Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Tracy, do you think the memestock thing is like already
Speaker 2: over already? I'm serious.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, I'm looking at the chart of
Speaker 1: game Stop and it went up a lot and now
Speaker 1: it's coming down a lot. The thing I think is
Speaker 1: kind of funny is if you view the entire memes
Speaker 1: stock phenomenon from an efficient markets hypothesis, you get really
Speaker 1: interesting questions like why didn't the market already price in
Speaker 1: the risk or the possibility of Roaring Kitty coming back
Speaker 1: on Twitter and tweeting a picture of a guy sitting
Speaker 1: up in a chair that should have been priced in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree. As you know, I am the
Speaker 2: world's biggest believer in the efficient market hypothesis. It's always
Speaker 2: priced in all the time. And for the first time
Speaker 2: in my life, at age forty three, something has come
Speaker 2: along to shake my faith. And it is the no.
Speaker 2: It is the fact that the market did not pricing
Speaker 2: apparently the possibility that after like three years of radio silent,
Speaker 2: we would get a tweet of a guy leaning forward
Speaker 2: from the Roaring Kitty sending the stock high.
Speaker 3: Then I've done.
Speaker 1: RFK Junior tweeting that he was investing in game stock.
Speaker 2: I have to I have to completely rethink my fundamental
Speaker 2: assumptions about how all markets work. Based on the game
Speaker 2: Stop chart of the last ten or so days, I'm
Speaker 2: completely revisiting all my core assumption.
Speaker 1: It's good that the apes have you thinking.
Speaker 2: I did a deadlift one two, Jimmy, Okay, up barges.
Speaker 2: This isn't after school Special, except.
Speaker 1: I've decided I'm going to base my entire personality going
Speaker 1: forward on campaigning for a strategic pork reserve in the US.
Speaker 2: Where's the best with imposta?
Speaker 1: These are the important question? Is it robots taking over
Speaker 1: the world?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I think that like in a couple of years, the
Speaker 2: AI will do a really good job of making the
Speaker 2: app podcast and people say, I don't really need to
Speaker 2: listen to Joe and Tracy anymore.
Speaker 3: We do have.
Speaker 1: The perfect You're listening to lots More where we catch
Speaker 1: up with friends about what's going on right now, because.
Speaker 2: Even when Odd Lots is over, there's always lots More.
Speaker 1: And we really do have the perfect guest.
Speaker 2: Luke, what do you think? Why wasn't it priced in already?
Speaker 3: Yess? My My favorite way is to you know, answer
Speaker 3: a question with a question, And I think the bigger
Speaker 3: one is, why the heck if you're management of GM
Speaker 3: and you've seen your stock get memed before, how the
Speaker 3: hell do you not have like a shelf oh ready
Speaker 3: to go. That's as we can sell shares into this
Speaker 3: any time. But you know, as for why, you know,
Speaker 3: folks were expecting this, I would say, look at what
Speaker 3: you have. Slash haven't gotten from you know, the the
Speaker 3: Roaring Kitty Twitter account or anything from Keith gill sense
Speaker 3: you know, let's call it mid twenty twenty one, didn't
Speaker 3: participate in the book or the movie effectively made about him.
Speaker 3: It just seemed like, no, I don't know if the
Speaker 3: you know, the Roaring Kitty just kind of went into
Speaker 3: to pseudo hibernation. It seemed like, you know, nine Lives
Speaker 3: over and was gone from the scene. So not something
Speaker 3: that was on anyone's radars, certainly of all the you know,
Speaker 3: crazy things in markets that happened, this was not one
Speaker 3: when I was, you know, coming back into journalism that
Speaker 3: I was expecting to get hit over the head with.
Speaker 1: We're speaking with Luke Kawa, our former colleague at Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: We worked together with him for many years, and then
Speaker 1: he left us to join ubs and do serious financial jobs.
Speaker 1: And now he's back in journalism. He's a markets editor
Speaker 1: over at Robin Hood's Sherwood Media. So a very triumphant
Speaker 1: return to financial journalism.
