GME explained for new apes
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| Author       | Source       | 
| :-------------: |:-------------:|
|  [u/lawrgood](https://www.reddit.com/user/lawrgood/) | [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/GME/comments/nm40vh/gme_explained_for_new_apes/) | 

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[🔬 DD 📊](https://www.reddit.com/r/GME/search?q=flair_name%3A%22%F0%9F%94%AC%20DD%20%F0%9F%93%8A%22&restrict_sr=1)

If you are new to the sub or have been struggling to wrap your head around the DD (due diligence), hopefully this can make things clearer.

Why is GME's price changing?

Short hedge funds (SHF) sold shares that they didn't own because they thought GME would go bankrupt.

Think of it like an airline. There's only so many seats on the flight. The hedgies thought the flight was going to be cancelled so they printed some fake tickets and sold those too. Then the flight didn't get cancelled. Now, because there are only so many seats available, they need to stand at the gate and buy back the extra tickets, then rip them up so no-one tries to use them. It doesn't matter if that ticket was a real one or the fake one. They need to buy it and destroy it until only the original number remains.

The problem is, everyone is really excited for the trip, so no-one wants to sell. So the price of the tickets is too high for the hedgies. Short term, they are printing even more tickets to give them cash to deal with the people at the front of the queue, but all that does is make the line longer. And there is still only the original number of seats on the plane.

How can they sell shares that they don't own?

If SHF think a stock will go down in price, they are allowed to locate and borrow shares from other people, sell them and try to buy them back later. To keep the metaphor going, they can give you a few bucks to hold your ticket and promise to sell it to me at today's price. Then if the price goes down they can buy it from you at the cheaper price to deliver to me.

What we think has happened is, they didn't just borrow your ticket, they photocopied it and lent it to someone else at the same time as they sold it to me. As in, they lent out the shares they had borrowed. Because they have a few days to sort that out before anyone notices, they usually get away with it. Normally people buy and sell all the time so it gets lost in the noise.

Isn't relending shares you've borrowed illegal?

Yes. You aren't allowed to sell shares that don't exist. If you see the term "naked short selling" this is what they mean. There may be some misreporting going on to cover up the fact but punishments are relatively lean historically such as a proportionally small fine. There's been a lot of regulation changes in a short period of time which may be gearing up to deal with that.

What's with the massive price spikes every so often?

This is probably cyclical. If you see T+21 or T+35 mentioned this is referring to the time after a trade that they have to find that share they promised to give you. Market Makers get a little longer than your standard HF. Because shares are so hard to find, it could be that SHF have to keep kicking the can down the road. In our airline metaphor, this is them printing extra tickets. T+21 and T+35 would be the day that people are arriving to collect their tickets so the SHF needs to order more from the printers. The last week of May was when these two dates overlapped so lots of pressure to find shares to deliver.

If the price keeps going up, who will pay?

First the SHF has to buy back what they can from the market. If they run out of cash, the clearing house auction off all their stuff and buy back with that. If that's not enough, the clearing house is on the hook because they rubber stamped the trades. They can use the cash they have but, if they run out, they can ask for cash from their members.

If that isn't enough, the DTCC is on the hook for failing to keep the records straight. If they run out of cash, it's down to the government for not intervening in the fraud soon enough. When it gets to this point, trillions will have been spent buying back shares.

How long can they keep this going?

No-one knows for sure. It seems that SHF are running low on money already. There have been massive sell offs across all their other holdings. This is why, when the market tanks, it's usually at the same time GME is doing well.

There have been lots of rule changes too. The clearing houses are asking for more collateral (the money or assets that needs to be put up as assurance in order to keep or establish these short positions). They can also ask for reports more often and can force members to close their positions sooner.

How do we know the SHF haven't bought back enough shares?

There may be some misreporting going on. SHF's may be mislabeling short positions as long, not reporting them at all, or putting out press releases of how they have covered their positions. The fines for doing so are relatively minor, and if it means the difference between going bankrupt or getting another day to dig themselves out of a hole, there's a lot of incentive to cheat.

There's been a large increase in whistleblower awards handed out by the SEC this year for information that leads to a penalty.

The push to vote will shine a light on this. There is a shareholder meeting on June 9th and many have already voted. The vote count will give an insight into how many fake shares have been sold. Even this number will be lower than the true number. Remember that not all holders can/will vote.

There are also other indicators that shares are hard to get hold of. Volumes traded each day have been declining meaning fewer shares are flying back and forth between traders. Shares have been harder to borrow than they were before.

What's the company like?

GME have had some great news lately. The incoming chairman is an e-commerce legend (Ryan Cohen) who is putting together a team to take the company into the future. He's already built a successful e-com company (Chewy) and is very customer focused with an eye for quality.

The latest news is that they are developing an NFT to be built using Ethereum. This will allow for digital games to be traded in and resold. An NFT is an encrypted record of who owns a specific digital asset. When you buy a game download, a corresponding digital coin would be minted that says it belongs to you. If you want to sell it on, you could transfer ownership of that coin just like you do with bitcoin or Ethereum now.

They also have no debt and $500+ million dollars in the bank.

None of this is investment advice. Do not take advice from internet strangers. I am in no way qualified to give it. If you think I've got any part wrong, call me out in the comments. If you think I need to add something, ask. If you have more questions, I will try to answer but, I repeat, I know almost nothing.
