How is it going my homies
I made this post on investing a few days ago explaining all of the QAnon fantasies and why the top could already be behind us. Some people listened, processed information and asked questions. Some called me a person working for Melvin and hedge funds.
It’s all in the past, but if you got burned on GME or other meme stocks, here are few things you should learn about the markets and trading these bubbles.

1. Set a price at which you will exit and take profit. Don’t look at what happens next, and never rebuy if the price continues growing. Likewise, set a stop loss at which you will exit no matter what.
   
2. Never, and I mean never put in more than you can afford to lose, or even lose sleep over. I have a pretty decent portfolio, and I only put in 0.5% of it in the play. I don’t give a shit about that money, but I still took profit and got a 250% ROI. Easiest cash I’ve ever made, easier than blowing a fat dude in the back alley behind a strip bar. Anyway.
   
3. If you hear about shit on the news. It’s probably not a good time to enter. There is a reason why some early people made money on the play. They understood mechanics of what was driving the increase in price. Many of them didn’t even expect a short squeeze, they just like the fundamentals. Likewise, if your 80 year old grannie (say hi to her from me) calls you and asks you about this magical company called GameStonk, sell that shit right away.
   
4. Always double and triple check information posted on forums and don’t take it for a truth even if it has a lot of upvotes. The amount of misinformation I saw on WSB over the past week with 100 thousand upvotes makes me want to vomit.
   
5. Stock trading is not a team activity. It’s not us vs them. It’s a fucking free for all, and people will drop their bags on you if they see their unrealized gain turn into an unrealized loss. You want to make money? Do your research, and be the first one on the train. Don’t jump on the train when it is speeding and going off the rails.
   
6. If you don’t understand how something works, learn about it. Again, the amount of conspiracy theories that I read about ladder attacks and this grand illuminati conspiracy is driving me nuts. Always use the Occam’s razor, meaning if there is a simple explanation to the situation, it is probably right. There is no need to build out this conspiracy theory for something you don’t understand, it does not help anyone.
   
7. You will get FOMO and you will get confirmation bias. Everybody does, but learning how to battle it is crucial. Look, my dad was a fucking casino gambler in his 30s playing blackjack and losing money, and I have the same traits. Does it mean I need to be the same? No, and I always remember my genes when trading. It is not an excuse to use when you lose money.
   
8. Realize that situations like this are extremely rare, and if you expect to make 300% gain in 3 days, I have some bad fucking news for you, markets don’t work like this.
   
9. Finance gets complicated real fast. Yes, on the surface it’s just buying and selling. I have been studying this shit for 5 years, and I still don’t know a lot of things. There are reasons why even some of the smartest people still lose money. Shit, Newton was burned on a South Sea bubble. Yes, that guy who discovered gravity lost money just any of us.
   
10. One bad trade does not define you. As long as you learn, and don’t repeat the same shit again, you are golden. There are plenty of ways to make money on the markets, be it value investing, selling options or setting up butterfly spreads.
    

TL;DR: Be smart, not dumb.

Oh and uh short burn of the century comin soon. Flamethrowers should arrive just in time.

-Elon Musk
Oh Elon, sorry to steal your thunder. But GME will make TSLA vol look like TLT. Jeff haunting your every accomplishment yet again.
I’m back with the final warning bell. The next time I post in 2021 will be to recap the squeeze’s results and post gain porn along with u/Deep_Fucking_Value, u/SIR_JACK_A_LOT, u/Tomatotowers, and more. This is the last stop before the moon mission.
It’s currently not too late. But after Q3 earnings on Dec 8th, it will be. And of course, as always, not financial advice. Just for bragging rights and entertainment. Here goes:
Here’s a comprehensive GME overview for all new and returning WSB-monkeys. Sit down and grab some tea. This is a long one unlike the previous posts.
GME Overview:
The GME story can be broken up into 2 main theses. The first is a deep value play which has credibility all on its own. The second is an infinity short squeeze like we’ve never seen before in history, which has credibility all on its own. When combining the two, you get the trade of a lifetime.
In all my (albeit limited) days, I have never EVER seen a trade set up like this before. I’ve pored over every source of historical finance material I can get my hands on, and still have nothing to reference to. IMO, this will look more like the 2008-MBS bet, or the Ackman 2020-COVID “Hell is coming” bet, than TSLA, OSTK, KBIO, or VW.
Just a fucking face-ripping, out-of-nowhere, legendary-HOF-ticker bet that will bankrupt some funds and get people fired - and of course, with no community other than WSB’s name next to it in the history books (and if I could pencil in our lovely GME discord hosted by u/BadElf21 and u/RoaringKitty’s YT stream).
Let’s begin.
Act 1 - The Set Up:
Q: Why is GME so heavily shorted in the first place? Why are we betting the long? Aren’t they going bankrupt ala Blockbuster? If not, are we just trading this short term like a HTZ/CCL meme stonk?
A: NO. This is a fundamentally solid deep value play at its core.
First let’s go back a few years. We must give the shorts due credit in order to understand where we are now. GME has been profitably shorted since 2013 when the market correctly bet on the digitization of video games and spread of mobile gaming. Some data here:

• GME sales have plunged from $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2011 to $6.4 billion in fiscal year 2019.
  
• GME Annual EBITDA has dropped from $839 million in fiscal year 2011 (before the last console cycle) to only $111 million in fiscal year 2019.
  
• Net income has fallen off a cliff from $339 million in fiscal year 2011 to a staggering loss of $470 million in fiscal year 2019.
  
• In the two most recent quarters alone, GME lost another $277 million.
  

The shorts are betting on $0.
However, in the last 12 months, GME has shown that their terminal velocity does not lead to bankruptcy. GME has a strong balance sheet. Cash on hand is worth over $12 a share. Net cash is worth over $5 a share and is FCF positive (nixing the bankruptcy thesis). They also paid off $125M in debt last month just to show Moody’s they are healthy due to their incoming console cycle FCF (which may lead to possible bond upgrade, enticing more institutional investors).
So give the shorts credit. They had a legitimate case until the last 12 months, when George Sherman (CEO), Reggie Fils-Aime (ex-Nintendo, current GME board member), and others have been conducting a phenomenally well executed turnaround.
That explains why we currently have ~70M shares short out of ~65M shares outstanding - but they’re all now caught on the wrong side of the trade.
In case the severity of the short interest hasn’t hit you yet, there is a bigger market for shorting GME than the business of GME itself. This is not even taking into account the long holders (Senvest, Ryan Cohen, Burry, Donald Foss, Sherman, Hestia/Permit) which takes ~25M shares out of circulation. So short interest in reality could be around 180%+ of true float.
A true head-scratcher.
And a worthy opponent.
But they’re wrong.
Act 2 - Avengers, Assemble:
Q: Why am I so sure GME is prime to blow? Isn’t this just another meme stonk hunch driven by WSB and Michael Burry hype? How can a few online gamblers and a few activist investors turn a dying business into a trade of a lifetime?
Couldn’t the shorts be right? Also, hasn’t it blown already?
A: NO AGAIN.
Let me show you the ridiculous Avengers team we have. By Avengers team, I mean all the bullish cases:
1) Ryan Cohen
Iron Man of the bunch, some call him the Dog-Man.
This guy is a crazy entrepreneur. He took on Bezos with a pet food company (CHWY) and won. Let me repeat - he beat Jeff Amazon without AWS subsidizing his loss leaders.
In other words, he built Markk I (CHWY) in a tiny cave with scraps all by himself with his dad, and now that he has billions, he wants to build nanotech Markk 50 (GME). Read up on this guy. He’s as crazy and as smart as they come.
He also wrote a scathing letter to GME leadership, but if you read between the lines, he’s not addressing the existing board, who had only been there temporarily. He’s setting this letter up in order to potentially offer a takeover bid (rumor mill - unconfirmed).
Either way, GME leadership needs to address this letter in the Q3 earnings call on Dec 8th - which means they need to either post a good quarter, provide good guidance, or add color to existing developments.
Otherwise George Sherman (Cpt America)’s ass is out the door and Cohen takes over as the leader of the Avengers through a vote or buyout. Either of which requires shares to be recalled.
One more thing to note about RC. There has been no 13D/A filling since his initial purchases. Which means he is STILL IN. He has not sold a single share.
2) GME Leadership and activist investors - Guardians of the Galaxy, Dr. Very Strange Burry, and the old Captain trying to fit in with the youngsters:
Dr. Very Strange Burry - AKA Big Short Man. Supreme numbers aspie who might have a screw loose but is unmatched at spotting contrarian trades. *Edit 2: BTW for those asking about his holdings drop. He's trimming to stay under 5%, but still has a large position:

• Q1: 3,000,000 shares worth $10,500,000
  
• Q2: 2,750,000 shares worth $11,935,000
  
• Q3: 1,703,400 shares worth $17,375,000
  

Hestia/Permit/Senvest - Contrarian, activist investors.
Cpt George Sherman - Boomer CEO who knows what he’s doing.
Reggie Fils-Aime - Beloved ex-Nintendo President.
3) Bond repurchase
GME just bought back $125M of debt maturing in 2021. Who cares? Yes - normally this is a nothing burger even for a micro-cap, but if the shorts are betting on $0 - this is clear evidence against that bet.
Secondly, rumor mill has it that this debt repurchase plus positive Q3 earnings/guidance will allow Moody’s to upgrade their 2023 debt to A or maybe higher.
This is HUGE because it allows institutional investors to long GME without further restrictions. In other words, they may not be allowed to long companies with B- debt. Once this is upgraded, more buyers are allowed to come in.
Very underplayed story here.
4) TA - When the stars and crayons align. Here’s an excerpt from our resident astrologist u/JayAreW:

Ignoring the short squeeze element of GME and just looking at chart action, there are two elements that are important to keep track of. The cup and handle pattern and $15.80.
While my trading style is 90% technical analysis, there are certain elements which I shy away from – mainly chart patterns. However, it is important to at least recognize the obvious ones because if you see it, chances are others see it too. The main pattern I keep an eye out for are the massive cup and handle patterns. This is an example from Pring figure 1.
The buy signal is traditionally a breakout above the handle, and a good estimate for price target is the distance from the base of the cup to the handle, added to the breakout point. A recent example of this is $JMIA (daily - figure 2). Notice not one, but two failures to break the top of the handle and the subsequent parabolic run. Compare $JMIA with $GME and you see almost the same pattern (daily – figure 3). The traditional buy signal would be a breach above the red line (~$15.80). The difference between $JMIA and $GME is that $JMIA was far more condensed; the pattern played out over a period of a few months where $GME’s cup and handle started in late 2019. Playing this pattern exclusively, I would expect a price target of roughly $27, stretched out over a period of weeks/months and not as explosive as it’s African counterpart (assuming a squeeze doesn't happen between now and then). Typically, any chart pattern calls for a retest of the breakout point, so don’t be surprised if $GME retraces to $15.80 and look for a bounce there as confirmation that the breakout is on. The other important element is the $15.80 price. Not only is it the breakout point for the cup and handle pattern, but it coincides to a price point which I believe was a major short-selling entry point (fig 4). Notice the nearly 20% gap down on 33 million of volume. This type of action doesn’t just happen with selling alone and I believe massive short positions were opened on that day.
This $15.80 then represents a breaking even point for those shorts if they have not closed their positions (and we have no real reason to believe they have). Breaking even is a huge psychological barrier for people when a trade isn’t going their way and often times represents an exit point for crowded positions. Most of the shorts were already underwater - above $15.80 and that water begins to boil. I believe this position is becoming borderline untenable for existing short positions and is a crowded and disastrous trade. So to recap, $15.80 not only serves as an important chart pattern breakout point, but the proverbial “line in the sand” for existing short positions.