Speaker 2: Well timed. I guess, it's like great, It's like we're
Speaker 2: going to go to Robin Hood's media arm and immediately
Speaker 2: the game stop thing happens. It's like fate, right, That's right.
Speaker 1: And the other reason we wanted to talk to Luke,
Speaker 1: other than the fact that he's fun to talk to,
Speaker 1: is he was one of the first people at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: who took what was happening on Wall Street Bets fairly seriously.
Speaker 1: And I think was one of the first writers of
Speaker 1: our big cover story on Wall Street Bets when it
Speaker 1: actually started to take off. And this was way back
Speaker 1: in let's see early twenty twenty, Is that right.
Speaker 3: Luke, Yeah, Yeah, that's the I'd say, you know, late
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, early twenty twenty. It was when we got
Speaker 3: the you know, the prelude or the proof of concept
Speaker 3: to a lot of things that we would see in
Speaker 3: later years. And I love the transition from I want
Speaker 3: to go do serious work and now he's back covering
Speaker 3: the Memes ducks.
Speaker 1: So yeah. Well, one of the things that I really
Speaker 1: liked about the way you wrote about the Memes talk
Speaker 1: phenomenon and Wall Street bets at the time was like, Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: there was this whole cultural phenomenon attached to it where
Speaker 1: we get to throw around words like uh, autists and
Speaker 1: apes and lots of profanity, which I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say on the show because then We'll just have to
Speaker 1: bleep everything out. But you kind of approached it from
Speaker 1: a market's angle, which I think tends to get very
Speaker 1: forgotten nowadays. Everyone's just like, haha, game stop, isn't the
Speaker 1: silly But when all of this first started happening, it
Speaker 1: was kind of an experiment in market structure, and I
Speaker 1: think people forget that. So the idea was that basically,
Speaker 1: if you bought a bunch of options on a particular stock,
Speaker 1: then market makers would have to go out and hedge
Speaker 1: their own risk, and they might do that by buying
Speaker 1: the stock, and so you get this sort of like
Speaker 1: perpetual motion machine that effectively forces the stock to go up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great explanation. I think, like, what where
Speaker 3: I had my kind of eureka moment, so to speak,
Speaker 3: was there's obviously Wall Street Betch was a place where
Speaker 3: people were pitching they're crazy option bets, they're large positions,
Speaker 3: they're yolo's what have you, Although like with some of
Speaker 3: the stocks getting memed several times. Now I don't know
Speaker 3: if like yolo is the way to describe it. You
Speaker 3: get two or three opportunities seemingly on a lot of these.
Speaker 2: Things, but if but if you miss it, you get
Speaker 2: to live a second time exactly.
Speaker 3: But one of the things that really struck a chord
Speaker 3: with me was you saw like a lot of you know,
Speaker 3: intrigue on maybe like smaller names or story stocks. Tessel
Speaker 3: was obviously an early favorite of the Wall Street Bets community,
Speaker 3: but there was one user who one time made the argument.
Speaker 3: And this was after that, you know, I did a
Speaker 3: little publishing on the Perpetual Motion Machine as you have it.
Speaker 3: You know, the quote unquote forced Gamma squeeze if we're
Speaker 3: getting into the Greeks. But one person said we should
Speaker 3: try to do this with Microsoft tomorrow in the pre market,
Speaker 3: and I saw this, but I go like, okay, like
Speaker 3: let's let's relax, You're going to meme Microsoft now like
Speaker 3: this is going to be like a thing you're going
Speaker 3: to try to do. Why not like come on, like
Speaker 3: stick to your own knitting kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: Then there was the next morning a crazy amount of
Speaker 3: call activity in Microsoft and buying in the pre market
Speaker 3: and Microsoft up like it was something like two and
Speaker 3: a half to three percent for no reason. And that's
Speaker 3: when I started to take it more seriously as a okay,
Speaker 3: well coordinated buying power at certain times through certain vehicles
Speaker 3: can even leave an imprint on you know what was
Speaker 3: then the and probably still is now the largest US
Speaker 3: doc by market cap. So that's something that you know,
Speaker 3: really blew my mind then and was something worth following
Speaker 3: up on as it became kind of even more coordinated,
Speaker 3: even more revolving around kind of you know, certain stories.
