This text was originally posted in Mauerstrassenwetten by u/knutolee. I thought his message was so powerful that I asked him for permission to translate, post (can share chat with Mod if required or check directly with him) and fuck his wife (ok didn’t ask for permission) after and he agreed to all most of this wholeheartedly – like a true Autist. I am trying to catch the message – so don’t expect a word by word translation as you can never catch the greatness of the text in it’s entirety and I got to translate it in a way that even a US degenerate can follow it.
As usual no financial advice, I more or less just copied the text because I liked the text and I like the share. In general I have likely lost more than I won and the stock market is a mystery in itself to me. So make your own due dilligence and don’t trust financial advice of others (the argument for that you can read to a certain extent below).
Autists, Degenerates, Idiocracy of the World – let me get this straight!
In the coming days I don’t wanna see all this whining and bitching on this sub and espescially in the daily GME threads anymore. On every fucking corner of this sub I smell doubt, you read messages the likes of „this is over“, „we missed the squeeze“, „I am going to loose it all“, „entered at 320$ - I am doomed“. What the fuck is wrong with you retards, did you fucking wanker your wifes boyfriend dick all night and lost your mind over the effort to do so? I think I got to get this accross the Buddy Stephens way to get you down to fucking earth and get your attitude right.
1) You come to a sub called wallstreetbets and yolo your hard earned money in $GME
You realize what you are doing here - you true fuck - dont you? This is a community of full blown first class true tits up degenerates which take pleasure in posting losses accumulating into the millions every fucking month and you are putting your money into a BET – yes my dear it is written out in the name of this very fucking sub Wallstreet-B-E-T-S!!! – and follow DD posted by people with names like „SHOW_ME_YOUR_ANAL_TITS“? You realize this is not a fucking Disney ferry „One-Wish-comes-true“ show and we see all day long gain porn and loss porn is something which doesn’t exist in this world? This is a band of true autists which occupied an absolute niche when it comes down to trading (and we even don’t trade stocks normally!). This is the place where one wants to enjoy the sado-masochistic part of the retarded capitalistic system we are living in. Yes we have some (maybe a lot) DD diamonds in this sub which by the way are now impossible to find because you degenerate fucks spam the entire system to the moon but no sane long-term investor would consider to invest into any of these investments – this is about „get rich or die trying!“. This is not investing!
2) Yeah but I saw Reddit in the news and all that stuff about GME and it was going through the roof becasue there is going to be short squeeze and on top of it the hedge funds fucked up, hihihi
If this entire thing was a safe bet why exactly would not the fucking entire world jump on this train? (and even you might get this image from all this „Saudi Arabia calling, China calling, Africa calling posts – but please they invest into BABA, Aramco or I don’t know what’s the hot shit in Lagos stock exchange right now – could be though the next big thing – got to see if I can find a DD on this). So why is this not happening? Because it is a fucking BET – the stock market is a fucking Casino and the major difference between investing and us is that they are always just bet on black or red, while we always go for the magical zero. It is totally unclear whether all of us going to show up at Miami Beach with our Porsche Cayenne or Tesla Model S and hit on the girls (or boys) on the beach! The reasons are layed out to you every fucking day with yet another quality DD that most of us simply dont understand! And yes our chances to already sit on the fucking moon slurping our Pinha Coladas would be certainly higher if everything was going the way we believe the system should be working but even the last person who joined this sub by now should realize – you are potentially fucking with the system itself (by the way something this sub never intentionally wanted and you shouldn’t do if you like the system).
3) Hey but when is the squeeze of the squoze going to happen? 😓
So there is this story going through the media and from Florida to Colorado everybody remotely degenerate is yoloing money into GME. It’s a fucking global movement now (or not – could be also the same 50.000 degenerates cheering up themselves the entire time which would much better fit this place) and according to the DD we just need to have 🙌💎and the shorts a bleeding their panties, their balls feel squozen (and not in a good way) and they are completely in defensive mode. What do you think what people who are responsible for Multi-billion $$$ HF are going to do? How do you think you become a person who is responsible for such an operation? Do you think these guys have served as altar boys or girls in church (no offense if so)? What is wrong with you? Seriously! Do you think if they get some headwind they are going to say: Oh boy – we got defeated and going to realize a multi-fucking-billion-to-the-moon loss? OF COURSE FUCKING NOT! THEY WILL GET EVERY FUCKING BAZOOKA, TANK, ROCKET or INTER-STELLAR DEFENSE SYSTEM IN PLACE TO BRING THIS TO AN END! Influence the market participants (speculation), Short-Laddar attacks (I to this very day haven’t understand the concept or how this works – speculation), demotivational tactics (speculation) and to whomever picks it up – desinformation (well not quite speculation but it could also be that media is just retarded as fuck to get the most simple facts straight). So what would you do with a potential group of 5mn small-size investors – shall we do a collective effort to think about it? Ah fuck it! It is to fucking obvious – you would dry this out through time, divide their interests and drive away their attention. Because let’s be fucking honest – most of you entered this thinking you would hold this wonderful stock for a couple of days (and to be honest in this respect the community how it existed 10 days ago was much more true to itself - no whining just sayin)! Gotcha! Who can tell me who fucked each other two weeks ago in People magazin or on Twitter? Nobody – I even don’t remember shit about this very forum before GME (ok I remember u/variation-separate but that is another story). And all their tactics are completely understandable because there is a fucking huge amount of tendies to be made and they are not that different from us (my fear).
4) That does not give you the fucking right to whine and bitch all the time in the daily threads (and it is not happening already its going to be) and fucking ruin the party
Deal with it – we just got to wait how this thing plays out. That’s it. If we are right – this will play out positively in one or another way (huge tendies or SEC investigating). Let them continue shorting the stock or whatever. If you believe you want to buy more stock – do your DD and do it. When this got picked up a long time ago by people they thought – hmmmm makes sense – I am going to get me one of these tickets to the moon. There was if at all a very little interest to squoze the balls of any HF and it was certainly not the main motivation of this sub. I said it above: Get rich or die tryin! Since last Thursday the whole thing became political and it looks like rules were changed in our disfavour and yeah we can not go back in time but we got to deal with it and the circumstances. [Left out this part as it promotes holding and buying which I don’t want to in the sense that everybody needs to make his own fucking decision but I am going to fucking hold] but WE NEED TO REGAIN OUR POSITIVE SPIRIT which was an essential part of this sub and GME for most part in January (and of course in general before) – no matter how fucked up things looked (individually as there is not such a thing as collective alignment to buy options or stocks on this forum). We will see how the numbers are play out and who provided the adequate picture. In our reality GME is going to the moon and the 🚀 is fueled. Period. We are just prevented from starting because of the windy conditions out there.
So please – no post without 🙌💎🙌💎🙌💎🚀🚀🚀 and if you want to fukn leave the party – leave – but let us continue this party, because we are going to the fkn moon. This is the way and I fkn love GME and if this means I need to hold onto this beauty for another 25 years I am going to do it.
P.S.: One thing dear to my heart - in the past there has been huge donations made by this community to people living with autism. As we use their names every fkn day I would really like to see some of your degenerates not to forget about this cause because we owe them and as much as I like the billboards I’d rather see every $$$ go into charities rather then telling the world about us – I think everybody out there knows by now that we exist and that we have 🙌💎
Edit: Nobody asked for it but 35@231,69 and thanks for the awards which should go to u/knutolee - so you can simply award his original post referenced. More importantly he expressed to me that he is very happy with the translation which is almost as important as the message itself.
Edit 2: Please pay attention to AMA Marc Cuban - https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/lawubt/hey_everyone_its_mark_cuban_jumping_on_to_do_an/ - there is I think some quite enlighting answers in a very easy to understand language.
Edit 3: Bought 5@103
Edit 4: Heading for dinner. Crazy times. Will check later and decide whether to buy more tickets or not. But maybe good advice for some others to make a break. Chillax :)
Edit 5: Read that RH has opened up GME again. For whatever it's worth 🚀
Edit 6: Thanks again for all the Awards and stuff. I can only reload in the morning. Was fun and maybe I am going to translate more in the future - if mods would consider to give me a copy cat 😺 flair it would be the icing on the cake.
Edit 7: Obligatory salute to the one and only DFV and his 💎 balls. This guy will go all the way to the 🚀 with us.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This entire post represents my personal views and opinions, and should not be taken as financial advice (or advice of any kind whatsoever). I encourage you to do your own research, take anything I write with a grain of salt, and hold me accountable for any mistakes you may catch. Also, full disclosure, I hold a net long position in GME, but my cost basis is very low (average ~$67--I have to admit, the drop today was too tasty so my cost basis went up from yesterday)/share with my later buys averaged in), and I'm using money I can absolutely lose. My capital at risk and tolerance for risk generally is likely substantially different than yours. In this post I will go a little further and speculate more than I'd normally do in a post due to the questions I've been getting, so fair warning, some of it might be very wrong. I suspect we'll learn some of the truth years from now when some investigative journalist writes a book about it.
Thank you everyone for the comments and questions on the first and second post on this topic.
Today was a study in the power of fear, courage, and the levers you can pull when you wield billions of dollars...
Woops, excuse me. I'm sorry hedge fund guys... I meant trillions of dollars--I just briefly forget you control not just your own but a lot of other peoples' money too for a moment there.
Also, for people still trading this on market-based rationale (as I am), it was a good day to measure the conviction behind your thesis. I like to think I have conviction, but in case you are somehow not yet familiar with the legend of DFV, you need to see these posts (fair warning, nsfw, and some may be offended/triggered by the crude language). The last two posts might be impressive, but you should follow it in chronological order and pay attention to the evolution of sentiment in the comments to experience true enlightenment.
Anyway, I apologize, but this post will be very long--there's just a lot to unpack.

