Its these black swans that keep everybody in check no matter how deep your pockets are. He could have just bailed and took a idk.., 10, 15, 20% hit, but he didn't.
They stayed in a bad trade, but who among us can claim to have never done the same? When it goes against you fast and deep while defying all logic, the pain is absolutely excruciating...reaching its pinnacle just prior to exiting...after that, well...thank god for whiskey.
That's what you guys fail to understand. They cannot trade like you small fry gamblers. They cannot bail on a stop loss. When you have positions like that you're done. As soon as you start to lift offers you are driving the markets against you. In this situation you realize you're in way too big and your days are over. Anyone remembered Optionsellers.com? Same story just more convexity. Trading small is a huge advantage and if you cannot even return a meager 50% p.a. on 10k I don't think you're qualified to judge a guy who has to sneak out of huge positions without moving the market. You just click a button, take your loss and cry a little over half a bottle of cheap booze.
Its typically a function of one of 2 things, you lose so often you don't care anymore OR you are on such a streak and have been trading so well you refuse to take a big hit, typically you'll decide to average down and salvage the trade. Melvin was the latter.
Of course you cant just click the flatten button but you can methodically start to liquidate, you call around to desks and reduce risk with massive block trades, sure you're taking a hit but.. You don't need to take a 50% hit.
What the hell are you talking about??? GME had 136% short interest. What do you think happens when you try to cover your ass and other shorts start to cover, too? At a certain point there isn't even a seller anymore. The only chance you have is to draw as many speculative buyers in as possible and when THEY start to puke, you cover into them. And that's exactly what they are trying to do. They asked for a flash loan and sit it out. When retail gets hit, they cover If you try to cover on the way up, you don't take a 50% hit, you get wiped
melvin was short in the 20's and barfed around 300.00 billions of shares traded since those 2 dates. also could have neutralized risk with options. he was stubborn.