Speaker 3: And then the success the proof of concept grew to
Speaker 3: a point where you you know, you get more and
Speaker 3: more power because if nothing else, this is a momentum
Speaker 3: play that just got you know, more momentum as it
Speaker 3: got more attention.
Speaker 2: It's so crazy, by the way, I know, this is
Speaker 2: not the point. It's so wild to me that Microsoft
Speaker 2: is still the biggest company in the entire world, given
Speaker 2: it was the biggest company in the entire world or
Speaker 2: more or less decades ago, and so many different things
Speaker 2: that ostensibly would have disrupted it, from the Internet to whatever, Apple,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And yet still I did. But I know
Speaker 2: that that's a divergence.
Speaker 1: No one wants to talk about it.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know. I just that's just
Speaker 2: one of those facts that still blows my mind. That
Speaker 2: big said. So you mentioned, you know, GMME management should
Speaker 2: have had that shelf registration ready to go. AMC, which
Speaker 2: always seemed like, I guess I would say, played a
Speaker 2: little bit more cynically into the memestock crowd than the
Speaker 2: GMC management. They did have that plan ready to go.
Speaker 2: They did do something because they broke.
Speaker 1: The emergency Memestock glass, Yeah, took their plan off the shelf.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the yes, But what happened with AMC during
Speaker 3: this round was they had a they had a shelf
Speaker 3: offering that they had pretty much sold out of, so
Speaker 3: to speak, by by the end of so just as
Speaker 3: it was starting, they had an opportunity to sell a
Speaker 3: little more into it. And I remember, you know, on
Speaker 3: the on the Monday or something going like GEZ AMC
Speaker 3: really really blew this one really blew this opportunity. And
Speaker 3: it's weird because as you know, you know, the CEO there,
Speaker 3: Aaron has done a i would say, a fantastic job
Speaker 3: and recognizing that to a certain extent, the shareholder base
Speaker 3: is a lot of the product, both in terms of
Speaker 3: you know, integration into you know, rewards that you get
Speaker 3: to go to the theater, and also in terms of
Speaker 3: some of the more shrewd let's call them financing angles
Speaker 3: that have been litigated back and forth through the courts
Speaker 3: but seem to have mainly served the purpose of raising
Speaker 3: more capital from AMC, from people that just wanted to
Speaker 3: see the stock go up and the company succeed. And
Speaker 3: then of course AMC, right after you think that even
Speaker 3: they kind of missed the window here, the next day
Speaker 3: they you know, effectively I've called you know, they turned
Speaker 3: memes into a debt jubilee and able to issue bors
Speaker 3: stairs trade trade shairs for for debt retire effectively the debt.
Speaker 3: And it's that's one of my favorite parts about this
Speaker 3: is just watching the the memes make things happen in
Speaker 3: real life for companies that is going to have a
Speaker 3: meaningful impact on their on their ability as a as
Speaker 3: a going forward concern in the months, quarters, possibly years
Speaker 3: to come. What was a little different about GME was
Speaker 3: that as this was happening, as this was starting, GM
Speaker 3: was already in its earnings blackout period. So, you know,
Speaker 3: typically that is that is something that is going to
Speaker 3: preclude you from coming forward if you don't already have
Speaker 3: you know, an existing shelf open to to be able
Speaker 3: to sell sharers at market, that's going to preclude you
Speaker 3: from bringing one to the market at that point, unless
Speaker 3: you're also willing to come forward with your you know,
Speaker 3: kind of preliminary earnings results. So it's probably more likely
Speaker 3: that the you know, effectively the choke point on GM
Speaker 3: being able to cash in more on this from the
Speaker 3: management perspective was just the you know, I think it
Speaker 3: was five days it probably took for them to get
Speaker 3: those numbers together, so they were able to say like, hey,
Speaker 3: here's our numbers. Also, yes, we want to sell another
Speaker 3: forty five million and shairs if you'll have them at
Speaker 3: a price. But you know, by that time, we had
Speaker 3: already seen a lot of deflation in the in the
Speaker 3: stock price by then.