JeffAmazon here again: Note Jay and I don’t agree on a few major points, but are nevertheless both seeing bullish action to come very very soon.
5) Product Mix
GameStop is expanding their product mix to include monitors, PC parts, and more. GME is no longer a Disc-Drive only store (which is fine itself), but an all-things-tech e-commerce growth start up. Or you can at least bet that’s the narrative.
GIVE ME THAT F-ING CHWY SALES MULTIPLE.
6) Three signs of a bubble: leverage, lack of liquidity, and consensus.
This is an inverse bubble - it will rise as quickly as other bubbles drop. KBIO and VW are often quoted as short squeeze examples. Those are wrong comparisons. The only similarity is the fact that shorts were involved.
Instead, think of any other market bubble. It’s simply about leverage, lack of liquidity, and consensus. We have all 3 in GME. Everyone thinks GME will go like BlockBuster to $0 and is using leverage to short (by definition and current SI).
So instead, think of Burry’s 2008 MBS trade, Ackman’s 2020 COVID trade, PTJ’s Black Monday Trade, or Chanos’ Enron trade.
Same thing, different direction. Will go up as fast as the others went down.
And oh boy do we lack liquidity. Crowded party, one exit.
7) Phenomenal numbers due to current console cycle.
$GME bull Rod Alzmann (Uberkikz on Stocktwits) has great breakdowns on Q4 EPS/order count due to console cycle. He tracks orders by order number among a slew of other information here.
Check out his models. In short, we expect over $5 EPS in Q4 base case. Which is bananas.
8) MSFT Partnership gross margin
GME is getting free money from Satya Nadella.
Conservative estimate $180M, 100% margin for 2 years.
9) January and April option OI
OI in option calls for Jan and April are almost 4X that of Decembers. Is GME going to exercise the ITM calls for a squeeze? Why are they so insanely large? Who are these buyers? WTF are they doing?
No clue. But something is about to go down.
Note put call skew isn’t that low, so no infinity gamma squeeze yet, but it will come as GME obtains meme status.
10) Most importantly, YOU.
CNBC and other misled, egoistic mass media companies and institutional investors continue, time and time again, to look down upon the new generation of traders and laugh at WSB.
Tell me, which one of them has read all of Moody’s credit reports on GME? Which one of them live streams collaborative GME DD 20+ hours a week for 6+ months straight? Which one of them tracks order flows by the f-ing second based on skimmed CC data? Who scours GameStop to see how leadership is treating their employees and customers at a testimonial level? Do they even know about the bond repurchase?
They don’t know jack s-.
Act 3 - The Trade
What more evidence do you want? Time for action.
First, the PT. u/ronoron summed it up well:

A 3 billion market cap (not even 0.5x of their revenues) would already leave GME at $46/share.Going back to their 2013 peak at around 6 billion market cap would leave them at almost $100/share already, not the $56 peak/share. The algos trading still can't appreciate the fact that GME halved its number of outstanding shares a while ago.
For comparison. Bestbuy is trading at almost ~0.7x of revenues with lower gross margins. Nordstrom is almost at 0.4x of revenues despite the bigger liability their department stores are having through corona (never mind their uglier balance sheet). GME is still hovering just above 0.2x revenues because stinky shorts overestimated how bad corona would be for GME (e.g. delayed console cycle, digital consoles becoming widely popular).”

PT can easily be over $100. The JeffAmazon target is $420 which gives them about ~$25B market cap at a P/S ratio of 5, maybe 4 with console cycle revenue. That wouldn’t even be considered an euphoric price with today’s growth stocks. For comparison, NVDA is 22, TSLA is 20, and CHWY is 5.
Timing: This all hinges on Dec 8 earnings. If GME misses (it historically has), Cohen will use this opportunity to attack leadership and take over as CEO. Therefore, GME leadership needs to provide a great earnings report or else Sherman will lose his job.
Here’s my responsible trade (do whatever you want): All in calls and shares now. If IV and $GME is sky-high before earnings, sell half to secure profit. If GME misses and tanks, bet your bottom dollar a takeover bid will be announced shortly.
In all honesty, I'm going to probably hold everything through earnings WSB style.
My positions: 1/15/21 $30Cs, shares
(I would buy April $30Cs too, but I'm all tapped out of cash).
Shorts and longs both have their cases. All the cards are on the table. Which side are you on?
If I missed anything, comment and I will update above. I’m aiming to make this the final stop for all high-level GME DD.
*Edit 1: Educate yourself right now on IV crush (in short, we expect a lot of vol now, so option prices are high. After earnings, expected vol normally decreases, so your option prices will normally drop). GME is the king of IV crush after earnings. If you're playing FDs, prepare to get destroyed like always. Safer bets are LEAPs or FDs after earnings.
*Edit 2: All these beat earnings recently: SNE, MSFT, BBY, BBBY, NTDOY, ATVI, TTWO, JWN, M, KSS

Hey WSB,
I had a few questions regarding GME. Now, I'm no paper-handed bitch, but did want to open a discussion up as to a few things that have been on my mind.

1. Assuming short ladder attacks exist, what's stopping the hedge funds from just continuing to do it til we reach 0?
   
2. What's the point of the hedge funds doubling down on their shorts if they don't think it'll go down more? Wouldn't this actually be a BAD sign for us retail investors (gamblers, retards, apes, whatever you wanna call it)
   
3. How come the short squeeze (assuming it still happens) would increment the price like it did with VW? Why can't the shorts just cover their positions slowly over time?
   
4. How long do we realistically have to hold GME in order for a short squeeze to actually happen? I know everyone here's always saying "oh they're paying a shit ton of interest per day, they HAVE to cover soon". Isn't that interest rate smaller than actually paying for shares upwards of $42069 (obviously a meme number, more realistically, I'm assuming if the squeeze is to be squoze, we'd reach $1000, maybe upwards of $2000. I can't see it being much more without some HF tricks being pulled in order to prevent it from going up that high).
   

Mind you, I'd love to be bullish, and worst case scenario this is a year long+ hold for me, I believe Ryan Cohen definitely will be able to actually bring GameStop to a much larger market cap, and this is a much more, imo, lucrative sector than pet food/toys/whatever else. I'm sure he'll be able to expand into the tech sector as well, with Matt Francis being the new Chief Technology Officer, definitely looks like he'll be able to bring together a decent team of engineers (if you're reading this, I'm looking for a Software Engineering Internship for this summer or if any of you redditors have connections lmk...)
Positions: gme: 130 shares @ 220 & 5k in leap calls
amc: 600 shares @ 8 2k in leap calls
EDIT: Ok what the hell, there actually is a shit ton of bots. GME 🚀🚀🚀

Been awhile since I made a post educating you retards, throwing pearls before swine. I've been disheartened by some of the comments I've read recently and just wanted to provide some tips for the genuine noobies/retards among us. If you already know this shit, congrats, move along sir.
Take a look at my previous, more advanced guide to some theta gang theory for those looking for something a bit more in depth: https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/iz68r4/how_to_consistently_outperform_the_sp500_using/
Without further ado... TOP 5 TIPS Every Noobie Trader MUST Know.

1) You MUST understand Implied Volatility.

I made this the first point because it is the gigantic mistake I see noobies here making again and again. I'm talking to you, people who bought calls on PLTR at $30. If you learn anything from this post, you MUST learn this.
You see a stock make a massive move either up or down. Your immediate response is "this is a great opportunity to buy calls/puts on a volatile stock!" Right? WRONG!
In fact, when a stock has just made a massive move in either direction, that is perhaps the WORST time to purchase options in EITHER direction. Options are not stupid. Options are designed to price in the fact that a stock is moving wildly. This is called "implied volatility." They become more expensive as a stock makes more dramatic moves, to price in the volatility you and everyone else is expecting.
It's quite possible and even likely that you buy an option on a high IV stock, and the stock moves in your direction, and yet you LOSE money, because it didn't move as dramatically as was expected by the implied volatility. This is called "IV crush." It only takes one or two experiences with IV crush for most traders to learn this lesson for life. If you understand this concept before you lose a ton of money, all the better.
So, what should you do if a stock is highly volatile and options are expensive due to IV?
There are two choices: Trade actual shares, or SELL the options rather than buy them.
If you are bullish on a high IV stock, you can take a bullish position by SELLING a cash-secured put rather than buying the call. If you are bearish on a high IV stock, you can take a bearish position by SELLING a call rather than buying a put (although this entails greater risk and will typically require higher options trading level by your broker).

2) You MUST have patience.

It's a tale as old as time. A noobie investor does some research, reads some DD, and is convinced a stock is going to rise over the next couple years. So he buys in. A bad day or two hits and the stock tanks. He panics, and sells. The next couple days the stock rises and appears to stabilize. So he buys back in again, because he still believes in his thesis. The stock drops again, and he panic sells again.
In reality the stock is just trading sideways, but this idiot keeps buying on green days and selling on red days. This is perhaps the most idiotic, suicidal strategy anyone could ever employ. Buying on green and selling on red is a surefire strategy to lose money consistently over time.
This is why you MUST remove your emotions from your trades, because your emotions will usually tell you to buy on green and sell on red, literally buy high and sell low. As the boomer Warren Buffett once stated: "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient."
Here is a better approach. Set up your entire trade BEFORE you make the trade. Have a set price you will sell at if things go south. Have a target price you will sell at if things go well. Once the dust settles you can learn from any mistakes. Were you too aggressive, or too conservative in your targets? What emotions directed you to make those mistakes? Too much greed, too much risk aversion, too LITTLE risk aversion? Make every trade a learning opportunity.

3) You MUST understand "Reversion to the Mean."

In general, stocks will tend to revert to their trendlines.
This thesis is fairly simple. If a stock moons 10% in a day, the most likely event is a drop the next day. If a stock tanks 10% in a day, the most likely event is a rise the next day. This is because humans are emotional creatures. First, they overreact to big news. Next, one of two things happen: When the stock is way up, people see it as a profit taking opportunity, so they sell. When the stock is way down, people see it as a buying opportunity, so they buy.
I don't have any hard data to back up this thesis, but I'm sure there's a bunch of nerds out there with hard data that proves exactly this, as well as trading algorithms specifically designed for a "reversion to the mean" strategy that are consistently profitable.
Obviously there will be exceptions, as well as times when a big move signals a shift in the trendline. All I am saying is in the MAJORITY of cases, reversion to the mean will occur. Don't go chasing stocks that have made massive short-term swings in a single direction unless you have strong reasons (not just hopes) to believe the trend has changed.

4) You MUST not YOLO your account more than once (or twice).

This is going to be controversial for some of you. But it's just straight math. If you keep betting your entire account, or close to it, on single trades, it's only a matter of time before you go broke. That is a mathematical guarantee.
Let's say you are one of the most skilled, intelligent, informed investors on the planet (doubtful). So skilled your plays are 90% correct. If you bet your entire portfolio on each trade, you are still expected to go completely broke after around 10 trades.
Let's say you aren't a brilliant stonk gambler. Let's say you are just average and your trades are a coin flip (which is generous for a lot of you retards). If you bet your entire bankroll on each bet, on average you will go completely broke in just 2 trades.
Again, there is a lot of complicated math we can go through to predict account explosion times and optimal bet sizing and so on, but that isn't necessary here. Professional gamblers such as poker players have refined bankroll management theory, which usually means at the least they aren't putting more than 10% of their cash on the table in one sitting, usually closer to 5%. (Take a look at the "Kelley criterion" for an interesting read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion)
I know a lot of you are broke with no life prospects and hoping to get rich quick. I don't fault you for that, I get it. The problem arises when you see the people who got insanely lucky with guessing 10 coin flips in a row who turned $1000 into $1,000,000, and hope to do the same... but for every one retard with a record like that you've got hundreds more who lose it all and have nothing to show for it.
I won't fault anyone for making a gigantic, life-changing bet a single time. That is your choice to make, and it just might pay off. But if you think you are going to do that again and again and survive, you are delusional.