Pre-Market

Disclaimer: given yesterday's pre-market action I didn't even pay attention to the screen until near retail pre-market. I'm less confident in my ability to read what's going on in a historical chart vs the feel I get watching live, but I'll try.
Early in the pre-market it looks to me like some momentum traders are taking profit, discounting the probability that the short-side will give them a deep discount later, which you can reasonably assume given the strategy they ran yesterday. If they're right they can sell some small volume into the pre-market top, wait for the hedge funds try to run the price back down, and then lever up the gains even higher buying the dip. Buy-side here look to me like people FOMOing and YOLOing in at any price to grab their slice of gainz, or what looks to be market history in the making. No way are short-side hedge funds trying to cover anything at these prices.
Mark Cuban--well said! Free markets baby!
Mohamed El-Erian is money in the bank as always. "upgrade in quality" on the pandemic drop was the best, clearest actionable call while most were at peak panic, and boy did it print. Your identifying the bubble as the excessive short (vs blaming retail activity) is money yet again. Also, The PAIN TRADE (sorry, later interview segment I only have on DVR, couldn't find on youtube--maybe someone else can)!
The short attack starts, but I'm hoping no one was panicking this time--we've seen it before. Looks like the momentum guys are minting money buying the double dip into market open.
CNBC, please get a good market technician to explain the market action. Buy-side dominance, sell-side share availability evaporating into nothing (look at day-by-day volume last few days), this thing is now at runaway supercritical mass. There is no changing the trajectory unless you can change the very fabric of the market and the rules behind it (woops, I guess I should have knocked on wood there).
If you know the mechanics, what's happening in the market with GME is not mysterious AT ALL. I feel like you guys are trying to scare retail out early "for their own good" (with all sincerity, to your credit) rather than explain what's happening. Possibly you also fear that explaining it would equate to enabling/encouraging people to keep trying to do it inappropriately (possibly fair point, but at least come out and say that if that's the case). Outside the market, however...wow.

You Thought Yesterday Was Fear? THIS is Fear!

