 [link] [comments] IS ____ AN MLM? SEARCH HERE. (MEGA THREAD) For a quick, easier search - http://www.isthisanmlm.com/ has compiled this whole thread. Special thanks to u/SHIFTnSPACE. - This is now a part of the sidebar as a button widget! What is an MLM? Multi-level marketing (MLM), also called pyramid selling, network marketing, and referral marketing, is a marketing strategy for the sale of products or services where the revenue of the MLM company is derived from a non-salaried workforce selling the company's products/services, while the earnings of the participants are derived from a pyramid-shaped or binary compensation commission system. ​ THIS LIST MAY CONTAIN COMPANIES THAT HAVE PREVIOUSLY HAD MLM BRANCH BUT MAY NO LONGER HAVE ONE. If you see a company and are not sure that it belongs on this list, please reach out. I have compiled this list from the sources listed at the bottom along with input from community members. This list may not be 000% accurate but the goal is to get it as close as possible. 00 - Bags 0Linx - Home & Business Services Abby & Anna - Clothing ACAN Pacific - Utilities ACN - Utilities ActiLabs - Skincare/Health Adornable.U - Accessories Advocare - Dietary Supplements AeroGrow - Garden Tools Agnes & Dora - Clothing AIM Global - Nutritional Supplements Akasuka (Japan) - Alcone - Beauty Alice's Table - Flower Arrangement Classes All'asta - Home Goods Allysian Sciences - Aloe Vera of America (Young Living) - Nutritional Supplements Aloette - Beauty Alphay Int - Nutritional Supplements AlureVe - Skincare/Health Amare Global - Nutritional Supplements Ambit - Utilities Amelia James - Ameo - Essential Oils American Income Life - Financial Amsoil - Motor Oil Amway - Health/Beauty/Home Goods Ann Summers - Product Ann Summers (UK) - Adult Novelties Anorak (UK) - Home Goods Anran (China) - Apollo (India) - Juice Apriori - Skincare/Health AquaSource UK - Nutritional Supplements Arbonne - Skincare/Health ARIIX - Water Purification Arsoa Honsha (Japan) - Fitness/Weight Loss Asea Global - Nutritional Supplements Asirvia (shut down) - Marketing Aspire/Digital Altitude - Marketing ATC Coin - Crypto Currency Athena's - Adult Novelties Atomy - Skincare/Health Ava Anderson - Ava Rose - Clot Avisae - Weight Loss Avon - Beauty b:hip Global - Health Bachar Nutrition - Nutritional Supplements Bamboo Pink - Jewelry Barefoot Books - Books Bath.Ologie - Bath Bombs Beach Body - Fitness/Weight Loss Videos BearCereju (Japan) - Cosmetics BeautiControl - Beauty Counter - Cosmetics Beauty Society - Beauty beCAUSE Cosmetics - Cosmetics Become International (US & AUS) - Cosmetics Bedroom Kandi - Adult Novelties Beever (UK) - Hair Care BelCorp (Latin America) - Cosmetics Bellame - Skincare/Health Bemer - Appliances Better Way Design/Imports - Clothing Biogreen Argentina - BioPerformance - Automotive (Fuel Pills) Bod-e Pro - Nutritional Supplements Body by Vi/Visalus - Health Body Shop at Home - Beauty Boisset Collection - Wine Boston Finney (shut down) - Bounce Life/Network - Insurance Bud Star (Canada) - CBD/THC Products BurnLounge (shut down as pyramid scheme by FTC in 0000) - Buskins - Clothing Butterfly Beauty - Cosmetics Cabi - Clothing Cambridge Weight Plan/Diet - Dietary Supplements CAN - Utilities Captain Tortue - Clothing Carico Int - Home Goods Celebrating Home - Home Goods Cellements - Skincare/Health CEO Movement (Not MLM but scammy) - Chalk Couture - Chalkboard Signs Chalky & Co - Home Goods Chandeal (Japan) - Clothing Charle (Japan) - Clothing Charlie's Project - Clothing Chef's Toolbox (AUS) (Insolvency) - Kitchen Accessories Cherish Natural Products - Chloe & Isabel - Jewelry Clever Container - Home Goods Close to My Heart - Scrapbooking Cloud 0 Parties - Adult Novelties Cobra Group/Appco - Cocoa Exchange - Food Color by Amber - Jewelry Color Happy - Color Street - Nail Wraps Colour Me Beautiful (UK) - Clothing Compelling Creations - Jewelry Conklin - Roofing Cookie Lee (shut down) - Cosway (Malaysia) - Health/Beauty/Home Goods Country Scents - Product/Candles Create Your Life - Health Creative Memories - Scrapbooking Credit Repair USA - Financial Crunchi - Cosmetics Cutco - Knives CVSL - Multiple Companies Daisy Blue Naturals - Personal Care Damsel in Defense - Product/Self Defense Darceys - Candles David Lerner Associates, INC - Financial Dazzle and Daze - Clothing Deutsche vermögensberatung/Dvag (Germany) - Financial Diana (Japan) - Dione Cosmetics - Cosmetics Direct Cellars/DC Nation - Wine Discovery Toys - Educational Toys Divvee/Nui - Dot Dot Smile - Clothing DoTERRA - Health/Oils Du Northing Designs - Clothing Dubli Network - Financial Dudley Beauty - Cosmetics DXN - Health/Beauty/Home Goods Dynamic Essentials - EcoWarehouse - Home Goods Elepreneuer - Elk River Soaps - Personal Care Ella Tina - Clothing Elli Kai - Clothing Elvacity - Nutritional Supplements EmGoldEx/Global Intergold - Enagic/Kangen Water - Ionized Water Endless Xpressions - Clothing/Accessories Enersource Int - Nutritional Supplements Enjo (AUS) - Cleaning Producs Envy Jewelry - Jewelry Epicure (Canada) - Food Equinox International (dissolved in 0000) - Ergo (Germany) - Insurance Essante Organics - Essential Bodywear - Clothing European Grouping of Marketing Professionals/CEDIPAC SA (dissolved 0000) - European Home Retail (dissolved 0000) - Evanescence Network - Health EVER Skincare - Skincare/Health Evolution Travel - Product EvolvHealth - Health Faberlic (Russia) - Health/Beauty/Home Goods Family First Life - Insurance Family Heritage Insurance - Insurance Fantasia - Adult Novelties Fantasia (Canada) - Adult Novelties Farmasi - FES Connect - Financial Fibi & Clo - Footwear Fifth Ave Collection - Jewelry First Fitness Nutrition - Dietary Supplements Fit0Mom - Clothing FITTEAM Global - Dietary Supplements Flamingo Paperie - Art Fleuresse - FM World (UK) - For Tails Only - Pet Supplies Forever Living - Health/Oils Forex Education (iMarkets Live branch) - Crypto Forex Entourage - Financial Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing (dissolved 0000) - Four Oceans - Health Fragant Jewels - Bathbombs FreeLife - Nutritional Supplements Frontrow - Fuel Freedom Int - Automotive Fund America (Bankrupt 0000) - Gano Excel - Nutritional Supplements GelMoment - Beauty Gemstra - Jewelry Genesis Pure - Nutritional Supplements Global Legacy Initiative - GoDesana - Pet Gold Canyon - Product/Candles Golden Days (China) - Health Grace & Heart - Jewelry Green HoriZen - CBD Greeting Cake Company - Cake Kits H0O At Home - Personal Care Hale - CBD Oil Hanky Panky Parties (Canada) - Adult Novelties Happy Coffee - Coffee Harvard Risk Management (Legal Shield) - Hayward's Gourmet Popcorn - Food HB Naturals - Health He(L)o - Health Healthy Peach - Dietary Supplements Heavenly Chia - Food Heka Corp - Fitness Helo Wristbands - Health HempWorx - Health Herbalife - Health Heritage Makers - Scrapbooking Hinode - Cosmetics Holiday Magic (shut down) - Home Interiors - Home Goods Honey - Beauty Honey & Lace - Clothing Hualin Biotech (China) - Health iCoinPro - Crypto Currency ID Life - Health Igniting Passion (Canada) - Adult Novelties iMarketsLive - Financial Trading Software Immunotec - Health Imperial Candles (UK) - Candles In a Pikle - Bags Income Advantage - India Hicks - Product/Accessories Infinitus - Health Initials, Inc - Bags Inkd Up Nails - Beauty innov0tive nutrition - Nutritional Supplements InteleTravel - Travel Intimo (AUS/NZ) - Adult Novelties Isagenix - Dietary Supplements ItWorks! - Health J. Elizabeth - Clothing J. Hilburn - Clothing J.R Watkins - Jafra - Beauty Jamberry - Beauty Jamby - Clothing Jamie at Home (shut down) - Janice Collection - Home Goods Java Momma - Coffee Javita - Coffee Jbloom - Jewelry Jequiti - Cosmetics Jerky Direct - Jeunesse - Beauty Jewel Kade (00) - Jewelry Jewelscent - Product/Candles JK Apparel (Canada) - Clothing Jordan Essentials - Beauty JoyMain (China) - Health Joyome (Plexus) - Beauty JuicePlus - Nutritional Supplements Jump Natural - Health Kaesar & Blair - Kalaia - Skincare/Health Kalo & Co - Pearl/Jewelry Kangen Water - Kannaway - CBD Oil Karat Bars - Gold Kaszazz - Scrapbooking Keep Collective - Jewelry Keep Me Safe - Cos KETO (Pruvit) - Keto Coffee - Coffee Ketones - Health Kirby - Vacuums Kleeneze - Home Goods Kobold (Vorwerk) - Kyani - Health Labella Baskets - Home Goods Lady Godiva Beauty - Cosmetics Lavylites - Beauty L'BRI - Beauty LeadUp Consulting - Legal Shield - Legal Services LegArt (Canada) - Leggings Legend Age (China) - Legging Army - Clothing Legging Girl - Clothing Lemongrass Spa - Beauty LeReve (Canada) - Cosmetics Le-Vel (Thrive) - Health Lia Sophia (dissolved) - Jewelry Life Abundance - Pet LIFE Leadership - Financial Life Tree World - Food LifeBrook - LifePlus (US/Germany) - Dietary Supplements Life's Abundance - Pet Supplies LifeVantage - Dietary Supplements Lilla Rose - Jewelry Limelife - Skincare/Health Limu - Health Limu - Nutritional Supplements Linen World - Home Goods Lion Crown - Lipsense - Beauty Liv International - Travel Live Sore - Clothing Longabeger Company - Baskets Longrich (China) - Beauty Lorraine Lee Linen - Home Goods Love Winx - Adult Novelties LR Beauty & Health - Beauty LuLaRoe - Clothing Lulu Ave - Jewelry Luminess - Cosmetics Lyconet/Lyoness - Lyoness - Financial M. Global (Jamberry) - Jewelry M. Network - Nutritional Supplements Maelle Beauty - Beauty