GameStop Stock Adventure— From the view point of a cynic.

We all love it: David against Goliath, Rocky against Apollo (or better Drago), Luke against Palpatine, Rambo against armies or to call the spade a spade the short vs the big. However, did we not end up the same as in “the big short”? Lets recall the ending of the movie — note this could be a spoiler for some people, so stop reading and start watching in that case…or wait keep reading as it ends like in real-life — the rich got richer, the poor got poorer. So why is that different with the GameStop case? Let us screen an article from The Washington Post who shows that finally the “Davids” won:

Giant mutual funds that own the largest stakes in GameStop saw the biggest gains in value. Hedge funds — some that have started using algorithms to track retail investors on social media sites — appear to have bought and sold millions of shares during the stock’s most volatile period of trading, industry experts said.

Guess we got it all wrong. And thats how a happy end of a hollywood movie turns out to be the never ending reality we are living in. Now I hope that everyone is aware that everything posted on the web is screened by all the data kraken (including big financial institutions) and used against the small pray. If you are a fan of the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH), well it is efficient but just for the wrong people. As long as one understands that the possible loss faced is more bearable (even though you should not care at all about that).

So what can one do against all this influence. That’s where cynicism can help the one or the other to learn. As Baggini from “the Guardian” aptly put it: “The cynic, after all, is inclined to question people’s motives and assume that they are acting self-servingly unless proven otherwise. […] Once again, cynicism proves its worth as one of our best defences against spin and manipulation.” So, try to adapt a little bit of this aspect in certain (especially monetary driven) decision processes and one might end up into not betting against his own cat.