Ok short-side people, my hat is off to you. Just when I thought shouting fire in a locked theater was fear mongering poetry in motion, you went and took it to 11. What's even better? Yelling fire in a theater with only one exit. That way people can cause the financial equivalent of stampede casualties. Absolutely brilliant.
Robin Hood disables buying of GME, AMC, and a few of the other WSB favorites. Other brokerages do the same. Even for people on 0% margin. Man, and here I thought I had seen it all yesterday.
Side note: I will give a shout out to TD Ameritrade. You guys got erroneously lumped together with RH during an early CNBC segment, but you telegraphed the volatility risk management changes and gradually ramped up margin requirements over the past week. No one on your platform should have been surprised if they were paying attention. And you didn't stop anyone from trading their own money at any point in time. My account balance thanks you. I heard others may have had problems, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt given the DDOS attacks that were flyiing around
Robin Hood. Seriously WTF. I'm sure it was TOTALLY coincidence that your big announcements happen almost precisely when what has to be one of the best and most aggressive short ladder attacks of all time starts painting the tape, what looked like a DDOS attack on Reddit's CDN infrastructure (pretty certain it was the CDN because other stuff got taken out at the same time too), and a flood of bots hit social media (ok, short-side, this last one is getting old).
Taking out a large-scale cloud CDN is real big boy stuff though, so I wouldn't entirely rule out nation state type action--those guys are good at sniffing out opportunities to foment social unrest.
Anyway, at this point, as the market dives, I have to admit I was worried for a moment. Not that somehow the short-side would win (hah! the long-side whales in the pond know what's up), but that a lot of retail would get hurt in the action. That concern subsided quite a bit on the third halt on that slide. But first...
A side lesson on market orders
Someone printed bonus bank big time (and someone lost--I feel your pain, whoever you are).
During the face-ripping volatility my play money account briefly ascended to rarified heights of 7 figures. It took me a second to realize it, then another second to process it. Then, as soon as it clicked, that one, glorious moment in time was gone.
What happened?
During the insane chop of the short ladder attack, someone decided to sweep the 29 Jan 21 115 Call contracts, but they couldn't get a grip on the price, which was going coast to coast as IV blew up and the price was being slammed around. So whoever was trying to buy said "F it, MARKET ORDER" (i.e. buy up to $X,XXX,XXX worth of contracts at any price). This is referred to as a sweep if funded to buy all/most of the contracts on offer (HFT shops snipe every contract at each specific price with a shotgun of limit orders, which is far safer, but something only near-market compute resources can do really well). For retail, or old-tech pros, if you want all the contracts quickly, you drop a market order loaded with big bucks and see what you get... BUT, some clever shark had contracts available for the reasonable sum of... $4,400, or something around that. I was too stunned to grab a screencap. The buy market order swept the book clean and ran right into that glorious, nigh-obscene backstop limit. So someone got nearly $440,000 PER CONTRACT that was, at the time theoretically priced at around $15,000. $425,000 loss... PER CONTRACT. Maybe I'm not giving the buyer enough credit.. you can get sniped like that even if you try to do a safety check of the order book first, but, especially in low liquidity environments, if a HFT can peak into your order flow (or maybe just observes a high volume of sweeps occurring), they can end up front running your sweep, pick off the reasonable contracts, and slam a ridiculous limit sell order into place before your order makes it to the exchange. Either way, I hope that sweep wasn't loaded for bear into the millions. If so... OUCH. Someone got cleaned out.
So, the lesson here folks... in a super high volatility, low-liquidity market, a market order will just run up the ladder into the first sell order it can find, and some very brutal people will put limit sells like that out there just in case they hit the jackpot. And someone did. If you're on the winning side, great. It can basically bankrupt you if you're on the losing side. My recommendation: Just don't try it. I wouldn't be surprised if really shady shenanigans were involved in this, but no way to know (normally that's crazy-type talk, but after today....peeking at order flow and sniping sweeps is one of the fastest, most financially devastating ways to bleed big long-side players, just sayin').
edit *so while I was too busy trying not to spit out my coffee to grab a screenshot, piddlesthethug was faster on the draw and captured this: https://imgur.com/gallery/RI1WOuu
Ok, so I guess my in-the-moment mental math was off by about 10%. Man, that hurts just thinking about the guy who lost on that trade.*
Back to the market action..

A Ray of Light Through the Darkness

So I was worried watching the crazy downward movement for two different reasons.
On the one hand, I was worried the momentum pros would get the best discounts on the dip (I'll admit, I FOMO'd in too early, unnecessarily raising my cost basis).
On the other hand, I was worried for the retail people on Robin Hood who might be bailing out into incredibly steep losses because they had only two options: Watch the slide, or bail. All while dealing with what looked to me like a broad-based cloud CDN outage as they tried to get info from WSB HQ, and wondering if the insta-flood of bot messages were actually real people this time, and that everyone else was bailing on them to leave them holding the bag.
But I saw the retail flag flying high on the 3rd market halt (IIRC), and I knew most would be ok. What did I see, you ask? Why, the glorious $211.00 / $5,000 bid/ask spread. WSB Reddit is down? Those crazy mofos give you the finger right on the ticker tape. I've been asked many times in the last few hours about why I was so sure shorts weren't covering on the down move. THIS is how I knew. For sure. It's in the market data itself.
edit So, there's feedback in the comments that this is likely more of a technical glitch. Man, at least it was hilarious in the moment. But also now I know maybe not to trust price updates when the spread between orders being posted is so wide. Maybe a technical limitation of TOS
I'll admit, I tried to one-up those bros with a 4206.90 limit sell order, but it never made it through. I'm impressed that the HFT guys at the hedge fund must have realized really quickly what a morale booster that kind of thing would have been, and kept a lower backstop ask in place almost continuously from then on I'm sure others tried the same thing. Occasionally $1,000 and other high-dollar asks would peak through from time to time from then on, which told me the long-side HFTs were probably successfully sniping the backstops regularly.
So, translating for those of you who found that confusing. First, such a high ask is basically a FU to the short-side (who, as you remember, need to eventually buy shares to cover their short positions). More importantly, as an indicator of retail sentiment, it meant that NO ONE ELSE WAS TRYING TO SELL AT ANY PRICE LOWER THAN $5,000. Absolutely no one was bailing out.
I laughed for a minute, then started getting a little worried. Holy cow.. NO retail selling into the fear? How are they resisting that kind of price move??
The answer, as we all know now... they weren't afraid... they weren't even worried. They were F*CKING PISSED.
Meanwhile the momentum guys and long-side HFTs keep gobbling up the generously donated shares that the short-side are plowing into their ladder attack. Lots of HFT duels going on as long-side HFTs try to intercept shares meant to travel between short-side HFT accounts for their ladder. You can tell when you see prices like $227.0001 constantly flying across the tape. Retail can't even attempt to enter an order like that--those are for the big boys with privileged low-latency access.
The fact that you can even see that on the tape with human eyes is really bad for the short-side people.
Why, you ask? Because it means liquidity is drying up, and fast.

The Liquidity Tide is Flowing Out Quickly. Who's Naked (short)?