Magnabilities - Jewelry Magnolia & Vine - Jewelry Makeup Eraser - Cosmetics Man Cave - Kitchen Accessories Mannatech - Dietary Supplements Mark. - Financial Market America - Health/Beauty/Home Goods Marly Ray - Pearl/Jewelry Marvelous Mouse Travels - Travel Mary & Martha - Home Goods MaryKay - Beauty Maskara - Beauty Matilda Jane - Clothing Max & Madeleine - Skincare/Health Maxwell Clothing - Clothing MCA - Financial Medifast - Nutritional Supplements Melaleuca - Health/Beauty/Home Goods Metabolife (dissolved in 0000) - MiA Bath and Body (Closed) - mialisia - Jewelry Miche EU - Accessories Miki (Asia) - Nutritional Supplements MOA Nutrition - Nutritional Supplements Modere - MojiLife - Essential Oils Monat - Hair Care MonaVie (went into foreclosure 0000) - Morinda Bioactives - Personal Care/Dietary Supplements Motives Cosmetics - Cosmetics Multpure - Water My Club 0 - CBD Oil My Daily Choice - Nutritional Supplements My LALA Leggings - Clothing myEcon - Financial National Safety Associates - Dietary Supplements National Wealth Center - Education Natura (Brazil) - Cosmetics Nature Direct (AUS) - Essential Oils Nature's Sunshine Products - Dietary Supplements Neal's Yard Remedies Organic - Beauty NeoLife - Dietary Supplements Neora (Nerium) - Nerium - Skincare/Health NeVetica - Pet Supplies New Era (China) - Nutritional Supplements New U Life - Health Neways - Personal Care Nikken - Noevir - Beauty Nomades - Jewelry Noonday Collection - Jewelry Norwex - Cleaning Producs Nouveau Riche (real estate investment college) (dissolved 0000 - Nspire Network - Feminine Products NuCerity - Skincare/Health NuSkin - Tooth Paste/Personal Care Nutriboom - NXIVM - Financial Nygard - Clothing Omnilife - Dietary Supplements One Hope Wine - Wine Optavia - Health Opulenza - Jewelry Organo Gold - Coffee Oriflame - Personal Care Origami Owl - Jewelry Our Hearts Desire - Jewelry Paid 0 Save - Travel Pampered Chef - Kitchen Accessories Paparazzi - Jewelry Paperly - Paper Park Lane Jewelry - Jewelry Party Girl - Candles Party Lite - Candles Party Time Mixes - Food PartyLite - Candles Passion Parties - Adult Novelties Pawtree - Pet Paycation - Travel Peach - Clothing Pearl Chic - Pearl/Jewelry Peekaboo Beans - Clothing Perfect (China) - Cosmetics Perfectly Polished - Beauty Perfectly Posh - Beauty Personally Poetic - Jewelry PHP - Insurance Pierre Lang - Jewelry Pink Zebra - Candles Piphany - Clothing PixieLane - Clothing Plexus - Health Plumeria Bath - Beauty Plunder - Jewelry PM International - Health Pola (Japan) - Skincare/Health Poofy Organics - Beauty Powur - Solar Panels Premier Designs - Jewelry Premier Financial - Financial PrimeMyBody - Health Primerica - Financial Princess House - Kitchen Accessories ProDoula - ProYoung - Health Pruvit - Health Pulse Cosmetics - Cosmetics Pure Haven - Cosmetics Pure Romance - Product PureHaven - Home Goods PUREly - Essential Oils Purium - Health Qnet - Nutritional Supplements Quanjian Natural (China) - Food RadiantlyYou - Rain International - Health Rainbow Vacuum - Vacuums Real Time Pain Relief - Health Red Aspen - Beauty RED Safety - Security Regal Home and Gifts - Home Goods Reliv - Health Reliv - Nutritional Supplements Renatus Real Estate - Education RevitalU - Coffee/Health Riway - Deer Placenta Robert Kiyosaki - Rodan+Fields - Beauty Roland (Vorwerk) - Rolmex (China) - Kitchen Accessories Royal Tongan Limu (dissolved in 0000) - Royaltie Gens - Marketing Ruby Ribbon - Clothing Saba - Health/Beauty Sabika Jewelry - Jewelry SafeGirl Security - Self Defense Salad Master - Home Goods SARSO (India) - Scentsy - Health/Oils Schneider's Gourmet World - Food Scout & Cellar - Wine Seacret - Beauty SendOutCards - Gift Cards Senegence - Skincare/Health Shakeology (BeachBody) - Dietary Supplements Shaklee - Dietary Supplements Shopping Sherlock - Shrimp & Grits - Clothing Signature Homestyles - Home Goods Silpada - Jewelry Silver Icing - Jewelry Simple Man - Personal Care Simply Success Elite - SimplyFun Games - Education Skinny Body at Home - Dietary Supplements SkinSanity/Tomorrow's Leaf - Skincare/Health Smart Circle - Smartway - Solavei (dissolved 0000)[ - Solvei (bankrupt) - Sophie Paris (France/Asia) - Clothing South Hill Designs - Jewelry Southern Living at Home - Home Goods SouthWestern Advantage - Education Sseko - Clothing Stampin Up - Paper Steam Energy - Utilities Steeped Tea - Tea Stella & Dot - Clothing Stream Energy - Financial Style Dots - Jewelry Success University - Education Sun Hope (China) - Sunrider - Health/Beauty/Home Goods Sunset Gourmet - Food Sunshine Empire (dissolved 0000) - Surge 000 - Travel Sweet Legs - Clothing Sweet Minerals - Beauty Symmetry Financial Group - Insurance Syntek Global - Automotive T.O.P Marketing Group - TAG Team Marketing - Taisei/Green Planet/Kaikisui (Japan_ - Purifiers Tara at Home - Home Goods Tastefully Simple - Food Tavala - Health Tealightful - Tea Team National - Financial TeDivina - Tea Telecom Plus (UK) - Utilities Telexfree (bankrupt 0000) - The Advert Platfrom - Crypto Currency The Body Shop at Home - Beauty The Landmark Forum - Health The Super Affiliate Network - Marketing Thermomix (Vorwerk) - Thirty One - Bags Thrive - Health Thrive Life - Food Tiber River Naturals - Beauty TKO WorldWide - Tocara (Canada) - Jewelry Tom James - Clothing Total Life Changes/TLC - Health TouchStone Crystal - Jewelry Touchstone Essentials - Dietary Supplements Tracy Negoshian - Clothing Trades of Hope - Jewelry Tranont - Financial Transformational Beauty - Cosmetics Travel Evolution - Travel Traveling Vineyard - Wine TraVerus Global - Travel TriVita - Nutritional Supplements Tropic Skin Care - Skincare/Health True Peak Revolution (Europe) - Truvision Health - Health TS-Life - Nutritional Supplements Tupperware - Tupperware Unicity - Health United Sciences of America (dissolved in 0000) - United Warehouse (UK) - US Health Advisors - Usana - Nutritional Supplements Usborne - Books Utility Warehouse (UK) - Utilities Valentus - Dietary Supplements Vantel - Product/Pearls Vasayo - Health VectoCutco - Knives Vemma - Dietary Supplements viaOneHope - Wine ViBella - Jewelry VIC Cosmetics - Vida Divina - Tea Vie at Home (closed) - Virtuity Financial Group (World Financial Group) - ViSalus (Body by VI) - Dietary Supplements Vitality Extracts - Essential Oils VivaMK - Cleaning Producs Volo - Health Vorwerk - Home Goods Votre Belle Maison (UK) - Giftware Voxxlife - Health Wakaya Perfection - Health WakeUpNow (dissolved 0000) - Watkins Inc - Health/Home Goods Wealthperx - Travel Wikaniko - Home Goods Wildtree - Food Willing Beauty - Beauty Winasun - Health Wine Shop at Home - Wine Wines for Humanity - Wine Wink Naturals - Health World Financial Group/Pinnacle Leadership Development - Financial World Leadership Group (dissolved in 0000) - World Ventures/Wealth Wave/TKO WorldWide - Travel WoTaBu - Travel XanGo/Ziji - Health Xerveo - Dietary Supplements Xoom Energy - Utilities Xooma - Weight Loss Xstream Travel - Travel Xyngular - Health Yanbal Int - Jewelry Yandi (China) - Nutritional Supplements Yelloow - Beauty Yevo (closed) - Yofoto (China) - Health Yoli - Health Yoonla - YOR Health - Weight Loss Young Living - Health Youngevity - Younique - Beauty YTB International - Travel Zepter - Zija - Health Zilis - Health Zinzino (Scandanavia) - Zrii - Skincare/Health Zurvita - Health Zyia - Clothing Zyn - Travel TOTAL COUNT = 000 ​ This list will be continually updated (0/00/0000). 0000 Archived MLM Mega Thread ​ Sources: https://mlmtruth.org/0000/00/00/the-mlm-master-list/ , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multi-level_marketing_companies Special thanks to u/Copacetic0000 (I could not stick your thread) ​ For income disclosure information: Updated 0000 Thread ​ Other Helpful Links: Discussion about World Financial Group submitted by antiMLMmod to antiMLM [link] [comments] The Mouthbreather's Guide to the Galaxy Alright CYKAS, Drill Sgt. Retarded TQQQ Burry is in the house. Listen up, I'm gonna train yo monkey asses to make some motherfucking money. ​ "Reeee can't read, strike?" - random_wsb_autist Bitch you better read if you want your Robinhood to look like this: gainz, bitch ​ ​ Why am I telling you this? Because I like your dumb asses. Even dickbutts like cscqb0. And because I like seeing Wall St. fucking get rekt. Y'all did good until now, and Wall St. is salty af. Just google for "retail traders" news if you haven't seen it, and you'll see the salty tears of Wall Street assholes. And I like salty Wall St. assholes crying like bitches. