All language subtitles for Apes.Together.Strong.2023.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

Downloaded from
YTS.MX

♪ What happened
to my greenback dollar ♪

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

Stocks. Never in a million years

did I think I'd be making a film
about the stock market.

It's certainly
not a documentary.

That's me, by the way.

I spend most of my time writing,

not poetry or anything fancy
but screenplays.

I fucking love screenplays.

I've got a twin brother.
That's us.

He's a musician, mostly.
A damn good one.

And loves hanging out
with this pug in his dark room.

Like most millennials,
we grew up in a golden age

of video games
and action movies,

which helped as we were to
experience the war on drugs...

- Just say no.
- ...9/11, war on terror,
The Great Recession,

insurmountable college debt,
a housing crisis,

a global pandemic,

unprecedented credit card debt,

and all the while
the media bitched at us

about avocado toast
and entitlement.

I just want to afford
a house and groceries.

Fuck me, right?

So in January 2021,

- we bought into GameStop.
- We like the Stop.

You maybe heard a bit on
the news about this crazy thing

that happened where all these
basement-dwelling neckbeards

on Reddit decided
to take down some hedge funds.

- Yeah, that's part of it,
but only part.
- Hey, bro.

- We just need a little intro.
That's all.
- That's what I'm doing.

- I'm in the middle of it.
- Okay. Just get
to the point, though.

I am.

Let me fucking finish!

Okay.

What happened in January of 2021

was just the tip of the iceberg.

The whole story is much worse

and it affects
every single one of you.

So the movie's called
Apes Together Strong.

But what is an ape?

Apes, man, are just regular,
everyday people.

To me, an ape is someone...

A person that doesn't go
to a broker to seek advice

on what they should invest in.

...someone that has
diamond hands.

This is a movie.
We're doing all right.

Uh, you know, the apes

are a fascinating community.

So, an ape, essentially,
is just, uh, a retail investor.

People from all walks
of life, for sure,

from every part
of the political spectrum.

They want more transparency
in the market

and they're really battling for
more of a fair playing field.

We're not doing
anything malicious.

We're just trying to get
a fair marketplace.

This community has formed
on its own using technology

both to organize itself
and to access markets.

I definitely think
this is creating
a new breed of investors.

And it really embodies

this retail investment ethos.

You're in charge
of your financial future.

That is a thing that Wall Street
has never seen before.

An ape is somebody
that took a bet on themselves.

"I'm already struggling.

What do I have to lose?"

Okay, bro, where do you want
to start?

Let's start with just
some clean drone footage.

Yeah, like, floating through a,
a big, expensive city.

Or just, just
some dude barefoot,

on a log, in the middle
of nowhere.

Yeah, that's super artsy

and, and we have
some piano music going.

It's definitely a documentary.

And some guys just staring
at the, the stock market.

Everyone can conjure up images
of the Great Depression.

We have this abstract idea
that a bunch of people were poor

and that the stock market crashed.

But we're too far removed
to remember

that much of this was caused

by the ultra-wealthy gambling

with other people's money.

Giant commercial banks
were out of control.

The Glass-Steagall Act
was a direct response to this.

The act enforced banks
to only use depositors' money

in safe investments.
And it worked.

For nearly 40 years, the US
financial system prospered

without a single crisis.

Regulation was protecting
the real economy.

That is until this guy
came along.

B-movie actor Ronald Reagan

- was elected president in 1980.
-"I, Ronald Reagan"...

And along with the help
from his treasury secretary,

former Merrill Lynch CEO

Donald Regan, Reagan proceeded

to free Wall Street
from the shackles of regulation.

A year later,
the Garn-St Germain Depository
Institutions Act of 1982...

That's the short title.

...deregulated
the mortgage industry,

allowing banks to provide
adjustable-rate mortgage loans.

But, of course,
it didn't stop there.

The Clinton administration,

with Larry Summers
as his treasury secretary,

signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley
Act into law,

gutting the Glass-Steagall Act

and taking away
the SEC's authority to regulate

large investment bank holding
companies, like Goldman Sachs,

Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch,

Lehman Brothers
and Bear Stearns.

The next guy
didn't do any better.

Some of these products
were used irresponsibly.

Some lenders made loans that
borrowers did not understand,

especially in
the subprime sector.

I, uh, was foreclosed on in 2008

after returning back from Iraq.

I got a terrible
subprime mortgage.

Um, I just...

...really wanted
a place to feel safe.

But I didn't really know

that I was a victim
of something that

millions of other Americans
have been a victim of.

Major financial institutions

have teetered
on the edge of collapse

and some have failed.

In 2008, the global economy

was thrown into a recession

by the unbridled greed
of Wall Street's biggest firms.

Make no mistake, this crisis
was the direct result

of decades of deregulation
in our capital markets.

We've been on a 40-year tear
to dismantle oversight, regulation

and accountability
in our financial systems.

All for the pursuit
of abstract wealth

made off the backs of people
like you and me.

Only if our government
grows less

will our economy grow more.

This ever-growing hydra
of red and blue oligarchs,

threatens not only
our retirements

but our flailing democracy.

This became
all too painfully clear

as the bottom 99% of us suffered

through the worst pandemic
in a century

while the top 1%

added trillions to their wealth.

That money didn't come
from nowhere.

It came from you.

A Washington State resident
fell ill after returning

from Wuhan, China,
where the outbreak began.

Officials now say
more than 400...

You know, during the pandemic,
I was, uh, really struggling,
for sure.

I just graduated college

and was embarking
on this journey of the military,

which is something
that I never saw for myself
a couple years ago.

From 2016 to 2020,

I was serving in the Air Force.

There is a certain mindset
that you get into

when you have to carry a gun
with you everywhere
for your own safety.

And, at all times,
you have to be

like, having your wits
about you.

Being in an environment
where you're constantly at war,

it, uh, gives you
a new perspective on life.

Right now, at the time
of filming, I'm, like,
30 years old.

It took me a second to think
about that. I don't know.

I kind of stopped counting
after 21.

Um, I want to say
I'm, I'm too outgoing.

When I-- like I said,
I, I'm more of a homebody.

Like, I, I work a lot.

My family comes
from Mexico. Um...

My dad, he came here
pretty young,

worked here a couple of years
until, I guess,

he was able to get,
um, his-- the amnesty

and become a resident.

My name's Kat Stryker.
I'm a bartender.

H-- how would I describe myself?

Very outgoing.

I was a troublemaker.

I went to juvenile hall twice.

What saved me was my son.

I was 16 when I got pregnant,
17 when I had him.

It changed my outlook.

I needed to change everything

and focus on raising a human.

When I started investing,

I, uh, got into it
eight years ago.

My adopted dad, he told me

that I should invest
in my future

and he told me
to get into stocks.

So this is the fun part
about this grill.

This kind of funnels
all the heat into one place.

Dad passed away when I was four.

Um, my mom, my grandmother

and my two brothers
and my sisters

b-- basically raised me. Um...

We didn't have much,
but at the same time,

we were rich with love,

like my grandmother
used to say.

So we, uh, we kind of-- we kind
of made do with what we had.

We are in Baton Rouge

at the first house
I ever bought.

My house.

This would be considered...

...North Baton Rouge, um,

it would be, you know,
they would say it's
a high-crime area and all that,

but I've never experienced
any of that that here.

My neighbor across the street,
right there,

I still take her vegetables.

Cousin, he stays right there.

She makes the best gumbo
in the world.

I've watched
all these people pass on

and their children
take the houses.

This is just a newer suburb

than the one
that I used to live in.

Because at the end of the day,
you are what you are.

Try to make the best out of it.

Good afternoon,
you bunch of beautiful
freaking chickens!

It is your boy Trey
coming back here again.

What is up, everybody?
Welcome to TreysTrades.

We freaking talk fast,
and don't skip class, baby.

Like a brother of mine said, I'm
not a financial advisor expert.

So take what I say
with a grain of salt.

Let's get into the video.
So, today, my friends...

I grew up in a small town
freaking hillbilly Minnesota.

Uh, the town was called Bowlus.

So I was super passionate
about running.

The thing that I wanted
to do with my life

was qualify for the Olympic
trials in the marathon.

When my dad died,
uh, he had a heart attack

and that's scary for me

because I have a genetic defect.

It's a heart shunt. I've got
scar tissue on my, on my heart,

uh, from lateral infarctions,

which is a fancy doctor bullshit
for heart attack.

Uh, so that hits home.

It, it definitely
hits home. Um...

For a lot of us,

the pandemic was terrifying.

It was isolating...

...and difficult.

But for the first time
in a long time,

working-class people
had a chance

to pull their heads
out of the grind

and maybe learn something new.

Like, figuring out
the fucking stock market.