Market technicals time. I still wish this sub would allow pictures so I could throw up a chart, but I guess a table will do fine.
​

Date	Volume	Price at US Market Close
Friday, 1/22/21	197,157,196	$65.01
Monday, 1/25/21	177,874,00	$76.79
Tuesday, 1/26/21	178,587,974	$147.98
Wednesday, 1/27/21	93,396,666	$347.51
Thursday, 1/28/21	58,815,805	$193.60

What do I see? I see the shares available to trade dropping so fast that all the near-exchange compute power in the world won't let the short-side HFTs maintain order flow volume for their attacks. Many retail people asking me questions thought today was the heaviest trading. Nope--it was just the craziest.
What about the price dropping on Thursday? Is that a sign that the short-side pulled a miracle out and pushed price down against a parabolic move on even less volume than Wednesday? Is the long side running out of capital?
Nope. It means the short-side hedge funds are just about finished.
But wait, I thought the price needed to be higher for them to be taken out? How is it that price being lower is bad for them? Won't that allow them to cover at a lower price?
No, the volume is so low that they can't cover any meaningful fraction of their position without spiking the price parabolic almost instantly. Just not enough shares on offer at reasonable prices (especially when WSB keeps flashing you 6942.00s).
It's true, a higher price hurts, but the interest charge for one more day is just noise at this point. The only tick that will REALLY count is the last tick of trading on Friday.
In the meantime, the price drop (and watching the sparring in real time) tells me that the long-side whales and their HFT quants are so certain of the squeeze that they're no longer worried AT ALL about whether it will happen, and they aren't even worried at all about retail morale to help carry the water anymore.
Instead, they're now really, really worried about how CHEAPLY they can make it happen.
They are wondering if they can't edge out just a sliver more alpha out of what will already be a blow-out trade for the history books (probably). You see, to make it happen they just have to keep hoovering up shares. It doesn't matter what those shares cost. If you're certain that the squeeze is now locked in, why push the price up and pay more than you have to? Just keep pressing hard enough to force short-side to keep sending those tasty shares your way, but not so much you move the price. Short-side realizes this and doesn't try to drive price down too aggressively. They can't afford to let price run away, so they have to keep some pressure on at the lowest volume they can manage, but they don't want to push down too hard and give the long-side HFTs too deep of a discount and bleed their ammo out even faster. That dynamic keeps price within a narrow (for GME today, anyway) trading range for the rest of the day into the close.
Good plan guys, but those after market people are pushing the price up again. Damnit WSB bros and Euros, you're costing those poor long-side whales their extra 0.0000001% of alpha on this trade just so you can run up your green rockets... See, that's the kind of nonsense that just validates Lee Cooperman's concerns.
On a totally unrelated note, I have to say that I appreciate the shift in CNBC's reporting. Much more thoughtful and informed. Just please get a good market technician in there who will be willing to talk about what is going on under the hood if possible. A lot of people watching on the sidelines are far more terrified than they need to be because it all looks random to them. And they're worried that you guys look confused and worried--and if the experts on the news are worried....??!
You should be able to find one who has access to the really good data that we retailers can only guess at, who can explain it to us unwashed masses.

Ok, So.. Questions

There is no market justification for this. How can you tell me is this fundamentally sound and not just straight throwing money away irresponsibly?? (side note: not that that should matter--if you want to throw your money away why shouldn't you be allowed to?)
We're not trading in your securities pricing model. This isn't irrational just because your model says long and short positions are the same thing. The model is not a real market. There is asymmetrical counterparty risk here given the shorts are on the hook for all the money they have, and possibly all the money their brokers have, and possibly anyone with exposure to the broker too! You may want people to trade by the rules you want them to follow. But the rest of us trade in the real market as it is actually implemented. Remember? That's what you tell the retailers who take their accounts to zero. Remember what you told the KBIO short-squeezed people? They had fair warning that short positions carry infinite risk, including more than your initial investment. You guys know this. It's literally part of your job to know this.
But-but-the systemic risk!! This is Madness!
...Madness?
THIS. IS. THE MARKET!!! *Retail kicks the short-side hedge funds down an infinity loss black hole\*.
Ok, seriously though, that is actually a fundamentally sound, and properly profit-driven answer at least as justifiable as the hedge funds' justification for going >100% of float short. If they can be allowed to gamble INFINITE LOSSES because they expect to make profit on the possibility the company goes bankrupt, can't others do the inverse on the possibility the company I don't know.. doesn't go bankrupt and gets a better strategy from the team that created what is now a $43bn market cap company (CHWY) that does exactly some of the things GME needs to do (digital revenue growth) maybe? I mean, I first bought in on that fundamental value thesis in the 30s and then upped my cost basis given the asymmetry of risk in the technical analysis as an obvious no-brainer momentum trade. The squeeze is just, as WSB people might say, tendies raining down from on high as an added bonus.
I get that you disagree on the fundamental viability of GME. Great. Isn't that what makes a market?
Regarding the consequences of a squeeze, in practice my expectation was maybe at worst some kind of ex-market settlement after liquidation of the funds with exposure to keep things nice and orderly for the rest of the market. I mean, they handled the VW thing somehow right? I see now that I just underestimated elite hedge fund managers though--those guys are so hardcore (I'll explain why I think so a bit lower down).
If hedge fund people are so hardcore, how did the retail long side ever have a chance of winning this squeeze trade they're talking about?
Because it's an asymmetrical battle once you have short interest cornered. And the risk is also crazily asymmetrical in favor of the long side if short interest is what it is in GME. In fact, the hedge funds essentially cornered themselves without anyone even doing anything. They just dug themselves right in there. Kind of impressive really, in a weird way.
What does the short side need to cover? They need the price to be low, and they need to buy shares.
How does price move lower? You have to push share volume such that supply overwhelms demand and price therefore goes down (man, I knew econ 101 would come in handy someday).
But wait... if you have to sell shares to push the price down.. won't you just undo all your work when you have to buy it back to actually cover?
The trick is you have to push price down so hard, so fast, so unpredictably, that you SCARE OTHER PEOPLE into selling their shares too, because they're scared of taking losses. Their sales help push the price down for free! and then you scoop them up at discount price! Also, there are ways to make people scared other than price movement and fear of losses, when you get right down to it. So, you know, you just need to get really, really, really good at making people scared. Remember to add a line item to your budget to make sure you can really do it right.
On the other hand..
What does the long side need to do? They need to own as much of the shares as they can get their hands on. And then they need to hold on to them. They can't be weak hands either. They need to be hands that will hold even under the most intense heat of battle, and the immense pressure of mind-numbing fear... they need to be as if they were made of... diamond... (oh wow, maybe those WSB people kind of have a point here).
Why does this matter? Because at some point the sell side will eventually run out of shares to borrow. They simply won't be there, because they'll be safely tucked away in the long-side's accounts. Once you run out of shares to borrow and sell, you have no way to move the price anymore. You can't just drop a fat stack--excuse me, I mean suitcase (we're talking hedge fund money here after all)--of Benjamins on the ticker tape directly. Only shares. No more shares, no way to have any direct effect on the price whatsoever.
Ok, doesn't that just mean trading stops? Can't you just out-wait the long side then?
Well, you could.. until someone on the long side puts 1 share up on a 69420 ask, and an even crazier person actually buys at that price on the last tick on a Friday. Let's just say it gets really bad at that point.
Ok.. but how do the retail people actually get paid?
Well, to be quite honest, it's entirely up to each of them individually. You've seen the volumes being thrown around the past week+. I guarantee you every single retailer out there could have printed money multiple times trading that flow. If they choose to, and time it well. Or they could lose it all--this is the market. Some of them apparently seem to have some plan, or an implicit trust in certain individuals to help them know when to punch out. Maybe it works out, but maybe not. There will be financial casualties on the field for sure--this is the bare-knuckled capitalist jungle after all, remember? But everyone ponied up to the table with their own money somehow, so they all get to play in the big leagues just like everyone else. In theory, anyway.
And now, Probably the #1 question I've been asked on all of these posts has been: So what happens next? Do we get the infinity squeeze? Do the hedge funds go down?
Great questions. I don't know. No one does. That's what I've said every time, but I get that's a frustrating answer, so I'll write a bit more and speculate further. Please again understand these are my opinions with a degree of speculation I wouldn't normally put in a post.