5) You MUST be Skeptical... of EVERYTHING.

Fools and their money are soon parted. Don't be a fool.
Your first instincts when hearing ANYTHING should be skepticism. Your friend has a hot stock tip? Start with skepticism. Some online DD on a meme or penny stock online sounds convincing? Start with skepticism. A highly respected financial or government agency gives future guidance on whatever... again, start with skepticism.
There are a million people out there trying to take advantage of you, to pump and dump you, to scam you, to trick you into spending more money on whatever.
There are times when being a conformist pays off, like when markets rally for months straight. There are times when being a contrarian pays off, like when markets tank and sectors collapse. Don't be a consistent conformist nor a consistent contrarian. Be skeptical of every thesis and every hypothesis you hear, or even the ones you invent yourself.
When you take this approach honestly and still become convinced of a thesis, you have a higher probability than most of being correct.
Seek out opinions that contradict your biases, not opinions that confirm your biases. This is incredibly difficult and goes against human nature, but if you can achieve this ideal, you will out-trade 90% of the public.
Edit: Holy fuck this thing has 255 awards... I don't even know what to do with this gay reddit coin shit but I have 2.9k now so thanks?

Okay so, I'm not a financial advisor and I have long positions and shares in BB, I love my BB gang.
But no more joking around and being all jolly and funny.
BB Bear Case :
BlackBerry is still heavily affected by its phone failing popularity inevitably slowing things down and the company do not have an amazing publicity on social media/advertisers so it doesn't make that much sound except ofc on Reddit but don't fall into the "it makes a lot of noise here so it should make a lot of noise out here" smart investors don't mind waiting a year if they miss a couple dollars a shares, or tens, or a hundreds and we theoretically have no solid proof of BB or BB QNX even EV (remember vehicule are still affected by lockdowns, curfews and international situations still.) will work well or explode this year.
Being leader of the market is amazing, 9/10 EV using QNX sounds like an absolute massive W. But EV market isn't huge and the car industry isn't doing that good either this year. Meaning smart money probably won't really give in until next year, next few months if we're really optimistic.
The other very bad point I found and one of the only ones but still is that the spectrum of sectors on which BlackBerry extends to. Cybersecurity, pagers, software, QNX, legal patents, it doesn't really feel like one specialised company which investor have one good foot into. One investor might know a lot abt cybersec and have his eye on BB, but BB competition is still well active on most of its sector (except EV clear W there), but software ? Cybersec ? Pagers ? eh.. There's better somewhere else ? It's good for revenue, but for long term ? I don't see the point of not specialising and having this remastering of the company in a clear, well directed way and a fresh feel for new investors and for now ? We clearly do not have that image. Yet ? My optimistic side would say yes.
But this is the bear case you mf, John Chen could clearly do this trick with no other idea but build QNX, make profit, sell the patent to TSLA or AAPL when they get to the american car market, and QNX would be a clear win. But I don't think my papa Chen as a clue or how social media works the poor guy doesn't really try that much and I'm as happy to see an industry winning on simply revenue and fundamentals than popularity but nowadays things can move faster as we've all seen and BB could profit off of this WITHOUT being the meme stock it's been lately.
Last part of the bear case. The inevitable meme stock.
We got in after or before GME, some sold during the 25 peak and doubled down (I love you, you dirty bastards) but the stock was a laughing stock, intended.
For multiple weeks too, even if it won, the massive dip made the stock look not solid, volatile, and easily affected by outer events, GME, BB, PLTR, then came SLV and AG which I believe was simply a massive pump and dump but then came AMC and all of those stock had (LEGITIMATELY OR NOT I WONT SAY WHICH) the title of memestock. And BB's now diverging but only slowly, here GME dip and BB dips too, their market seems to still be similar with investor in both selling their share of this side of the market.
Positive could be that only serious investors stays after this whole meme thing is over and usually when something is over and a stock is already low, things tend to go the other way around :)
Again not a financial advisor but I hate being hypocrite, I love this stock for numerous other reasons of course but I keep my DD as private as my dick for obvious reasons (I want all the money for me 🚀).
TLDR, read your own DD you absolute gambler, BB isn't GME so educate yourself ape oo oo ah ah diamond hands the DDs and financial education! Financial investing interest to the moon, is that how you talk to them ? idk anymore man, they're still in denial out there, it makes me sad. needed to rant.
TLDR FOR REAL
BB isn't undervalued for now Multiple changes before BB could potentially be a solid competitors on their respective multiple but too diverse markets.
John Chen could zoom out if wanted to. AWS could lead to nothing too.
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 tho

Here are some thoughts on price an charts and a look at the market as a whole. But first here are some things you need to bear in mind so I don't need to keep explaining them on future updates.

1. These are just thoughts on things I've noticed in the market. I'm not going to give you a price prediction because they are never correct. It is up to you to interpret these things as you see fit, what I may see as bullish you can see as bearish and to be honest the answer is never black and white. The point of these posts is just to make you aware and think of certain things you may not have thought of before
2. Fundamentals dont mean anything in this market. It's a tough pill to swallow I know. Vet price is not being pushed by main net usage. You see millions of VTHO burnt a day, I see 8K USD. If you think that 8K of value a day somehow drives the needle on a token with a MC of 1.6 Bn USD then I've got a bridge to sell you.
3. I tend to work on the assumption that retail is often wrong, being in a crowded trade is not the right side of the trade to be on. If everyone is super bullish and leverage long then chances are this is the wrong side of the trade to be on.
4. Further to the above I dont take much notice of meme lines and structures that are plastered all over Crypto Twitter. Theses almost always end up in a trap of sorts- remember if everyone is watching the same thing it will be a trap 90% of the time. For Vet I watch the weekly and monthly resistance and support lines - the price respects these and moves about them incredibly well. These are the only things you need to keep an eye on for short term movements with Vet that are consistently respected.
5. I 100% believe there is a massive Market Maker (MM) who controls Vet (likewise with most other tokens). It's not a conspiracy theory, it's what happens in an unregulated market where there is a huge amount of money to be made from retail. You can see him in the charts and I try and point this out as much as possible. The MM role is to push the price up as high as he can whilst minimising longs and maximising shorts.
6. Ok so the Long and Short thing is a pretty huge deal. The Futures market for Vet is massive, almost as big as the spot market. The futures market is made up of gamblers many are degenerate high leverage gamblers. This is important because if you understand this then you understand MM movements. In order to create FOMO (in the absence of news which is the only thing that drives price given there is almost zero external real world demand for Vet vs its supply) a MM needs to pump the price. If you have 10m USD of leveraged longs open at the start of the pump then that is an amount (or more) that the MM is going to have to absorb as he pumps the coin higher and higher. Not ideal for the MM. Conversely if everyone is short and there are 10m USD of shorts well then that is fuel to the pump as by pumping the coin he liquidates these positions and effectively people are forced to market buy Vet as they get their positions closed. It is clearly a lot more cost effective for the MM to pump when everyone is short and in disbelief. Amazingly Binance gives us this position info here . So how do we read this? Well that's going to be down to experience and time in the market getting a feel for it. At a very basic level when you see the Long Short ratio around 1 then retail is short and if you get to around 4 then retail is long. Now be warned that is a very basic way of looking at it because you also need to factor in open interest change as well as a few other variables. However this is probably the most important trading tool you can use for Vet because when the futures market is heavy long the price ALWAYS dumps. And vice versa when you can see that the futures market is heavy short we pump like crazy.
7. Now let's take the above concept a little further. How do we monitor this and how does the MM think? Well let's break up leveraged positions a bit. In my mind the most popular liquidation that the MM goes for is the 10x leverage. So a 10% dip will liquidate that position. When I see that retail is starting to swing in to long positions I start to look at resistance and support lines and start to see where a 10% dip brings us to- by bringing the price down 10% and starting to liquidate a bunch of longs where does that bring price? Does it bring it to just under support for example in which case an excellent move to make beause you clear 10x longs as well as trigger stop losses in both the spot and futures market that are under support. On top of that you trigger short openings that will happen once a support is broken. That is the most classic fuck you move the MM makes. He fills his bags happily down here with a high volume sell off wick that he triggered but didnt actually sell. At times of very high exuberance I look for the longer move- when I see a very high open interest and a high long ratio then I start to look for the 'clearing of the deck' a move that wipes out even 3x moves, positions that are thought of as safe. In this scenario the MM is looking to totally clean the futures deck and entice shorts to open after such a big sell off. As an example let's take the recent move above 3 cents- you'll see that we spent a lot of time breaking above 3 cents, collecting those 10x longs on the break of 3 cents, and then dipping down liquidating them. This happened over and over, the MM had finally grabbed everything he could out of this leverage amount and traders either ran out of money or moved on. However there were still less reckless traders he had to get rid of- how about the 3x 'safe' traders or those holding positions at higher leverage below 3 cents...afterall the open interest was still very high. To me it was super obvious that we would have one last rally that would sell off at exactly 3.1cents (just high enough to grab the last of the 'it's broken 3 cents properly' traders) which would then dump is to underneath the massive support of 2.3 cents. Why? Well look at the maths. A 3x opened above 3 cents would get liquidated at around 2.2 (more or less) and normally those kind of 'safe' traders would have a stop loss just above so they dont loose it all. Breaking such a massive support would also trigger a bunch of spot stop losses and trigger shorts opening. The move from 3.1 to there was a perfect scenario for the MM, it was too tempting not to do. By going for a 30% drop he wipes out almost all leveraged positions on the long side, creates a massive sell liquidity event that fills his orders, and entices retail to go short (adding short liquidation fuel to his pump). Now this played out literally exactly like that, we ended up dipping lower after that initial 3.1 to 2.2 move due to BTC but you need to start seeing BTC movements as things that MM use to push price where they want to. A further dip under 2 cents would have been incredibly hard for the MM to do by himself yet it only puts him in a better position with even more longs cleared out and shorts opened. So he gladly lets BTC help him. That entire move filled his bags, cleared the longs, and sewed disbelief which in turn made retail go short and (importantly) keep shorting as the price moved up. The ideal scenario is for him to bring the price right back up to 3 cents with everyone still shorting and still in disbelief? Why? Compare the market last time we were here- we have a massive amount of long positions that were open and that the MM was going to have to absorb, it's like talking against a strong river. At one point he will run out of ammo. Instead he wants to get to 3 cents with the stream having turned direction, he wants to use short liquidations to help him blast though the walls above 3 cents so he doesnt have to do it AND on top of that he also doesnt need to absorb a bunch of longs closing in to his pump. You can see how clearing the futures market leads to a far stronger and healthier position for any asset,
8. Ok what a head f*K. But to circle back from the start, when you start to understand this you start to see that what drives price in this market right now is not FA based. It's not main net. It's the MM wrecking the futures market in both directions. It's easy pickings.
9. BTC and ETH are the bellweathers of the market. BTC is the market - if you want to know if your token is underperforming or over performing then compare it to BTC. ETH is the king of the alt market - when ETH shows strength against BTC that signals strength for the Alt market. This is important because so far we've all been dragged up here by BTC and what we're looking for is signs of alt season
10. Vet is a shit coin (and by that I mean price wise). You see all these other coins moon 100x and think that Vet is a shit coin. It is, it's meant to be. But you need to understand where Vet is in its market cycle compared to all the new coins that are going 100x. Vet had it's 100x moment, it then tanked and underwent an almost 2 year accumulation cycle. That is a huge cycle and you can see the accumulation range very clearly. We broke out of the accumulation range above 0.008 USD and since then Vet has still been a shitcoin. It has frustrated HODLERs and high leveraged traders non stop. But here's the thing. It is meant to act like a shit coin. It is meant to keep shaking off the futures market and driving you crazy until it and the MM is ready. Now what you see as a shit coin is actually a coin with price history, a massive accumulation zone, and a leverage heavy futures market. It's important to understand that because you keep thinking that Vet is a shitcoin yet good traders keep thinking that this is an amazing coin- draw out those weekly and monthly resistance and support lines and you'll see how insanely profitable this coin is to traders. Shitcoin for some, very profitable for others when you dig a little deeper. So where are we at now in the Vet market cycle? Pretty exciting time is the answer. We are just beneath blue skies- an area on the chart where there is no price history. When we enter price discovery that is when traders start to step out- when you lose price history there are no resistance and support lines to work off of anymore. The risk return of trading Vet becomes a lot less attractive, which is why you tend to see price pumping for any asset that hits price discovery range. We've been through an entire market cycle for Vet and we're now back up at price discovery - if you're thinking about selling your Vet now then you have 100% fallen for the MM tricks. If you are on the edge of price discovery yet the MM has shaken you out by bringing you to despair and disbief then he has done exactly what he intends to do. I know it's hard to see other stuff pump so much and Vet always held back but just zoom out and look at that accumulation zone- it's massive. The MM is not selling here I can assure you.
11. Pumpenomics matter. Narrative and hype matter. Vet has bucketloads of it. I'm sorry for all the adoption maximalists out there (I was one of them) but proper value added adoption has not happened for anything apart from BTC which after ten years finally got it's nod at mainstream adoption post Covid money printer brrrrr. Vet has some interesting things coming up which are going to help the MM pump the price a lot- mainly SURFACE. That is something I'm expecting to see an awful lot mentioned online as the price is pumped. I'm also expecting to see lots of old recycled news get passed around- retail sentiment turns on a dime. They see green candles and then you feed the internet recycled adoption news (none of which need to have actually happened yet), speculation about Surface and the mystery client, and a fair bit of the old rumour mill and suddenly you have a sustainable longer term pump. That's why I'm in to Vet. It has a strong MM and it has tons of pumpenomics which is what retail are going to be feeding off of later on this year. That's how you create FOMO- if you were around for 2017/2018 you know that it's a very proven and simple script. Mom and Pop see Vet is used by Walmart and other household names and they buy, it's a no brainer. It doesnt matter if we're still chugging along with only Walmart, the news will be fed differently to them. Remember 2018, just remember how all it took was a whiff of a partnership and coins went 50% over night.
12. Finally yes I was banned from the Vechain Reddit. If you're wondering where so many older posters have all disappeared too it's because we were all banned. There have been at least two pretty massive purges on the reddit. The Reddit is run by Cream that much is obvious to pretty much all of us. Dont ask why we've been banned because you will get banned, dont ask for us to be let back on because you will be banned, and dont say anything bad about EHRT and the fact that it's an obvious scam coin that some of the mods there shill as much as they can....because otherwise you will be banned as well.