In April of 2020,

every eligible adult
in the US received

$1200 in the form
of a stimulus check.

This came
as the trading app Robinhood,

made the market accessible,
simple and cheap

for anyone with a cell phone
and cash to burn.

Vlad Tenev, who is
the CEO of Robinhood,

that you may have used
to trade stocks

for free, without commissions.

In 2019 to 2021,
Robinhood's user base grew

from ten million to more
than 20 million people...

People have been super
distrustful of Wall Street.

...with working-class folks
looking to cash in

on what felt like
an invincible economy.

It's felt like a rigged system
for them.

Retail investors were primed
to take the market by storm.

The rocket ship was built.

All that needed was fuel.

So, Reddit itself is
this online community

where anybody with computer
access and Internet access

can go on there, make an account
and they can talk.

All of a sudden,
you had a lot of people
with nothing better to do

other than getting
some stimi checks,

you know, looking around
at the-- at the stock market.

I was not one for social media.

I was on Reddit maybe,
like, occasionally, just,
just for the social aspect.

If you love bread,

you can find a community

dedicated to just bread.

I think it's called Reddit.

The pandemic allowed
for a lot of people

to connect with people
like they haven't done before.

I am pretty sure
I found wallstreetbets

in 2018 or 2019.

On one hand, it's kind of,

"Oh, yeah, we love stocks
and we love making money."

But on the other hand,
it's also like,

"Yeah!"

I, I found my people.

The gift and the curse
of, of the pandemic

is that it allowed people
to figure out what to do

it, it took away
the, the family outing,

it took away, you know,
the eating out every day.

You had people that had
a couple of extra bucks

and you also had a lot of people

looking at this
all at the same time.

And it was on Reddit,
which was free.

There was an online community,

with this drumbeat,

um, that was so loud.

And one of my friends fatefully
told me about GameStop,

The first thing that resonated
to me about GameStop

was just the David
versus Goliath,

retail investors
versus hedge funds story.

Like, I get this.
People are breaking this down
in ways that I can understand,

and a lot of people were
doing that at the same time.

So I, I bought my table stakes.
I got in--

- Hang on, stop.
- What?

We can't get
into Keith Gill and GameStop

until I've covered
some basic shit first.

Like, short selling
and what are markets for.
Like, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, like everything
that this story involves.

- Okay,
that's fair enough.
- Basic shit.

"By 'basic shit,' we,
the filmmakers mean
all the rudimentary information

about the stock market that we
think you should probably know

before moving on in this story.
After all, these subjects are

intentionally complicated
to get the average person

from understanding enough
to know that the market

is built to profit from
and extract wealth

from your current
and future prosperity.

This is not financial advice,

we are not financial advisors."

My name's Lisa Bragança and I'm
a former SEC Branch Chief.

I handled lots of investigations

and then supervised people
handling investigations

of potential violations
of securities laws.

I'm David Lauer.

Uh, I used to be
a quantitative analyst

at Citadel Investment Group.

Through a long and sort of
convoluted series of events,

I ended up, uh, testifying
before the US Senate

Banking Committee
on high-frequency trading

and I saw that there was
a serious problem

in terms of the access

that the retail investor
has to data and tools

and decided, you know, that
that was something I could fix.

I'm Dennis Kelleher.
I'm the cofounder,

president and CEO

of a nonprofit organization
called Better Markets.

Thank you for the invitation to
Better Markets to testify today.

It is unacceptable
that brokers and others today

are allowed to put
their economic interests

above their client's
best interest.

We have about 15 staff
who promote the public interest

in the financial markets
throughout the policymaking
process in Washington, D.C.

We have a stock market

so that individuals
who want to make something,

want to offer services,

want to create a business,

can raise capital
to fund their growth.

That is the fundamental purpose
of having a stock market.

Capitalism only functions

when you have markets

that can adequately provide
capital and price discovery.

Let's break this down
with an example.

Company A wants
to grow their business.

They need money to do so.

So they go to the stock market

and sell 100 shares
to the general public.

These shares
are called the float.

Individual investors
who want to grow their money

bring it to the stock market,

where they invest in companies
like Company A.

They fight over how much
that company is worth

until the price is discovered.

- This is called price discovery.

At its most basic level,
the price of these shares

is determined by both supply,
or how many there are,

and demand, or how badly
people want them.

Realistically, there won't
always be someone

willing to buy or sell
a share from you

when you want
to buy or sell your shares,

which is why we have
market makers.

A market maker's function
is to provide liquidity.

And liquidity is like

oil in the gears of a machine.
It keeps it moving.

Oftentimes, you have
more buy orders

than you have sell orders
or more sell orders
than you have by orders.

It's rare that you're going
to have it be perfectly equal.

So the market maker is

somebody who, kind of,
stands in the middle,

prepared to be
the other side of a trade

when there isn't somebody
in the marketplace
at that moment.

Let's say you want to buy
a share of GameStop.

You can't just walk
into the stock market
and buy that share.

You have to go through
a licensed broker
like Robinhood.

Retail investors have
never had it this easy.

You can be pretty much anywhere.

Open up your phone,
put in your order

and hit "Buy."

When you hear
the mission of Robinhood,

"To democratize
finance for all,"

it's really about giving access
to everyone

what was once reserved
for the 1%

or the, the very wealthy.

I wanted to play more
of a principal role

in my financial future

and the financial future
of my family.

But what I think
we all have in common

is that is enough.

People are tired.

People are frustrated.
People are angry.

People are, are mad
at just surviving.

And no matter
what class you're in,

if you're lower class,

if you're lower middle class,
if you're upper middle class,

if you're not
in that 1% bracket,

that high tax bracket...

...you're a second away.

You, uh, slip and fall at work

with no medical leave.

Blood pressure medication
needs to be taken every day.

Lights need to be on,
running water needs to be on,

gas needs to be there for a few.

People have come together

and united over so many things

because we're regular people

that deal with traumatic shit
every day.

On one side of the trade,
you got the retail investor

that decided to take
a bet on themselves.

And then on the other side,
you got...

...the rich...

...covering themselves
by laws that said it's legal.

The one thing
you have to know is that,

with every trade,
there's a financial intermediary

making a killing.

And that's coming
out of the pockets
of the retail traders.

Now, most of us think
that when we buy a stock
through our broker...

- ...we're buying it
on the stock exchange.

But the truth is,

almost none of our retail trades

ever see the light of day.

Because our capital markets

have become far more fragmented

and complicated
than they need to be.

We have many places where
stocks can be bought or sold.

These are called venues.

So, venues is
a very generic term

to refer to any kind
of trading venue.

So, any place where a buy order
can find a sell order

and result in a trade.

These include lit markets

like the New York
Stock Exchange,

where you can see everything
that's going on,

or dark pools, where large
institutional orders

are executed in secret

so as not to affect
the stock price.

Retail, uh,
executes off-exchange.

Because retail orders are bought
by Citadel and Virtu

and they execute in
their internalization systems.

That's the area that
other countries have outlawed.

Because they understand
that large trades
happening off-exchange

are fine and often,
a good outcome.

Small trades happening
off-exchange are not.

So why aren't
our retail trades executed

on lit exchanges like
the New York Stock Exchange

and instead deep in the halls
of giant firms like Citadel?

Payment for order flow
is a practice

that was, uh, popularized
by Bernie Madoff.

Bernard Madoff
has just been sentenced

for the biggest investment fraud
in Wall Street history.

What he found was that

- as a market maker--
- Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Pause it, please.

- Yeah?

Bernie Madoff? Like,

worst financial criminal
in history?

Yeah, that's the guy.
That Bernie Madoff is the one

that invented
payment for order flow.

Oh, my God! Dude, that's so bad.

And we're still using that?

Yeah. I mean, it's,
it's a solid scam.

That makes sense.

- You ready?
- Yeah, I guess.

- Moving on?
- Roll it.

So payment for order flow
is a practice that was,

uh, popularized
by Bernie Madoff,

and, um, what he found was that,

as a "market maker,"

he could take order flow
from a broker

and make money off of it.

With payment for order flow,
firms like Citadel,

who claim to be a market maker,
pay Robinhood for the orders

that Robinhood customers,
like you and me, submit.

They fill that order
from their own inventory

and skim a few cents
off the deal,

then deliver your shares.

A broker, a retail broker,
has a duty of best execution.

And that duty of best execution
is to get their client
the best price possible.

Some brokers take that
seriously, and most don't.

These brokers are supposed
to hop from venue to venue,

looking for best execution
on your orders.

But more often than not,
they're just
kicking those orders

to the highest bidder.

And Robinhood was even fined
for prioritizing Citadel

because they were getting paid
over finding you the best deal.

And before Citadel ever got
into the game of market making,

they even torched
payment for order flow

in a 2004 letter to the SEC,

saying that it "distorts
order routing decisions,

is anti-competitive

and creates an obvious
and substantial

conflict of interest."