The Market and the Economy. Main Street, Wall Street, and Washington

The pandemic has hurt so many people that it's hard to comprehend. Honestly, I don't even pretend to be able to. I have been crazy fortunate enough to almost not be affected at all. Honestly, it is a little unnerving to me how great the disconnect is between people who are doing fine (or better than fine, looking at my IRA) versus the people who are on the opposite side of the ever-widening divide that, let's be honest, has been growing wider since long before the pandemic.
People on the other side--who have been told they cannot work even if they want to, who wonder if congress will get it together to at least keep them from getting thrown out of their house if they have to keep taking one for the team for the good of all, are wondering if they're even living in the same reality.
Because all they see on the news each day is that the stock market is at record highs, or some amazing tech stocks have 10x'd in the last 6 months. How can that be happening during a pandemic? Because The Market is not The Economy. The Market looks forward to that brighter future that Economy types just need to wait for. Don't worry--it'll be here sometime before the end of the year. We think. We're making money on that assumption right now, anyway. Oh, by the way, if you're in The Market, you get to get richer as a minor, unearned side-effect of the solutions our governments have come up with to fight the pandemic.
Wow. That sounds amazing. How do I get to part of that world?
Retail fintech, baby. Physical assets like real estate might be a bit out of reach at the moment, but stocks will do. I can even buy fractional shares of BRK/A LOL.
Finally, I can trade for my own slice of heaven, watching that balance go up (and up--go stonks!!). Now I too get to dream the dream. I get to feel connected to that mythical world, The Market, rather than being stuck in the plain old Economy. Sure, I might blow up my account, but that's because it's the jungle. Bare-knuckled, big league capitalism going on right here, and at least I get to show up an put my shares on the table with everyone else. At least I'm playing the same game. Everyone has to start somewhere--at least now I get to start, even if I have to learn my lesson by zeroing my account a few times. I've basically had to deal with what felt like my life zeroing out a few times before. This is number on a screen going to 0 is nothing.
Laugh or cry, right? I'll post my losses on WSB and at least get some laughs.
Geez, some of the people here are making bank. I better learn from them and see if they'll let me in on their trades. Wow... this actually might work. I don't understand yet, but I trust these guys telling me to hold onto this crazy trade. I don't understand it, but all the memes say it's going to be big.
...WOW... I can pay off my credit card with this number. Do I punch out now? No? Hold?... Ok, getting nervous watching the number go down but I trust you freaks. We're still in the jungle, but at least I'm in with with my posse now. Market open tomorrow--we ride the rocket baby! And if it goes down, at least I'm going down with my crew. At least if that happens the memes will be so hilarious I'll forget to cry.
Wow.. I can't believe it... we might actually pull this off. Laugh at us now, "pros"!
We're in The Market now, and Market rules tell us what is going to happen. We're getting all that hedge fund money Right? Right?
Maybe.
First, I say maybe because nothing is ever guaranteed until it clears. Secondly, because the rules of The Market are not as perfectly enforced as we would like to assume. We are also finding out they may not be perfectly fair. The Market most experts are willing to talk about is really more like the ideal The Market is supposed to be. This is the version of the market I make my trading decisions in. However, the Real Market gets strange and unpredictable at the edges, when things are taken to extremes, or rules are pushed beyond the breaking point, or some of the mechanics deep in the guts of the Real Market get stretched. GME ticks basically all of those boxes, which is why so many people are getting nervous (aside from the crazy money they might lose). It's also important to remember that the sheer amount of money flowing through the market has distorting power unto itself. Because it's money, and people really, really, really like their money--especially when they're used to having a lot of it, and rules involving that kind of money tend to look more... flexible, shall we say.
Ok, back to GME. If this situation with GME is allowed to play out to its conclusion in The Market, we'll see what happens. I think all the long-side people get the chance to be paid (what, I'm not sure--and remember, you have to actually sell your position at some point or it's all still just numbers on your screen), but no one knows for certain.
But this might legitimately get so big that it spills out of The Market and back into The Economy.
Geez, and here I thought the point of all of this was so that we all get to make so much money we wouldn't ever have to think and worry about that thing again.
Unfortunately, while he's kind of a buzzkill, Thomas Petterfy has a point. This could be a serious problem.
It might blow out The Market, which will definitely crap on The Economy, which as we all know from hard experience, will seriously crush Main Street.
If it's that big a deal, we may even need Washington to be involved. Once that happens, who knows what to expect.. this kind of scenario being possible is why I've been saying I have no idea how this ends, and no one else does either.
How did we end up in this ridiculous situation? From GAMESTOP?? And it's not Retail's fault the situation is what it is.. why is everyone telling US that we need to back down to save The Market?? What about the short-side hedge funds that slammed that risk into the system to begin with?? We're just playing by the rules of The Market!!
Well, here are my thoughts, opinions, and some even further speculation... This may be total fantasy land stuff here, but since I keep getting asked I'll share anyway. Just keep that disclaimer in mind.