TL:DR - Ignore hype, choose YOUR strategy, and stick to it. All money matters are a gamble.
New to the market, but paying attention to WS and learning for a couple years before finally jumping in. After now being a every-minute watcher on the market, the Reddit “movement”impact, and MSM reactions for a month, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are 3 types of AMC holders:

1. The Get Rich Quick holder- this is the smoothest of smooth brains that have wandered in and have unrealistic expectations of AMC’s potential. They heard from MSM and “a buddy who knows” that something BIG(!) was happening with GME, and guys sitting in their mom’s basement were making life changing money on this “sure thing”. The GRQ checked WSB and was encouraged by DFV screens daily, laughed at all the big swinging dick fratboy talk and memes. “Wow! This looks like fun!” Says GRQ, but GME is already too cost prohibitive for them, so they YOLO into AMC. “$20 is amazing! This thing is gonna explode with the squeeze and be worth $1000 a share, and imma be rich by Friday!” GRQ hasn’t done ANY DD, because emoji posting, Jordan Belfort, and LOTR memes are all the GRQ needs to hold until the inevitable squeeze on AMC happens. The GRQ thinks XXX% increases are easy to capture, the HF’s are on their heels, and everything is being manipulated- otherwise they’d already be rich. Short interest metrics give the GRQ a chubby.

Why GRQ is GOOD: Fresh money and exposure in market trading, lots of entertainment. Some GRQ’s will educate themselves into better investors long term.
Why GRQ is BAD: Increased volatility, misinformation spreading, paper hands. These folks will lose interest quickly, and may incur life crippling debt by trading with money they can’t afford to lose.

1. The Safe Gambler Noob - (full disclaimer: this is currently me). The SGN is more diligent, more careful, but not necessarily smart. They also likely wandered into AMC based on the WSB hype. They know some about WS and “the way things work”, but just enough to be careful. The SGN is reading EVERY bit of information about AMC, taking on a 60/40 split of bullshit to actual DD. They likely only bought in with a small amount around 14-16. Their rationale is “hey, look at what happened with GME- I guess it’s possible that AMC can get $100 or more, and at the very least, it’ll go up after the pandemic, so there’s really no risk”. The SGN is rife with FOMO, but balanced enough not to YOLO. They understand that HF’s have the power to do whatever they want, but also think “maybe what Redditors are doing is changing the game” (spoiler alert, probably not). Any positive mention of their positions or a “green day” gives the SGN a chubby.

Why the SGN is GOOD: like the GRQ, it’s bringing more folks into the market who might still be on the sidelines. If the SGN doesn’t at least get their initial investment back, they’ll bag hold to the grave. Some will educate and make smarter plays moving forward, having dipped their toe in the ocean and liking the temperature.
Why the SGN is BAD: They’ve already lost half their money, and may be hesitant to get deeper in or take any other positions. Lots of SGN’s will sell at the break even point (however long that may take) and never trade again, having taken the only beating they need to be scared away. Some reckless SGN’s falsely believe they have found a secret method or opportunity to “beat the system” because they got the first brain wrinkle.

1. The Long Term Pro: Raisin Brains. These are the DFV’s of the world. As soon as the price of AMC tanked due to the pandemic, they had the foresight to get in at the low (if they believed AMC would survive) or buy the shorts (if they believed AMC would bankrupt). The LTP blocks out the “noise” of the Reddit hype, because they trust their own analysis more than anything they hear or read. There is very little risk for them with their AMC position, because they have a well diversified portfolio spread between stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other safe savings plans. They likely only check the tickers when they want to “check in”, but aren’t swayed by any fluctuations. They likely have someone else professionally managing their portfolio. Even a market crash can’t phase the LTP, because they can afford to hold and ride it out until it comes back. They get chubbies whenever they want, because they’ve earned that right.

Why the LTP’s are GOOD: This is arguably the type of investor we all should try to be. Some LTP’s enjoy offering DD and education to the SGN’s, passing on and elevating overall market knowledge. Lots of them are still entrenched in their AMC positions, and will be for 4-5 years.
Why LTP’s are BAD: They completely ignore the GRQ’s as foolish, and stay away from ANY volatility. Most LTP’s that didn’t sell their AMC shares during the first Reddit hype peak, certainly did when the new offering dilution was announced. EVERY HF insider is an LTP, and knows how to make money in any market condition. These guys are very definition of “Bulls make money, Bears make money, Pigs get slaughtered”.
My only point in this post (other than a “gut check” for myself and maybe others), is that ALL matters concerning money is a risk/reward scenario. Even if you are putting money under your mattress, that money is constantly gaining or losing value. Anyone trading or investing should appreciate this, decide what your own strategy should be, and see it through.
Me personally, I’m striving for the DD of the LTP, the excitement of the SGN, and the stones of a GRQ.
On yeah, and Hold AMC. 😁