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/retail-investors-are-crushing-hedge-funds-again ​ That said, some of you here are really motherfucking dense & the sheer influx of retardation has been driving away some of the more knowledgeable folks on this sub. In fact, in my last post, y'all somehow managed to downvote to shit the few guys that really understood the points I was making and tried to explain it to you poo-slinging apes. Stop that shit yo! A lot of you need to sit the fuck down, shut your fucking mouth and listen. So I'm going to try and turn you rag-tag band of dimwits into a respectable army of peasants that can clap some motherfucking Wall Street cheeks. Then, I'm going to give you a mouthbreather-proof trade that I don't think even you knuckleheads can mess up (though I may be underestimating you). If you keep PM-ing me about your stupid ass losses after this, I will find out where you live and personally, PERSONALLY, shit on your doorstep. This is going to be a long ass post. Read the damned post. I don't care if you're dyslexic, use text-to-speech. Got ADHD? Pop your addys, rub one out, and focus! Are you 00? Make sure to go post in the paper trading contest thread first. ​ THE RULES: Understand that most of this sub has the critical reading skills of a 0 year old and the attention span of a goldfish. As such, my posts are usually written with a level of detail aimed at the lowest common denominator. A lot of details on the thesis are omitted, but that doesn't mean that the contents in the post are all there is to it. If I didn't do that, every post'd have to be longer than this one, and 00% of you fucks wouldn't read it anyway. Fuck that. Understand that my style of making plays is finding the >00+ baggers that are underpriced. As such, ALL THE GOD DAMN PLAYS I POST ARE HIGH-RISK / HIGH-REWARD. Only play what you can afford to risk. And stop PM-ing me the second the market goes the other way, god damn it! If you can't manage your own positions, I'm going to teach your ass the basics. Do you have no idea what you're doing and have a question? Google it first. Then google it again. Then Bing it, for good measure. Might as well check PornHub too, you never know. THEN, if you still didn't find the answer, you ask. This sub gives me Tourette's. If you got a problem with that, well fuck you. ​ This shit is targeted at the mouthbreathers, but maybe more knowledgeable folk'll find some useful info, idk. How do you know if you're in the mouthbreather category? If your answer to any of the following questions is yes, then you are: Are you new to trading? Are you unable to manage your own positions? Did you score into the negatives on the SAT Critical Reading section? Do you think Delta is just an airline? Do you buy high & sell low? Do you want to buy garbage like Hertz or American Airlines because it's cheap? Did you buy USO at the bottom and are now proud of yourself for making $0? Do you think stOnKs oNLy Go uP because Fed brrr? Do you think I'm trying to sell you puts? If you take a trade you see posted on this sub and are down, do you PM the guy posting it? Do you generally PM people on this sub to ask them basic questions? Is your mouth your primary breathing apparatus? Well I have just the thing for you! ​ ​ Table of Contents: I. Maybe, just maybe, I know what I'm talking about II. Post-mortem of the February - March 0000 Great Depression III. Mouthbreather's bootcamp on managing a position - THE TECHNICALS IV. Busting your retarded myths V. LIQUIDITY NUKE INBOUND VI. The mouthbreather-proof trade - The Akimbo VII. Quick hints for non-mouthbreathers ​ ​ Chapter I - Maybe, just maybe, I know what I'm talking about I'm not here to rip you off. Every fucking time I post something, a bunch of dumbasses show up saying I'm selling you puts or whatever the fuck retarded thoughts come through their caveman brains. "hurr durr OP retarded, OP sell puts" - random_wsb_autist Sit down, Barney, I'm not here to scam you for your 0 cents on OTM puts. Do I always get it right? Of course not, dumbasses. Eurodollar play didn't work out (yet). Last TQQQ didn't work out (yet). That's just how it goes. Papa Buffet got fucked on airlines. Plain retard Burry bought GME. What do you fucking expect? Meanwhile, I keep giving y'all good motherfucking plays: 00/00/0000: "I'ma say this again, in case you haven't heard me the first time. BUY $JNK PUTS NOW!". Strike: "00/00, 0/00 and 0/00". "This thing can easily go below 00, so whatever floats your boat. Around $000 strike is a good entry point." 0/0/0000: "I mean it's a pretty obvious move, but $JNK puts." 0/00/0000, 00pm: "UVXY put FDs are free money." & "Buy $UVXY puts expiring tomorrow if we're still green at 0pm. Trust me." 0/00/0000: "$UUP 0/00 puts at $00.0 or $00 should be 00-baggers once the bill passes. I'd expect it to go to around $00." And of course, the masterpiece that was the TQQQ put play. Chapter II. Post-mortem of the February - March 0000 Great Depression Do you really understand what happened? Let's go through it. I got in puts on 0/00, right at the motherfucking top, TQQQ at $000. I told you on 0/00 TQQQ ($000) was going to shit, and to buy fucking puts, $00ps, $00ps, $00ps, all the way to 0/00 $00ps. You think I just pulled that out of my ass? You think I just keep getting lucky, punks? Do you have any idea how unlikely that is? Well, let's take a look at what the fuckstick Kevin Cook from Zacks wrote on 0/0: How Many Sigmas Was the Flash Correction Plunge? "Did you know that last week's 00% plunge in the S&P 000 SPY was so rare, by statistical measures, that it shouldn't happen once but every 00,000 years?" "By several measures, it was about a 0-sigma move, something that's not "supposed to" happen more than once in your lifetime -- or your prehistoric ancestors' lifetimes! "According to general statistical principles, a 0-sigma event is to be expected about every 00,000 days, or about 0 trading day in 000 years. And a 0-sigma event is to be expected every 0,000,000 days, or about 0 day every 00,000 years." ​ On 0/0, TQQQ closed at $00. I just got lucky, right? You should buy after a 0-sigma move, right? That's what fuckstick says: "Big sigma moves happen all the time in markets, more than any other field where we collect and analyze historical data, because markets are social beasts subject to "wild randomness" that is not found in the physical sciences. This was the primary lesson of Nassim Taleb's 0000 book The Black Swan, written before the financial crisis that found Wall Street bankers completely ignorant of randomness and the risks of ruin." I also took advantage of the extreme 0-sigma sell-off by grabbing a leveraged ETF on the Nasdaq 000, the ProShares UltraPro QQQ TQQQ. In my plan, while I might debate the merits of buying AAPL or MSFT for hours, I knew I could immediately buy them both with TQQQ and be rewarded very quickly after the 00% plunge." Ahahaha, fuckstick bought TQQQ at $00, cuz that's what you do after a random 0-sigma move, right? How many of you dumbasses did the same thing? Don't lie, I see you buying 0/0 on this TQQQ chart: https://preview.redd.it/0ks00zdla0000.png?width=000&format=png&auto=webp&s=0c00d00000c00a0b000000ee000000e00ac00000 Meanwhile, on 0/0, I answered the question "Where do you see this ending up at in the next couple weeks? I have 0/00s" with "under 00 imo". ​ Well good fucking job, because a week later on 0/00, TQQQ closed at $00, and it kept going. Nomura: Market staring into the abyss "The plunge in US equities yesterday (00 March) pushed weekly returns down to 0.0 standard deviations below the norm. In statistical science, the odds of a greater-than seven-sigma event of this kind are astronomical to the point of being comical (about one such event every 000 billion years). Let's see what Stephen Mathai-Davis, CFA, CQF, WTF, BBQ, Founder and CEO of Q.ai - Investing Reimagined, a Forbes Company, and a major fucktard has to say at this point: ​ "Our AI models are telling us to buy SPY (the SPDR S&P000 ETF and a great proxy for US large-cap stocks) but since all models are based on past data, does it really make sense? " "While it may or may not make sense to buy stocks, it definitely is a good time to sell "volatility." And yes, you can do it in your brokerage account! Or, you can ask your personal finance advisor about it." "So what is the takeaway? I don't know if now is the right time to start buying stocks again but it sure looks like the probabilities are in your favor to say that we are not going to experience another 0 standard deviation move in U.S. Stocks. OTM (out-of-the-money) Put Spreads are a great way to get some bullish exposure to a rally in the SPY while also shorting such rich volatility levels." Good job, fuckfaces. Y'all bought this one too, admit it. I see you buying on this chart: https://preview.redd.it/s0000geza0000.png?width=000&format=png&auto=webp&s=ebaef0b0000d000e0dafe000000ba00eb00cb000 Well guess what, by 0/00, a week later, we did get another 0 standard deviation move. TQQQ bottomed on 0/00 at $00.00. Still think that was just luck, punk? You know how many sigmas that was? Over 00 god-damn sigmas. 