A Study in Big Finance Power Moves: If you owe the bank $10,000, it's your problem...

What happens when you owe money you have no way to pay back? It's a scary question to have to face personally. Still, on balance and on average, if you're fortunate enough to have access to credit the borrowing is a risk that is worth taking (especially if you're reasonably careful). Lenders can take a risk loaning you money, you take a risk by borrowing in order to do something now that you would otherwise have had to wait a long time or maybe would never have realistically been able to do otherwise. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes it's due to reasons totally beyond your control. In any case, if you find yourself there you have no choice but to dust yourself off, pick yourself up as best as you can, and try to move on and rebuild. A lot of people had to learn that in 2008. Man that year really sucked.
Wall street learned their lessons too. Most learned what I think most of us would consider the right lessons--lessons about risk management, and the need to guard vigilantly against systemic risk, concentration of risk through excess concentration of leverage on common assets, etc. Many suspect that at least a few others may have learned an entirely different set of, shall we say, unhealthy lessons. Also, to try to be completely fair, maybe managing other peoples' money on 10x+ leverage comes with a kind of pressure that just clouds your judgement. I could actually, genuinely buy that. I know I make mistakes under pressure even when I'm trading risk capital I could totally lose with no real consequence. Whatever the motive, here's my read on what's happening:
First, remember that as much fun as WSB are making of the short-side hedge fund guys right now, those guys are smart. Scary smart. Keep that in mind.
Next, let's put ourselves in their shoes.
If you're a high-alpha hedge fund manager slinging trades on a $20bn 10x leveraged to 200bn portfolio, get caught in a bad situation, and are down mark-to-market several hundred million.. what do you do? Do you take your losses and try again next time? Hell no.
You're elite. You don't realize losses--you double down--you can still save this trade no sweat.
But what if that doesn't work out so well and you're in the hole >$2bn? Obvious double down. Need you ask? I'm net up on the rest of my positions (of course), and the momentum when this thing makes its mean reversion move will be so hot you can almost taste the alpha from here. Speaking of momentum, imagine the move if your friends on TV start hyping the story harder! Genius!
Ok, so that still didn't work... this is now a frigging 7 sigma departure from your modeled risk, and you're now locked into a situation that is about as close to mathematically impossible to escape as you can get in the real world, and quickly converging on infinite downside. Holy crap. The fund might be liquidated by your prime broker by tomorrow morning--and man, even the broker is freaking out. F'in Elon Musk and his twitter! You're cancelling your advance booking on his rocket ship to Mars first thing tomorrow... Ok, focus--this might legit impact your total annual return. You need a plan, and you know the smartest people on the planet, right? The masters of the universe! Awesome--they've even seen this kind of thing before and still have the playbook!! Of course! It's obvious now--you borrow a few more billion and double down again first thing in the morning. So simple. Sticky note that Mars trip cancellation so you don't forget.
Ok... so that didn't work? You even cashed in some pretty heavy chits too. Ah well, that was a long shot anyway. So where were you? Oh yeah.. if shenanigans don't work, skip to page 10...
...Which says, of course, to double down again. Anyone even keeping track anymore? Oh, S3 says it's $40bn and we're going parabolic? Man, that chart gives me goosebumps. All according to plan...
So what happens tomorrow? One possible outcome of PURE FANTASTIC SPECULATION...
End of the week--phew. Never though it'd come. Where are you at now?... Over $9000^\)!!! Wow. You did it boys, and as a bonus the memes will be so sweet.
^\)side note: add 8 zeros to the end...
Awesome--your problems have been solved. Because...
​
..
​
BOOM
​
Now it's EVERYONE's problem. Come at me, Chamath, THIS is REAL baller shit.
Now all you gotta do is make all the hysterical retirees watching their IRAs hanging in the balance blame those WSB kids. Hahaha. Boomers, amirite? hate when those kids step on their law--I mean IRAs. GG guys, keep you memes. THAT is how it's done.
Ok, but seriously, I hope that's not how it ends. I guess we just take it day by day at this point.
Apologies for the length. Good luck in the market!
Also, apologies in advance for formatting, spelling, and grammatical errors. I was typing this thing in between doing all kinds of other things for most of the day.
Edit getting a bunch of questions on if it's possible the hedge funds are finding ways to cover in spite of my assumptions. Of course. I'm a retail guy trying to read the charts and price action. I don't have any special tools like the pros may have.