This is gonna be a really long, rambling post about gacha, gambling, addiction, psychology and ethics. If you want the TL;DR, here it is: Joey and Garnt are at the very least irresponsible influencers, and at the very worst they might have a serious addiction that stems from a low dopamine life-style.
We all most likely watched the episode and know what happened and what was talked by who, but for further context, if you are unaware of anything, even after the memes, on the last episode of Trash Taste Podcast, specifically in the last 40 minutes of it, the Boys discussed (and argued) about the gacha game scene and gambling addiction. You can check it out on the sticky post on the top of the subreddit front page.
To cut it short, Connor argued that gacha games are just as if not more dangerous than actual gambling, specifically for a few reasons. First, it is a game of no return. In real life gambling, you can (fleetingly) get real money back from it, and even make a considerable profit. Gacha games simulate the act of gambling while offering no significant reward or value other than a measle amount of dopamine and a cute character to play with. Secondly, the game is marketed towards older kids, teenagers and young adults on an age range of 12-25 years old, an age group where most individuals are either not mature enough to manage their money safely or even financially independent at all, with most people in this range not even being active members of society yet. Furthermore, the gacha-gambling model is largely unregulated and unsupervised by authority figures, be it responsible adults, laws or any other regulating institution.
To this, Garnt (largely) and Joey (in a lesser but still significant way) responded that, while they agree no one should be able or willing to spend such large amounts in these games, they do not pose significant harm to most people, and even further, can present justifiable value enough to be acceptable in their current forms, with minor changes. At one point, Joey expressed the idea that if these games made it difficult for him to spend money, he would mostly just not play them at all rather than go free-to-play. Garnt attempted to defend the idea that spending on these games was not necessary and going the F2P route was not only possible, but easy. He himself, however, admitted to that not being the case with him.
This is the thick and short of it. Now let me get into the main argument this post is attempting to make.
Connor's position along the entire discussion was entirely and utterly reasonable, and not only that, but even after being soft-gaslighted into being less harsh on his stance, he still was the only one willing to take the problem seriously at all.
Garnt and Joey, kn the other hand, began the discussion with an ironic and memey tone, not taking it at all seriously. When Connor's stance didn't change and his points began hitting a little too close to home, that's when they got defensive of their point and tried to appeal to various fallacious arguments and unbelievable takes. Most notably, Garnt defended that "If you have a problem with gambling or if you have poor self-control, you just should not be playing Gacha Games", which beyond being obvious, is a bonkers thing to say. It would be akin to saying "if you feel depressed or suicidal often, you should just ask for help and not kill yourself" or "if you have a drug problem, maybe don't go buy drugs". It is a statement that hides behind it's obvious correctness to take away attention from the fact that this adds nothing of value at all to the discussion,nor does it make for a suitable defense of the system that gacha ganes operate in.
The first big problem with this entire thing is that the three of them, both in the podcast and with their individual channels, have a great influencing power. Having your opinion, no matter who you are, broadcast to over a few hundred thousand people world-wide is bound to influence or resonate with some of the audience. When the person in question is a respected figure, speaking to an audience of admirers or fans, most of which at a young age, and within a subject matter of interest to the audience, the influence rate will grow even bigger. In this midst, there is statistically no way at least a handful of people didn't watch this episode and felt like they had their actions justified. Add to this that the gacha community at large is either aware but indifferent to the similarities it has to gambling, or straight up defensive of the entire model, and you have a pretty dangerous mixture of things here.
The second issue I see and hope to convey on this matter is that both Garnt and Joey seem unaware of just how scummy and messed up the tactics behind gacha games are. It's not just rate manipulation and constant advertising. The entire development process is centered around creating the perfect space for you to spend copious amounts of money without feeling that you really spent them. It goes so much deeper than just making cute girls to sell you. From the game page on the app store you get it from to the main menu, to the game design, to the in-game systems, to the rates, to the promotions, to the update cycle, to the end game, to the daily challenges, EVERY LITTLE ASPECT of it is engineered to rewire your bain into believing that it's not that bad to spend, and having the desire to do so more often than you reasonably would.
This is a very important one, amd Connor briefly touched on it in his rant. Cassinos, actual gambling places, build and thought to make you spend and lose, are like a glass door compared to the five inch lead wall that is the gacha strategy. They show you the rates at all times. They offer you the option to set yourself a limit. They make you aware that you are spending money, they cap the age at a minimum of 21, they have a lot of systems in place to control bad spenders. Of course, most of those came from law and regulations, but even before that, back in the 18th amd 19th centuries, no normal adult would advocate or defend that 12 to 18 year olds should be able to gamble real money into pieces of paper or cardboard cutouts. So imagine thinking, for even a moment, that what gacha games do is even close to okay. It is not, by any measure, morally, ethically or lawfully, okay.
But it gets worse. Way worse. Here is where I began actually worrying about the boys, in particular Joey and Garnt, the latter most of all.
They seem to actually believe that the above exposed is somehow justifiable based on little doses of dopamine, memories and the abstract idea of "the experience" you get. They compare spending ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS on a game to get TWO DIMENSIONAL IMAGINARY GIRLS to a night out with friends where you spend a hundred dollars in food or drinks.
What the actual f*ck.
This is not just bad. It's really, really bad. It's unreasonably and unbelievably absurd. It nearly collapses the entire concept of reality from just how bad a take this is.
No. No, no, no. NO. In no way, in no conceivable theoretical way, one of those things is comparable to the other. Never. This is the type of thing that depressed people tell themselves to justify self destructive behavior. Spending copious amounts of disposable income into games just to get "a daily dose lf dopamine" going is insane. Just for reference, you can get dopamine for free by doing any of the following:
Exercising
Finishing a task-list
Cleaning your room
Working on a passion project
Playing any sport, specially with friends
Going for a walk with you pet
Having a conversation with a friend or significant other
Having a good meal
Waking up from a good nap
Watching a fun movie
Traveling
Hiking
Riding a bike
Radical sports
Reading a good book
Seeing a long-time relative or friend you missed for a long time
Getting a hug
Having sex
Sleeping cuddled with you SO
Holding hands
Kissing
Watching the sun set/rise
Going to the beach
Camping
Playing an actual good videogame that isn't f*cking Genshin or FGO
This is not an exhaustive list. It's literally just things I thought off the top of my head while writing this. Some of those activities require some money to do, and some are impossible during the pandemic. But most of them are free/cheap and easy to do at home or with little to no contact with anyone.
If getting a good pull in a lootbox virtual casino is the best way you can think of to get any dopamine release, or if that release is so significant to you as to justify spending more money than some people make in a week, then I'm sorry, but you have a serious problem. I mean it. I know the Boys can do most or all of those things listed up there and much more. I know for a fact they are not in a situation of loneliness, vulnerability or isolation, even in the current world situation. So why is it that Garnt thinks gambling is a good solution for boredom in the quarentine? Or why did Joey insinuate that making it harder for him to spend money would just make him drop the game?
And if these two, that as I said are in a very privileged spot of having easy access to healthy ways to produce dopamine and conquer isolation, are having this kind of relationship with these games, what's to say of people around the world, including many of their listeners/viewers, who either live alone and/or have no perspective of a successful career with easy access to basically limitless disposable income like they do? What's to say of the teenagers who spend all night up playing games, watching anime, jerking off and stealing their parents' credit card to buy pulls? What's to say of the depressed university students who have a shitload of debt thrown at them and live an isolated, virtual life right now? What about them?
Joey and Garnt might not have any problem controlling themselves, or have enough money to waste such that a thousand dollars into gachas doesn't feel unreasonable, no matter how actually unreasonable it is. But they are either ignorant of the actual problem, or (and I sure hope I'm completely off on this one) completely unemphatic to their struggles. Because "Just don't play" is not a thing someone with empathy for the gambling addicts would say. Connor was deadass on this one.
And that leads us to the final nail in this horrific, goldplated coffin. The memes.
Yes, the memes.
There are so many memes. Garnt mentioned that "no one memes on the guys going bankrupt" while doing just that for half an hour. The entire gacha culture is basically a serious sociological and psychological problem deep-rooted into the heart of the zoomer generation. And yet it wears a mask mad e of memes, that hides the actual problem under a nearly impenetrable layer of irony, self-pity and depressive jokes. But the subject is not that funny under the magnified lens of a closer look.
The easygoing demeanor with which gacha addicts and casual underaged gamblers treat the entire thing is so light on the mood, so soft on the eyes, that you may just forget that those people might be ruining their lives. It's not a joke. It should not be treated like one. The meme culture around gacha fames has created more gambling addicts among 15 and 16 year olds than any illegal casino would ever dream of. These young people are just laughing away ridiculous sums of money for a teenager to spend, and feeling none of it until it is too late to go back and give up.
I am not trying to guilty trip any of the Boyys here, nor am I accusing them of being apologetic of underage gambling. I'm just trying to put this entire thing under a serious light. Because it needs someone to do so. This post comes from a place of worry and love, not one of disrespect or accusations. I simply want the Boys to look at this in a responsible way.
I might be talking to the walls here. I might really be just shouting in the vacuum. But if I can try to make my voice be listened to, I will. Because I must. If you read all the way down to here, I have two more things to say.
One is: please, do not let the monetization model these games operate in get to you. If you've spent any amount of money on them and feel tempted to continue, I insist you don't. If you have only ever played them without spending, and are still having fun, you're free to do so, but tread carefully.
And the other is: gacha mechanics can ruin much more beyond your financial wisdom. They are actively harmful to the games industry as a whole. Instead of making good games out of passion, these developers are being led to create mediocre games out of greed from the higher ups. If gou care about gaming at all, or if you just give a shit about an industry many people love, I request that you understand why gacha games are a bad sign, and that you spread that awareness, if you can. This is a really important subject to me and I think ut should be to other gamers as well.
Thank you for reading. Have a great day. Save your money.
P.S.: Garnt, Joey and Connor. If you guys read this, I love you and what you do. I listen to this podcast almost religiously, and I really enjoy all of it. Please, take care of yourselves and have a great 2021. Peace. (This is a shot in the dark, the chances of them reading this are so low I feel almost stupid. But hey, I tried huh?)

I fling poop and drag my knuckles on the floor. I am not a financial advisor. Do your own due diligence. This is for entertainment purposes only.
Lately, I've felt like we don't have a voice and don't matter but I want to remind all us apes that we are retarded together. We will win TOGETHER and we will HOLD together. Could be days, weeks, or months. Longer than any of our attention spans. So they will use TIME against us. BUT time is on our side.
This is psychological warfare against us to make us DOUBT ourselves and what we WILL accomplish. We will remain retarded longer then they can remain solvent. They bleed interest each day. A stock's value is based upon what we place on it. See TSLA for reference. WE LIKE THE FUCKING STOCK. If my stock is worth 5k to me, I WILL HOLD for 5 fucking K. WHO are you to tell us how to perceive VALUE? OHHHHH, you're an expert who got caught with your dick in the cookie jar (thx louis rossman). SHORTING 130-140% of a stock. These hedgies aren't infallible. Just well connected and well resourced. As long as we own shares that they NEED, we have time on our side. Even though it will not feel like it.
Obligatory, don't invest what you can't lose.
We cannot let the hedgies deter us. Now that GME is the dinner conversation topic of the world, everyone and their moms have an opinion. We will be told we don't matter. We don't know what we are doing(probably true. I got into stocks 2 weeks ago). We should have sold at the peak. We should have bought lower. We shouldn't have gambled. What people are forgetting is what WE are trying, is to do better, and be better. Why kick a guy down when he wants a better fucking life. FUCK YOU.
LOOK AT THE PPL SPENDING THEIR TENDIES TO GIVE BACK. It's our $, let us do what we want with it. If a hedgie can irresponsibly short a stock over 100%, why can't we take a CALCULATED risk? BUUUT funDamentAls. Gamestop is a dying company. The former business model of GME is dying. As most physical businesses are. See 24 hour fitness. (I've never been inside a gym but I read stuff online) But GME is pivoting. PAPA COWEN and the new board members are pivoting to e-commerce. He's assembling the fucking avengers to the END GAME but this is just getting started. GME is transforming just like Netflix when it went from DVDs to online streaming. We are the ugly duckling that gets super sexy after growing pains.
How about this for fuuunDamentAls. Hedge funds being allowed to short a stock over 100% and nobody comments on how that happened. Why it happened. And how SHORTING has INFINITE room to lose. Keep in mind, they are sophisticated gamblers with other people's money and 401ks. BUT according to their calculation it's little to no risk. Because they can throw more $ at the problem and manipulate the market, they can fix it! If they can't, they want to cry to the media, get the public opinion on their side, and ask for MORE GOVERNMENT REGULATION. Why would a greedy $ machine ask for more oversight? OH, that's because the SEC is your lapdog and the government will bail you out with tax payer dollars. SEE 2008 FINANCIAL CRISIS. Yet, we are not allowed to exploit the law of supply and demand. If the demand exceeds 100% of the supply, the inherit value ROCKETS. See RTX cards and AMD chips. FUCK SCALPERS for good measure :)
I want to remind every single one of you, we do matter. We have NUMBERS on our side. As a collective we've already made shorting a topic of conversation at the political level. This may not be a monetary victory but it hopefully is a step in the right direction to a more equal game. That or hold your politicians accountable. You are their constituents.
We play out in the open. We share publicly available information and make decisions base. Really, it's just autistic people posting the exact confirmation biases that we needed to see. It prints $$$$ BRRrrrrr.
Let's recap how the odds are stacked against us.
-We are too stupid to be allowed to spend our money. We need government intervention to "protect us". The little guys, the plebes, the unsophisticated, etc.. Yet they can't decide on how/when to get a stimmy check to us. THEY REALLY REALLY CARE (when hedge funds lose money). We some how took wallstreet down with $600. If the stock market was that fragile, we have BIGGER issues.
-Momentum was killed last week by brokers being held to new collateral requirements by clearing houses. Thus restricting stock purchasing with CASH for specific securities for RETAIL investors. This is how Phil Jackson uses timeouts to kill momentum for the other team when they're running HOT. BUT Hedge Funds were still allowed to trade. We were allowed to sell but NOT buy. How would NBA games look like if only one team played while the other team sat on the bench during a timeout? Fair? Keep in mind, these brokers were INFORMED pre-market and didn't have any press conferences until after market close for damage control. Guess who also informed besides the brokers, YOUUUU SMAAHT, the hedgies. Seems legit.
-News outlet and controlling the narrative. How many analysts, journalist, and their rich daddies overlords are framing this as WSB pumping and dumping a meme stock. WE JUST LIKE THE FUCKING STOCK. What about the narrative that WSB saved some business that we would like to keep around post-covid. FFS you want to take away the movies and games? What do you want us to do for fun? You deplorable sacks of shit who get no enjoyment out of life other than sucking the souls and money out of people. You live to see more zeros in your account and there is a special place in hell for you.
-SEC holding a meeting tonight investigating market manipulation through social media but no investigative statement on how clearing houses can magically conjure a rule that halts trading for retail investors. Robinhood is not the bad guy. Many trading platforms restricted trading. RH is the household name that is the scapegoat. Get the fucking clearing house on the line and ask why they increased collateral from 1-2% to 100 fucking percent on these specific stocks. OHhhh, they're not regulated but they want to invoke the SEC to regulate the retail investors.... NICE.
-How shorts magically covered their positions but DO NOT have to report their positions until weeks later. Lack of immediate transparency gives them ample time to reposition and multiple options to cover their asses while blaming us.
Anyways, I could keep bitching but I just wanted to vent and rally us together. We took a mad beating. I just wanted to let you beautiful online strangers that you aren't alone. GME has transcended and has evolved into a movement.
What does GME mean to me? A down-payment to a home for my family and I. My wife and I are expecting our first kid. I'm risking something I can lose... for a better future.
What does GME mean to you?
TLDR; We fucking matter. We are going to be the catalyst of change. HOLD SHARES. Don't risk what you can't lose. APE Strong. 🦍💪💎👐 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

• Absolute full credit to u/StevenVanMetre -
  
• Please note this post was made in November 2020 -
  

The Gayest Gay Bear Post in the History of WSB. We are HEADED DOWN, Folks!!!

