This is QAnon/Kraken/Dominion level crankery. The MAGA types are happy to believe in voter fraud conspiracy theories with no evidence because they hate the Democratic party, and here you are doing literally the exact same thing here except replacing "Deep State" with "hedgefond managers".
People like you make fun of the QAnon-types but you're just as willing to indulge in deranged evidence-free conspiracy theorizing as long as it accommodates your ideological priors.
Shorting more than 100% of the stock is excessive and irresponsible. That figure is not a conspiracy theory: it is public information that the SEC releases monthly.
Whether hedge fund managers did make a call to their buddies is not the only thing in question here (although the SEC will surely determine the truth). Shorting a stock drives the price down and, while this is no less legal than buying a stock, the question is whether shorting 136% of the stock counts as outright manipulation. Reddit kids have done nothing but pop an artificial bubble, they did not participate in manipulation; as the hedge fund managers and their buddies claim.
> QAnon
I have yet to see the baby cookbook or other evidence of their ridiculous claims.
The parent commenter claimed that brokerages were colluding to drive the price of GME down to benefits the shorts. That is QAnon-level evidence-free conspiracy theorizing. The clearing houses were demanding more collateral and brokerages couldn't afford or didn't want to put it up.
> whether shorting 136% of the stock counts as outright manipulation
I refer you to the snarky top comment about how all the Dunning-Kruger victims who claim manipulation do not actually know what manipulation is. Shorting a stock is not manipulation and neither is lots of people deciding to short a stock. 136% of the stock is shorted because a lot of people were shorting it, not because Some Guy decided to single-handedly short 136% of the float.
> Reddit kids have done nothing but pop an artificial bubble
So GameStop was an artificial bubble at $10 but not at $500? Really?
IB claimed to have hiked margin to 100% which is a reasonable response. However, I have heard from many sources that they in fact rejected buy orders even with cash - which, if true, and I have every reason to believe so, makes any explanation about margins and technical reasons seem ridiculous.
There is surely some deeper non public reason that every single retail broker - but no single institutional broker - stopped accepting GME buys but kept honoring sells. It might or might not be a call from hedge fund buddies, but it is still likely illegal.
When I was working at a hedge fund, I once executed a few hundred mil notional on a supposedly anonymous exchange, taking advantage of an obvious counterparty mistake.
Within 10 minutes, I got a call from said counterparty, telling me that next time I do that, they’ll make sure I’m kicked off the exchange.
Anonymous my ass. Legal my ass. And yet, it happened - I’m sure I wasn’t the first or the last - the other side kept making those mistakes. I stopped taking advantage of them. This kind of behavior is rampant in Wall Street. Only difference is it has been done now in the open, very visibly, and with thousands - perhaps tens of thousands - identifiable victims.
People like you make fun of the QAnon-types but you're just as willing to indulge in deranged evidence-free conspiracy theorizing as long as it accommodates your ideological priors.