Space Apes around the globe rejoiced upon news that GameStop’s rocket engines had ignited and were ready for blast off in the late market hours of February 24th, 2021.
The Sophisticated Investors (hedgies) intentionally made things complex so Space Ape get confused and be filled with FUD. After a previous failure to launch, many Apes feared they had failed their moon mission for good.
But Ape lucky.
Ape remember prophecy: Diamond hands make Ape go moon.
Ape mission pure.
Ape mission simple.
Diamond hands.
Smoke and mirrors
Simplicity was the Apes’ only advantages over many disadvantages they had to the hedges who sat on mountains of bananas.
Hedgies were banking on GameStop’s bankruptcy. It was worth more to them dead than alive.
Especially considering they had created millions of fraudulent shares on the books to dilute the price down faster. You see, if GameStop went bankrupt, no one would know about the fraudulent shares and they would disappear. Poof. In a quirky tax loophole, any profits the shorter made by fraudulently suffocating the stock would be tax free, because the shorter technically never owned the stock – only borrowed it. Jackpot.
But after Ryan Cohen, founder of Chewy.com, joined the board, GameStop’s bankruptcy became less than certain. Ryan was clearly talented in ecommerce. He had spun up Chewy to a multi-billion dollar company in less than four years. The gaming industry is twice as large as the pet food industry.
So the shorts had to up the ante to make sure GameStop went bankrupt quickly. Otherwise, they would not only be force to buy back the shares that had gone up upon Cohen’s arrival, but the fraudulent ones on the books as well. It’s unlikely they ever thought they would have to buy back the fraudulent shares.
That the failure to deliver rate of these borrowed shares was through the roof for months was telling. It’s a textbook indicator of naked shorting.
Every share mattered; every share would have to be bought back to hide the fraud. Apes who held a share would be in an almost ‘name-your-price’ position.
The hedgies had a lot to lose if GameStop didn’t go into their pre-determined bankruptcy plan. So they kicked into high gear.
The hundred-year long month
The month of February dragged on for Space Apes everywhere.
The psychological warfare was tough – some apes didn’t make it. They were beaten down, ridiculed by the media, forced to separate reality from smoke and mirrors, and tested by the siren calls of decoy bananas. Were there really no bananas? Was it all just a dream?
Some Apes couldn’t handle it. They cracked under the pressure. Their hands turned to paper. They had to be left behind.
Apes noted that buying pressure consistently exceeded sell pressure. In fact, many Apes tried to buy more GameStop with the change they had rummaged from the couch cushions were but unable to do so.
And the end of each trading day, thousands of Ape buy orders were unfilled.
Economics 101 would dictate when demand outweighs supply, prices go up. How then, apes wondered, did the price continue to decline?
Yet, it did. The price drifted downwards like a feather floating towards the Earth, the Ape’s morale along with it. The apes noticed that sales were happening significantly below market prices. Hmmm. Interesting. Why would anyone repeatedly sell for less than market value?
Apes know this not make sense. Ape know something doesn’t add up. Hedgies hiding something. But what?
They banded together to figure it out.
Apes did some brilliant due diligence: Some manned the SEC filings, others scanned the data, and everyone shared what they found.
Some apes with extra wrinkly brains determined that the hedgies really were hiding something, and probably more than they knew about.
They were still traumatized from their last launch. You see, about three weeks earlier, the Apes had launched their rocket ship. But the hedgies shot their ship clear out of the sky by manipulating the sky itself.
How did they do that? The Ape’s sophisticated analysis determined it was via naked shorting, short laddering, and indirect price suppression via shorting ETF’s containing GME shares.
The hedgies relentlessly attacked the apes on all fronts – the media, infiltrating ape camps , even attacking other things the apes loved, like cannabis, video games, and Roaring Kitty. They even tried to banish a community moderator, striking FUD into the heart of every ape.
Nevertheless, the apes persisted. They knew that they were not the ones who committed fraud and with Ryan Cohen and friends in the mix, GameStop had a fighting chance at a prosperous future.
The bottomless well
But there was a problem.
The hedgies had a bottomless well, one that they pulled water from to quell the flames from beneath the Ape’s Rocket ship every time they got the thing fired up.
The well was inexpensive for the hedgies to maintain – questionably inexpensive considering the circumstances. The hedgies would only be charged 1% interest per year to borrow the water from the well, a bargain compared to the alternative of buying their way out of short positions. It looked like the hedgies could throw water on the Ape’s rocket ship engines forever.
The well dries up
But on February 24th, something happened.
The water in the well the Hedges used to smut out the flame of the Apes’ rocket ship was drained.
The Apes noticed the well levels were rapidly declining.
They feared it was only a matter of time before those 1.8M borrowed shares would rain down upon the share price as they had for weeks.
They hid behind rocks with eyes squeezed tight. Space apes braced for impact and setbacks.
Their ears awaited the sizzle sound of the hedgies well water splashing the fire of the engines out.
But to their surprise, the sound of their rocket ship’s engine roared louder.
And louder.
And louder!
They raced to the ship ecstatically – She’s gonna blow! Everybody in!
But questions remained. What became of the drained well water? Where did the 1.8M shares go? Had some benevolent force drained the hedgie’s well water so that the Apes could finally get their ship blasting off toward the moon?
Or did the Space apes have more surprises in store?
As the rocket ship took off, it shook violently. Apes inside were jerked all about. An explosion was heard and the rockets warning system’s sounded. They lost altitude, but managed to stay airborne.
Could they still reach escape velocity?
Stay tuned.