Interestingly, quite a few number of stocks are "perpetually unbuyable" from Sweden's major broker since well before GME, due to "dangerous volatility". You can only buy them via phone/broker. (I guess, at a cost.) One has to wonder, dangerous for whom? How is it better for me, the customer, that I have to trust your price (more than I usually have to do) and your producing a fair price in what effectively becomes a dark market?
All that talk of defining risk as volatility (I don't get that: volatility is volatility –– if you want a synonym, you can say volatility = ("size" of) fluctuation, but volatility ? risk and risk ? volatility. It makes no sense. Risk to me, is permanent loss of capital.) is just a way of fooling the customer into making them money in a volatility-free way. Volatility is risk to them, but to small timers, it's opportunity, if you only understand the pointlessness of stock markets excessive bipolar fluctuations.
But that difference of opinion just proves that we're enemies, inevitably and irrefutably. We want completely different things. When dealing with ones broker, one must always try to remember that they are trying to take as much of your money as they can, however friendly and "on your side" they may appear. (Indeed, most corporations do...) Therefore, you should try to take advantage of them as much as possible. Screw them before they get a chance to screw you. Don't ever trust a company, especially not one that tries to frame itself as "good" and capitalize on that (Chamath's "Social Capital" comes to mind) – and especially not corporations.
A for-profit company calling itself Robinhood, that's just preposterous...
Some Machiavellian/Art of War shit maybe, but that's how the world works, unfortunately. You can't afford to be as naïve as I am by nature, so you have to adjust yourself in a purely pragmatical way, without changing your core beliefs, in order not to become cynical. The market(s) is a disillusioning place, and you can't "afford" to take it personal, and internalize that cynicism; just temporarily choose to enter 'feelingless mode' when dealing with such complete nihilism. |