Somewhere in the neighborhood
of 90% of retail trading

gets executed in dark markets.

Well, of course,
the Robinhoods and Citadels
of the world say,

"Because that's where you get
the best execution

and you get the best price,

whether you're buying
or selling."

Now we at Better Markets,
have a hard time believing that

when we see the billions
and billions of dollars

being pocketed by the Robinhoods
and Citadels of the world.

Because you have
to ask yourself,
"Where's that coming from?"

Only coming from one place.

Retail investors
in the buy side.

To be clear,
Citadel is Robinhood's
biggest customer.

You are the product.

You're sold this fake dream

that when you're either
lower middle class

or you're poor,
that if you work hard

and you invest into the market,

that's basically
your golden ticket

to, you know,
to become successful.

And to be honest,
I think it's basically,
a lot of bullshit. It's a lie.

They just need us,
people like me,
retail investors, you know,

the lower middle class,
the poor people,
to steadily put our money in

thinking that one day we'll
finally get that golden ticket,

that lottery ticket,
you know, to be successful
when, you know, we don't.

They just take--
they take our money

because they know
the tricks and trades

and stuff like that.

And it just--

It gives you a headache. So...

So, my name is Austin Tobitt,

and I got my bachelors
in accounting,
got my masters in accounting,

and then went into more
of the data sciences

and the data analytics
side of things,

um, but always dabbled
in financial shit.

The stock market is the dream
for a lot of people

that come from this old school

or traditional mindset
of, you know,

"If you work hard,
you put your money
in the right place,

you'll be able
to invest in something.

Hopefully, you know,
strike it big.

You could be the next,

uh, big investor
in Apple in the '80s."

Like, if you-- you know, it's,
it's like Forrest Gump, man,

you hit, you hit that home run

and, uh, "We don't have
to worry about money anymore."

A big part of,

um, what we have lost

in modern markets,
where speculation has become

90% of trading,

is that markets
are not a casino.

How secure is that investment?

If I look at that
old school mindset

and I say, "Just leave
my money in there..."

I mean, look at 2008, you have
people working for 30 years

trying to put money
into a savings account
or an investment account

and by the time they're
getting ready to retire,

like, one or two years
from retiring, '08 hits.

Wall Street, in itself,
is sort of the poster child

for wealth
and income inequality.

You've got
this enormous industry

of people making money
off of money

and mostly making
rich people richer.

Especially,
the great financial crisis

impacted the average person

far more than it impacted
the average trader

or the average
investment banker.

Uh, they still got
their bonuses.

Their firms were bailed out.

You know, they've continued,

uh, business as usual,

uh, risk taking as usual

and amassing wealth as usual.

And I-- you know, to me,

that's just
a recipe for disaster.

There are two major types
of investors.

There are regular people
and what are known as sort of
institutional investors,

which are considered to be
more sophisticated investors

that do a lot more trading.

Things like mutual funds,

pension funds, hedge funds.

Imagine a room
full of rich people

and they all want
to be a lot richer.

They each put a large amount
in the hands of a hedge fund.

Hedge funds then invest
that money into risky positions,

often using excessive leverage

to exaggerate their gains.

These risky investments

are managed
by rock star investors

such as this guy,

Gabe Plotkin of Melvin Capital.

Now, unfortunately, over time,

our markets, like too much
of our economy,

have become
what's called financialized.

Which is to say they are
obsessively focused

on short-term financial returns.

You can see that
in a variety of ways.

Um, one example
is short selling.

Well, GameStop looks to be
heading down the same path

as Blockbuster and Sam Goody.

The retail giant will close

more than 180 stores
across the globe

as they continue to struggle
with sales.

The company said the closures
at underperforming locations

will take place
over a six-month period...

The world's
largest movie theater chain
was already struggling

before the coronavirus
outbreak and--

Uh, we've been the victim
of some short selling,
during the year.

There might have been some game
playing with our stock today.

A short sale is what you do

when you want to bet that
the price of a stock goes down.

So, short selling
is selling something

that you don't own right now.

You buy a stock if you think
the stock is going to go up

and you short a stock
if you think that the stock
is going to go down.

How do you do that?
How do you sell something
you don't own?

There are lots
of people out there

who have stock
and they're just sitting on it.

Could be me,
could be a pension fund.

And a short seller is able

to go and borrow that share

and now sell it to someone else,

expecting the price will go down

and the short seller
gets to pocket the difference.

The price of a stock

can go down only a certain
amount before it hits zero.

The price of a stock can go up

an infinite amount,

causing the short seller
potentially infinite losses.

I know we just
explained short selling

a couple of different times,

but I really think
we need a visual.

Didn't Tobitt
have a good example?

He did.

Why don't we just dress you up
like a short seller

- and go shoot it?
- Okay.

This example goes like this.

I'm going to travel
to my neighbor's house,

and I'm going to say, "Hey,

I want to borrow
that five-pound bag

of sugar from you, okay?"

Let's say the price
of this sugar is $10.

So my neighbor says,
"Sure, I've got a bag of sugar.
I'll give it to you."

I say, "Thank you.
I will pay you back."

So as soon as I borrow
that bag of sugar,

I'm gonna say "Thank you"
to my neighbor,
and I'm going to turn around

and go to the market,
and I'm going to sell
that bag of sugar for $10.

And as the price of sugar
goes down--

because I believed the price
of sugar was going to go down.

So as it goes down
and it gets to the seven,
the five, the four,

whenever it hits a price
where I believe,

"That's probably
the rock bottom.

I believe that's
the bottom-out price of sugar."

Let's say it's $5.

I'm going to go back
into the market--

Remember, I sold it
initially for ten.

So I'm going to go back
into the market,

I'm going to buy that same bag,

that five-pound
bag of sugar, for $5

and I'm going to bring it back
to the neighbor
that I borrowed it from.

So the neighbor gets their
five-pound bag of sugar back,

I pocket $5...

Because it only cost me
five to buy it back.

...and everything is the same.
Nobody knows any different.

Now, the opposite
is also true there.

Because, what if I'm wrong?

What if the price of sugar
goes from $10 to $20

and my neighbor says,
"Hey, sugar is getting
pretty expensive

and I want my bag back"?
Well, too bad.

You've got to go
into the market,

be accountable for your bad bet

and buy sugar
at a more expensive price.

And that's why, when they say,

"S-- short selling has
an unlimited loss,"

they mean it's
an unlimited loss.

I can talk about the various
type of short sellers

and what I used to do,
uh, professionally.

And short sellers are often,
uh, on the lookout

for companies
that are engaged in fraud,

where they're actually,
uh, making false statements

about their financials,
their prospects,

their competitors,
their products.

And one of the best
examples of that

that many people know is Enron.

It may be perceived by some
that I have something to hide.

Uh, my most recent short
in that area

is a company called Mymetics.

I exposed the CEO
for ripping off the VA,

for making up numbers,
cooking the books.

- So, so,
so you're saying if,

if you put out
a false press release,

you can be fined and go to jail.
Is that what you're gonna say?

That's what the-- that's what
the laws and regulations are.

You no-good,
rat bastard motherfuckers.

That's a good public service.

Now, they weren't doing it

just to be good public servants.

They had massive short positions
in the stock.

There is no better feeling
than getting something right

and, in my mind,
for the right reason.

All short sellers claim
they do nothing

but great public services

by making sure
all stocks are efficient

and hunting for fraud
at all times.

That's not true, okay?

A whole bunches of them
are engaged

in predatory, antisocial,
if not illegal, conduct.

When a, a small percentage

of the float of a company
is short,

it can be healthy.

You want...

...disagreement in markets.

That, that is the essence
of markets,

is people disagree

and they are putting their money
where their mouth is.

One person thinks a company is
worth more than another person.

And the, the market
is this attempt by the crowd

to come up with
what something is worth.

All right. Basics covered.

We know that markets
are supposed to be a place

where people go to raise money
for their businesses,

where others argue over
what that business is worth.

You have to go through a broker
like Robinhood to buy stocks.

You can bet on the success
of a company by going long.

You can bet on the decline
of a company by going short.

And a hedge fund
is a group of rich assholes

wanting to gamble
with other people's money.

There were a group
of investors on Reddit

who were driven by a couple
of different motivations.

But when you said GameStop
was going to be a big winner,

everyone thought
you were tripping. Up 13 %.

- You still like it?
- I still like it. Yes.

- Same store sales
over the holidays were up ten--
- What store?

- It seems like
they closed them all.
- No, no, there's, there's some--

A lot of people thought it was,
sort of, an obvious company
where, you know,

maybe it doesn't necessarily
have that great of a future,

given sort of the, the downfall
of retail and all of that.