Obligatory this happened 9 years ago but I still think about it every day.
It's a long one so buckle up.
(Apologies about the grammar and such, writing is not my forte.)
Me: $D
Friend/Co-Conspirator: $F
​
This story starts with me, a 'quiet but well liked throughout the school' 17 year old in IT class at my High School in a large suburban, two city public school district. We had one of the best high school IT programs in the country at the time for many reasons. Part of our class (of about 35) involved us going around the school to do basic maintenance on school computers. Although with the exception of myself and $F, our class never touched staff computers.
Myself and $F were the two students always finishing our two week classwork cycle in about two days. So we were always tasked by our IT Teacher with helping the school IT guy (district employee stationed at the school in the IT lab) to go around and fix issues throughout the building while everyone else worked on their classwork. Often, we were loaned the IT guy's keys and district keycard to go around the school and take care of business. (This is important later) Over time, myself and $F became well known by staff around the school for being able to fix "anything" so we eventually gained a lot of trust from our IT Teacher and District IT guy. To the point that we knew passwords we ABOSOUTELY should not have known.
We knew everything from the password to the surveillance system to the master (domain admin) password district IT used to access everything from HR files to grades to mechanical systems. This password literally let us access anything on any computer in the entire district. And before you ask, yes all buildings in the district (including admin) were linked together and no they weren't firewalled off from each other. Now we never used our powers maliciously as we loved our school and never would've done anything to harm anyone or damage any systems.
One day I thought to myself "wow, Information Security (InfoSec) in this district is atrocious, I wonder how easy it would be to test it from a student perspective, then present my findings to the district IT guy". This, would be the beginning of the biggest fuck up of my life.
(I'll try to keep the technical stuff to a minimum)
My mission started one day when I was tasked to grab a computer from a classroom and bring it to the lab. Easy enough. I was given IT guy's 35+ keys and sent off. While walking to the room, I dropped the ring, it took me a minute to find the right key on the ring. When I found it, since I was looking bit harder than usual at each key, I noticed something peculiar about the key he used to open doors inside the school. It was stamped DGM and looked different than the usual *M stamp master key for this one high school building. Not seeing this abbreviation before, I thought, "ok this must be an important key since it works like a school master but looks different".
I opened the (empty) classroom, fired up a locksmithing app on my phone and took a digital impression of the key that gave me the bitting code so I could duplicate it later on, grabbed the computer, went back to the lab and gave the keys back. Curious about what this DGM stamp meant, I started googling on my phone, "DGM [Key Manufacturer]". It came up with GM as "Grand Master", the key above the master key. Nothing with DGM came up in the search. I thought "ok this is just the "grand master" key that opens all three buildings on the school property, NBD. (Main School, Theater, and Aux Gym buildings)
"Ok. but what does that D in DGM stand for? Nothing in the school district starts with a D, except... District. Holy shit, it must mean "District Grand Master. But they can't be stupid enough to make one key that opens doors in all 15 schools. Right?"
I get home and order a key duplicate on the website that built that locksmithing app. A week later it shows up and I bring it to school. Before gym class I tried it on one of the doors in the Aux gym and low and behold, it worked. Great! Part one of my test plan is complete. Someone with this key could cause a lot of damage if they wanted to, but how would they get past the alarm systems in each building? Because it would be difficult to discreetly do a lot of damage if the building was full of people. Naturally someone with ill intensions would carry out their act at night while the building alarms are armed.
I already knew that the alarm systems were controlled by keycards that every staff member in the district had. (It was an antiquated system with flaws known to the IT world) Their cards only worked for the buildings they worked in. So the cards, electric doors, and alarms must be controlled at the school level, not at the district admin office. Right?
So how was I going to get a hold of a keycard long enough to scan and duplicate it onto a new card? It required a laptop and a special piece of equipment that I couldn't just bring to school while everyone was there. I thought "I can't access the security system and lookup badge codes with the IT master password I know, that defeats the whole purpose of this test. Where's the next vulnerability in this system?" Then I realized, there's a gate to the staff parking lot that's opened with keycards, but not their district cards, they had separate cards for the gate. I scanned the entire network for this gate controller, but couldn't find it anywhere. "Good Job school district, leaving your gate system closed circuit. It's inconvenient to program, but definitely more secure."
Okay, so where is this gate controller located? I've got a district master key so when I find it, I can access it locally. I look at the gate itself and see a freshly paved line in the concrete leading from the gate motor to the Aux Gym. "Okay, its somewhere in the Aux Gym."
I wait until Saturday during Football practice, the Aux Gym is disarmed and the front door is open. Everyone's out on the field so no one will see me enter the building. "Hey there's a closet by the front door I'll try this one first." There it fucking is. The gate controller is mounted on the wall. I open up the panel and attach my laptop. "Fuck there's a password, what could it be? It's not going to be the master password, this isn't connected to the network." I look at the circuit board, there's a label with "admin - (name of city school is located in)". Unbelievable, that's the login. "District IT People are paid six-figures to make this shit up? Seriously?"
I accessed the swipe log and I noticed an interesting trend. Half the time someone swipes into the parking lot, there's an access denial that immediately precedes a valid gate card swipe. "They must be swiping their district cards first instead of the gate card!" Lucky for me, this system records badge numbers when access is denied. So I had access to several district keycard codes, protected by a password that is the name of our city. Wonderful. I sift through the logs and notice the names of three district janitors, all three with the preceding access denied messages and codes, followed by their valid gate cards. I remembered these people from my previous schools, so their district cards must open multiple buildings. (Remember when I mentioned that district buildings weren't firewalled off from each other on the network?)
I took one of the codes and encoded it onto a blank keycard with that special piece of equipment that cost me $20 on eBay, walked out the front door and scanned the card. I heard a loud click and the reader light turned green. Holy shit, I now have a DGM key and a keycard that disarms EVERY school alarm system in the district. Nothing is off limits to me. Part 2 complete.
I call up my friend $F who somewhat knew what I was doing, and once nighttime rolled around, we decided to visit almost every school in the district. Just to see if it actually worked. And boy it did. We easily swiped into each school, the alarm automatically disarmed, and the DGM key opened every door in every building we visited. I found myself thinking "Good Lord, security here is even more atrocious than I thought". We had the decency to rearm each building before we left and once we were done, we planned on telling the IT guy on monday when we went to class.
Well, my dumbass decided to try one more school the next day (Sunday Morning), I swiped in and within 10 seconds, the (middle school) principal walked through the door and asked "Who are you?" I could've bolted out the front door, but I wanted to be honest because they were gonna find out on monday anyways. So I told him who I was and what I was doing (very short version).
He took me to his office and had me sit down while he made a phone call. It was someone at the district office. All I heard him say was "I can't distinguish this from my own badge, its a perfect copy but it has his name and photo on it". He hangs up. Asks me more questions and it eventually leads to the DGM key. This especially panics him because he knew what it was but didn't know anyone other than the District Ops manager that had one. He makes another phone call, "This is (principal name) at (middle school) I need someone to come down here now." I'm thinking "Okay, someone from the district will be here to ask more questions, cool."