Speaker 1: Yeah I've said this before, but I think one of
Speaker 1: the nicer interpretations of the memes stock phenomenon is people
Speaker 1: basically treating the stock market buying shares of a company
Speaker 1: that is very much struggling to maintain or achieve profitability
Speaker 1: as a giant GoFundMe for businesses that they kind of
Speaker 1: like or feel some sense of nostalgia for, which, again
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, when no one was able to
Speaker 1: go to the movie theater, that did actually make a
Speaker 1: big difference for amc Luke, I have a really important
Speaker 1: question for you, as a fellow redditor. Is it true
Speaker 1: that you may be a mod on Wall Street Bets
Speaker 1: and how did that rumor get started?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 3: I can, I can say confidently so I am not
Speaker 3: a cat and I am not a r All Street
Speaker 3: Bets subreddit monitor. I am. I'm a mod on nowhere
Speaker 3: on Reddit. I have no clue where it all of
Speaker 3: this got started. I think it may come from the
Speaker 3: era where I was back in twenty two twenty, where
Speaker 3: I was more kind of fervently having back and forth
Speaker 3: with folks there. And I know the thing I remember
Speaker 3: most vividly about that is I was probably, I think
Speaker 3: the only one posting Bloomberg charts on Wall Street Bets
Speaker 3: because everyone was like, what what is this chart? Background
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of e trades and stuff
Speaker 3: of that nature. So I think that's maybe why I
Speaker 3: stood out to some folks back then.
Speaker 2: You would be a really good Wall Street bed mod.
Speaker 2: So I'm just saying I would probably be even more
Speaker 2: inclined to pay attention to it if you were. But
Speaker 2: I will trust your denial. I don't think you would
Speaker 2: be dishonest with us that you're not one of the
Speaker 2: pupil secretly running that page. Here's the other thing I'm
Speaker 2: thinking about, Like, with this sort of seemingly brief round
Speaker 2: of game memestock menia over like, it alsol like I
Speaker 2: don't know, people are saying, like, what a stuck culture
Speaker 2: we have? We're doing this again. It's like we know
Speaker 2: how the story begins, we know how the story ends,
Speaker 2: and so why not just like fast forward the tape
Speaker 2: and get through the entire process quickly, like all of
Speaker 2: the ups and downs with this without the sort of
Speaker 2: awe and mysticism around it this time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say this was a lot more of
Speaker 3: a of a cynical episode. And I think if you
Speaker 3: just compare and contrast the previous rounds we've had. You
Speaker 3: can a see it in the you can see it
Speaker 3: kind of in the raw numbers. Whether we want to
Speaker 3: talk about like how much total call volumes rose, how
Speaker 3: much volumes rose, turnover value traded, YadA, YadA, YadA, all
Speaker 3: of that is very different from now to then. But
Speaker 3: it's almost kind of like a chicken and egg question there,
Speaker 3: because is is there something about the story that was different?
Speaker 3: Is there something about the market structure that was different
Speaker 3: this time round? I would say yes on both sides.
Speaker 3: I'll start with the story first. Heading up to twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one, there had already been you know, the a
Speaker 3: small crowd including Roaring Kitty, including Rod Allsman, I think
Speaker 3: you've had on in the past. Who are who are
Speaker 3: really making the vigorous, you know, value case for GameStop
Speaker 3: that you know, you had this one big last puff,
Speaker 3: so to speak, of the legacy business that was being
Speaker 3: price Azz was going to imminently go out of business,
Speaker 3: but it probably had a lot more runway in terms
Speaker 3: of another full cycle of generating some some free cash flow.