Keith Gill was kind of
the first guy on Reddit
to blow this all up.

He's the one who presented
the bull case,

made his thesis
out on wallstreetbets.

For a long time,
he ate some shit.

Game begin.

This is going to be the first
video of the Kitty Corner.

And the market has kind of
forced my hand on this one.

The first stock that I'm gonna
talk about is GameStop.

Keith Gill, known on YouTube
and Twitter as Roaring Kitty

and on Reddit
as DeepFuckingValue,

sought GameStop or GME as
a wildly undervalued company.

Yeah, I think everyone else
is crazy...
and I think I'm right.

But I've been wrong
plenty of times in the past.

There was nothing overcomplicated

about his strategy.

Based on publicly
available information,

he came to the conclusion
that GameStop

was worth more than
the price it was trading at.

So this is some of
the heaviest negative sentiment
I've, I've seen,

uh, with a stock. "I haven't
shopped there in years.

All my friends haven't shopped
there in years.

You download everything.
Digital's the future,

GameStop's
the next Blockbuster."
That's a popular one.

It just reminds me
of Blockbuster.

In a sea of crassness

and debauchery
on wallstreetbets,

Keith Gill was a good-natured
breath of fresh air.

Happy St. Patrick's Day
to everybody

and a deep fucking cheers
to all y'all.

- He not only
knew his shit...
- Look at this.

...but was supremely confident
in his playing.

So confident that on Sunday,

September 8th, 2019,
at 1:12 p.m.,

he posted his first YOLO post,

revealing a $53,000 bet
that GameStop's stock price

would shoot to the moon.

Shorting, where you're betting

that the-- that the price
of a stock is gonna go down,

is sort of viewed,
uh, poorly by people.

And the reason
is that it can be viewed
as sort of a predatory tactic.

Because there are investors
who will short a stock

and then they'll
sort of purposely try
and tank the stock.

In 2016, Melvin Capital

revealed its first
short position in GameStop,

beginning a years-long campaign

to profit from
the company's demise.

Unfortunately, nowadays,

there appears to be more
bad guys than good guys

and they're just trying to grab

as much money
as fast as possible.

"Consequences be damned"
is the attitude.

As you start
to learn more about it

and the bigger picture
that's going on

with short selling,
you start to realize

that it's really become
more profitable

for these companies
or these hedge funds
like Melvin Capital,

to bankrupt a company,

than it is to bet
in terms of, like,

the longevity of the company.

Was it--

I don't think...

...that really goes on.

I don't think Melvin was trying

to push GameStop
out of business.

From what I understand,

the fellow actually
does his research

and he was shorting GameStop
for a long time.

And I think he had
a successful trade

because he views it
as a dying business

and he was shorted
and he was successful.

But at that point, I think
arrogance got the best of him

along with some form of greed

and he should have
just covered and gone home.

He didn't need
to destroy the company
at the end of the day

'cause GameStop harmed nobody.

Short sellers ramped up
their bearish bets

by targeting not only GameStop,

but other struggling companies
like Nokia, BlackBerry,

Bed Bath Beyond
and AMC Theaters.

These are tough times for
everybody where our minds
are very much on our customers.

A million a day or-- can't go
to the movie theaters right now,

and our 27,000
American employees

uh, who have nothing to do
'cause we are shuttered
and closed.

AMC, back in January,
maybe even a year before that,

there was a good thesis
for the company going bankrupt.

And if you want to bet
on a company going bankrupt,

as long as your intent
is not to bankrupt the company,
do as you please.

I wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't like to bet
against the economy.

That's not my thing.
But if you're trying
to make money

purely from a money standpoint,
whatever, I get it.

But the problem is
that they intended
for the company to go bankrupt.

They wanted the company
to go bankrupt.

See, short selling
has an added bonus.

If a trader has
a short position in a company,

and that company goes bankrupt,
the short seller
doesn't have to buy back

and return the shares
that they borrowed.

To me, I felt
that the entire reason

for investing in the markets

was because we wanted
to invest in companies.

We wanted to invest in growth.

Let's change things
for the better.

Let's innovate, let's create,

let's do something different
that nobody else has done.

For the market to be

basically hounded
by the short sellers,

who are fighting
against this innovation,

who are putting up
barriers for us

and including stuff
like cancer research,

that, to me, me just screams

that these guys
are very out of touch.

Very out of touch.

My name is Keith Clohessy.

I'm 35 years old, from Ireland

and I got invested in GME

because of some Reddit post
I had read.

Um, I have three small children,

um, and the whole reason
I want to be involved

is because I want to make
a better life for them,

uh, make things a lot more
comfortable and easy.

Uh, I've had a little bit
of a hard going

over the last couple of years,

but, um, hopefully,
once GME moons, we will...

...be able to build
our own house, um,

and basically get all the things

that we haven't been able
to afford up until this point.

Melvin Capital continued
to short GameStop.

Breaking in massive gains
on put options

disclosed quarter after quarter.

For a long time, though,

with the advent of the Internet

and with changing
technologies, uh,

GameStop,
during the early 2010s,

had a really difficult time

adjusting and adapting to
the changing market conditions

that technology had brought in.

This is when the short sellers

had kind of clumped
into everything

and slowly just started
shorting them into oblivion.

But not everyone shared
his bearish view on the company.

Dr. Michael Burry,
played by Christian Bale

in Adam McKay's film
The Big Short,

took a $6.8 million stake
in the company

in late 2018.

By August of that year,
he wrote a strongly
worded letter

to GameStop's board criticizing
their lackluster performance

and taking advantage
of GameStop's elite position

in the gaming universe.

Keith Gill continued
to post updates on his YOLO,

revealing incremental gains
that brought disbelief
and criticism

among his fellow
wallstreetbets degenerates.

Then, in August of 2020,

as Gill's net worth
popped over $600,000,

a savvy young entrepreneur
and billionaire, Ryan Cohen,

revealed his own long position
in GameStop.

He bought 5.8 million shares
of GME,

totaling at $33.9 million.

But this was no ordinary buy-in.

Ryan Cohen, a tech-savvy,
fresh-faced millennial

had just beaten Amazon
with his wildly successful
online pet company, Chewy.

Chewy, say hi to your friends!

Hi, Stela.

He was exactly what GameStop

needed and he knew it.

I'm 33 and, uh,
I've, I've learned

- retirement sucks and so...

...you know, maybe I'll start
another business. Who knows?

Like Dr. Burry before him,
Cohen warned the GameStop board

to get its shit together

or go the way of the dinosaurs.

Oh, this is big news.
We, like, legit--

So I, I just got the news.
I was out and about.

I was on a walk
with my, with my daughter.

I just-- legit-- the first time
I've sat at the computer

since I got this news.
So let's actually
look at the 13th day.

It could get people's attention.

It's like he's building
the stake

in his individual capacity.

What's this?
H-- how did he-- what's this?

Eight-- okay, so actually,
it's a good chunk of volume.

August 18th-- almost 800K.

The governor of growth ha--
has always been free cash flow.

So we've always been
very disciplined about that.

You know, the strategy
from the beginning,

is really replicating
the experience

I had in the neighborhood
pet store.

But doing it online
and doing it at scale.

And so, you know,
doing those small things

like the handwritten
holiday cards and the flowers--

That's it. That's uh,
I th-- I think it's just funny

that, uh, I didn't know
that much about him.

And now I'm like,
"Oh, this is a perfect fit

for GameStop, right?"

While Keith Gill was
slowly becoming a millionaire,

a revolution was brewing.

Hordes of isolated
retail investors

were ditching traditional
financial media

and returning to each other

on platforms like Reddit,
Twitter and YouTube.

And go.

My name is Matt Kohrs and I'm
a YouTube stock commentator.

I could see the midday session

being more of just
like a sideway consolidation.

I think a lot of people
are waiting

to hear comments from Adam Aron

and to figure out
what is going on

with the at-the-market offering.

I, I am not, uh, professionally

or even collegiately taught
in the market.

It-- this is for me,
reading books, watching videos,

the people I'm trying to help
are people who are

trying to make their life
better through the market

and they're trying
to look for that information.

And some of the times, it's not
the easiest thing to track down.

I think what you really watched
happen over the last year,

especially, with COVID
and quarantine, is education.

Uh, I think high school
and college

really failed a lot of people

I was never taught
about finance.

I was never taught
how to do my taxes.

I was never taught
how to invest. I was told,

"Give your money to this guy
and fuck whatever you think."

They just tell you,
"Invest your money
and, you know, be smart."

But how? Like...

...I personally learned this
on my own.

I learned it
by, by being educated

through social media,
not through the news.

Not through my teachers,
not, not through big money,

not through the one percenters.
They didn't teach me.

And I'm sure they wouldn't
have cared if I'd learn or not.

