Tradier, sometimes we get lucky selling CCs at outrageous prices like TRCH was pumped at today. I bought shares $8.40 sold all the $10s at $4+ and they collapsed below $2. BTC routing to the only Exchange filling below the NBBO. 2. sell the shares in AH and thank the apes! I agree they’re getting played by bots and bad actors.
The truth is that after the GME event with Melvin Capital in late Jan, many hedge funds now have analysts monitoring r/wallstreetbets. You see, many of them are long short funds. The reason is because when you're a long only fund, your benchmark is the S&P and not many funds can beat the S&P. So by running a long short strategy, you're no longer benchmarked to the S&P. The primary reason for their short book is to not be benchmarked to the S&P, allowing them to raise capital and justify management fees. So if a short stock ticker starts trending on r/wallstreetbets, some of these long short funds will immediately cover their short position because they do not want to risk their year in another GME like event.
It's hard to beat the absolute return of the S&P, but you attempt to beat it on a risk adjusted basis, and aim to outperform in down years. Many institutional investors prefer consistent returns. However over the last decade long/short equity funds have bled AUM. So nowadays when a ticker starts trending on r/wallstreetbets, these funds are not willing to risk a GME like event in their short book.
For example take a look at the investor pitch decks of Long/Short equity funds. I just found this on google: http://www.northcoastam.com/pdf/presentations/NorthCoastGrowth-Presentation.pdf On the next slide, they pitch a Long/Cash strategy in place of Long/Short. In the graph, looks like they are using a 70/30 split of S&P500/T-Bill as their benchmark.