Update (12/8/20):

For those who missed it, I've upped this bet to include a tattoo on my ass if I'm wrong. But I won't be wrong.

UPPING THE ANTE: If SPY closes below 360 by next Friday I will donate $100 to the top 10 commentors below. If SPY closes above 375 next Friday I will get JPow's face and "Don't Fight The Fed" tattooed on my ass.

UPDATE (11/30/20):

Stock futures are currently at around +0.80%. I'm down as fuck on my positions as most of you already know...
I stated before I never put more than 10k into short term options plays, which is how I've lasted 20 years in this game.
These are extreme times. I am now putting that rule on hold. If these futures hold up, tomorrow I am dumping another 10k into my SPY puts and VXX calls. I am literally doubling down to a 20k total bet.
This extra 10k will be January/February dated since my December timing appears to be early.
Still conservative strikes: VXX 22c, SPY 350p, TLT 162c

UPDATE: CURRENT POSITIONS (as of 11/20/20)

https://preview.redd.it/wn0f6wuevh061.png?width=1078&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5f63c8e8577acead459cc55c72f2076974755f2
https://preview.redd.it/qiu0oma2j7061.png?width=1626&format=png&auto=webp&s=5aac070daa9c5595cc3e5e3dad2747297e2289c3
Hello again. SVM/??? here with another fuckin banger. LET'S GOOOO!!!!!

Introduction:

The market is going to tank. Let me just give a bit of background so you know why my opinion is better than yours...
I am not a bear. I am not a bull. I go where the market tells me to go, I bet where it tells me to bet. And right now, the indicators are telling me to take a strong bearish position. So that's what I have been doing.
I've been trading more than 20 years. I was trading the great financial crash while most of you were watching fucking Spongebob or whatever the fuck you kids jerked it to. This is not my primary job, but I make a good deal of cash on the side every month, timing the market and swing trading broad market ETFs. I do my research, I know my shit, and I rarely touch your shitty meme stocks. I'm doing you all a favor of once again sharing my insights into this market, so you too can share in my profits and maybe learn a thing or two.
I will lay this out as cleanly as I can, offering multiple premises for my bearish bet and explaining them in detail. I've covered some of this in the past, but wanted to consolidate everything and more in one place. This post will be long. If you want to cry about that rather than thank me for my service, you will go broke soon and deserve it cuz you are a lazy fuck. PRESSING FORWARD!
​
Primary Bearish Premises:
Premise 1: The Market is Massively Overvalued (Macro)
Premise 2: SPY is Topping Off and Running on Vaccine Fumes (TA)
Premise 3: The Fed CANNOT Print Money You Retards (Facts)
Premise 4: Quantitative Easing is Deflationary (Theory)
Premise 5: Credit Markets are Contracting (Data)
Premise 6: Banks are Loading Up on Safe Bonds While Retail Loads Up on Stocks (Data)
Premise 7: Unemployment is Still Sky High (Data)
​

Premise 1: The Market is Massively Overvalued

There are plenty of small, detail arguments for a bearish position. Covid cases rising, election uncertainty, stimulus failing, and so on. Plenty of others have made this case, so I won't focus on the small scale issues such as these.
What I want to give you is a larger, macro picture. Because the market is simply overvalued, period. The market has become divorced from the overall economy. I understand tech, and why they have a bullish case for growth in the face of Covid lockdowns... My point here is that you need some REAL WORLD measures to tie "future earnings" down to reality, to prevent irrational euphoria from taking over your mind.
There are plenty of indicators out there showing that stocks are overvalued. We could talk about insane P/E ratios, about euphoric meme stock flops like NKLA, and so on. The metric I'm going to present here is not new by any stretch. It isn't unique or original. But it is undeniably useful, and carries strong weight, whether modern traders wish to shun it and its originator or not. I'm talking about the Buffet Indicator.
https://preview.redd.it/oem2uhz714061.png?width=1008&format=png&auto=webp&s=b1f7e97544eba52859b986af68b4b80556660e43
For those of you new to this concept, it is simply the total stock market valuation divided by GDP. The point is to compare total market valuations with some hard, trailing, real-world metric, in this case GDP. When market valuations uncouple strongly from actual market conditions, it is a strong signal of irrational stock valuations. And that presents opportunity for those paying attention.
Note that this chart has already been detrended down to account for historically rising P/E ratios, and it still shows a strongly overvalued market, equal to what was seen during the DotCom bubble. That's bad news, folks.
This is the REAL issue in the present market, and why buyers are becoming exhausted. Covid, instability, elections, stimulus... These are all just catalysts to give that equity bubble a little prick. Only the dumbest of the dumb are still "buying the dip" under current market conditions, which means mostly clueless retail gamblers on WSB. All these perma-bulls are doing is offering liquidity to the institutional investors to help get them out of their positions. In the end, we all know who is left holding the bag.

Premise 2: The Market is Topping Off and Running on Vaccine Fumes

I'm not a big believer in technical analysis. Most of it is bullshit, astrological voodoo if you ask me. But some of it works, and when technical analysis works, it is simply being used as a proxy for assessing market sentiment and emotions. Let's take a closer look at the teaser SPY chart I posted above.
https://preview.redd.it/h0ndq2a914061.png?width=1808&format=png&auto=webp&s=3fe30a5ad23952719c69c6634debe7fe8c0832af
As you can see, the market has been repeatedly rejecting multiple new highs. This process was briefly interrupted by positive vaccine news. We breached a new high on Pfizer vaccine results, but even that new high was instantly rejected and resulted in a sudden reversal selloff. The Moderna vaccine news created another short rally, lower than the Pfizer high, and that too was followed by a selloff. In other words, the market is continually rejecting current market valuations. As they should be, if you were following the point above. We are running on vaccine news fumes, and those will not last long. If you develop an instinct for these things, you can almost feel it in your gut: The market WANTS to head down.
If this isn't the top, it is close to it. $366.77 will very likely be the high for SPY for the year, and will soon unwind downwards.

Premise 3: The Fed CANNOT Print Money

I know this will come as a shock to most of you idiots but the fucking money printer does NOT GO BRRRRR.
The Fed has to follow the laws that govern it's actions. The Fed does not have the legal authority to simply print cash and hand it out. Go ahead and read the Federal Reserve Act, and take a look at the Fed's actions, for proof of this. It doesn't even have the authority to print cash to buy corporate bonds or anything else.
What the Fed "prints" is called "reserves."
Source: https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2019/august/open-market-operations-monetary-policy-tools-explained
So what, you say? So everything. The key point about reserves is that they cannot be spent like cash can. When a bank gets reserve funds in its reserve account at the Fed, it CANNOT SPEND that money. All the bank can do is use that account as collateral to lend against. Which means if the banks are not lending, those QE funds are NOT entering the economy. They might as well not exist. And banks are not lending, as we will see below.
This is the counter argument to all the ignorant retail traders who will argue that the Fed is "backstopping" stocks, or that the Fed will not "allow" the market to crash. The Fed has no power to print money, and therefore no power to buy stocks, and therefore no power to prevent a crash. The Fed's power is illusory, but enough people buy the illusion to make it effective. That won't last forever.
Just think about it. If Fed actions and QE really made stocks rally the way people claim it does, why isn't the Japan Nikkei constantly breaking new all time highs???

Premise 4: Quantitative Easing is Deflationary

Quantitative Easing is not Cash. In fact, QE is deflationary.
Here is how QE works, in a nutshell. The Fed buys bonds from the big banks. Except the Fed isn't buying them with cash. In exchange for the bonds, the Fed puts funds in a reserve account held by the bank. These reserve funds CANNOT BE TOUCHED by the banks. All the banks can do is use this account as collateral to lend against.
In fact, it's worse than that. Because the Fed is removing assets from the open market, and not paying cash for them. It is purchasing liquid assets with illiquid reserves. Despite all the Fed's talk about "creating liquidity," what the Fed is actually doing is REMOVING liquidity from the system!
Why would they do this? Answer: To lower interest rates. Don't take my word for it, the Fed explains this itself!
Source: https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2019/august/open-market-operations-monetary-policy-tools-explained
See, the Fed has to follow the laws that govern its actions. Despite what the public believes, the Fed does not have the legal authority to simply print money and hand it out. The Fed knows that the true source of inflation in a debt-based economy is through credit expansion. So the Fed does everything it can to reduce interest rates, both by setting reserve rates near zero and by using QE to drive rates down further.
Only when credit expansion revives will we begin to see inflation and a true recovery. The Fed knows their hands are tied, which is why they keep hammering Congress to pass more stimulus.
Perhaps the greatest strength of the Fed is in "forward guidance." The Fed simply uses words to convince the public that money is being printed, that inflation is coming, so that people go out and spend and buy assets. They are playing a trick on the public, and the trick is working. People actually believe inflation is coming, that stocks are being held up by the Fed, that money is pouring into the system. The public is wrong on every count.
The Fed is trying to contract credit markets in order to lower interest rates in order to eventually spur lending in order to eventually create inflation. But in the meantime, QE is deflationary. As stated above, if reserve funds are not being lent out by the banks, they do not enter the economy, and thus QE serves a deflationary role. Let's take a look at the next premise, that banks are contracting the credit markets.