All right, so this is the,
uh, the jerry-rig.

I use, uh, I use
a very simple setup,

so I've just got,
like, a dual monitor,

sort of, uh, you know, s--
computer screen thing right here

and I use my Elgato mic,
which, actually,
isn't plugged in right now.

But we're gonna, we're gonna
pretend it is...

...as well as just a, a standard
iBUYPOWER, uh, gaming computer.

I use this just for,
uh, you know, streaming.
It's, it's nice.

And people get to watch
all the shenanigans

and, uh...
and have fun,

You know, like, we,
like, we like to do.

If I'm not streaming,
it's the same sort of thing.

I pull up whatever
I want to show on my screen.

I press "start recording"
here on OBS

and I can keep track
of all this sort of, uh,

things that I want to watch
here on, on the, the set up.

But I keep it really simple
because I'm just a regular joe.

I, I really don't know
a lot about tech.

I think the important thing
is the message.

It's, it's what's getting
passed along to people

so that we can have
a community, have a home,

uh, do a little bit of learning
and also have some fun.

Because, 'cause fuck!
I mean...
we're just regular people, dude.

You like to, you like
to have fun while you're,
while you're doing

the educating
and, and, uh, being a part
of the ape community. So--

When I started YouTube, my, uh--

I, I wrote down things
that I wanted to get across

and things that were
important to me.

And there's a few main things.

Community, empowerment,

education, entertainment.

It's, it's not for me.
These, these things

that I put on the Internet
are for other people.

Hey, you don't have
to be lonely.

You can have enough
money to be free.

The two things that I think
don't get enough credit,

um, for this retail
and Reddit revolution

are memes and the due diligence.

On the Reddit community,
I'm better known as ButtFarm69.

I am a meme lord.

A meme is basically anything

that becomes a mimicked thing

throughout the viral consciousness,

especially over the Internet.

This is the worst
day of my life.

It's the worst day
of your life so far.

So a meme can be a static image

that has a caption on it

and then, uh,
the caption will change,

but the picture
will stay the same.

Uh, it's basically just anything
that can be mimicked

and transfers across society.
That is a meme.

So memes have been,
for a lot of people,

the thing that got them
asking about GameStop
in the first place.

Seeing a meme that went viral

on Reddit or on Twitter
or whatever,

it was the first gateway

into them learning
about GameStop, the stock.

And it made me laugh. Cool.

Now I know the information

and I had a good time
learning it.

The memes are so critical

to this movement of information

because they are the-- what
interrupts this wall of text,

this wall of information that,
otherwise, is indigestible.

It's basically the very opposite
of what we did in school,

where we would just stare
at a chalkboard for a while.

On a meme, it's like,
"Yo, look at this!"

Hi, my name's Sahil.
I'm 22 years old

and I'm a final year
university student from the UK.

Um, I got involved
in the AMC and GameStop saga

when my uncle
PayPalled me 20 pounds

and he explained to me
what's essentially going on.

And then I started doing
my own sort of research into it.

I suppose, you know,
I started looking at,
you know, other due diligence,

which is put out
by other "apes,"

um, in, in-- into the community.

You know, you really start
to just gain this confidence

and, um, I just invested
more and more heavier,
heavily into it,

um, to the point
where I sold my Tesla shares

and, you know,
all that sort of stuff

and I've more or less,
yolo'd my entire portfolio,

um, into AMC and GameStop.

That's literally the only
two shares I own anymore.

And it's got to the point
where, you know,

my-- even my grandma
asks me every single day,

"How, how is your AMC
and GameStop doing?"

And, um, you know,
she even says to,

you know, when it goes lower,
to buy the dips.

- All right.
- So the MOASS is

the Mother
of All Short Squeezes.

You clearly had
a number of, uh, traders

who were anti short sellers.

They thought that
the price of GameStop

was being unfairly driven down

and they wanted to do
what's called a short squeeze.

So, a short squeeze
is essentially,

when you've got shorts
that have established positions
within the stock.

And if you're a long investor
and you're looking
for a short squeeze,

you are looking for these guys
to buy back the stock

for more money
than they sold it at.

Those individuals
can hold on to their shares

and not sell them.

Which bids up the stock,

which then requires
the short seller

to go in and buy the stock
at a higher price.

That can create a feedback loop

of shorts covering positions,
which drives the price up

because they're buying
from the market,

which shoots the price up exponentially.

People who are long on the stock
make a crap ton of money.

As news of Ryan Cohen's buy-in

drove the stock price up,
others on Reddit noticed

something unprecedented.

GameStop's short interest.

Uh, guys, there's a 140%
short interest on GameStop.

Short interest is
the number of shares sold short

but not yet covered
or bought back.

GameStop stock was shorted,
something like a 140%

of the actual number of shares.

In September of 2020

u/Jeffamazon on Reddit
drops a post titled

The REAL Greatest Short Burn
of the Century.

In, what now seems like
a prophecy of what was to come,

he explains that
a short squeeze is imminent.

And as long as retail
held on to their shares,

short sellers would have
to come to them

to buy them back.

But here's the kicker.

More shares of GameStop
were shorted

than existed in the float.

I'll say that again.
More shares were shorted
than existed.

So how the fuck
is that possible?

One explanation is
naked short selling.

A naked short sale

is basically
when you sell a stock
that you haven't borrowed.

Naked shorting is illegal
for most firms,

but there is an exemption
for market makers.

And those market makers
are allowed to sell

without holding those shares
to provide liquidity.

Market makers can be--
short the stock

without having

to borrow the shares.

And some people
would call that naked shorting.

So when you sign up
for a retail broker

and you click "Agree"
to the customer agreement,

you agreed to blend
your shares out.

So Investor A holds a 100 shares

and Short Seller A comes along

and wants to borrow those shares
and sell them.

So that-- the short seller
sold the 100 shares,

now they're being held
by Investor B.

Investor B wants
to lend those shares out

and so, another short seller
comes along

and borrows the shares
from Investor B

and sells them to Investor C.

And now you have
three different investors

who all think
they're holding a 100 shares,

but they're all holding
the same shares.

And it's legal.

I learned in business school

that one of the most important
things that business people do

is try to figure out ways

to get around
the current system.

It's like-- it's like
a video game, right?

This is when you start
to get into the realm

of what's ethical,
what's unethical,
what's legal, what's illegal.

They can kick the can
down the road all they want,
but shorts have to cover.

You can't get out
of a 140% short float.

Where's GameStop? Up tenfold
from the beginning of the year.

Shorts have to cover.

'Cause I'm seeing short squeezes
all over the place.

In many cases, they are
actually being orchestrated

by motivating
young stock buyers.

My son came up to me and he said

he wanted to borrow money.

I asked him a bunch of questions
and he said he was on Reddit.

He wanted to follow the memes--
"the meme stocks."

The retail investors have pretty
much always been portrayed

as pajama wearing,

no tie owning,

like, bunch of degenerates

who don't know
how the markets work

and have no business
in the markets.

And I will say
to those guys, uh,

"You guys have no business
in the markets

because what you've done is
bastardize the American economy

and the American markets
to do your bidding.

Fuck you."

Right now, an astounding 144%

of GameStop shares
have been sold short.

That's far more than there is.
That's not right.

- My initial reaction was,

"What are you people doing?
This is crazy.

You're going to lose everything.
You're going up
against the big guys."

And then, since then,
the buyers have hit
the stock message boards

and urged a gang tackle
of the shorts.

GameStop has now doubled
in two days.

Right now, we are
winning a battle...

- ...with hedge funds...

...market makers,

movers and shakers
of Wall Street.

Thirty-two minutes
at the hour...

"I've got to say I LOVE,

LOVE what is going on
with #wallstreetbets.

All those years
of High-Frequency Traders

front running retail traders,

now speed and density of
information and retail trading

is giving the little guy
an edge."

GameStop at 420!

It, it hit 420,
ladies and gentlemen!

When I've been the most
locked and shackled

is when I didn't have money
to do the things
that I wanted to do in life.

Oh, 420.69! Take a screenshot.
Take a screenshot!

I just-- I'd really love
to buy a house.
Obviously, help my family.

Well, what if it's squeezed
and this is
the life-changing money

and, and you can put your family
in places...

...places you always
wanted to go?

I saw my account
go past $100,000.

Manos de diamante, cabrones.

Diamond hands.

The adrenaline that is pumping
through your veins,

I can only compare it to like

it's the final seconds
of your basketball game,

you've got the ball,
you're dribbling
from the other end of the court

towards your basket,

the buzzer's about to go
and you just... [whooshes].

You didn't really think
they're going to give it
to us, did you?

Yeah, I f-- I fucking did.

Well, it's about
to get a lot worse.

David, we do have now
some statements from Robinhood

and interactive brokers,
about restricting trading.

