Robinhood (RH) is the Silicon Valley-funded trading platform geared towards millenials with smaller accounts. A slick, intuitive user-interface drew them in, but the free trades keep them there.
Largely due to their growth within the younger demographic, RH is the latest Silicon Valley Unicorn rumored to be eying an IPO. Their venture capital investors are certainly eager to get liquidity on the nearly $1B of capital they’ve invested in Robinhood. But this week may prove to have been a major bump in the road.
Traders on RH are notorious for exchanging ideas and trolling both each other and the “normie” market forums on Sub-Reddit called Wall Street Bets (WSB). WSB has recently received notoriety after reports on CNBC and in Bloomberg News.
But perhaps infamy would be the better descriptor: stocks- or Stonks, as they are affectionately referred to after one commentor’s typo- are not treated as investments, but as chips in a casino that may ultimately yield tendies (slang for a significant gain). Traders in WSB make aggressive, concentrated bets on options, often in pursuit of a ride on a coveted Meme Stock. And they’ve bucked institutional skepticism by rapidly pushing up stonks like Tesla, Beyond Meat, and Virgin Galactic.
The WSB stonk community routinely derides other subreddits like r/investing whose participants espouse quaint strategies like diversification. They mock terms like “value investing” and “buy and hold” as Boomer nonsense. They love the binary, more instant gratification of options and they routinely advertise their bets. They move in and out quick in their hunt for tendies.
So we'll leave it up to the reader to decipher when robinhood went down.
The outrage directed at RH yesterday was overwhelming, WSB moderators had to direct commenters to a specific thread:
theycallmeryan
To the surprise of no one, Robinhood is down for the second straight day. To avoid multiple posts and comments about the same thing, please keep all anger, discussion, and questions about Robinhood's outage or switching to another broker in here.
The anger built throughout the day and members of the community started rallying the troops:
DelaRosaX
Fuck Robinhood. They’ve fucked me out of so much fucking money yesterday, and now today we’re on the path to the same shit. App is pretty much unusable and frozen. It’s not like this is a one-time issue either, RH’s app is always lagging, crashing, and slowing down and their customer service is straight balls. Fuck this broker, let’s get that class action lawsuit rolling, and let’s get a“Fuck Robinhood on the chat”
They were calling for FINRA or SEC investigation:
Ned_Flanderz
2 absolutely historic "trading days", and 11 million people conveniently cannot access their accounts. This is not a coincidence, this is a way to keep the market from acting and overreacting to the news that was going to hit the wire. If there is no investigation into RH by FINRA or the SEC, this is an inside job, it was intentional, to avoid even more massive market swings. Prove me wrong.
And class-action lawsuits:
DelaRosaX
Fuck Robinhood. They’ve fucked me out of so much fucking money yesterday, and now today we’re on the path to the same shit. App is pretty much unusable and frozen. It’s not like this is a one-time issue either, RH’s app is always lagging, crashing, and slowing down and their customer service is straight balls. Fuck this broker, let’s get that class action lawsuit rolling, and let’s get a“Fuck Robinhood on the chat”
And they discussed alternatives. As you can see in the chart, there was a surge in mentions of ETrade, Think or Swim, Ameritrade, and WeBull. Robinhood’s bet is that these younger traders grow into large customers as they age; but this week they just may have cemented their brand a starter platform for novice investors- a platform you eventually graduate from:
v270
This is r/wallsteetbets, not some r/RobinHood support forum. It's a shitty platform with shitty service, and Their business model is straight up predatory. RH has been cucking you for years. This is just the time you came home early and found it gaping you in your tendies. Get a limp dick cobol running blue blood broker like the rest of us and loose your tendies with five nines uptime.
Option value erosion accelerates as they get closer to the expiration date. As you can see, WSB traders were heavily positioned in options expiring on Friday of this week. That made the outages on Monday and Tuesday particularly painful for these traders, as they were unable to trade out of these bets during a critical period of volatility.