Speaker 3: And then maybe you also have this you know, big
Speaker 3: effective option on you know, the the loyal GameStop subscribers
Speaker 3: that you know you can maybe turn into and monetize
Speaker 3: a little bit better than you are. Couple that with
Speaker 3: also the high amount of short interests. So that was
Speaker 3: a story that started good got even better when you
Speaker 3: know the stock four x effectively over the final four
Speaker 3: or so months of twenty twenty, and then you had
Speaker 3: Ryan Cohen coming in in early January, so there was
Speaker 3: actually like a lot of potential catalysts that were happening
Speaker 3: at that time. I think you also got another another
Speaker 3: round of Stimmi checks, and on the entertainment side, I
Speaker 3: don't know how much pro sports we really had back
Speaker 3: on then. So all the stars really aligned for the
Speaker 3: story to be a lot better and that to be
Speaker 3: able to command a lot more mind share compared to now,
Speaker 3: nothing's been happening in game SOT. There's been really no
Speaker 3: change in the fundamental story. All that really happened is,
Speaker 3: you know, right before this shares got back to where
Speaker 3: they were in January twenty twenty one, right before they
Speaker 3: went parabolic. So that's really all that changed this time.
Speaker 3: I would also say potentially something to highlight on the
Speaker 3: on the market structure side that may have changed a
Speaker 3: little bit. It's it's it's tough to quantify, and this
Speaker 3: is still somewhat of a more embryonic hypothesis on my end.
Speaker 3: But if you just want to compare the you know,
Speaker 3: let's look at the peak in call volumes traded on
Speaker 3: GME at different times. At this the call volume peak
Speaker 3: was about six hundred and fifty thousand and today. Back
Speaker 3: in January twenty twenty one, that peaked at over four million.
Speaker 3: So one of the factors that goes into two options
Speaker 3: pricing is effectively, the more an option is in demand,
Speaker 3: the higher the implied volatility for that option, i e.
Speaker 3: It's its cost should be. What happened this time was
Speaker 3: we did see in my eyes, for a lower amount
Speaker 3: of volume and for a lower move in the in
Speaker 3: the stock some of those options, those lottery ticket options,
Speaker 3: you start to see the implied volatility jack up a
Speaker 3: lot faster than they had in the past. So that's
Speaker 3: a bit of a sign that, you know, maybe if
Speaker 3: GME didn't have the shelf ready to go, market makers
Speaker 3: had their playbook ready to go on, how more or
Speaker 3: less they were going to respond to something like this
Speaker 3: happening again and build themselves a little in a little
Speaker 3: better margin of safety. I would say, so just worse
Speaker 3: story and you know, better market mechanics probably are are
Speaker 3: things that help this thiszle out a lot lot quicker
Speaker 3: and just be a lot more about making a quick
Speaker 3: buck than any kind of you know, grand story you
Speaker 3: can wrap around about you know, sticking it to the
Speaker 3: man or you know, sticking it to a particular hedge fund. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's right, especially about the market makers being
Speaker 1: more prepared for this, and also maybe even the hedge funds.
Speaker 1: And you see this discourse on Wall Street Bets itself
Speaker 1: where people talk about how like Wall Street couldn't beat them,
Speaker 1: and so they decided to join them instead. And now
Speaker 1: you have a lot of hedge funds that are actively
Speaker 1: monitoring all sorts of social media, but Wall Street Bets
Speaker 1: is certainly one of them, or plugging into discord servers
Speaker 1: and things like that to try to track sentiment. So
Speaker 1: in some ways, the big irony here is that I
Speaker 1: guess Wall Street Bets has kind of become more intertwined
Speaker 1: with Wall Street itself.
Speaker 3: I think if you if you know that momentum is
Speaker 3: a factor, if you have seen this story play out before,
Speaker 3: I think there's a reason why a lot of the
Speaker 3: socks with the kind of similar characteristics or have had
Speaker 3: these the similar history during previous rounds of retail media.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's a surprise that, you know, to
Speaker 3: some extent they traded like a bit of a basket.
Speaker 3: That is, that's something that suggests a you know, a
Speaker 3: lot more professional piggybacking at play here rather than just
Speaker 3: a more grassroots move in all of these names.