Premise 5: Credit Markets are Contracting

The question of whether banks are lending or not with their QE reserves is simply a matter of looking at the data. Practically every data source we can point to suggests contracting credit conditions. This means QE reserves are not entering the economy, and therefore are not producing inflation nor holding up stocks.
The SLOOS data from the Fed, Oct. 2020:
Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/data/sloos/sloos-202010-table-1.htm
Real Estate lending is booming, you say? Not so....
Banks Lending is TIGHTENING:
Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/data/documents/sloos-202010-charts.pdf
Note: The decline near the end doesn't represent growth in credit, but represents a reduction in the RATE of tightening.
Consumer Demand for Loans is SHRINKING:
Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/data/documents/sloos-202010-charts.pdf
Even Credit Card debt growth is negative!
https://preview.redd.it/73j9n0fl14061.png?width=1585&format=png&auto=webp&s=6328ef22e4a84f0a32b419c35eeacc5238911d24

Premise 6: Banks are Loading Up on Safe Bonds While Retail Loads Up on Stocks

If you are like me, you look forward to the H.8 data every Friday from the Fed (yeah right haha). A continuing trend in that data, month after month after month, is that major banks in the US have been loading up on bonds with no end in sight. They are piling more and more cash into safe assets, now up to a whopping $4.6 TRILLION in securities.
Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h8/current/default.htm
Meanwhile, retail traders (that means you) keep piling into stocks at all time highs. A record amount of cash was dumped into the market after the vaccine news breaks. I'm just gonna go ahead and call it now. This is the top.
Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-13/stock-funds-get-record-44-5-billion-inflows-on-vaccine-optimism

Premise 7: Unemployment is Still Sky High

I bring this up just to reiterate another real-world metric that is gloomy as fuck and yet completely ignored from market valuations. Why are stocks breaking all-time highs when we still have MILLIONS more unemployed than we did this time last year? Hello McFly?
https://preview.redd.it/jda435zq14061.png?width=1164&format=png&auto=webp&s=3929064c0e9d6ae120201ad4295e02cca2bdcf45

Conclusion:

Shit's fucked up son. Real world economy is still in shambles. Market is more overvalued than it was during the DotCom boom. Still millions unemployed. The market is topping off and rejecting highs again and again. The Fed is not printing money and not backstopping assets, despite claims to the contrary. We are heading down, folks!
Positions:
SPY 350p 12/18
VXX 22c 12/18
Also anything else that strikes your fancy. IWM, GLD, SLV puts are all fine (dollar is going to rise). Longer dated TLT calls will print as well due to QE reducing bond yields, eventually. Go longer or shorted dated depending on personal risk tolerance.
Timing can be difficult. My strategy is to periodically enter bearish positions when short-term indicators look good, and hope to eventually time the major dump. If things begin to stabilize short-term I exit the position quickly with a small gain or, rarely, a small loss.
See: https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/jkm5jq/the_bears_arent_done_folks_these_diamond_hands/

Time for some more "quality" off-season content. Here is the question I propose:
If you made a team of players for every letter of the alphabet based on the first letter in their tag, what would the power rankings of these 26 teams be?
To solve this immensely important question, let's go over some ground rules for the hypothetical teams:

• All OWL players are included at the time of writing, former and present, including players signed to teams for the upcoming 2021 season.
• To form the team, I will be taking MY PERSONAL OPINION of who is best in each role. I don't mean to upset anyone with my picks, it is simply my opinion.
• Each role must be filled by a player who has legitimately played that role in the past, or is known as a player of that role. I will not include one-offs, such as Decay playing Zarya for the recent season 3 playoffs meta as him being an Off Tank player just so that the team will be filled out more properly.
• Because of the above point, these teams will not necessarily be what a coach would actually play, given all the players at their disposal. We have to assume the meta in play here is a strict lock on 1 main tank, 1 off tank, 1 hitscan dps, 1 flex dps, 1 main support, and 1 flex support.
• I tended to pick proven talent vs incoming players, even if the proven talent was mediocre at best, simply because I don't think it's fair to have a ranking of a player without actually seeing them in action against the other players listed here.

With the ground rules out of the way, lets jump right in with the data. This chart includes every single player who has ever played or appeared on a team in the Overwatch League since it's inception, at least according to Liquipedia. Note, all extra players are unsorted and listed after the starters.
(Google Drive Link for easier viewing: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15bVTlKYxYrls-7Pr5c7F2SPpnx8pHqehYdZDLORX9M8/edit?usp=sharing)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
Main Tank	Ameng	BenBest	CWoosH	Dreamer		Fearless	guxue	Hydration	iRemix	JMAC	Karayan	LhCloudy	Mano	NoSmite	OGE	Pokpo		Rio	SADO	Tizi				xQc	Yakpung
Off Tank		BERNAR	Choihyobn	DACO	Elsa	Fury	Gargoyle	Hanbin		JJANU	KSAA	Lateyoung	MekO	Nevix		Poko	QoQ	Ria	SPACE	Toyou		Void	WooHyaL	xepheR		zunba
Hitscan DPS	ANS	Birdring	Carpe	Decay	Edison	FITS	Glister	Happy	ILLICIT	Jerry	KSP	LIP	MirroR	Nenne	ONIGOD	Pine			Striker	ta1yo	Undead			Xzi	YangXiaoLong	ZachaREEE
Flex DPS	Architect	Blase	Colourhex	Doha	Erster	Fleta		Haksal	Ivy	JinMu	KSF	Libero	Mangachu	nero		Profit		Rascal	Sp9rk1e	TTuba			WhoRU		Yaki	zYKK
Main Support	Anamo	BigG00se	Chara	dhaK		FunnyAstro	Gambler	Halo	iDK	Jecse	Kruise	LeeJaeGon	moth	neptuNo	OnlyWish	Paintbrush	Quartermain	Roky	SLIME	Tobi		Verbo			Yveltal
Flex Support	Alarm	BeBe	Creative	Dogman	Elk	Fielder	Gido	Highly	Izayaki	Jjonak	Kariv	Luffy	Myungb0ng	Neko		Persia		Rapel	Shu	Twilight	uNKOE	Viol2t	Wya	Xushu		Zuppeh
Extras	ATing	Bumper	Crong	Dalton	Eqo	Fusions	Gesture	HOTBA	iddqd	Jjanggu	Krillin	Lengsa	mikeyy	numlocked		Punk		rOar	Schwi	Tsuna			Wekeed		YOUNGJIN	Zebbosai
	Axxiom	Bdosin	Clestyn	diem	ELLIVOTE	Fate	Gig	Hawk	im37	Janus	Kris	Leave	Mandu	NiCOgdh		Pelican		Roolf	SoOn	Trill						zappis
	ArK	Boombox	coolmatt	DDing	Eileen	Frd	Gator	HaGoPeun		Jaru	Kyo	LiNkzr	Molly	NotE		PIGGY		RaiN	Smex	TviQ
	ALTHOUGH	Bazzi	ColdesT	Diya	envy	Fuze	Garry	Hooreg		Jihun	kevster	Lr1s	Marve1	NLaaeR		Panker		rCk	Surefour	Takoyaki
	Agilities	Beast	ChipSa	dafran	Esca	FDGoD	GodsB	Hyp		JAKE	Krystal	Lastro	Michelle	NUS				Rawkus	Sharp	Taimou
	Apply	Baconjack	Carcar	Danteh	EFFECT	Fire	Gamsu	Hyeonu		Joemeister	Kellex	Logix	Masaa	Nisha				Rise	Saucy
	AimGod	BiaNcA	Closer	[redacted]		Fissure	Guard	HarryHook		Jimmy	Kalios	LullSiSH	McGravy	nomy				Revenge	Stitch
	Akm	Bqb	Crimzo	Danye		Fl0w3R	Greyy			Jiqiren	Kodak	LiGe	Muma					ryujehong	Sayaplayer
	alemao	Boink	Clockwork	DPI		Finnsi	Gods				Kyb		M1ka					Roshan	SanGuiNar
	ArHaN	Byrem	Corey	DayFly		FCTFCTN	GA9A				Kaneki		[redacted]					Ripa	Stand1
	Aid	babybay	ChoiSehwan	Daemin		fragi	Geguri				KuKi		Munchkin						sHockWave
	Ado	Bani	CoMa			Fahzix	GuardiaN						Mistakes						ShRedLock
	Adora	Bischu	cocco			Farway1987	GrimReality						Manneten						Saebyeolbe
	Avast	brussen	chipshajen			Fiveking							Mendokusaii						Super
	aWesomeGuy	Babel	Custa			Freefeel							Mag						Smurf
	Asher	Bunny											MYKaylee						Shax
	Altering												MCD						SASIN
	Aztac												Miro						Shax
	ANSOONJAE												MG						Swimmer
	Adam												Mickie						Stellar
													MuZe						Snow
																			ShaDowBurn
																			sharyk
																			SNT
																			Swon
																			Sideshow
																			SPREE
																			snillo
																			Stratus
																			sleepy
																			Sansam
																			Shy
																			SeoMinSoo
																			Sky
																			Seagull
																			skewed
																			Shaz
																			silkthread
																			Slur
																			sinatraa

Right away, there are some clear takeaways that we can look at:

1. "S" team has enough players to create 3 fully fleshed-out teams, and an overwhelming majority of players. I believe this alone should be cause for significant interest.
2. There are 12 teams that don't have a player for every role. From those 12 teams, there are 7 teams that don't even have enough backup players to fill out a 6-man roster. From this information, I will say that for any aspiring OWL Letter Team players, pick names that start with "O", "Q", "U", "V", "W", "X", or "Y".
3. While many teams do have full rosters without having to call in backups, a few have to rely on long-retired players: see "C" team with the only available main tank being former Florida Mayhem bus-driver CWoosH, or "D" team with the only available main support being former San Francisco Shock player dhaK.
4. "P" team and "R" team gain the obvious buffs of having a tank line that's completely indistinguishable for casters of "Pokpo" and "Poko", and "Rio" and "Ria".
5. Personally I find it interesting that although "A" team has the 3rd most total players across the board, there still is not a single off tank player.