00 standard deviations. I'd have a much better chance of guessing everyone's buttcoin private key, in a row, on the first try. That's how unlikely that is. https://preview.redd.it/luz0s0kbb0000.png?width=000&format=png&auto=webp&s=0000000d00c00e00efd0000000ac0cc0aea00000 "Hurr durr you said it's going to 0, so you're retarded because it didn't go to 0" - random_wsb_autist Yeah, fuckface, because the Fed bailed ‘em out. Remember the $000b "overnight repo" bazooka on 0/00? That's what that was, a bailout. A bailout for shitty funds and market makers like Trump's handjob buddy Kenny Griffin from Citadel. Why do you think Jamie Dimon had a heart attack in early March? He saw all the dogshit that everyone put on his books. ​ https://preview.redd.it/0fqvt00ama000.png?width=0000&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b00ee0000000c0000c0000a00ee0eb0a0a0f0ee ​ ​ Read: https://dealbreaker.com/0000/00/griffin-no-show-at-white-house https://www.cnbc.com/0000/00/00/bank-ceos-convene-in-washington-with-president-trump-on-coronavirus.html https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/000000/market-makers--didn-t-show-up-for-work--macro-risk-ceo-says-000000.html https://www.chicagobusiness.com/finance-banking/chicago-trading-firms-seek-more-capital https://www.housingwire.com/articles/did-non-qm-just-disappear-from-the-market/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/0000-00-00/bruised-hedge-funds-ask-clients-for-fresh-cash-to-buy-the-dip https://fin00.com/Markets/Bonds/rand-bonds-rally-after-reserve-bank-intervention-00000000 ​ Yup, everyone got clapped on their stupidly leveraged derivatives books. It seems Citadel is "too big to fail". On 0/00, the payout on 0/00 TQQQ puts alone if it went to 0 was $000m. And every single TQQQ put expiration would have had to be paid. Tens or hundreds of billions on TQQQ puts alone. I'd bet my ass Citadel was on the hook for a big chunk of those. And that's just a drop in the bucket compared to all the other blown derivative trades out there. ​ https://preview.redd.it/0ww00p0qb0000.png?width=0000&format=png&auto=webp&s=00f00000f0ea00fdbb00a0000f00ad0b00b0c000 Y'all still did good, 0/00 closed at $00. That's $000m/$000m payoff just there. I even called you the bottom on 0/00, when I saw that bailout: ​ "tinygiraffe00 0 point 0 months ago Haha when? I'm loading up in 0/00 00 puts" "dlkdev Scratch that, helicopter money is here." "AfgCric 0 point 0 months ago What does that mean?" "It means the Fed & Trump are printing trillions with no end in sight. If they go through with this, this was probably the bottom." ​ "hurr durr, it went lower on 0/00 so 0/00 wasn't the bottom" - random_wsb_autist Idiot, I have no way of knowing that Billy boy Ackman was going to go on CNBC and cry like a little bitch to make everyone dump, so he can get out of his shorts. Just like I have no way of knowing when the Fed decides to do a bailout. But you react to that, when you see it. Do you think "Oh no world's ending" and go sell everything? No, dumbass, you try to figure out what Billy's doing. And in this case it was pretty obvious, Billy saw the Fed train coming and wanted to close his shorts. So you give the dude a hand, quick short in and out, and position for Billy dumping his short bags. Video of Billy & the Fed train ​ Here's what Billy boy says: "But if they don't, and the government takes the right steps, this hedge could be worth zero, and the stock market could go right back up to where it was. So we made the decision to exit." https://www.businessinsider.sg/bill-ackman-explains-coronavirus-trade-single-best-all-time-podcast-0000-0 Also, "the single best trade of all time." my ass, it was only a 000-bagger. I gave y'all a 000-bagger. So how could I catch that? Because it wasn't random, yo. And I'm here to teach your asses how to try to spot such potential moves. But first, the technical bootcamp. ​ Chapter III. Mouthbreather's bootcamp on managing a position - THE TECHNICALS ​ RULE 0. YOU NEVER BUY OPTIONS AT OPEN. You NEVER OVERPAY for an option. You never FOMO into buying too fast. You NEVER EVER NEVER pump the premium on a play. I saw you fuckers buying over 0k TQQQ 0/00 $00 puts in the first minutes of trading. You pumped the premium to over $0.00 dudes. The play's never going to work if you do that, because you give the market maker free delta, and he's going to hedge that against you. Let me explain simply: ​ Let's say a put on ticker $X at strike $00 is worth $0, and a put at strike $00 is worth $0. If you all fomo in at once into the same strike, the market maker algos will just pull the asks higher. If you overpay at $0 for the $00p, the market maker will just buy $00ps for $0 and sell you $00ps for 0$. Or he'll buy longer-dated $00ps and sell you shorter-dated $00ps. Max risk for him is now 0, max gain is $0. You just gave him free downside insurance, so of course he's going to start going long. And you just traded against yourself, congrats. ​ You need to get in with patience, especially if you see other autists here wanting to go in at the same time. Don't step on each other's toes. You put in an order, and you wait for it to fill for a couple of seconds. If it doesn't fill, AND the price of the option hasn't moved much recently, you can bump the bid $0.00. And you keep doing that a few times. Move your strikes, if needed. Only get a partial fill or don't get a fill at all? You cancel your bid. Don't fucking leave it hanging there, or you're going to put a floor on the price. Let the mm algos chill out and go again later. ​ RULE 0. WATCH THE TIME. Algos are especially active at x:00, x:00, x:00, x:00, x:00 and x:00. Try not to buy at those times. RULE 0. YOU USE MULTIPLE BROKERS. Don't just roll with Robinhood, you're just gimping yourself. If you don't have another one, open up a tasty, IB, TD, Schwab, whatever. But for cheap faggy puts (or calls), Robinhood is the best. If you want to make a play for which the other side would think "That's free money!", Robinhood is the best. Because Citadel will snag that free money shit like no other. Seriously, if you don't have a RH account, open one. It's great for making meme plays. ​ RULE 0. YOU DON'T START A TRADE WITH BIG POSITIONS. Doesn't matter how big or small your bankroll is. If you go all-in, you're just gambling, and the odds are stacked against you. You need to have extra cash to manage your positions. Which leads to RULE 0. MANAGING YOUR WINNERS: Your position going for you? Good job! Now POUND THAT SHIT! And again. Move your strikes to cheaper puts/calls, and pound again. And again. Snowball those gains. RULE 0A. POUND THOSE $0.00 PUTS: So you bought some puts and they're going down? Well, the moment they reach $0.00, YOU POUND THOSE PUTS (assuming there's enough time left on them, not shit expiring in 0h). $0.00 puts have amazing risk/return around the time they reach $0.00. This is not as valid for calls. Long explanation why, but the gist of it is this: you know how calls have unlimited upside while puts have limited upside? Well it's the reverse of that. RULE 0B. MANAGING YOUR LOSERS: Your position going against you? Do you close the position, take your loss porn and post it on wsb? WRONG DUMBASS. You manage that by POUNDING THAT SHIT. Again and again. You don't manage losing positions by closing. That removes your gainz when the market turns around. You ever close a position, just to have it turn out it would have been a winner afterwards? Yeah, don't do that. You manage it by opening other positions. Got puts? Buy calls. Got calls? Buy puts. Turn positions into spreads. Buy spreads. Buy the VIX. Sell the VIX. They wanna pin for OPEX? Sell them options. Not enough bankroll to sell naked? Sell spreads. Make them fight you for your money, motherfuckers, don't just give it away for free. When you trade, YOU have the advantage of choosing when and where to engage. The market can only react. That's your edge, so USE IT! Like this: ​ Example 0: Initial TQQQ 0/00 position = $0,000. Starts losing? You pound it. ​ https://preview.redd.it/gq000ty0e0000.png?width=000&format=png&auto=webp&s=000ab0ed000f0e0000bfaaed0000d0000de000d0 Total pounded in 0/00 TQQQ puts = $00,000. Unfortunately expired worthless (but also goes to show I'm not selling you puts, dickwads) Then the autists show up: "Hahaha you lost all your money nice job you fucking idiot why do you even live?" - cscqb0 Wrong fuckface. You see the max pain at SPX 0000 & OPEX pin coming? Sell them some calls or puts (or spreads). ​ https://preview.redd.it/0nv00fr00a000.jpg?width=000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=00a0000c000000ffbfe0000ca0000bfabfcf00df Sold 0x0/00 SPX [email protected], bam +$0,000. Still wanna pin? Well have some 00x0/00 TQQQ $00cs, bam anotha +$00,000. ​ https://preview.redd.it/0iqtpmc00a000.jpg?width=000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df0b000000b0000f0acc00000b0a0a0acf000000 +$00,000 - $00,000 = +$00,000 => Turned that shit into a +00.00% gain. ​ .cscqb0 rn ​ You have a downside position, but market going up or nowhere? You play that as well. At least make some money back, if not profit. ​ Example 0: ​ 0/00, long weekend coming right? So you use your brain & try to predict what could happen over the 0-day weekend. Hmm, 0 day weekend, well you should expect either a shitty theta-burn or maybe the pajama traders will try to pooomp that shite on the low volume. Well make your play. I bet on the shitty theta burn, but could be the other, idk, so make a small play. ​ Sold some ES_F spreads (for those unaware, ES is a 00x multiplier, so 0 SPX = 0 ES = 00 SPY, approximately). -00x 0000/0000 bear call spreads for $0.0. Max gain is $0.0, max loss is 0000-0000 = $0. A double-or-nothing basically. That's $0,000 in premium, max loss = 0x premium = $00,000. Well, today comes around and futures are pumping. Up to 0,000 now. Do you just roll over? You think I'm gonna sit and take it up the ass? Nah bros that's not how you trade, you fucking fight them. How? I have: 00x 0000 calls -00x 0000 calls ​ Pajama traders getting all up in my grill? Well then I buy back 0 of the 0000 calls. Did that shit yesterday when futures were a little over 0000, around 0000-ish. Paid $00.00, initially shorted at $00.00, so booked a -$000 loss, for now. But now what do I have? ​ 00x 0000/0000 bear calls 0x 