Speaker 2: At the same time, I find that at this point
Speaker 2: I hadn't I, unlike Tracy, I don't troll troll Wall
Speaker 2: Street bets. I try to control to U troll and
Speaker 2: your trol, but I don't troll. I don't troll either,
Speaker 2: but I don't troll. I did not realize this phenomenon,
Speaker 2: that the inherent richness of the options as measured by
Speaker 2: their the volatility, had gone up so much faster in
Speaker 2: this whole phenomenon with the market makers just getting better.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, we've seen this before. We're going to
Speaker 2: price them more when we sell these call options to
Speaker 2: end retail that we're going to like make them pay
Speaker 2: more right off the bat, because we've seen that playbook before.
Speaker 2: I find that really interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, the other thing that I noticed looking at Wall
Speaker 1: Street Bets recently, is that like roaring Kitty has basically
Speaker 1: been excommunicated from that subreddit. So when he tweeted, you know,
Speaker 1: someone made a post about it, but then the moderators
Speaker 1: came in and said, you can't really talk about roaring
Speaker 1: Kitty and if you want to talk about GameStop then
Speaker 1: go over to a super stunk or there's a dedicated
Speaker 1: GME subreddit as well. When did that happen and why, like,
Speaker 1: why is rooring Kitty basically not part of Wall Street
Speaker 1: Bets anymore?
Speaker 3: At least I can say that in terms of the
Speaker 3: the archived post like they're they'll still there, so the
Speaker 3: record of you know, all of roing Kitty's position updates,
Speaker 3: all of that still there. In terms of the the
Speaker 3: lack of GME AMC, I think that is more a
Speaker 3: legal liability thing brought on by you know, that particular
Speaker 3: subreddit mod's opinions on what is taller rble, what is
Speaker 3: not in in the wake of you know a lot
Speaker 3: of people based SEC investigations after twenty twenty one, and
Speaker 3: you know, had demanded all their sec demanded like all
Speaker 3: their messages on Reddit to this this and that any
Speaker 3: other message boards, any discords, uh scrubbing for that and
Speaker 3: you know, at pretty amazing legal expense. So I think
Speaker 3: that's certainly an angle here in terms of you know,
Speaker 3: those folks trying to cover some legal liability. Also, you know,
Speaker 3: around the same time, I think there's been more of
Speaker 3: a divide or divorce among that that Moud's community, of
Speaker 3: which I was never a part that, including one that
Speaker 3: you know, saw the effect of the first founder, Jamie Rugazinski,
Speaker 3: exit around during these times and you know, in the
Speaker 3: wake of publishing his book and you know, some question
Speaker 3: over trademarks, some questions over self promotion. I believe still
Speaker 3: in legal battles with with Reddit over that to this day.
Speaker 3: So I think just with all the attention that came
Speaker 3: on this because of gm AMC and Roaring Kitty, you know,
Speaker 3: they say there's no such thing as as good press,
Speaker 3: but I guess when good press can lead to potentially
Speaker 3: high legal bills, then maybe that's that's the way where
Speaker 3: it can.
Speaker 2: I think you meant to say there's no such thing
Speaker 2: as bad press, but I actually think there's no such
Speaker 2: thing as good press. Is actually yeah, yeah, no, I
Speaker 2: think that's probably true. Never talk to the media. I
Speaker 2: kind of believe that. Don't ever, no one everyone ignored that,
Speaker 2: especially future all.
Speaker 1: You do realize what we're doing here right well, we're
Speaker 1: media talking to media right now, But on other days,
Speaker 1: people outside of the media do talk to us.
Speaker 2: Why though, who talks to media? I wouldn't ever talk
Speaker 2: to media. Don't, but don't no one pay attention.
Speaker 1: Please for the sake of this podcast. Everyone who's listening,
Speaker 1: don't don't take that to heart. Ignore Joe.
Speaker 2: Okay. You know the other thing. When the first round
Speaker 2: of memestock Mania happened, there was all of this sort
Speaker 2: of I would call it like amateur anthropology, or maybe
Speaker 2: amateur sociology is like men and they're gambling and blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, and you know that faded. But now we
Speaker 2: have sports betting, which people talk about. The explosion of
Speaker 2: crypto has been doing very well. Is there is that
Speaker 2: a thing? Did it like spread out, did it metastasized
Speaker 2: to other areas or was there really sort of this
Speaker 2: fever pitch in twenty twenty one with that stuff that
Speaker 2: we haven't really come back to.