Brand loyalty can be fickle. Especially with nearly every other broker now offering free trades, might this week’s outage begin an avalanche of negative perception and government action that threatens this Silicon Valley Unicorn’s young, fresh, and friendly brand reputation? Might Robinhood have to distract itself with a public PR battle similar to the one Uber was forced to engage in?
Follow Top Stonks for more coverage of the Robinhood saga and the WSB community.
Everyone's a Weekday GYNA-Cologist
Welcome. You have the dubious distinction of being part of the Top Stonks beta! We aspire to bring you the most fun and informative insights from the shady stock talk underworld. The product is evolving and we are working on using our data to present actionable trading insights. For now, enjoy our twice-weekly summaries and daily data reporting. Here are our past emails in case you missed them. Enjoy, Stonkies.
GYNA-cology
Luckin Coffee
AMZN Primed
Dissin' Disney
Peanut Snowflakes
Bernie's Revenge
Everyone's a Weekend GYNA-cologist
A lot of China chatter related to Coronavirus in FXI, LK, ASHR, YANG, and BABA
Moldypieboy The Chinese government kept the China stock market closed for more time than they normally do because they are scared of massive sell-offs because of the Kung Flu. it opens back up on Monday and people are still expecting a massive sell-off. what are your opinions on just shorting FXI before Monday and then immediately selling soon thereafter before it can recover any points? Chinese investors are scared and this thing can only get worse over the weekend which means even more tanking of FXI and more money for those who short it. Give me your thoughts
Most Stonkies are Macro Tourists but some are focused on specific stonks like Luckin Coffee (LK)
xmichaelx88 $LK hit piece. MuddyWatersResearch calls company fraudulent
AMcMahon1 Are we surprised? Cheap Chinese coffee company that sells coffee for what under $1? Where's the money to be made there. Probably cooking the books. Also has to complete with Starbucks who will probably wait them out and buy them when they get low enough for their retail space and rename as Starbucks On The Go or something stupid like that
YepRabbit Store closed actually help $LK saving money
They keep losing money on every cup coffee they hand out
aten10x No idea. I polled some asian beckys and they said LK coffee is gross. short this betch
Amazon Primed
Stonkies nuked on earnings by a loose plastic bag
NukeMagnet Dear stupid AMZN bulls, AMZN will never be $2000 again. It's never happening because Jeff Bozos needs to fuck loose plastic bags and his ivy league education wasn't enough to teach him to screen foreign texts. Sorry!
Jeff's old wife only sold 200k shares, she has another 20 million. If she can depress the price for over a year with only 200k shares imagine what she can do with the other 20 mil? AMZN shareholders are so fucked, so very very fucked
theC0nch Exactly that’s another thing, amzn seems to tick off a lot of people lol, must be a corporate culture thing...
AWS had head start advantage bc Bezos was genius to see it would be important but it won’t be the only dominant player 2020, msft is catching up quick and googl is paying attention, even aapl is thinking about it
Prices will lower and cut profits for entire sector, there will be a correction soon in cloud space...
Hopefully they'll live to fight another day...
TheHamburgler8D Amzn stated their Ring doorbell had the best sales ever for the quarter and the stock barely moved. To me that translated into they had a phenomenal quarter, but I see very little interest on stock buying this week.
It sat on the upper resistance line last week. If it can get by that AMZN will take its turn running to $1.4T.
Dissin' Disney
The bear case is based on both the parks being shut due to Coronavirus and weaker than expected subs
elorei74 I do not personally know a single person that kept their dis+ after mandalorian finished unless they have young kids. I know about 20 that cancelled. Also, the Shanghai park makes up like 5% of their revenue. It is closed. Maybe for a while.
thewestcoastavenger As the biggest DIS fanboy/stock supporter you'll find on this sub, I agree. Frozen 2, Disney Plus guidance and Christmas parks revenue (Rise of the Resistance too) will be huge. But closing down Shanghai Disneyland and Disneyland Hong Kong? Disney NEVER closes parks. That will take a huge toll.
