.
The business has struggled to modernize, hurting its financial and stock performance.
It really came to the forefront after RC Ventures, an entity managed by Chewy founder @ryancohen, disclosed a large position and assumed three board seats.
"We are excited to bring our customer-obsessed mindset and technology experience to GameStop and its strategic assets...expanding the ways in which it delights customers and by becoming the ultimate destination for gamers."
Since then, the stock has surged to ~$200 per share and captured the public imagination.
But how did it happen?
There are two dynamics at play: a short squeeze and a gamma squeeze.
This occurs when short sellers (those betting against a stock, like Melvin Capital here), are forced to buy stock to exit/cover their shorts.
I wrote a primer on the short squeeze, which you can find below. https://t.co/xKDUscvQup
Short Squeeze 101
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) August 5, 2020
If you follow financial markets (or if you watch Billions), you've heard the phrase "short squeeze" used quite frequently.
But what is a "short squeeze" and how does it work?
Here's Short Squeeze 101!
\U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
As usual, let's simplify it here for everyone to understand.
A gamma squeeze is all about options contracts and their indirect impact on the underlying stock.
For a primer on options, see my thread below. https://t.co/jU7gEt9sf7
1/ Options 101 - Call Options
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) July 14, 2020
Over the last few months, with the rise of Robinhood and the day trading boom, options trading has been featured prominently in the news (for better or for worse).
But what is an option and how does it work?
Here\u2019s Options 101 - Call Options! pic.twitter.com/wH6IijE7wf
You pay them a bit of money (the premium) and they make a commitment to deliver you the underlying stock at a future date for the strike price of the option.
It's a pretty simple transaction.
If $GME rises above your strike price, they will have to buy the stock at the market price and sell it to you for the strike price, incurring a (potentially large!) loss.
The amount of stock she buys is based on the "Delta" - a ratio of how much the option price moves relative to a $1 move in the stock.
As Delta and Gamma rise, the market maker gets more and more nervous!
She has to buy more stock to hedge the risk of the option being exercised in the money (i.e. with the underlying price above the strike price).
As call option purchasing volumes suddenly surged (thanks to @wallstreetbets @chamath and @ElonMusk), market makers had to purchase a lot of $GME stock to hedge.
This set in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy…
As the price of $GME went up, the Delta and Gamma of $GME call options rose.
This meant market makers had to buy more stock, further driving up the $GME price!
Reflexivity!
With $GME, we had both (1) a short squeeze - short-sellers frantically buying the stock to close/cover their shorts and (2) a gamma squeeze - call option market makers frantically buying the stock to hedge their exposure.
Result: 👇
For more on this topic, I highly recommend reading @matt_levine's "Money Stuff" newsletter on the topic. https://t.co/5nxzRyTaee
If you're out of the loop - this is the (hilarious) story of a subreddit (wall street bets) taking down a multi-billion dollar hedge fund... get your popcorn ready \U0001f37f
— Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) January 26, 2021
1/ An Allegory of Finance
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) July 18, 2020
I have been posting a lot of educational (and humorous!) threads on finance, money, and economics.
My mission is simple: to demystify these concepts and make them accessible to everyone.
All of the threads can be found below. Enjoy and please share!
More from Sahil Bloom
THREAD: With #silversqueeze trending on Twitter, it appears that this week's market spectacle may well be in the silver market.
A perfect moment for a thread on the Hunt Brothers and their alleged attempt to corner the silver market...
1/ First, let's set the stage.
The Hunt Brothers - Nelson Bunker Hunt, William Herbert Hunt, and Lamar Hunt - were the sons of Texas tycoon H.L. Hunt.
H.L. Hunt had amassed a billion-dollar fortune in the oil industry.
He died in 1974 and left that fortune to his family.
2/ After H.L.'s passing, the Hunt Brothers had taken over the family holdings and successfully managed to expand the Hunt empire.
By the late 1970s, the family's fortune was estimated to be ~$5 billion.
In the financial world, the Hunt name was as good as gold (or silver!).
3/ But the 1970s were a turbulent time in America.
Following the oil crisis of the early 1970s, the U.S. had entered a period of stagflation - a dire macroeconomic condition characterized by high inflation, low growth, and high unemployment.
