There’s something happening in the markets.

Note: these are my views and not anyone else’s: not my employer nor future employers nor past employers nor anyone else other than myself. And these names are made-up.

We are in the middle of something big. There’s been a lot of volatility around Gamestop and other stocks. Sometime soon, movies and blog posts and open letters will emerge summarizing this cultural movement and institutional reactions and the yet unknown end result.

We’re all struggling to explain it. But maybe we just need to not jump to conclusions too quickly. Pay attention to the details. What are the human ambitions behind each action? What connections are bursting at the seams- indicating their fragility to begin with? As we spiral down Poe’s maelstrom, let’s ride it out together and pick the most important things to carry forward and what to leave behind.

I grouped some reactions from the public into a few types for fun.

Today in the market we have:

1. Rip-it Rocky
2. Break-it Brad
3. New-world Ned
4. Cautious Cameron

1. Rip-it Rocky: “I fucking love it.” Let’s stick it to the billionaires who do this every day. I’m YOLOing it all. I’m aping it to the moon for my bananas and tendies. This is the first real opportunity to beat the house that always wins. Props to the heroes who donated to charity, bought their parents a home, and paid off student debt. Let’s ride the wave, pump the dip, dump the rip.
2. Break-it Brad: “They deserve it.” This is a ground-breaking momentum change in our markets, and there’s no going back. The financial and government world were too slow to react, and now the retail investor has broken the system. Already, we’ve seen hedge funds lose significant capital. Institutional investors are running scared. And they should be, because they’ve been able to game the system unhindered for a long time. And now when the tables have turned against them, now they want to change the rules? No way. This is going to be a complete catastrophe for the markets. And it’s about time. It’s time to move forward toward regulation for big investors and decentralization of financial institutions.
3. New-world Ned: “It’s odd that this hasn’t happened before.” This seems like the first time that retail investors have banded together with so much volume and focus. No longer do fundamentals play a role in the valuation of stocks. In this new environment, the dynamics have changed. The fact that a stock is overly shorted could be the reason to run up the value. Or, some other reason could cause people to buy. With endless information at their disposal, the smartest retail investors predicted the rally. With lightning-fast communication over the internet, investors grouped around a common purpose and became powerful. Now, who can predict the next time this could happen. The group may appear in a different place with a different focus. It seems that big investors can be outsmarted by non-big investors. They’ll need to respect this risk much more now.
4. Cautious Cameron: “I’m worried about the bubble bursting.” Desperate retail investors are the most at-risk to put more money in than they can afford to lose. Hawkish investors will take advantage of them like prey. And the desperate investor will lose. I’m afraid for my family and friends who bought GME stock just because there was a speculative run-up on the value. The stock price is bound to go back down because the inherent value of Gamestop hasn’t changed even thought the stock price has. As a result of this, there will be loss. And there will be regulation, but I’m not sure that will accomplish anything about what people are looking for since there are already many regulations in place. If anything, we need to prevent this bubble from happening again and affecting so many unknowing people.

We’ve seen holders holding and buyers buying and sellers selling. Who knows what the price of GME will be in two weeks. And who knows what we’ll be talking about then.

One thing is clear: no one can predict what happens next.