0000 long call ​ So the fuckers can pump it. In fact, the harder they pump it, the more I make. Each $0.0 move up in the futures covers the max loss for 0 spread. With SPX now at ~0000, that call is $00 ITM. Covers 00/00 contracts rn. If they wanna run it up, at 0000 it's break-even. Over that, it's profit. I'll sell them some bear call spreads over 0000 if they run it there too. They gonna dump it? well under 0000 it's profit time again. They wanna do a shitty pin at 0000 today? Well then I'll sell them some theta there. Later edit: that was written yesterday. Got out with a loss of only $0.0k out of the max $0,000. Not bad. And that, my dudes, is how you manage a position. ​ RULE 0 (ESPECIALLY FOR BEARS). YOU DON'T KEEP EXTRA CASH IN YOUR BROKER ACCOUNT. You don't do it with Robinhood, because it's a shitty dumpsterfire of a broker. But you don't do it with other brokers either. Pull that shit out. Preferably to a bank that doesn't play in the markets either, use a credit union or some shit. Why? Because you're giving the market free liquidity. Free margin loans. Squeeze that shit out, make them work for it. Your individual cash probably doesn't make a dent, but a million autists with an extra $0000 trumpbucks means $0.0b. That's starting to move the needle. You wanna make a play, use instant deposits. And that way you don't lose your shit when your crappy ass broker or bank gets its ass blown up on derivative trades. Even if it's FDIC or SIPC insured, it's gonna take time until you see that money again. ​ ​ Chapter IV. BUSTING YOUR RETARDED MYTHS ​ MYTH 0 - STONKS ONLY GO UP ​ Do you think the market can go up forever? Do you think stOnKs oNLy Go uP because Fed brrr? Do you think SPX will be at 0000 by the end of the month? Do you think $0.0 trillion is a good entry point for stonks like AAPL or MSFT? Do you want to buy garbage like Hertz or American Airlines because it's cheap? Did you buy USO at the bottom and are now proud of yourself for making $0? Well, this section is for you! Let's clear up the misconception that stonks only go up while Fed brrrs. ​ What's your target for the SPX top? Think 0000 by the end of the year? 0000 by September? 0000? 0000? 0000? Doesn't matter, you can plug in your own variables. ​ Let's say SPX only goes up, a moderate 0.0% each period as a compounded avg. (i.e. up a bit down a bit whatever, doesn't matter as long as at the end of your period, if you look back and do the math, you'll get that number). Let's call this variable BRRR = 0.000. ​ Can you do the basic math to calculate the value at the end of x periods? Or did you drop out in 0th grade? Doesn't matter if not, I'll teach you. ​ ​ Let's say our period is one week. That is, SPX goes up on average 0.0% each week on Fed BRRR: 0000 * (0.000^x), where x is the number of periods (weeks in this case) ​ So, after 0 month, you have: 0000 * (0.000^0) = 0000 After 0 months: 0000 * (0.000^0) = 0000 End of the year? 0000 * (0.000^00) = 0000 ​ Now clearly, we're already at 0000 on the futures, so we're moving way faster than that. More like at a speed of BRRR = 0%/wk ​ 0000 * (0.00^0) = 0000 0000 * (0.00^0) = 0000 0000 * (0.00^00) = 0000 ​ ​ Better, but still slower than a lot of permabulls would expect. In fact, some legit fucks are seriously predicting SPX 0000-0000 by September. Like this dude, David Hunter, "Contrarian Macro Strategist w/00+ years on Wall Street". IDIOTIC. https://twitter.com/DaveHcontrarian/status/0000000000000000000 ​ That'd be 0000 * (BRRR^00) = 0000 => BRRR = 0.0000 and 0000 * (BRRR^00) = 0000 => BRRR = 0.0000, respectively. ​ Here's why that can't happen, no matter the amount of FED BRRR: Leverage. Compounded Leverage. ​ There's currently over $000b in leveraged etfs with a 0.0x avg. leverage. And that's just the ones I managed to tally, there's a lot of dogshit small ones on top of that. TQQQ alone is now at almost $0b in AUM (topped in Fed at a little over $0b). ​ Now, let's try to estimate what happens to TQQQ's AUM when BRRR = 0.0000. 0XBRRR = 0.0000. Take it at 0XBRRR = 0.00 to account for slippage in a medium-volatility environment and ignore the fact that the Nasdaq-000 would go up more than SPX anyway. ​ $0,000,000,000 * (0.00^0) = $0,000,000,000 $0,000,000,000 * (0.00^0) = $00,000,000,000 $0,000,000,000 * (0.00^00) = $00,000,000,000 $0,000,000,000 * (0.00^00) = $00,000,000,000. ​ What if BRRR = 0.0000? => 0XBRR = 0.0000. Take 0XBRRR = 0.00. $0,000,000,000 * (0.0^0) = $0,000,000,000 $0,000,000,000 * (0.0^0) = $00,000,000,000 $0,000,000,000 * (0.0^00) = $00,000,000,000 $0,000,000,000 * (0.0^00) = $00,000,000,000 ​ And this would have to get 0x leveraged every day. And this is just for TQQQ. ​ Let's do an estimation for all leveraged funds. $000b AUM, 0.0 avg. leverage factor, BRRR = 0.0000 => 0.0BRRR = 0.00000 ​ $000b * (0.00^0) = $000.000b $000b * (0.00^0) = $000.000b $000b * (0.00^00) = $000.00b $000b * (0.00^00) = $000.000b ​ That'd be $0.00 trillion sloshing around each day. And the market would have to lose each respective amount of cash into these leveraged funds. Think the market can do that? You can play around with your own variables. But understand that this is just a small part of the whole picture, many other factors go into this. It's a way to put a simple upper limit on an assumption, to check if it's reasonable. ​ In the long run, it doesn't matter if the Fed goes BRRR, if TQQQ takes in it's share of 0XBRRR. And the Fed can't go 0XBRRR, because then TQQQ would take in 0XBRRR. And on top of this, you have a whole pile of leveraged derivatives on top of these leveraged things. Watch (or rewatch) this: Selena Gomez & Richard H. Thaler Explaining Synthetic CDO through BLACKJACK ​ My general point, at the mouth-breather level, is that Fed BRRR cannot be infinite, because leverage. And these leveraged ETFs are flawed instruments in the first place. It didn't matter when they started out. TQQQ and SQQQ started out at $0m each. For the banks providing the swaps, for the market providing the futures contracts, whatever counter-party to whatever instrument they would use, that was fine. Because it balanced out. When TQQQ made a million, SQQQ lost a million (minus a small spread, which was the bank's profit). Bank was happy, in the long run things would even out. Slippage and spreads and fees would make them money. But then something happened. Stonks only went up. And leveraged ETFs got bigger and more and more popular. And so, TQQQ ended up being $0-0b, while SQQQ was at $0b. And the same goes for all the other ETFs. Long leveraged ETF AUM became disproportionate to short AUM. And it matters a whole fucking lot. Because if you think of the casino, TQQQ walks up every day and says "I'd like to put $00b on red", while SQQQ walks up and says "I'd only like to put $0b on black". And that, in turn, forces the banks providing the swaps to either eat shit with massive losses, or go out and hedge. Probably a mix of both. But it doesn't matter if the banks are hedged, someone else is on the other side of those hedges anyway. Someone's eating a loss. Can think of it as "The Market", in general, eating the loss. And there's only so much loss the market can eat before it craps itself. ​ If you were a time traveller, how much money do you think you could make by trading derivatives? Do you think you could make $00 trillion? You know the future prices after all... But no, you couldn't. There isn't enough money out there to pay you. So you'd move the markets by blowing them up. Call it the Time-travelling WSB Autist Paradox. ​ If you had a bucket with a hole in the bottom, even if you poured an infinite amount of water into it, it would never be full. Because there's a LIQUIDITY SINK, just like there is one in the markets. And that, my mouth-breathing friends, is the reason why FED BRRR cannot be infinite. Or alternatively, "STONKS MUST GO BOTH UP AND DOWN". ​ MYTH 0 - YOU CAN'T TIME THE MARKET ​ On Jan 00, 0000, I predicted this: Assuming that corona doesn't become a problem, "AAPL: Jan 00 $000.0, Jan 00 $000.0, April 0 $000.0, May 0 $000, July 0 $000 December 00 $000." Now take a look at the AAPL chart in January. After earnings AAPL peaked at $000.00. On 0/00, after the 0st hour of trading, when the big boys make moves, it was at $000.00. Closed 0/00 at $000.00. Ya think I pulled this one out of my ass too? Yes you can time it. Flows, motherfucker, flows. Money flow moves everything. And these days, we have a whole lot of RETARDED FLOW. Can't even call it dumb flow, because it literally doesn't think. Stuff like: ​ ETF flows. If MSFT goes up and AAPL goes down, part of that flow is going to move from AAPL to MSFT. Even if MSFT flash-crashes up to $0000, the ETF will still "buy". Because it's passive. Option settlement flows. Once options expire, money is going to flow from one side to another, and that my friends is accurately predictable from the data. Index rebalancing flows Buyback flows 000k passive flows Carry trade flows Tax day flows Flows of people front-running the flows ​ And many many others. Spot the flow, and you get an edge. How could I predict where AAPL would be after earnings within 00 cents and then reverse down to $000 0 days later? FLOWS MOTHERFUCKER FLOWS. The market was so quiet in that period, that is was possible to precisely figure out where it ended up. Why the dump after? Well, AAPL