4/ The Hunt Brothers - particularly Nelson Bunker and William Herbert - believed that the inflationary environment would persist and destroy the value of their family's holdings.
To hedge this risk, they turned to silver.
They began buying the metal at ~$3 per ounce in 1973.
A perfect moment for a thread on the Hunt Brothers and their alleged attempt to corner the silver market...
1/ First, let's set the stage.
The Hunt Brothers - Nelson Bunker Hunt, William Herbert Hunt, and Lamar Hunt - were the sons of Texas tycoon H.L. Hunt.
H.L. Hunt had amassed a billion-dollar fortune in the oil industry.
He died in 1974 and left that fortune to his family.
2/ After H.L.'s passing, the Hunt Brothers had taken over the family holdings and successfully managed to expand the Hunt empire.
By the late 1970s, the family's fortune was estimated to be ~$5 billion.
In the financial world, the Hunt name was as good as gold (or silver!).
3/ But the 1970s were a turbulent time in America.
Following the oil crisis of the early 1970s, the U.S. had entered a period of stagflation - a dire macroeconomic condition characterized by high inflation, low growth, and high unemployment.
Stagflation 101
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) September 2, 2020
The term "stagflation" is used frequently in discussions of monetary policy and risks in the post-COVID world.
But what is stagflation and how does it work?
Here's Stagflation 101!
\U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447 pic.twitter.com/at4FmaCmkM
4/ The Hunt Brothers - particularly Nelson Bunker and William Herbert - believed that the inflationary environment would persist and destroy the value of their family's holdings.
To hedge this risk, they turned to silver.
They began buying the metal at ~$3 per ounce in 1973.
More from Business
A solo media founder like Rogan or Mr Beast can make as much money as a strong tech founder, with significantly less managerial stress.
Tech created this ecosystem but there’s a historical cultural bias in tech towards media as unprofitable. That changed a long time ago.
Many more angels that invest in people will invest in media founders. Many traditional media people will *become* media founders.
But not necessarily big companies. Just solo individuals or small groups doing content, like Notch doing Minecraft. Because media scales like code.
Increasingly feeling like “keeping the team size as small as possible, even to one person” is the unarticulated key to making media profitable.
Substack and all the creator tools are just the start of this ecosystem.
The process of converting social influencers into media founders (a trend that has been going on for 10+ years at this point) will be increasingly streamlined.
V1 is link-in-bio, Substack, and sponcon.
V2 likely involves more angels & tokenization a la @tryrollhq. What else?
Why lack of awareness? Influencer monetization numbers are not as public as tech numbers.
There isn’t a TechCrunch & CrunchBase for media founders, chronicling the valuations of influencers.
But that’d be quite valuable. If you are interested in doing this, please DM with demo.
Tech created this ecosystem but there’s a historical cultural bias in tech towards media as unprofitable. That changed a long time ago.
Many more angels that invest in people will invest in media founders. Many traditional media people will *become* media founders.
But not necessarily big companies. Just solo individuals or small groups doing content, like Notch doing Minecraft. Because media scales like code.
Increasingly feeling like “keeping the team size as small as possible, even to one person” is the unarticulated key to making media profitable.
Substack and all the creator tools are just the start of this ecosystem.
Useful concept: the media stack for content creators
— balajis.com (@balajis) January 20, 2020
- Spotify, iTunes for podcasts
- Descript for podcast editing
- Figma, Canva for graphics
- YouTube for video
- Twitter, FB for distribution
- Substack for newsletters
- Makerpad for nocode
- Ghost, Medium for blog
What else?
The process of converting social influencers into media founders (a trend that has been going on for 10+ years at this point) will be increasingly streamlined.
V1 is link-in-bio, Substack, and sponcon.
V2 likely involves more angels & tokenization a la @tryrollhq. What else?
Why lack of awareness? Influencer monetization numbers are not as public as tech numbers.
There isn’t a TechCrunch & CrunchBase for media founders, chronicling the valuations of influencers.
But that’d be quite valuable. If you are interested in doing this, please DM with demo.
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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
As someone\u2019s who\u2019s read the book, this review strikes me as tremendously unfair. It mostly faults Adler for not writing the book the reviewer wishes he had! https://t.co/pqpt5Ziivj
— Teresa M. Bejan (@tmbejan) January 12, 2021
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x