Speaker 3: I'd see a little bit from Colin a, a little bit
Speaker 3: from Calm b here, I think if you see, you
Speaker 3: know a lot of the accounts that are you know,
Speaker 3: willing to you know, post their you know, sell the
Speaker 3: gam into the moon, I bought even you know, one
Speaker 3: hundred percent into the move, bought more options type of folks.
Speaker 3: So those are also the same kind of people who
Speaker 3: their next you know, tweet'll be a coin I've never
Speaker 3: heard of, or a like, yeah, a lot of a
Speaker 3: lot of all coins that I've never heard of effectively
Speaker 3: that are also you know, preferred vehicles of there. So
Speaker 3: I think like having it be more dispersed, more outlets
Speaker 3: effectively for you to speculated, I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 3: that's something that helped kind of cool this round a
Speaker 3: lot more. But I really don't think it can be
Speaker 3: emphasized as much the complete lack of a story, like
Speaker 3: at least last time. My personal view is that nobody
Speaker 3: ever really cared about Roaring Kitty's story. If you look
Speaker 3: back at you know, the streams he used to do,
Speaker 3: the last one he did, and he talked about this
Speaker 3: in front of Congress, the last dream he did in
Speaker 3: December twenty twenty. Stock's already up three hundred percent by
Speaker 3: this time in a matter of months had ninety six
Speaker 3: concurrent viewers. It isn't until the stock starts to move
Speaker 3: more in January and people, you know, Roaring Kitty effectively
Speaker 3: connects the dots that yes, I'm also a deep fing
Speaker 3: value that you start to see all of the interest
Speaker 3: in him pick up. It picked up because he was winning.
Speaker 3: People weren't interested in fundamentals. They turned the fundamental guy
Speaker 3: into their momentum catalyst. So that's all it was. And
Speaker 3: this time we started from that standpoint with nothing on
Speaker 3: the fundamental And you know that to me is another
Speaker 3: just huge reason why this is just a really really
Speaker 3: faint echo of what we've seen before. We can't even
Speaker 3: pretend there's a story.
Speaker 2: Crazy. Like I said, I haven't been following Wall Street
Speaker 2: bets as much. Do people still sort of post their
Speaker 2: negative screenshots just as just as enthusiastic. Yeah, the lost part.
Speaker 2: You know, I read this biography once of a professional
Speaker 2: poker player and he said he had a friend trying
Speaker 2: to think how he can say who would get into
Speaker 2: a state of arousal upon losing a big hand in poker?
Speaker 2: And I'm just sort of curious if that's still a
Speaker 2: thing there where people seem to just get just excited
Speaker 2: about losing money as they make money. Ew, I'll find
Speaker 2: that book, Luke.
Speaker 1: One thing I was wondering is so Roaring Kitty on Twitter.
Speaker 1: I think he follows like ninety people just about. I
Speaker 1: know he follows you, and he follows me. He does
Speaker 1: not follow you.
Speaker 2: I checked he does follow me a screenshot. Right now?
Speaker 1: All right, we can argue about.
Speaker 2: Have you had to argue I have a right here. Look,
Speaker 2: I'm wait, I'm gonna walk over to Tracy one second.
Speaker 1: I can't believe we're arguing over who Rowing Kitty follows.
Speaker 1: That's weird. Okay, fine, fine, Joe wins that round. But
Speaker 1: have you had people reaching out to you asking, like
Speaker 1: for you to get in touch with Rooring Kitty for them,
Speaker 1: because this has happened to be to both me and
Speaker 1: Sid recently, which is kind of nuts, Like this idea
Speaker 1: that there's there's one guy on Twitter who is tweeting
Speaker 1: out at the moment memes and like clips from movies
Speaker 1: and not actually saying anything about specific stocks. But you
Speaker 1: have a bunch of people who are like, oh, please
Speaker 1: please put me in touch with Roaring Kitty.