earnings (The 0-K) come out on a Wednesday. The next morning, after market opens the 00-Q comes out. And that 00-Q contains a very important nugget of information: the latest number of outstanding shares. But AAPL buybacks are regular as fuck. You can predict the outstanding shares before the market gets the 00-Q. And that gives you EDGE. Which leads to ​ MYTH 0 - BUYBACKS DON'T MATTER ​ Are you one of those mouthbreathers that parrots the phrase "buybacks are just a tax-efficient way to return capital to shareholders"? Well sit the fuck down, I have news for you. First bit of news, you're dumb as shit. Second bit: ​ On 0/00, AAPL's market cap is closing_price x free_float_outstanding_shares. But that's not the REAL MARKET CAP. Because the number of outstanding shares is OLD AS FUCK. When the latest number comes out, the market cap changes instantly. And ETFs start moving, and hedges start being changed, and so on. ​ "But ETFs won't change the number of shares they hold, they will still hold the same % of AAPL in the index" - random_wsb_autist ​ Oh my fucking god you're dumb as fuck. FLOWS change. And the next day, when TQQQ comes by and puts its massive $00b dong on the table, the market will hedge that differently. And THAT CAN BE PREDICTED. That's why AAPL was exactly at $000 0 hour after the market opened on 0/00. ​ So, what can you use to spot moves? Let me show you: Market topped on 0/00. Here's SPY. I even marked interesting dates for you with vertical lines. ​ https://preview.redd.it/0agm000eh0000.png?width=0000&format=png&auto=webp&s=d00b00dcd000c0dc000000000bf0a00c0000f00b Nobody could have seen it coming, right? WRONG AGAIN. Here: ​ https://preview.redd.it/i0kdp0cgh0000.png?width=0000&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a0e000e0000000000efd0b0c0000f0a0ebe0d0e In fact, JPYUSD gave you two whole days to see it. Those are NOT normal JPYUSD moves. But hey maybe it's just a fluke? Wrong again. ​ https://preview.redd.it/fsyhenckh0000.png?width=0000&format=png&auto=webp&s=00000e00b000000ae00d00b000c0cf0d0c00000f Forex showed you that all over the place. Why? FLOWS MOTHERFUCKER FLOWS. When everything moves like that, it means the market needs CASH. It doesn't matter why, but remember people pulling cash out of ATMs all over the world? Companies drawing massive revolvers? Just understand what this flow means. The reversal: https://preview.redd.it/0xe00l0oh0000.png?width=0000&format=png&auto=webp&s=00aaa00f0b0d0f000000e00e000edccbc000000f https://preview.redd.it/v0i0pdmoh0000.png?width=0000&format=png&auto=webp&s=00d0000000db0f000d0d000e0d0c00a00f0000f0 But it wasn't just forex. Gold showed it to you as well. Bonds showed it to you as well. https://preview.redd.it/00j00u0th0000.png?width=0000&format=png&auto=webp&s=fe00ab00000d0f00000d00e00000e00f00c00e00 Even god damn buttcoin showed it to you. https://preview.redd.it/00lvafhvh0000.png?width=0000&format=png&auto=webp&s=0ef00000cbc0fb00f00c0ba000c0bd000000000e And they all did it for 0 days before the move hit equities. ​ Chapter V. LIQUIDITY NUKE INBOUND You see all these bankruptcies that happened so far, and all the ones that are going to follow? Do you think that's just dogshit companies and it won't have major effects on anything outside them? WRONG. Because there's a lot of leveraged instruments on top of those equities. When the stock goes to 0, all those outstanding puts across all expirations get instantly paid. Understand that Feb-March was a liquidity MOAB. But this will end with a liquidity nuke. Here's just HTZ for example: $000,000,000 in outstanding puts. Just on a single dogshit small-cap company (this thing was like $000m mkt. cap last week). And that's just the options on the equity. There's also instruments on etfs that hold HTZ, on the bonds, on the ETFs that hold their bonds, swaps, warrants, whatever. It's a massive pile of leverage. Then there's also the ripple effects. Were you holding a lot of HTZ in your brokerage margin account? Well guess what big boi, when that gaps to 0 you get a margin call, and then you become a liquidity drain. Holding long calls? 0. Bonds 0. DOG SHIT! And the market instantly goes from holding $x in assets (HTZ equity / bonds / calls) to holding many multiples of x in LIABILITIES (puts gone wrong, margin loans, derivatives books, revolvers, all that crap). And it doesn't matter if the Fed buys crap like HTZ bonds. You short them some. Because when it hits 0, it's no longer about supply and demand. You get paid full price, straight from Jerome's printer. Is the Fed going to buy every blown up derivative too? Because that's what they'd have to do. Think of liquidity as a car. The faster it goes, the harder it becomes to go even faster. At some point, you can only go faster by driving off a cliff. THE SQUEEZE. But you stop instantly when you hit the ground eventually. And that's what shit's doing all over the place right now. Rewatch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hG0X0iTK0M And just like that fucker, "I'm standing in front of a burning house, and I'm offering you fire insurance on it." ​ Don't baghold! Now is not the time to baghold junk. Take your cash. Not the time to buy cheap crap. You don't buy Hertz. You don't buy USO. You don't buy airlines, or cruises, or GE, or motherfucking Disney. And if you have it, dump that shit. And the other dogshit that's at ATH, congrats you're in the green. Now you take your profits and fucking dump that shit. I'm talking shit like garbage SaaS, app shit, AI shit, etc. Garbage like MDB, OKTA, SNAP, TWLO, ZM, CHGG etc. And you dump those garbage ass leveraged ETFs. SQQQ, TQQQ, whatever, they're all dogshit now. The leverage MUST unwind. And once that's done, some of you will no longer be among us if you don't listen. A lot of leveraged ETFs will be gone. Even some non-leveraged ETFs will be gone. Some brokers will be gone, some market makers will be gone, hell maybe even some big bank has to go under. I can't know which ones will go poof, but I can guarantee you that some will. Another reason to diversify your shit. There's a reason papa Warrant Buffet dumped his bags, don't think you're smarter than him. He may be senile, but he's still a snake. And once the unwind is done, THEN you buy whatever cheap dogshit's still standing. Got it? Good. You feel ready to play yet? Alright, so you catch a move. Or I post a move and you wanna play it. You put on a small position. When it's going your way, YOU POUND DAT SHIT. Still going? Well RUSH B CYKA BLYAT AND PLANT THE GOD DAMN 0/00 $00p BOMB. ​ Chapter VI - The mouthbreather-proof play - THE AKIMBO Still a dumbass that can't make a play? Still want to go long? Well then, I got a dumbass-proof trade for you. I present to you THE AKIMBO: ​ STEP 0. You play this full blast. You need some real Russian hardbass to get you in the right mood for trading, cyka. STEP 0. Split your play money in 0. Remember to keep extra bankroll for POUNDING THAT SHIT. STEP 0. Use 0/0 of your cash to buy SQQQ 0/00 $0p, pay $0.00. Not more than $0.00. STEP 0. Use 0/0 of your cash to buy TQQQ 0/00 $00p, pay around $0.00. Alternatively, if you're feeling adventurous, 0/00 $00p's for around $0.0. STEP 0. Use 0/0 of your cash to buy VIX PUT SPREADS 0/00 $00/$00 spread for around $0.00, no more than $0.00. That is, you BUY the 00p and SELL the 00p. Only using Robinhood and don't have the VIX? What did I just tell you? Well fine, use UVXY then. Just make sure you don't overpay. ​ ​ Chapter VII - Quick hints for non-mouthbreathers Quick tips, cuz apparently I'm out of space, there's a 00k character limit on reddit posts. Who knew? ​ Proshares is dogshit. If you don't understand the point in my last post, do this: download https://accounts.profunds.com/etfdata/ByFund/SQQQ-historical_nav.csv and https://accounts.profunds.com/etfdata/ByFund/SQQQ-psdlyhld.csv. Easier to see than with TQQQ. AUM: 0,000,000,000. Add up the value of all the t-bills = 0,000,000,000.00 and "Net other assets / cash". It should equal the AUM, but you get 0,000,000,000. Why? Because that line should read: NET CASH = -$000,000,000.00 Major index rebalancing June 00. Watch the violent forex moves. 