This insistence that the media vilifies the new democratic ways of investing is perhaps the biggest canard being perpetrated today. Who loves the way things have been? Who doesn't yearn for stocks that just go up? If more people simply pledged never to sell stocks, we would find out which stocks that had the most shareholders who took the pledge and buy those and those only.
However, that's an unrealistic view of the world. In fact, I am beginning to believe that there are only two companies where the shareholders have really taken the pledge in such ferocity -- GameStop (GME) and AMC Entertainment (AMC) -- and this otherwise utopian world lacks the firepower to extend its domain.
That's why I think we have to re-define this new form of capitalism for what it is: find a stock where the sellers are braindead or shorting the stock -- betting against it -- and blitz the stock higher in concert and simply run right over anyone who gets in your way.
If anything, the accusers have it completely backward: it's the short-sellers of these two stocks, so dependent on models that say these companies either shouldn't exist or can't exist in this current world, who are the chumps and who can be vilified for their stupidity. I would not have warned sellers and short-sellers to stay away from these two stocks if I thought they were the geniuses and the throng the stupid folk.
Now there are plenty of purists who are looking at these two companies and simply saying that, in the case of AMC, it should be allowed to go bankrupt and in the case of GameStop, which reports Wednesday, it should be left to die a natural death.
I think that's nonsense. There is no destiny. There is just what managements figure out in the face of adversity if given time and more capital, which his what both these two stocks needed.
What worries me, though, isn't the canard of denigration by the media, it's the veritable impossibility of finding more of these stocks. Sure they are taking up BlackBerry (BB) but there's nothing there unless it applies its cash to something totally different; a company in seemingly and endless decline -- at least in its business. But there is only a 10% short so there's not enough to goose the stock in a squeeze. There is Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) , which still has a 33% short and I think is definitely worth going after because the business is improving. Otherwise, there are just not enough targets to rally around because a major meme appeal is to vilify the shorts by beating them through simultaneous call and common stock buying. Without that combination of tinder you can't get the conflagration going.
But let's get one thing clear, I am on the side of the throng even as the throng thinks that I am a hedge fund troll. Nevertheless, I know how I line up, so who cares; their loss for snubbing an ally.