Speaker 3: Yes, I will say a big deluge a lot of
Speaker 3: it from just general can you get me in touch?
Speaker 3: Egg adjacent type accounts, but also I would say a
Speaker 3: lot of interest from people who operate in the in
Speaker 3: the social V and DA sphere, wanting to be able
Speaker 3: to contact to effectively say like, hey, will you do
Speaker 3: you know sponsored or integrated sponsored content. I'd be, you know,
Speaker 3: interested in letting you do that. And uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I my you know, kind of personal view on that is,
Speaker 3: you know, certainly not passing any of them along. I
Speaker 3: would love to get in contact first, though I don't
Speaker 3: think that's necessarily a very high probability.
Speaker 2: And tried, He've all tried, and I assume he's responded
Speaker 2: to none of us.
Speaker 1: Yes, I made an excellent meme. I made a meme
Speaker 1: of the the guys sitting up and I put on
Speaker 1: the screen odd lots hoping and I sent it to him,
Speaker 1: hoping that that would entice him. But I'm afraid to
Speaker 1: say it hasn't worked yet yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, exactly. So a lot of that and the
Speaker 3: I mean the I think the social media angle is
Speaker 3: very interesting because again there was at the beginning a
Speaker 3: lot of confusion, misinformation. Is this actually Keith Gill, Is
Speaker 3: this you know, a you know, performance art scene. Was
Speaker 3: his account sold to someone the you know, no reports
Speaker 3: I've seen that you know suggested it isn't him, and
Speaker 3: the reports that suggested it's sold have been debunked. But
Speaker 3: I you know, I think that's where you have to
Speaker 3: really think hard. In contrast the like, the reason why
Speaker 3: this had the power to move the you know, move
Speaker 3: certain stocks this time around was because of the decentralized
Speaker 3: nature of the trust. I would say that Keith gil
Speaker 3: built up as a person. He was, you know, one
Speaker 3: man doing fundamental research, betting big, doubling down, doubling down
Speaker 3: and winning consistently and never selling as far as as
Speaker 3: far as anyone knew. So you know, comparing contrast that
Speaker 3: to even Elon Musk. Now, if you look at the
Speaker 3: look you look at the action that happened in like
Speaker 3: any Argentinian a d RS or just ETFs that US
Speaker 3: investors can access. What happened after Elon Musk said, you
Speaker 3: know invest in Argentina. I love Argentina. You know how
Speaker 3: they are is is great. Really didn't see a pickup
Speaker 3: in anything there. So it really just goes to show
Speaker 3: the kind of I think newfound focus on who we
Speaker 3: select to trust to tell us about whether things will
Speaker 3: go up or not. Elon Musk has obviously spent a
Speaker 3: lot of currency on different vehicles effectively in terms of
Speaker 3: things that might degrade his trust by talking about different
Speaker 3: things that you have gone up and then down a lot,
Speaker 3: Keith Gill hadn't. So you know, that's what kind of
Speaker 3: makes the That's what kind of adds a certain cachet
Speaker 3: to the comments coming out of this account, and certainly
Speaker 3: why people would want to use this account if they could,
Speaker 3: to be able to promote to their own ventures. That's
Speaker 3: why there's seemingly a lot of interest in that.
Speaker 1: You know what else is funny? On that note, no
Speaker 1: one refers to Keith Gill as anything other than Keith
Speaker 1: Gill or Roaring Kitty anymore. And of course, originally on
Speaker 1: Reddit he was known as deep Thing Value. I think
Speaker 1: I can say that, but no one says that anymore.
Speaker 2: Value is dead, Tracy. The only person in the meme
Speaker 2: arena that I trust is not Keith or Elon is
Speaker 2: luke Kawa.
Speaker 1: That's fair.
Speaker 2: Lots More is produced by Carmen Rodriguez and dash Ol Bennett,
Speaker 2: with help from Moses Onam and kil brooks.
Speaker 1: Our sound engineer is Blake Maples. Sage Bauman is the
Speaker 1: head of Bloomberg Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Please rate, review, and subscribe to Odd, Lots and Lots
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