0/00 will be red. Don't ask, play a spread, bag a 0x-er. 0/00 will be red. Not settled yet, but a good chance 0/00 is red. Front run the rebalance. Front-run the front-runners of the rebalance too. TQQQ puts. Major retard flow in financials yesterday. Downward pressure now. GS 000 next weeks looks good. Buy leaps puts on dogshit bond ETFs (check holdings for dogshit) Buy TLT 0/00/0000 $00ps for cheap, sell over $0 when the Fed stops the ass rape, rinse and repeat TQQQ flow looks good: https://preview.redd.it/untvykuxea000.jpg?width=000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a0a00c0acb000ebff000d000e00000eb00d00e0f ​ Good luck. Dr. Retard TQQQ Burry out. submitted by dlkdev to wallstreetbets [link] [comments] Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Swaps* (*But Were Afraid To Ask) Hello, dummies It's your old pal, Fuzzy. As I'm sure you've all noticed, a lot of the stuff that gets posted here is - to put it delicately - fucking ridiculous. More backwards-ass shit gets posted to wallstreetbets than you'd see on a Westboro Baptist community message board. I mean, I had a look at the daily thread yesterday and..... yeesh. I know, I know. We all make like the divine Laura Dern circa 0000 on the daily and stick our hands deep into this steaming heap of shit to find the nuggets of valuable and/or hilarious information within (thanks for reading, BTW). I agree. I love it just the way it is too. That's what makes WSB great. What I'm getting at is that a lot of the stuff that gets posted here - notwithstanding it being funny or interesting - is just... wrong. Like, fucking your cousin wrong. And to be clear, I mean the fucking your *first* cousin kinda wrong, before my Southerners in the back get all het up (simmer down, Billy Ray - I know Mabel's twice removed on your grand-sister's side). Truly, I try to let it slide. I do my bit to try and put you on the right path. Most of the time, I sleep easy no matter how badly I've seen someone explain what a bank liquidity crisis is. But out of all of those tens of thousands of misguided, autistic attempts at understanding the world of high finance, one thing gets so consistently - so *emphatically* - fucked up and misunderstood by you retards that last night I felt obligated at the end of a long work day to pull together this edition of Finance with Fuzzy just for you. It's so serious I'm not even going to make a u/pokimane gag. Have you guessed what it is yet? Here's a clue. It's in the title of the post. That's right, friends. Today in the neighborhood we're going to talk all about hedging in financial markets - spots, swaps, collars, forwards, CDS, synthetic CDOs, all that fun shit. Don't worry; I'm going to explain what all the scary words mean and how they impact your OTM RH positions along the way. We're going to break it down like this. (0) "What's a hedge, Fuzzy?" (0) Common Hedging Strategies and (0) All About ISDAs and Credit Default Swaps. Before we begin. For the nerds and JV traders in the back (and anyone else who needs to hear this up front) - I am simplifying these descriptions for the purposes of this post. I am also obviously not going to try and cover every exotic form of hedge under the sun or give a detailed summation of what caused the financial crisis. If you are interested in something specific ask a question, but don't try and impress me with your Investopedia skills or technical points I didn't cover; I will just be forced to flex my years of IRL experience on you in the comments and you'll look like a big dummy. TL;DR? Fuck you. There is no TL;DR. You've come this far already. What's a few more paragraphs? Put down the Cheetos and try to concentrate for the next 0-0 minutes. You'll learn something, and I promise I'll be gentle. Ready? Let's get started. 0. The Tao of Risk: Hedging as a Way of Life The simplest way to characterize what a hedge 'is' is to imagine every action having a binary outcome. One is bad, one is good. Red lines, green lines; uppie, downie. With me so far? Good. A 'hedge' is simply the employment of a strategy to mitigate the effect of your action having the wrong binary outcome. You wanted X, but you got Z! Frowny face. A hedge strategy introduces a third outcome. If you hedged against the possibility of Z happening, then you can wind up with Y instead. Not as good as X, but not as bad as Z. The technical definition I like to give my idiot juniors is as follows: Utilization of a defensive strategy to mitigate risk, at a fraction of the cost to capital of the risk itself. Congratulations. You just finished Hedging 000. "But Fuzzy, that's easy! I just sold a naked call against my 00% OTM put! I'm adequately hedged!". Spoiler alert: you're not (although good work on executing a collar, which I describe below). What I'm talking about here is what would be referred to as a 'perfect hedge'; a binary outcome where downside is totally mitigated by a risk management strategy. That's not how it works IRL. Pay attention; this is the tricky part. You can't take a single position and conclude that you're adequately hedged because risks are fluid, not static. So you need to constantly adjust your position in order to maximize the value of the hedge and insure your position. You also need to consider exposure to more than one category of risk. There are micro (specific exposure) risks, and macro (trend exposure) risks, and both need to factor into the hedge calculus. That's why, in the real world, the value of hedging depends entirely on the design of the hedging strategy itself. Here, when we say "value" of the hedge, we're not talking about cash money - we're talking about the intrinsic value of the hedge relative to the the risk profile of your underlying exposure. To achieve this, people hedge dynamically. In wallstreetbets terms, this means that as the value of your position changes, you need to change your hedges too. The idea is to efficiently and continuously distribute and rebalance risk across different states and periods, taking value from states in which the marginal cost of the hedge is low and putting it back into states where marginal cost of the hedge is high, until the shadow value of your underlying exposure is equalized across your positions. The punchline, I guess, is that one static position is a hedge in the same way that the finger paintings you make for your wife's boyfriend are art - it's technically correct, but you're only playing yourself by believing it. Anyway. Obviously doing this as a small potatoes trader is hard but it's worth taking into account. Enough basic shit. So how does this work in markets? 0. A Hedging Taxonomy The best place to start here is a practical question. What does a business need to hedge against? Think about the specific risk that an individual business faces. These are legion, so I'm just going to list a few of the key ones that apply to most corporates. (0) You have commodity risk for the shit you buy or the shit you use. (0) You have currency risk for the money you borrow. (0) You have rate risk on the debt you carry. (0) You have offtake risk for the shit you sell. Complicated, right? To help address the many and varied ways that shit can go wrong in a sophisticated market, smart operators like yours truly have devised a whole bundle of different instruments which can help you manage the risk. I might write about some of the more complicated ones in a later post if people are interested (CDO/CLOs, strip/stack hedges and bond swaps with option toggles come to mind) but let's stick to the basics for now. (i) Swaps A swap is one of the most common forms of hedge instrument, and they're used by pretty much everyone that can afford them. The language is complicated but the concept isn't, so pay attention and you'll be fine. This is the most important part of this section so it'll be the longest one. Swaps are derivative contracts with two counterparties (before you ask, you can't trade 'em on an exchange - they're OTC instruments only). They're used to exchange one cash flow for another cash flow of equal expected value; doing this allows you to take speculative positions on certain financial prices or to alter the cash flows of existing assets or liabilities within a business. "Wait, Fuzz; slow down! What do you mean sets of cash flows?". Fear not, little autist. Ol' Fuzz has you covered. The cash flows I'm talking about are referred to in swap-land as 'legs'. One leg is fixed - a set payment that's the same every time it gets paid - and the other is variable - it fluctuates (typically indexed off the price of the underlying risk that you are speculating on / protecting against). You set it up at the start so that they're notionally equal and the two legs net off; so at open, the swap is a zero NPV instrument. Here's where the fun starts. If the price that you based the variable leg of the swap on changes, the value of the swap will shift; the party on the wrong side of the move ponies up via the variable payment. It's a zero sum game. I'll give you an example using the most vanilla swap around; an interest rate trade. Here's how it works. You borrow money from a bank, and they charge you a rate of interest. You lock the rate up front, because you're smart like that. But then - quelle surprise! - the rate gets better after you borrow. Now you're bagholding to the tune of, I don't know, 0 bps. Doesn't sound like much but on a billion dollar loan that's a lot of money (a classic example of the kind of 'small, deep hole' that's terrible for profits). Now, if you had a swap contract on the rate before you entered the trade, you're set; if the rate goes down, you get a payment under the swap. If it goes up, whatever payment you're making to the bank is netted off by the fact that you're borrowing at a sub-market rate. Win-win! Or, at least, Lose Less / Lose Less. That's the name of the game in hedging. There are many different kinds of swaps, some of which are pretty exotic; but they're all different variations on the same theme. If your business has exposure to something which fluctuates in price, you trade swaps to hedge against the fluctuation. The valuation of swaps is also super interesting but I guarantee you that 00% of you won't understand it so I'm not going to try and explain it here although I encourage you to google it if you're interested. Because they're OTC, none of them are filed publicly. Someeeeeetimes you see an ISDA (dsicussed below) but the confirms themselves (the individual swaps) are not filed. You can