GameStop shares tanking today.

Robinhood and other brokers
making it tougher
to trade the stock.

We haven't seen
how this movie ends,

and a lot of these
amateur traders

especially today,
could get hurt.

"Our mission at Robinhood
is to democratize
finance for all."

Uh, people upset at the idea
that they can no longer buy.

And it will have an impact.

I remember January 2021.

I remember all the hope
that we felt.

And you can call us misguided,

you can call us juvenile,

but the fact is,

we were right.

We saw a chink in the armor
and, for once,

we cut the oligarchs
on the back foot.

We were so close...

...and we know that money
can't buy everything.

But it can buy you freedom.

Medical bills, parking tickets,
late fees, overdraft charges,

rent hikes, student loans,
stagnant wages,

cost of living, inflation,

are all realities
that keep us chained

to the gig work
and the hard labor

that keeps the real economy
right where it should be.

Stuck in the cogs of
a bastardized financial system,

deranged into a perfect
cold machine

rigged to extract wealth
from the hardworking people
of the world.

And as GameStop popped
to more than $500,

with no sign of slowing down,

that excitement
was a rare feeling.

After a year
of pandemic and isolation...

...all we had to do
was buy and hold.

Who knew that our markets
were so fragile

that buying and holding a stock
could take down
the whole damn thing?

The keys to the castle
were in our hands.

And when the excitement
reached to boiling point...

...our brokers betrayed us.

Robinhood, the broker
that we had trusted

to democratize finance,

took away the "Buy" button.

Then E#TRADE,
TD Ameritrade, Webull,

and other payment for order
flow brokers followed suit.

We didn't know why buying
was halted on AMC and GameStop.

But the message was clear,

Wall Street wanted us to sell.

And what should have been
the Mother of All Short Squeezes

became little more
than a sneeze.

It seemed to everybody
that the apes had lost.

And once again,
it was abundantly clear...

...that the house always wins.

- This is the fun part.

This is where the training
comes in. All right, sit.

Stay.

Go get it!

Bring it!

There's no doubt that the--
it's the retail investors

who spotted this crazy set
of circumstances

in which something
could squeeze like this

and they got it right.

They went all in,

and then it was the retail
investors that were hurt.

Uh, which is, again, sort of

the, the standard on Wall Street

that gains are privatized

and losses are socialized.

This hearing is entitled

Game Stopped?

Who Wins and Loses

When Short Sellers,
Social Media,

and Retail Investors Collide.

This is what I,
I think needs to be answered

about your decision.

Why did Robinhood
restrict the buying

but not the selling of GameStop?

The decision to restrict
GameStop and other securities

was driven purely by deposit

and collateral requirements
imposed by our clearing houses.

So let's break down
Vlad's excuse

for turning off
the "Buy" button.

- Every time a trade happens,

it goes through the DTCC,

or Depository Trust
Clearing Corporation.

They keep track of who owns
and who owes what.

They're sort of, like,
the officiant of the marriage.

They make sure that

the person who's selling
the stock has a stock,

and the person who's buying
the stock has money.

The DTCC called Robinhood

to ask for three billion
extra dollars

to back up the buying activity
in GameStop and AMC.

They told Robinhood,

"Hey, we need three billion
dollars in, essentially,
collateral from you,

in case these trades
don't go through
so that you can cover it."

So Vlad, in true bad-guy form,

decides to protect his company
over his customers

by proposing giving the DTCC
less money

if he shuts down
the "Buy" button.

They agreed.

It's important
to remember, though,

that any one story
about what happened in January

is only ever going to be
part of the picture.

I believe that retail investors

are being used
by the broker-dealers

and, and they are the product.

And that, of course,
is what's going on

with payment for order flow

and high-frequency
trading firms,

uh, that claim to be
market makers,

when, in fact,
what they're really doing

is engaging in market activities

to maximize their profits.

Period. Full stop.

The people at Robinhood

have got fabulously rich
over this.

The two principal founders
of Robinhood

are reportedly
billionaires today.

Their wealth depends
upon being able to sell

as many trades as possible

to the Citadels of the world,

that then get executed
in dark markets,

which maximizes the amount
of payment for order flow

they can give
to the Robinhoods of the world.

The Robinhood customers

not only enriched
preexisting billionaires,

they have actually
created more billionaires.

We all love
a good David and Goliath story.

And, yeah, it was awesome

to watch the little guys
smash some hedge funds.

But the reality is
a lot more complicated.

As retail investors
loaded up on GameStop and AMC,

Robinhood was making a killing

through payment for order flow.

And Citadel was making even more

by taking retail orders.

Melvin Capital,
on the other hand,
wasn't so lucky.

Over the course
of the run-up in January,

Melvin reported losses
to the tune of $7.5 billion.

And this is where things
get a little bit weird.

See, market making
isn't the only business

Ken Griffin and Citadel
have their hands in.

Citadel is also a hedge fund.

And as Melvin Capital
was on the brink of collapse,

Ken Griffin used that hedge fund
to bail them out.

Again, I have not, nor do I have

the ability to subpoena emails

or trading records
or phone calls

or who knew what, when and how.

But the only reason,

the only reason

Citadel and Ken Griffin
would give Melvin a dime,
given his state,

would be that, in their view,

Melvin represented such risk

that further destruction
of Melvin

in the GameStop/meme stocks

would put a very, very, very
overleveraged Citadel at risk.

That would be the only reason

to get the bleeding at Melvin
to stop.

Because,
by all practical purposes,

Melvin is a weak,
irresponsible market player.

And Melvin should have gone
out of business.

When Robinhood turned off
the "Buy" button,

that benefited

a few significant players

on Wall Street.

Particularly, Melvin Capital,

but some of the other
short sellers.

It's important to point out here

that it wasn't just Robinhood
who restricted buying,

but all the brokers who did
had one thing in common,

payment for order flow.

These events have eliminated

potential conflicts of interest

and the predatory ways
that certain funds operate

and they have demonstrated
the enormous potential power

of social media in our markets.

The long knives have come out

shutting down
the investing revolution

the elites could not control.

The biggest disappointment
comes from Robinhood.

Here to testify today,

including witnesses
representing Wall Street firms

Melvin Capital

and Citadel.

You said that...
you didn't talk to anybody

of Citadel, Citadel Securities.

Did anyone in your organization,

since January 1st,
contact Robinhood?

Absolutely not.

There is evidence

that's come out

that there was communication

between Citadel and Robinhood.

It was highlighted, uh,
by this internal chat message

on January 27th, where Robinhood
President Jim Swartwout said,

"You wouldn't believe the convo

we had with Citadel.
Total mess."

- Uh, you know, maybe they chose
the trading restrictions...

...because that's good
for Citadel.

It-- crime does pay.

If you're a broker-dealer,
crime pays.

It-- that's just the truth.
You pay fines,

but it is the cost
of doing business.

I'm going to do
something I never do.

Let's come out of my shell
and talk about

how I'm sick of injustice.

I'm sick of people bowling...

...people who are trying
to be smart with money...

...and make something
out of themselves,

who don't buy themselves anything,

who try to put money aside

to make a better future
for their kids.

When I think of these big
hedge funds and firms

that are betting
against the economy,

the US economy,
the American investor,

the ape is bullshit.

If you have privilege

and you are not actively
and consciously

using that privilege
to bring good

into this world,
you are part of the problem.

I'm so frustrated.
I sit here every day

and watch these people
bullshit everybody.

I have a message
for all of these sort of guys.

You don't represent retail

and that nobody
believes you anymore.

You should not bet
against America.

You should not bet
against the economy.

You should not bet
against the little guy

because you're going
to get kicked in the ass.

And just because
we've got you by the balls

and you don't know what to do
and you don't know how to stop,

it doesn't mean
that we're going to stop.

And I'm sick of it!
Let's have equality.

We're not going anywhere.
We're not fucking leaving.

We may not know everything,
but every day
we're learning more.

That's what an ape feels.

Show me some goddamn respect

for even taking attempt
to get in the market!

Show me some goddamn respect
for actually doing something

that somebody told me
I couldn't do.

Show me some goddamn respect...

...for betting on me.

I thought that was
the American dream.

Underpaid,
understaffed, overworked.

How many of us
does that describe?

The sweat... that I put out,

I have a right to earn.

So the same shit that happens

in 2008 will continue to happen

and is happening right now.

We let the news stop

being the news.
Think about this.

When was the last time

you trusted the news to give you

factual, unbiased,
objective information?

This is a pure underdog story.

The 99 versus the one,
David versus Goliath.

You're having
the average person,

who's locked in solitude
during the pandemic,

fighting against
the illegitimate acts
on Wall Street.

I don't give a damn
how long you've been trading,

how long you've been
doing something,

if you come in disrespectful,

I'm going to give you,
in like kind,

what you just gave me.