So now let's get into ranking these teams. I think there are three general tiers of teams that we can group them into first: full teams filled out with players of every role, teams that require backups to fill out, and teams that can't even field a 6-man roster. Let's go from the bottom up, starting with the teams that can't field a full roster:
​
26) Team "U" (Undead, uNKOE) This is one of two teams that only have two players on the roster, and unfortunately I can't see any way around ranking this team dead last. Undead hasn't seen the OWL stage since his infamous season 1 performance with the Shanghai Dragons where they went 0-40. uNKOE doesn't have much more to his name with back to back disappointing performances on the Dallas Fuel.
25) Team "Q" (QoQ, Quartermain) This team narrowly escapes last place by having some at least decently performing players. Quartermain was part of a very middling season 2 London Spitfire, and recently QoQ put up decent performances on the Hangzhou Spark.
24) Team "W" (WooHyal, WhoRU, Wya) While this may come as a surprise since this team does technically have 4 players (one more than teams "O" and "V") I think the quality of these players simply does not match up. WhoRU is the only really notable player to speak of here, and even he had a very mediocre season with the NYXL, until he was all but replaced with Haksal. The remaining players (WooHyaL, Wya, and Wekeed) haven't even been in the league in one or more seasons, making this team's placement pretty obvious.
23) Team "O" (OGE, ONIGOD, OnlyWish) This team does manage to beat the more filled out team "W", but just barely. OGE and ONIGOD have shown some promise in past seasons, and would most likely be able to carry the long forgotten former Guangzhou charge support player OnlyWish.
22) Team "V" (Void, Verbo, Viol2t) I was truly tempted to put this team even higher, but I can't continue to justify what is mostly a two-man show of MVP caliber talent in Void and Viol2t. Verbo hasn't been on an OWL roster since season 1, and even then was never a starter. Although it breaks my heart, this is where "V" team must stand.
21) Team "X" (xQc, xepheR, Xzi, Xushu) Xzi stock is the true carry that got this team so high. xQc and Xushu are long retired from competitive Overwatch, and "Scrim God" xepheR doesn't really have any other accolade to his name. However, with MVP caliber Xzi, and a basic body count, this team gets to avoid the lowest of the pack.
20) Team "Z" (zunba, ZachaREEE, zYKK, Zuppeh) In another possibly controversial pick, I chose team "Z" over team "Y", even though the latter is missing a player. However, looking at team "Z"'s truly pitiful starting roster, this shouldn't be much of a surprise. Out of all six players, only one (zYKK) is even actively competiting in overwatch anymore, and even in their prime none of these players were particularly exciting, except for maybe the weekly speculation on whether Aero would bench ZachaREEE for his poor Brig performance.
19) Team "Y" (Yakpung, YangXiaoLong, Yaki, Yveltal) Rounding out the bottom seven teams, team "Y" has some legitimate talent on its roster, mixed with the retirees. Yaki has looked particularly impressive this season (excluding one specific Pharah 1v1), and Yveltal has put up consistent perfomances on the Chengdu Hunters over the past two years.
18) Team "I" (iRemix, ILLICIT, Ivy, iDK, Izayaki) While this is not technically the last team in the category of "teams that require backups to fill out their roster", this is the last one that I would say heavily suffers for it. Without many backups, this team feels like while it could punch up above its weight class given the right meta, it lacks the consistency to sustain any high rankings long-term. That being said, im37 has proven in the past that his zarya is capable, and with a high-tier support line of iDK and Izayaki, and respectable dps in ILLICIT and Ivy, this team could definitely make a run. "Any given Sunday" comes to mind here.
17) Team "E" (Elsa, Edison, Erster, Elk) Former Atlanta Reign dps line of Erster and Edison carry the weight of this team, especially with a barely-existent support line of just Elk. This team does have plenty of backups, so most likely they would be able to find backups for the positions they're missing (especially for the tankline given that they have three off tanks on the team), but the lack of starting power does hurt.
16) Team "G" (guxue, Gargoyle, Glister, Gambler, Gido) Team "G" might have the most lopsided skew of players of any team. Five main tanks to choose from, and a multitude of off tanks and hitscans, but no flex dps and a significant drop in quality of support line. This is one team that would almost certainly rather have bench backups play off-roles and take over for some of the starters, since there is some true talent on the bench here: Gesture and GodsB immediately come to mind. Even so, with a flex dps filled out from a backup, this team has a seriously scary tankline, and one of the best rookie dps in the league in Glister.
15) Team "R" (Rio, Ria, Rascal, Roky, Rapel) As mentioned earlier, this is one of two teams that gets the "matching tankline names" buff, with Rio and Ria being the starting main/off tanks. Assuming a hitscan dps could be found in the relatively large bench, this team poses a legitimate threat with an MVP caliber player in Rascal, and it is the first team with all its players being currently active in the OWL.
14) Team "T" (Tizi, Toyou, ta1yo, TTuba, Tobi, Twilight) This team was very hard to rank. Technically speaking, it has players whose teams have achieved high highs - ta1yo and Twilight have an OWL championship under their belts, Tizi and Tobi made Grand Finals appearances, and even TTuba made an impressive run in the recent season 3 playoffs. That being said, none of these players (except maybe Twilight) seemed like the most impressive parts of these high achieving teams; TTuba's run will always be known as the Decay Zarya boogaloo, Tizi was only subbed in for the season 2 playoffs over his counterpart Bumper, and ta1yo, while technically being on the Shock, has only actually played one match with them on stage. I wanted to put this team higher, but I think the proven star talent that other teams have to offer beats out this team.
13) Team "N" (NoSmite, Nevix, Nenne, nero, neptuNo, Neko) Nenne and nero are the only truly exciting pieces of this team, and with few backups, I can't justify placing this team any higher. NoSmite and Nevix have had relatively middling seasons recently, and neptuNo and Neko haven't actually played a match since season 2. I think this team could have something of a turn around season with good coaching, but I don't think the raw talent is there.
12) Team "P" (Pokpo, Poko, Pine, Profit, Paintbrush, Persia) The second of the two teams to receive the matching tankline name buff, team "P" suffers from a few key positions having relatively unproven talent. Pine on hitscan sounds exciting, and he is apparently intending to make a return to the OWL this coming year, but he hasn't seen the stage since his exciting stage 1 performances with the NYXL. Persia also comes to mind as a potential issue, a former Boston Uprising player who took over for AimGod without ever really seeming like anything of an improvement. Profit and Poko obviously add some true star power here, but it's not enough to get them any higher.
11) Team "B" (BenBest, BERNAR, Birdring, Blase, BigG00se, BeBe) Barely beating team "P", this is another team that lacks much in the way of star power. Birdring is the only really outstanding player here, with the rest of the team being consistently capable players. However, what really pushes this team over the edge is their massively deep bench; two full rosters could be formed with these backups, and this gives a lot more confidence that if the team wasn't succeeding with its starters, something else could be fielded instead.
10) Team "D" (Dreamer, DACO, Decay, Doha, dhaK, Dogman) Former Dallas Fuel dps duo of Decay and Doha get reunited on team "D", and the team looks all the better for it. Dps on this team are truly unending, with a bench of diem, DDing, and Diya, just to name those coming from the Shanghai Dragons. The only outlier here is dhaK, long retired former San Francisco Shock support player. Even so, I think the rest of the team makes up for this, and the team as a whole, especially with the extraordinarily deep dps bench, could go far.
9) Team "A" (Ameng, ANS, Architect, Anamo, Alarm) Team "A" appears at first glance to be an obvious imposter, with it missing an offtank player. However, given Ameng's specific hero pool, and the team's relatively deep bench of main tanks, I think it would be pretty easy to slot in a backup for the main or off tank role. That being said, this team otherwise has some of the most powerful starters in the whole league: recent rookie of the year Alarm, matched with longtime NYXL main support Anamo makes one scary supportline, and ANS and Architect, former teammates on San Francisco Shock, are some of the best in the game at their roles. This is the first team I would consider to truly be a title contender, but I think the hopes of a title are somewhat limited by the team's relatively weak bench. While there are a very numerous amount of players, the quality of the majority of them is a bit questionable. That, coupled with the lack of a clear starting offtank, will make this potentially powerhouse of a team stuck in ninth.
8) Team "K" (Karayan, KSAA, KSP, KSF, Kruise, Kariv) This team reminds me of the 2020 LA Valiant, and not just because it contains two of their DPS players on the starting roster. None of the players on this roster seem to be particularly special, but at the same time, none stand out as obvious problems, and I think with a good coaching staff, this team could be a consistently well-performing team. I would give them a lower ceiling than team "A", but also a higher floor - probably something like 12-5, instead of 15-1 as I would give to team "A". Overall, a somewhat limited bench and lack of star power are what hold this team back the most.
7) Team "L" (LhCloudy, Lateyoung, LIP, Libero, LeeJaeGon, Luffy) Meet team "A" 2.0. A completely star studded dps line of LIP and Libero, and a very solid support line of LeeJaeGon and Luffy make this team serious title contenders, and with legitimate options of Lateyoung and LhCloudy for the tankline, this team gets the slight boost needed to push them higher into the top 10. The dps backups aren't to be scoffed at either, with LiNKzr, Leave, and Logix all celebrated dps players for their teams. I think the tankline is the weakest link here, but not by a huge margin.
6) Team "C" (CWoosH, Choihyobn, Carpe, ColourHex, Chara, Creative) Another team that I'm sure would wish for a less defined role based meta, team "C" has some high highs and some low lows. Carpe and Choihyobn have solid cases for being the best player in their role across the board, and a backline of Chara and Creative is no slouch. However, Colourhex and CWoosH are clear standouts here, particularly in the case of the long retired CWoosH. I think for the most part the good outweighs the bad, but at a heavy cost. Slot in a main tank who has played in the league in the past two seasons and I think this team could easily have made top 5. Unfortunately, it is stuck on the outside looking in, with a relatively low ceiling based on how important the main tank role has been in recent years.
5) Team "H" (Hydration, Hanbin, Happy, Haksal, Halo, Highly) Team "H" is the tale of two teams - the high flying dps lineup of Happy and Haksal and the rookie offtank who made waves on the Paris Eternal Hanbin, and then the flex dps-turned-main tank Hydration, paired with the unimpressive support line of Halo and Highly. Don't get me wrong, I think this team could definitely make some good runs with the right meta and good coaching, but it's a stretch to see this team as a title contender. However, I think consistency beats potential in this case, and I have to, begrudgingly, put this team in the top 5.
4) Team "J" (JMAC, JJANU, Jerry, JinMu, Jecse, Jjonak) This team is the first that feels like there were no real shortcuts made in its formation. Yes, there might some weak links compared to the overall quality of the roster, but save for a super team (hint hint, its coming) there will always be weaker and stronger members of any team. Recently retired JMAC slightly stands out here, but coming off a season that personally looked decent from him, I don't see this as too much of an issue. Season 1 MVP Jjonak obviously can't be questioned as an elite tier talent, and his support partner of Jecse is no slouch either. JJANU is also a welcome talent here and there are few dps in the league that have the peak of JinMu and Jerry. Another team with a possibility to bottom out, I think this is the third of the true title contenders.
3) Team "M" (Mano, MekO, MirroR, Mangachu, moth, Myungb0ng) Some may say I'm nostalgic for the past, but a tank line of Mano and MekO just has me so excited I can't help but put this team in third. Not to mention a support line of two time champion Moth, and Myongb0ng, a player I think often goes under the radar, especially being one of the only pieces of a Boston team that seems to have any life at all. MirroR brings some interesting flexibility to the hitscan role, and while Mangachu didn't have the best season while he was actively on a roster, he definitely has a deep understanding of the game. I think this team fits into the overall narrative in a similar way to the NYXL of season 2; not really possible to compete with the top two, but a looming threat to anyone below them.
2) Team "F" (Fearless, Fury, FITS, Fleta, FunnyAstro, Fielder) We're truly in superteam territory here. If you said there was a team composed of Fearless, Fury, FITS, Fleta, FunnytAstro, and Fielder, I probably wouldn't believe you given how impossibly expensive it would be to put these players together. This roster has a threat at every role, and I seriously can't find a weak link no matter how hard I try. Add onto that an impressive bench including talent such as FDGoD, Fate, Fissure, and Fuze, I would say this team is almost perfect. Almost.
1 ) Team "S" (SADO, SPACE, Striker, Sp9rk1e, SLIME, Shu) SADO, SPACE, Striker, Sp9rk1e, SLIME, Shu. Just this team alone probably wins this imaginary league. But what's that, you don't like any of these players? Well, how about Super, SASIN, Saebyeolbe, sHockWave, SanGuiNar, Shaz. Oh you don't think there's enough star power? How about season 2 MVP and season 2 champion sinatraa, or popular streamers SureFour and Seagull? There aren't enough meme players? Fuck it, we've got SeoMinSoo and former Florida Mayhem AND LA Gladiators flex dps player, the egg himself, Sideshow Overwatch. This isn't just a super team - it's 5 super teams jumbled together, and to say they would have no excuse to not win the league is an understatement. Every piece of this roster has at least one backup, and there are more hitscan players than the bottom four teams combined. This team is the clear number one.
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Final Thoughts
Was this a pointless experiment? Yes.
Do I care? No.
Do I know I included Shax twice in the grid? Yes.
Will I do anything about it? No.
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TLDR: If you want to get a guaranteed spot on an arbitrary hypothetical team of players with the same first letter, pick Q or U. There are loads of players in the league with S as the first letter in their name, leading to an overwhelming level of power in that team.