Parks are still 1/3 of revenue.
I'm considering buying puts to be honest
OriginalFluff DIS has been a bad play basically since DIS+ came out. Too much hype
I hate that stock because it's so public that a lot of stuff is priced in.
Bulls thinks the hit to the parks business will be temporary and subscriber #'s will be YUGE
DrUNC83 Dis earnings Tuesday. Dam virus has their park In Shanghai shut down I think. If not for that BS virus expect huge moon when Dis+ sub numbers released. I’m guessing 35+ million. They predicted 20 million end of year.
Rocketmann777 Now is the perfect time to get into $dis calls for earnings next week especially after the over reaction to the Chinese chlamydia faux drama
Interesting Visual
omgroki $DIS is stomping on my crank
Millenials and their Peanut Allergies
Are the mice gonna live or die?
hjkoivu $AIMT is about to get FDA approved for a peanut allergy drug by 1/31 that will send the shares soaring. Nestle already owns 19% of the shares and there's a huge chance that they'll buy them out. Estimates would be at about $60 a share for the buyout, and at prices currently $32.38, there's a ton of money to be made. The FDA advisory board voted 7-2 in favor of the drug, and while that doesn't mean it's guarenteed to be approved, drugs with the advisory board's support pass 90% of the time! So there's a 9 out of 10 chance we will be making tons of money!! In addition, AIMT has a lot of new recent job openings, and if they weren't getting this drug approved, why would they be looking for so many new employees? I'm all on board this train and if this isn't approved pre-market tomorrow, we only have a couple of more days before the end of the month so get those 2/21 calls while you have the chance!
SummerSnow8 When is AIMT gonna announce their peanut medication? They said toward end of month. Their data sucks or something that's why its delayed?
The mice lived!
crzyazn9 FDA approves AIMT’s Palforzia peanut allergy treatment. Thank you you beautiful idiots for the DD about AIMT. I sold all my holdings for a loss today so i could stock up on AIMT. i’m gonna cry i’m so happy for all those peanut kids.
AIMT to the moon!
Who Dies First, UNH or Bernie?
psytokine_storm is betting big on Bernie, unless Coronoavirus get him
Health Insurance Tendies. Guys, get your damn UNH puts. I'll tell you why:Without a doubt, UNH will be a very busy company over the coming 2-6 weeks. This isn't a good thing, though.As I'm sure you all know, UNH is a health insurance provider. These guys make their money when somebody is insured by them, and doesn't have any reason whatsoever to see a doctor. Their ideal client is someone who pays premium and never gets sick. Their ideal quarter is one in which every hospital in the country is empty. Their ideal country is one in which everyone has to pay for the service UNH provides, but never actually uses it. They make the most when they have to do nothing at all.UNH is Theta gang, who sells premium against disease.Whether you think that the Wuhan Flu is an actual issue or not, one thing is certain: people are frightened by it. Although most times people just "shrug off" cold like symptoms, with the recent sensationalist headlines, there will be an unexpectedly high amount of clinic/ER visits for silly little runny noses and other bullshit. Although these won't be bonafide Wuhan Flu cases, UNH will still have to pay out for the MD/hospital services rendered. If WuFlu actually DOES end up being something... just look up the daily cost of an ICU visit to get an idea of the claims payouts UNH might be looking at (HINT: It's about a cyber truck per week).Furthermore, it's looking like there is a growing threat to UNH's very market niche. There is rising fear and uncertainty in the market that there will even be a role for UNH if Bernie implements universal health care. Whether you think public health care is a good idea or not, and whether you think Bernie might/should be president, it's clear that there is a growing possibility that American health care may join the rest of the developed world with a public health system. If this happens, would UNH even have a product to sell?If health care goes public, UNH and others will be left with nothing other than their dicks in their hands. Their sole product will become obsolete. Imagine being a horse shoe salesman when Henry Ford popularized the car. Imagine being a slide rule manufacturer at the advent of the personal computer. Despite currently having a $30B market cap, UNH could possibly be left with the same valuation as $LEH.UNH is theta gang, during the world's largest health care scare in over 15 years. They're Abacus Inc., just as a new calculator shop is opening up down the street. Yet somehow, they're trading at just about 5% below ATH, and near the top of their 52wk range.Get your goddam puts.