Because you're thinking I'm not
sophisticated enough to learn

one plus one is two?

Fuck you!

Fuck your vanity space projects!

Maybe it's time the people
got the keys to the rocket.

What I would like
to point out here

that we have come
dangerously close

to the collapse
of the entire system

and the public is-- seems to be

completely unaware of that,

including Congress
and the regulators.

I think that common bond

that was born out
of January 28th

was the recognition
that that opportunity

which had been looming larger
on the horizon...

Right? We, we have this.
We have the theory.

We have our investment.

The timing is right.
Everything is right.

We're doing this.
And then the carpet was pulled.

As the stocks plummeted,
the apes refused to sell.

Instead, they held on and dug

- into SEC filings,
financial disclosures...
- There you go.

...congressional hearings,
you name it.

They were intent on finding out
who was behind

Robinhood's decision
to shut off the "Buy" button.

Someone would put out an idea

and that idea would be

subject to critique,

um, to acclaim,

to be built upon.

And what happened out of that

was the birth
of almost a hive mind.

And the second I looked
into Citadel, it was like,

"There is something
very different

from the normal...
like, investor mentality."

By the end of 2008,

we had lost half our capital.

Citadel has acted irresponsibly

since the GFC of 2008.

Whatever the financial
accident is,

Ken Griffin and Citadel
need to get

a backdoor bailout
by the government.

And each thing we did
bought us one more day.

And day by day,
we bought ourselves a future.

One of the difficulties
in our system,

something that we permit,
we, we allow legally,

but that is hugely problematic,

is that a single entity

can have conflicting roles.

One example is,

Citadel can be trading
for itself

and at the same time
be a market maker.

I think they're better known
as high-speed speculators.

And that's all they do. Um,
they don't provide liquidity.

They're not here serving
as traditional market makers.

That's where the, the real harm
can come.

From learning
what's going on in retail

and then using it
for your own benefit.

They're here taking bets,
actively taking liquidity

and trying
to find inefficiencies
at extremely high speeds.

This is a situation that would

permit a Citadel, for example,

to be able
to really take advantage.

of the markets

and be able
to drive the price down

by using its privileged position

as a market maker

to do naked shorts.

That is a possibility.

With this payment of order flow,

you create
this black box situation

where no one really knows
what's going on.

And if you're paying 300 million

for that kind of flow,

you must be making
your 300 million back

and then some from it.

So there's no other industry

where you can sell something...

...take someone's money
and give them nothing.

I turned my attention,

you know,
towards the fails to deliver

as the core issue.

Because it is built

into the regulations
to allow it to happen.

So a failure to deliver
is when you take a share

and you sell it short
into the market.

You're supposed to come back

at a later date because somebody
wants their bag of sugar back.

But if you are unable
to find a bag of sugar to buy

to give back to that person
or the price is too high

and you don't want
to pay that price,
you fail to deliver.

This is something that a lot
of investors have looked at

because there were
a crazy high number

of fails to deliver
on the GameStop stock.

If I buy a bag of sugar from you

and I give you my money
for that bag of sugar,

I expect you to give me
the bag of sugar.

I don't expect you to say,

"I'll get it to you when I can."

I, I don't think there's
a benign explanation

to high levels of short interest

that results in large numbers
of failure to deliver.

To see four or five times

the float trade in a day

and then to happen
day after day,

those trading numbers,
the volumes are unprecedented.

Brokers are selling
stuff they don't have.

They don't have it to deliver.
They can't borrow it

'cause it's all borrowed out.

Couple that up with the fact

that more than
the float was short

and how much of that was really

firms that were short,

that created counterfeit
or synthetic shares

and failed to deliver
those shares

and therefore led
to a huge amount of supply,

of oversupply of GameStop shares
in the market in January.

And yet, the brokers
were allowed
to continue to sell the stock.

They were allowed
to take your money

and give you nothing.

Here's a mindblower for you.

You don't actually own
any of your shares.

Your broker does.

So when you buy a share
of GameStop, let's say,

through a broker like Robinhood,

the DTCC transfers
that ownership to your broker,

not you.

So let's walk through everything

the apes have learned
with an example.

You want to buy
a share of GameStop.

Robinhood's supposed
to find you the best deal,
but they don't.

They sell your order to Citadel.

Then Citadel,
acting as a market maker,

doesn't bother to locate
a share for you to buy...

...because, as a market maker,
they don't have to.

Next, your trade goes to DTCC,

where they transfer
ownership to Robinhood.

But when it's time
for your trade to settle,

Citadel fails to deliver
your share,

creating a phantom share.

Then, Robinhood
lends that phantom share

to Melvin Capital
who takes a position

against you in the stock

with your own share.

The apes decided to fight back.

They did something
any one of us can do.

They pulled their shares
out of their brokers hands

and registered them
directly in their own names.

When people are registering
more and more,

it does seem to cut down
on FTDs, fails to deliver.

If you do a DRS, they're not
going to lend it out.

So if you don't want
your share shorted,

that's kind of
one way to guarantee it.

In September of 2022,

GameStop revealed that the apes
had directly registered

an unprecedented
71.3 million shares of GameStop,

pulling them out of the hands
of their brokers.

So on top of this
being really complicated

- and convoluted...
- Yeah?

...it just seems like people
are doing whatever they want.

I mean, yeah,
that's the problem.

They are just doing
whatever they want.

The financial industry
has used its economic power

to buy political power.

The SEC was formed

as a result
of the Great Depression.

Congress then determines
how much money the SEC gets.

What a pickle!

You know?
Do you want to be biting

the hand that feeds you?

'Cause the political reality
is that billionaires

tend to set the agenda
and have an outsized influence
on regulation and legislation.

In the 1930s,
when the SEC was created,
they didn't have the Internet.

They didn't have
quick access to information.

So they made a system
of self-regulation.

And almost a century later,

we still have that same system.

And that system is led by FINRA,

a private organization

tasked with regulating brokers

and broker-dealers.

But here's the catch.

FINRA is funded and guided

by its member firms,

who it's supposed to regulate.

Citadel and Robinhood
among them.

So, in my view,

I think we're past
the point of no return.

I, I-- we're
in a regulatory crisis

where Wall Street and Washington

are in this suicide pact
that they are going to ride

this self-regulatory system
to the death

and there's nothing
that's going to make them admit

that the system
they're supporting is flawed

and, in fact,
is damaging the economy.

We looked at as many

of the major legal actions

as we could find publicly

against the six biggest banks

in the United States
over 20 plus years.

And it shows that they have paid

hundreds of billions of dollars
in fines

for breaking the law
over and over and over.

I don't mean parking tickets.

I mean manipulating markets.

Inaccurate reporting
of a short sale indicator,

$180,000 fine.

Trading ahead
of active customer orders,

$700,000 fine.

Failed to close

a failure to deliver position,

$10,000 fine.

$15,000 fine.

$30,000 fine.

$80,000 fine.

Major market manipulation
between 2007 and 2010,

$22,668,000 fine.

This is just
for Citadel Securities.

These are just nine
that I picked

to prove a point on an article.

Tell me this isn't
a systemic problem.

What happened in January 2021
was unprecedented.

David took a shot at Goliath
and, for once, got a hit.

But what the mainstream media
has failed to acknowledge

is that this isn't over.

Like, it looked like
a short squeeze.

It had all of the visual effects

of a short squeeze,

but, in fact, it didn't force

the shorts to cover, did it?

We, we just
don't have the disclosures
and transparency

to know what's taking place in,

you know, in the short side
of the market.

They can use
different techniques

to offset short positions.

If there's anything
we've seen, uh, be true

throughout all of time
on Wall Street,

it's that, you know,
manipulation will find a way,

and it will find a way

in the dark corners
of the market

that regulators
aren't looking at.

The apes have
pulled back the curtain

on decades of deregulation,

consolidation, overcomplication,

and incentivized criminality
on Wall Street,

that have left us
with capital markets,

designed to extract wealth
from mainstream

while giving everyday people
the illusion
of true participation.

It feels overwhelming.

But unless we come together
and demand change,

we will continue
to be the product.

People often say,

"How can you possibly
make any progress,

given that Wall Street
has an army in Washington?"

You don't have to go
man-to-man with these guys.

You will be amazed

at what a difference

even a couple of people can make

if they participate
in the process.

Wall Street wins

largely because
they are unopposed.

We need to get to a point
where there's enough attention

on a specific issue,
a specific piece of it,

that you can get some
real regulatory change.

And I think regulators
have missed the fact

that this community
has become more sophisticated

over this past year and,

and the level of sophistication
has gone from,

"I'm buying stocks on a phone,"

to "Let me explain to you
the problems

and conflicts of interest
at the heart

of the self-regulatory system,"
right?

