GME
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My thinking is vaccines + whatever herd immunity we have + summer will come together and hit pretty quickly. The virus might not be wiped out but all the 15-40 year-olds who largely DGAF anyway will be happy to go back to the movies.
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If the bull case is demand for in-theatre movies returns to pre-pandemic levels then I think that is still trouble because they weren’t in good shape pre-pandemic. Add in all the people who will permanently change their behavior and lots of things being released directly to their respective subscription platforms and I think the pre-pandemic movie theater era is over. Yes there still will be movie theaters and movies released to them. But I don’t see any real chance the industry reverses the pre-pandemic trend.
The bull case for AMC is as a WSB meme stock and that is happening right now.
My bull case is to sell during the euphoria of ZOMG we can see movies again. I don’t plan to hold long term.
As soon as my recovery stonks recovery I’m back in 90% boring index funds. Maybe 10% to fuck around with.
Look I bought EXPR calls today so I am not making fun of you. If it’s a pure speculation play then I get it and that’s the same thing I did in this environment. AMC is going bankrupt though at some point it is just a matter of when.
The only bull case is market irrationality(which it seems like you agree with based on your above post). Luckily there is plenty of that to go around right now.
When the asshole finance guys figured out that money and the market was all bullshit they locked down, pretended things are overly complicated to hide the fact and ended up essentially ruling the world. The reddit crowd figure it out and just use it to troll.
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Just sold some RSUs. I think I’ll leave some poker money in that account this time around. I haven’t played in almost a year, so I must be ahead by a few k. Anyone know if Etrade is stingy with authorization to trade options?
Rodents of size unusual?
My understanding is that getting level 2 authorization is almost guaranteed. I think to get to level 3 you need to show that you have experience trading options.
This is an amazing post.
10:46 AM GME topped at 160 and then started back down.
The friggen indexes all stopped and reversed at the same time 10:46 AM. Apple Facebook Google all of em. I though Trump was tweeting again!
Game stop, a nearly bankrupt mall retailer, ran the market for part of a day.
Amazing.
Edit. this has already in posted. Still amazing.
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So u are saying its going to 11.51 before March 19?
(Hyperbole)
Restricted Stock Unit, which is commonly used for compensation in the tech industry. It replaced the Incentive Stock Option (ISO) a bunch of years ago, because of the way companies have to account for ISOs.
I hope this doesn’t affect the Mets on free agency.
They vested over the weekend, and I held them until 3:15 today, when I remembered them, and logged in immediately to sell them 
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Applied for level 2 - woo!
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Just to flesh this out a little bit, I think there were two big drivers that shifted compensation from stock options to restricted stock (and restricted stock units):
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The accounting for stock options was preposterously stupid - basically, firms could compensate employees with stock options and not have to record any expense on the Income Statement. There were lots of bad faith arguments for why this was good–and a special helping of horseshit from Joe Lieberman–but everyone knew that they should be reflected as compensation expense on the Income Statement. Not until scandals like Enron and Worldcom did the SEC/FASB finally get the balls to require firms to recognize an expense for stock options. Once that happened, stock options were no longer “free” for firms to give away, so they naturally became less attractive.
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Stock options were almost universally granted exactly at the money. So, for example, if the stock price is $35 on the day of the grant, virtually 100% of firms would issue options with a strike price of $35. This is fine and supercool when stockprices only go up, and employees get very excited thinking about their option gains when the stock price is at $60. The problem happens for those employees who are issued options when the stock is at a peak. When that stock price falls by 50%, those options provide virtually not incentive to the employee - unless the stock increases by at least 100%, their options will expire worthless. So, once people were reminded that stock prices can, in fact, suffer long-term drops, they found restricted stock much more appealing despite its lower implicit leverage: If you’re granted shares of stock at $70, even if the stock falls by 50%, you’ll still walk away with something of value, unlike with options.
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Are RSUs taxed as ordinary income? It seems fair to me that the employee would be taxed on the difference between the RSU price and the market price. That said, brutal in CA if yes.
Not a tax guy, but I think there are 2 potential treatments (the default approach and what you get via an 83(b) election). In either case, you’re going to get taxed as ordinary income on at least some part of the compensation:
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83(b) Election: Choose to be taxed based on grant date value. Here, you’d recognize taxable ordinary income based on the grant date value, but any further increases in value would be taxed at capital gains rates. This is an incredibly risky choice unless you’re talking about grants of pre-IPO shares that you can credibly value at close to $0.
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(The default) Get taxed on the full amount as ordinary income at the vesting date.
So, say you’re granted 1,000 RSUs when the stock is trading at $30. You have a 4-year vesting period. On the date of vesting, stock is trading at $60.
Option 1 would tax you on $30,000 ordinary income on the grant date, but then tax the remaining $30,000 as capital gains.
Option 2 would tax you on $60,000 of ordinary income on the vesting date.
Option 1 is incredibly risky because you could end up paying far more in taxes if your grant date value exceeds the vesting date value. Moreover, if you leave the company before the vesting date, you can’t recover the taxes paid, so you end up paying a bunch of ordinary income taxes on compensation that you end up not earning.
Again, not a tax guy, but I’m fairly sure that the above is mostly correct. Mostly I’m not sure about exactly what types of stock-based compensation the 83(b) election relates to. Also, taxation of stock options is different.
Never heard of the 83(b) thing; it’s not a choice for me. RSU value just shows up as income on my W2. They sell some shares to withhold taxes before I even see them (I think to cover 33% of the value).
Directors and above may have a different set of rules.
Do you notice that the tax withholding seems to be too little? I believe the company would sell some of the shares to cover the tax at time of vesting (ours were quarterly) but they were way light on that. The 1st year we received RSUs we had to make a huge tax payment to the state and feds after filling our return, it was not fun.
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