Mentions
TSLA 4874
AMD 2112
MSFT 2112
AAPL 1817
FXI 1569
AMZN 1439
SPCE 1259
FB 860
DIS 767
GOOG 737
BA 577
DEAC 505
BYND 422
BABA 420
SBUX 391
LK 384
AIMT 306
SNAP 282
GE 278
UNH 240
PTON 239
ROKU 216
UBER 178
ASHR 173
FORD 163
Analysis
Draft Kings top pick
SPACs
BABA Black Sheep
MSFT
WSB in the wild
With SPCE (Virgin Galactic) still on top, AvgSizedPenismaking a girthy claim:
DEAC is the new SPCE
Some Stonkies have been too busy playing D&D to know what DraftKings is:
Satireplusplus
what is DraftKings anyway?
fine_me_bro
A cuck bookie that can't even send leg breakers to collect sports betting debt
Tajori123
I use Draftkings since they legalized it in Indiana. Everyone I know uses it daily. We all lose money daily. They must be making as ass load of cash. I'm in.
HighronCondor
DEAC is draftkings, instead of an ipo they are merging with an already trading holding company so it’s been steadily going up the last month. When this goes mainstream it will hit meme status. All the calls are cheap
Zheng120
Fuck this shitty meme stock $SPCE. Make REAL TENDIES with DraftKings IPO with $DEAC
People who bet on sports have more autism than everyone on this subreddit combined. Like there are retards out there who think the Knicks will ever be good LOL. Sports betting makes crazy money because those idiots don't have r/wallstreetbets giving priceless financial advice.
....This shit is just getting started and the merger is expected in the first half of 2020. GUARANTEED money when this shit goes live. Stocks are for the rich and the poor. However, every daily middle-class fuck named Bob goes balls deep on some $SUPERBOWL calls. DraftKings is making it easier and easier for Joe Schmo to yolo his life savings on the Chiefs winning on his shitty 9-5 lunch break.
Get in this shit before your dumbass $SPCE calls shit the bed when you realize daddy Musk controls all of space.
You can thank me later.
Manymorevices is right- if you’re trying to do your due diligence, learn what SPACs are first:
Read about SPACs before investing. There’s a lot more to them. Barrons just put out a great article on them.
Or not:
...Alternatively you can just say fuck it. I just bought 2k shares myself.
Kintsugi2
There are other shareholders merging than just what is shown in the DEAC Market Cap... Private investors were able to purchase shares at .0002 each. 10 is the going rate for SPACs because then you get a 1:1 share (at $10 a share) relative to the quotient of outstanding shares of DK and SBTech. If the price of DEAC goes up now, shares of the merged business will be worth less.
BugsSuck
Also, $DEAC is a SPAC. They'll acquire DraftKings and SBTech with a leveraged buyout worth 6x their market cap, couple this with the fact that Casinos and DraftKings have been fighting in courts, don't touch that shit yet. Easily can still go tits up.
SPACs are not Whack
SPAC stands for Special Purpose Acquisition Company. A SPAC sponsor raises money from investors in order to acquire a company with a specific profile. The capital raised is held in Trust and invested in liquid fixed income securities. It is only released when they close on an acquisition- if they fail to close an acquisition by a certain date, the money is returned to shareholders.
SPAC’s typically start trading around $10 per unit, which represents the cash value of the capital raised. They also often come with warrants, which give the investors in the SPAC IPO as right to purchase additional shares at a higher price. The promoter typically also gets 20% in founders shares as compensation for their effort. If a deal fails to materialize and cash is returned, warrants and founders shares expire worthless.