Like, people understand
market structure now

and they understand, uh,
the flaws in the system,

and we-- you know,
the industry and regulators

need to approach them

as, uh, well-educated peers
at this point

and not condescend to them.

This is
a, a significant development

in our capital markets.

It's a significant development
in Wall Street

and it's different
than previous movements

because it started with dollars.

And, and that's what got
the attention of Wall Street.

So I-- my hope is
that it will continue,

and I certainly am pivoting

in the way
that I think about advocacy
because of the apes.

I think it's hard
to, to stereotype

the ape community, um,
and to generalize about it.

In fact, I, I,
I'm continually impressed

at the diversity
in the community

and I think that that's
something that should be,
um, focused on

rather than, you know,
this caricature,

uh, of the,
the basement-dwelling
market manipulator.

Oh, I'd be proud
to call myself an ape.

My mom is from Tunisia
and, uh, she's already working

over the retirement age now

and she has a hard work.

Uh, she's a single--
she's a single mom.

Uh, the, the rent here
is pretty expensive

and we're somehow
living on the edge.

I saw this as
a great opportunity

to invest in my future
and my kid's future

and just being able
to be financially secure

and not having
to work 12-hour shifts.

Um, but I'm a nobody, really.

Um, I, I'm a guy
who just needs a win.

I want to have my own home.

And I just-- and I want to be
able to repay my parents too

for what they've done for me.

It would be r--

it would be a much better world

if everyone was able to...

...take advantage
of their talents

and really help themselves
and their families prosper

in the way that they know
that they can do and to,

to pick up their heads.

If you can dream it,
you can achieve it.

And if you're stuck
in a situation

where you feel like
nothing is going your way,

nothing is being done to make
sure that your life is better,

take a bet on yourself.

And to hell be damned,
let nothing stop you.

You control yourself.

You are not the product.

So as long as they fight,
we fight.

As long as they hold, we hold.

Keep surviving,
keep making ways out of no way,

keep taking one step forward.

Because at the end of the day,
they would eventually get tired.

We won't. Because we've
already lived this life.

I grew up in a housing project
in Worcester, Mass,

on free school lunches,

uh, food stamps and welfare.

I had nothing.

And I got lucky,
I went in the Air Force,

I got to Harvard Law School,

I got a partnership
at Skadden, Arps.

And I worked
in the United States Senate.

And it's long past time

that Washington stopped working

for the rich, the wealthy,

the big Wall Street firms
and the lobbyists

and get back to the business

they are supposed
to be here for.

I grew up learning about

superheroes doing
the right thing,

about standing up
to the bad guys,

about being courageous
in the face of adversity.

I guess I just latched on

to that idea
that we can be superheroes.

It's important to keep yourself
grounded in what fuels you,

what keeps you going,
what makes you feel like

you, you're making
a difference in your life
and in your family's life.

Keep putting your nose
to the freaking grinder
because there are opportunities.

Learn by failing forward,
learn by leaning on your people

and learn by remembering
that people are always first.

They don't know nothing
about this life we live.

They're not regular people.

I wish that they understood
that there's a person

behind every zero
and every comma

that they go and check in
their bank accounts every day.

So, to every ape that's holding
whatever stock you're holding,

keep holding until you get
what makes you satisfied.

There is no number.

There's always a cross to bear,

there's always another bridge
to go across,

but at the end of the day,
it's your cross

and as long as you're holding,
I'm holding.

♪ Oh no, the MOASS can't stop ♪

♪ And them hedgies all get
fucked by the GameStop rocket ♪

♪ Community indivisible
Still attack pathetic ♪

♪ Them Citadel interns
So pitiful up on Reddit ♪

♪ The horse, the deadbeat
And the deep young contestant ♪

♪ You've never seen
a group of people ♪

♪ So happy that they invested ♪

♪ Them shorts, they all crying ♪

♪ Them tears, they so tasty
This is GameStop ♪

♪ Some number 20
Can he hate me? ♪

♪ It's all groovy, baby
We bringin' down the mafia ♪

♪ We steamrollin', they movin'
Oops, no stopping ♪

♪ Yes, you sell a box
This indicating he's nuts ♪

♪ So give you the teabag
Don't go in the teacup ♪

♪ So keep up
Ain't slowing down ♪

♪ Till it's over, we told them
to never tread on us ♪

♪ They dancing on a cobra
Bernie Madoff, move over ♪

♪ The king of crime
is coming to a jail near you ♪

♪ He a flight risk
Keep running ♪

♪ Short hedge funds
targeting your company ♪

♪ With a prime broker
to sell a box to bankruptcy ♪

♪ They use media journalists
as a weapon ♪

♪ Aimed at American business
They homewreckin' ♪

♪ Think for a second
Don't read up on DD ♪

♪ You don't gotta believe
what they saying on TV ♪

♪ 'Cause they paid off
And then pocket the candy ♪

♪ Hear a calm revolution
The money, they ain't ready ♪

♪ The meme so deadly
The meme lords are generals ♪

♪ Them shorts getting fucked
by these hentai tentacles ♪

♪ The apes so heretical
Media call 'em blasphemy ♪

♪ Ride upon a bubble
'Bout to be victim of gravity ♪

♪ The faux reality manufactured
in spin alley ♪

♪ Regulator totally absent
Looking like Death Valley ♪

♪ So thirsty for just
a drop of the justice ♪

♪ The silence discourse
The media won't discuss this ♪

♪ Cause they want to work Monday
They enforce the narrative ♪

♪ They're using propaganda
to terrorize the terrorists ♪

♪ So imperative now common
Americans are so confused ♪

♪ They look to the news
That's where the error is ♪

♪ Because the news
is owned by the few ♪

♪ Conglomerators grip
You're fed or feed into ♪

♪ From these evil-ass dudes
Just pigs and humans sew ♪

♪ So your ass get the boots
No longer taking abuse ♪

♪ Paid off, sending these
buyable politicians ♪

♪ Only steel apes to further
the moon mission ♪

♪ Better blow a whistle
You're organized ♪

♪ You're criminal
Caught red-handed ♪

♪ And still going
You're pitiful ♪

♪ Jail cell minimal price
for one share ♪

♪ Because I ain't selling none
of 'em if candy ain't there ♪

♪ So you better brace
for impact ♪

♪ The system you were born by ♪

♪ The apes
Choose to ignore the wisdom ♪

♪ Diamond hand apes
In the war against bears ♪

♪ The market makers manufacture
counterfeit shares ♪

♪ An endless supply, they
call it making short selling ♪

♪ While they pay for negative
opinion so you come chillin' ♪

♪ Wall Street bets
taking over by the hedgie ♪

♪ So we move the GME then
superstonk for the tendies ♪

♪ The fun can be so deadly but
my hands polished diamonds ♪

♪ So the shield's up, titles
of the hedge funds crying ♪

♪ We hold the lending, buying
While Ryan tweeting a Cypher ♪

♪ Hittin' Ken with a Hadouken
I'm Ryu from Street Fighter ♪

♪ That market manipulation
from hedgie heavy hitters ♪

♪ Consistent of many methods
hiding failures to deliver ♪

♪ They send it overseas
And hide them in the auctions ♪

♪ But what margin calls ringin'
black rockets in the auction ♪

♪ Go ahead and tank it
We lovin' buying the dips ♪

♪ Got the diamond hand ape
Bought me jack to the tits ♪

♪ Hedgies keep lying
They bleedin' out dying ♪

♪ Attempt to make us paper hand
Like, keep trying ♪

♪ Power to the players
Now the players got the power ♪

♪ Queen Kong joined the army
With our Winston David Lauer ♪

♪ So many lit up towers
At four o'clock in the morning ♪

♪ Got me checking
Reddit steadily ♪

♪ Your day is never boring ♪

♪ Avoiding every post
of legitimate due diligence ♪

♪ The super storm got me
Disciplined hard militants ♪

♪ We growin' in intelligence
Our brain formin' wrinkles ♪

♪ By the shape-shifting still ♪

♪ I smell your shit
through the sprinkles ♪

♪ Citadel and co picked
the wrong fucking battle ♪

♪ We King Kongs climbing
on top of Tower of Babel ♪

♪ We laugh at short ladders
posting thanks for the sales ♪

♪ Squeeze the snazzy
But then your body ♪

♪ Surfing with the whales ♪

♪ Keith Gill chillin' just
chucklin' at the shilling ♪

♪ While the world realizing
Ken Griffin final villain ♪

♪ The Citadel building
Soon going out of business ♪

♪ Got the world waiting for
that MOASS early Christmas ♪

♪ Apes going Rambo
Superstar commando ♪

♪ Buying every naked share
And asking when Lambo ♪

♪ Bo, bo, bo, bo... ♪