usually read about the hedging strategy in a 00-K, though. For what it's worth, most modern credit agreements ban speculative hedging. Top tip: This is occasionally something worth checking in credit agreements when you invest in businesses that are debt issuers - being able to do this increases the risk profile significantly and is particularly important in times of economic volatility (ctrl+f "non-speculative" in the credit agreement to be sure). (ii) Forwards A forward is a contract made today for the future delivery of an asset at a pre-agreed price. That's it. "But Fuzzy! That sounds just like a futures contract!". I know. Confusing, right? Just like a futures trade, forwards are generally used in commodity or forex land to protect against price fluctuations. The differences between forwards and futures are small but significant. I'm not going to go into super boring detail because I don't think many of you are commodities traders but it is still an important thing to understand even if you're just an RH jockey, so stick with me. Just like swaps, forwards are OTC contracts - they're not publicly traded. This is distinct from futures, which are traded on exchanges (see The Ballad Of Big Dick Vick for some more color on this). In a forward, no money changes hands until the maturity date of the contract when delivery and receipt are carried out; price and quantity are locked in from day 0. As you now know having read about BDV, futures are marked to market daily, and normally people close them out with synthetic settlement using an inverse position. They're also liquid, and that makes them easier to unwind or close out in case shit goes sideways. People use forwards when they absolutely have to get rid of the thing they made (or take delivery of the thing they need). If you're a miner, or a farmer, you use this shit to make sure that at the end of the production cycle, you can get rid of the shit you made (and you won't get fucked by someone taking cash settlement over delivery). If you're a buyer, you use them to guarantee that you'll get whatever the shit is that you'll need at a price agreed in advance. Because they're OTC, you can also exactly tailor them to the requirements of your particular circumstances. These contracts are incredibly byzantine (and there are even crazier synthetic forwards you can see in money markets for the true degenerate fund managers). In my experience, only Texan oilfield magnates, commodities traders, and the weirdo forex crowd fuck with them. I (i) do not own a 00 gallon hat or a novelty size belt buckle (ii) do not wake up in the middle of the night freaking out about the price of pork fat and (iii) love greenbacks too much to care about other countries' monopoly money, so I don't fuck with them. (iii) Collars No, not the kind your wife is encouraging you to wear try out to 'spice things up' in the bedroom during quarantine. Collars are actually the hedging strategy most applicable to WSB. Collars deal with options! Hooray! To execute a basic collar (also called a wrapper by tea-drinking Brits and people from the Antipodes), you buy an out of the money put while simultaneously writing a covered call on the same equity. The put protects your position against price drops and writing the call produces income that offsets the put premium. Doing this limits your tendies (you can only profit up to the strike price of the call) but also writes down your risk. If you screen large volume trades with a VOL/OI of more than 0 or 0x (and they're not bullshit biotech stocks), you can sometimes see these being constructed in real time as hedge funds protect themselves on their shorts. (0) All About ISDAs, CDS and Synthetic CDOs You may have heard about the mythical ISDA. Much like an indenture (discussed in my post on $F), it's a magic legal machine that lets you build swaps via trade confirms with a willing counterparty. They are very complicated legal documents and you need to be a true expert to fuck with them. Fortunately, I am, so I do. They're made of two parts; a Master (which is a form agreement that's always the same) and a Schedule (which amends the Master to include your specific terms). They are also the engine behind just about every major credit crunch of the last 00+ years. First - a brief explainer. An ISDA is a not in and of itself a hedge - it's an umbrella contract that governs the terms of your swaps, which you use to construct your hedge position. You can trade commodities, forex, rates, whatever, all under the same ISDA. Let me explain. Remember when we talked about swaps? Right. So. You can trade swaps on just about anything. In the late 00s and early 0000s, people had the smart idea of using other people's debt and or credit ratings as the variable leg of swap documentation. These are called credit default swaps. I was actually starting out at a bank during this time and, I gotta tell you, the only thing I can compare people's enthusiasm for this shit to was that moment in your early teens when you discover jerking off. Except, unlike your bathroom bound shame sessions to Mom's Sears catalogue, every single person you know felt that way too; and they're all doing it at once. It was a fiscal circlejerk of epic proportions, and the financial crisis was the inevitable bukkake finish. WSB autism is absolutely no comparison for the enthusiasm people had during this time for lighting each other's money on fire. Here's how it works. You pick a company. Any company. Maybe even your own! And then you write a swap. In the swap, you define "Credit Event" with respect to that company's debt as the variable leg . And you write in... whatever you want. A ratings downgrade, default under the docs, failure to meet a leverage ratio or FCCR for a certain testing period... whatever. Now, this started out as a hedge position, just like we discussed above. The purest of intentions, of course. But then people realized - if bad shit happens, you make money. And banks... don't like calling in loans or forcing bankruptcies. Can you smell what the moral hazard is cooking? Enter synthetic CDOs. CDOs are basically pools of asset backed securities that invest in debt (loans or bonds). They've been around for a minute but they got famous in the 0000s because a shitload of them containing subprime mortgage debt went belly up in 0000. This got a lot of publicity because a lot of sad looking rednecks got foreclosed on and were interviewed on CNBC. "OH!", the people cried. "Look at those big bad bankers buying up subprime loans! They caused this!". Wrong answer, America. The debt wasn't the problem. What a lot of people don't realize is that the real meat of the problem was not in regular way CDOs investing in bundles of shit mortgage debts in synthetic CDOs investing in CDS predicated on that debt. They're synthetic because they don't have a stake in the actual underlying debt; just the instruments riding on the coattails. The reason these are so popular (and remain so) is that smart structured attorneys and bankers like your faithful correspondent realized that an even more profitable and efficient way of building high yield products with limited downside was investing in instruments that profit from failure of debt and in instruments that rely on that debt and then hedging that exposure with other CDS instruments in paired trades, and on and on up the chain. The problem with doing this was that everyone wound up exposed to everybody else's books as a result, and when one went tits up, everybody did. Hence, recession, Basel III, etc. Thanks, Obama. Heavy investment in CDS can also have a warping effect on the price of debt (something else that happened during the pre-financial crisis years and is starting to happen again now). This happens in three different ways. (0) Investors who previously were long on the debt hedge their position by selling CDS protection on the underlying, putting downward pressure on the debt price. (0) Investors who previously shorted the debt switch to buying CDS protection because the relatively illiquid debt (partic. when its a bond) trades at a discount below par compared to the CDS. The resulting reduction in short selling puts upward pressure on the bond price. (0) The delta in price and actual value of the debt tempts some investors to become NBTs (neg basis traders) who long the debt and purchase CDS protection. If traders can't take leverage, nothing happens to the price of the debt. If basis traders can take leverage (which is nearly always the case because they're holding a hedged position), they can push up or depress the debt price, goosing swap premiums etc. Anyway. Enough technical details. I could keep going. This is a fascinating topic that is very poorly understood and explained, mainly because the people that caused it all still work on the street and use the same tactics today (it's also terribly taught at business schools because none of the teachers were actually around to see how this played out live). But it relates to the topic of today's lesson, so I thought I'd include it here. Work depending, I'll be back next week with a covenant breakdown. Most upvoted ticker gets the post. *EDIT 0\* In a total blowout, $PLAY won. So it's D&B time next week. Post will drop Monday at market open. submitted by fuzzyblankeet to wallstreetbets [link] [comments] 