After an acquisition is made, SPAC investors own shares in a new company, often along with the target company investors and promoters. When a SPAC trades above the $10 unit cost, SPAC investors are betting that the shares they get in the combined entity will be worth more than the amount of cash paid to acquire the stake.
When a SPAC called Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings (IPOA) acquired a stake in a private entity called Virgin Galactic, the resulting combination became Virgin Galactic with the ticker: SPCE. What’s the better name?
BABA Black Sheep
China stock MoMo derailed:
astafe How the f*k did I know last week that a Chinese guy with a cold will fuck a fish or a wild animal now RIP to my BABA 40 contracts . That was my play for earnings
Some serious position rationalization action:
Cubban99
I really dont understand baba down tho, if your afraid of getting a virus wouldn't you do your shopping online versus in person to avoid getting sick. Im buying the dip logic is flawless :P
general_sam_houston
Plot twist, Baba sells the vaccine on their interwebs that heals the Mexican beer virus
While Wall Street bro was stumbling out of Joshua Tree in a drunken stooper, binxur was ringin registers:
The exact moment BABA shot up I told my colleague these idiots in Wall Street underestimate the epidemic. It would be lucky for
BABA to restore their business before March.
MSFT Earnings
Simple yet effective thesis:
gaysaucemage
MSFT calls, stonks only go up and earnings are in a week.
WSB in the Wild
Crusty_Sheets
Wsb has infiltrated the DEAC Stocktwits board. Next meme stock confirmed.
WSB is hopping on the Coronavirus train.
Does this present a market opportunity? Here are some thoughts from the community:
/u/jooglord
NVAX MAKING CURE FOR CORONAVIRUS
/u/dbarbera
There is a reason NVAX was up 60% premarket hours before making any sort of announcement. Their peak while the market was open was lower than the peak during premarket. The market priced in a 60% increase in NVAX's just because a coronavirus is starting to spread. Also, coronaviridae is an entire virus family, not a specific virus. Do not make any assumption that INO's vaccine in clinical trials will do anything for this new one. Just like there are different Hepatitis vaccines for the different viruses in that family, it would likely be true here. /u/DGUWYWMFWYWN
I understand how strains work. NVAX hasn't been dealing with any coranovirus since 2014 and never got to clinical trials. INO at least has clinical trials. Sure it's not the same virus, but they're probably more capable than any other company at getting there. /u/dbarbera
These different coronaviruses are such a higher level than "strains". There will never be a vaccine the works against all coronaviruses. Also, NVAX didn't go to clinical trials with MERS because there is/was no reason to, it isn't a marketable vaccine. There have been only ~2300 total confirmed cases of MERS since it was discovered nearly 10 years ago. They developed a candidate which will go through trials if MERS were to actually spread faster. Emergency vaccines get streamlined and skip the major part of the clinical trial process. Developing the viable candidate is 90% of the work.
Protective equipment are the picks and shovels of the Coronavirus gold rush:
u/sheuv
$APT makes protective equipment and tends to do well in outbreaks. It shot up yesterday, but pulled back a bit today (nice for an entry). $MMM makes masks that get sold in large numbers during wildfires and outbreaks, but might be too diversified to be affected too heavily.
But MoonshotYacht says there’s nothing to fear:
I hope it’s transmitted sexually. That way no one here will get it.
...and pelagicyak thinks that Short Pelaton is the play:
Why no reporting on transmission pathways? Host range will dictate outcomes. Limited disease vector coronavirus can only spread through latin american beers. Dos Equis, maybe Modelo. Easy to contain, though may perhaps be worth shorting LIME. If this can make the Jump to White Claw, we may be looking a pandemic that can decimate CHAD and BECKY. Short PTON
But, as we can see from this graph, the usual suspects are still the most talked about. Over the last 7 days, SPY, SPCE, TSLA, AMD, NFLX continue to be the major focus of conversation. Whether this lack of chatter about MMM, NVAX, or INO presents an opportunity is an exercise for the reader.
How the market reacts is yet to be seen. Stay tuned stonkies!
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