Boy was I wrong, within a few minutes about six police officers show up and start asking me questions. I'm honest, I tell them my plan and what I did. They all looked utterly confused by the end of my short explanation. They took the keycards and DGM key and asked me to call my parents to pick me up. They search my car and find pot in the trunk (oops). So there's a charge right there. They said they'll notify us later once they talk to the district and I was released into my dad's custody.
A few hours later, my mom gets a phone call from $VP saying I'm not to attend school monday and we will have a meeting that evening at the high school. "Okay, understandable. I haven't been able to explain myself. They're playing it safe."
Whoops wrong again!
​
IT Teacher: $ITT
District IT Director: $ITLady
Vice Principal: $VP
Cops: $PD
We arrive at the school for the meeting, my IT teacher is sitting in the school office with a disappointed yet very proud look on his face. As we arrived we were called into the conference room, I expected it to be just $VP, lmao no. It was $VP, two cops, and some random district official. My IT teacher was there just to translate the technical terms. I explain my whole plan, being interrupted many times by everyone to ask their questions. At one point $VP says "Jesus $ITT you're not supposed to be teaching this stuff!"
$ITT: $VP, Do you realize the amount of critical thinking and work that went into this project?"
Well, after he says this, there's a knock on the door. "$VP, $ITLady is here"
"Random district official" leaves and $ITLady enters and sits down in front of me"
$VP: $M this is $ITLady, the District Director of IT. She has some questions for you.
$M: Ok
She proceeds to tear into me, asking "WHAT DID YOU BREAK, WHAT DID YOU HACK?!" I could literally see the veins popping out of her head. She was pissed the fuck off.
She couldn't accept that a bored teenage kid that just wanted to see if this was possible, was able to compromise her systems in one week. At one point the officers asked her to leave the room and take a break because she was getting so worked up.
Fast forward to after the meeting, the police took myself, my mom, $VP, and $ITT to my house and seized all of my electronic equipment. Everything from my cell phone, to my laptop, to my WiFi adapter and everything in between. My favorite part was when they were searching my computer bag. The police officer opened it, rummaged around for a bit, taking everything electronic out, then gently and over dramatically pulling a strand of condom wrappers out in front of everybody.
$Mom: *Glares at me* Previously not knowing I was having sex at 17
$Mom's new BF: *Leaves room immediately*
$Cops: *Looks at $VP not sure what to do*
$ITT: *Gently facepalms*
$M: Thinking "Fuck, this is bad"
$VP: *staring at the cops for about five seconds* "Okay well let's move on"
They all leave after seizing basically everything I own.
​
Fast forward to a few days later, I get a letter from the district saying I have been suspended pending expulsion. Great.
We attend the expulsion hearing, I say exactly what I said in the first meeting with $VP and the cops.
Get another letter two days later, I'm expelled. We appeal to the school board and the district's lawyers. They don't want to hear any of it. Appeal denied. They're pressing full charges. Okay I didn't know what the charges were but they were pressing them. Cool, great.
​
Two months later I meet with county Juvenile, I again explain to them my story, they're just as confused as the district people but my Juvenile rep is taken back by my calm demeanor and willingness to share all the details. By this point the district has done a through investigation and found no evidence that I stole or caused damage to property or their computer networks. They then Inform me I'm being charged with:
-- 9 counts of Felony Burglary 2
-- 3 counts of Class A Misdemeanor Computer Crime
-- 3 Counts of Class A Identity Theft
-- 1 Count of Poss. Controlled Substance on School Grounds
I'm also ordered not to use any electronic devices until I see the judge. This included something as simple as a TV remote.
Fuck Me
​
I have a few more meetings with the County Juvenile rep, she was actually a very nice person and was surprised I was assigned to her in the first place because she usually got the murders and rapists. She got to know me and my true intensions with the entire plan over the next month.
Before my first hearing, she (the county) recommended to the school district not to press charges. They felt this could be remedied in-district, since while crimes were committed, I wasn't aware of the crimes and there was obviously no bad intent.
During the hearing, my Juvenile rep and shitty court appointed lawyer explained my side and the district lawyer explained theirs. The judge was extremely confused by the whole situation, saying "we've never seen a case like this before, at this point I don't know how to proceed" The DA also looked equally as confused.
Judge asked the district's lawyer: "How do you want to proceed?"
Lawyer: We'll take this under further review
Judge: $M expect a call from your Juvenile rep this week. Adjourned.
​
Three days later, we receive a call from Juvenile. The district is pursuing all charges and wants $80,000 in restitution for a new district security system. Wonderful news.
I live in a constant state of panic for the next three months while waiting for the next court date. I end up going to the district's alternate school for a while while attending twice weekly meetings at juvenile.
Went a few more times in front of the judge, my lawyer, Juvenile, and district lawyers doing all the talking, explaining the entire case to the judge. The district still insisting I stole and damaged district property even though I never did and they ever found any evidence.
About seven months into this, the Judge had enough. She didn't want to hear anything more and was going to issue my disposition (ruling) at the next hearing.
She explained that $80,000 in restitution was ludicrous and the district was going to pay for their own security upgrades if they chose to.
She then looked at me and asked me to rise.
Judge: "I have three options here Mr. $M"
"Option 1, I dismiss all of the charges and we'll be done here
Option 2: I drop the marijuana charge, reduce all other Charges to Attempted (Misdemeanors), and sentence you to one year bench probation
Option 3: I send you to jail right now"
I almost lost it right there.
Judge: "Based on what I've heard from our Juvenile rep and read in the police reports, I'd like to go with Option 1 and dismiss the charges. But because of the sheer severity of the crimes on paper, I am unable to do that. So I am going with Option 2. I hereby sentence you to one year of bench probation and order you to pay restitution in the amount of $3,200 for district staff overtime. Good luck Mr. $M."
I don't remember what was said after that because I was so relieved I almost passed out.
​
After three months of thinking I was going to prison for 20 years, it was all over. I was numb for the rest of the day.
All in all, The whole experience only left me with severe depression and anxiety for a few years but hey I'm not in prison. Great, right?
Actually it ended up better than I thought. I ended up graduating from the alternate school's accelerated graduation program shortly after that. (The district wanted me out of their hair ASAP)
I received a full diploma from my regular High School at the end of my junior year. I got to essentially skip most of my junior and all of my senior year of HS. Ended up working my ass off and got a great IT job at a company I still work for today. And now I have IT Director as my title.
And that is how I royally fucked up by shaming the fuck out of my school district
Shove it $ITLady!
​
TL;DR I exploited security flaws in my school district's security system. They got royally pissed and tried to send me to prison. Instead the judge gave me a slap on the wrist and I graduated a year an a half early. Now have a great job in IT.
​
Edit: Some amount of proof that this isn't fake because I forgot people on the internet are asses
Edit2: random internet people, while yes, this story is extremely dumb and sounds extremely false, I swear on my life this story is 100% true. For the techies, I intentionally left out some details because they're boring to most people. If you have a question just ask.

I've been doing a lot of ETF research lately and wanted to share this list because I think that smaller ETFs fly under the radar all too often. Here are 10 ETFs with less than a billion dollars under management, but that I think are interesting and possibly useful, with reasons why:

1. THNQ: ROBO Global Artificial Intelligence ETF, https://roboglobaletfs.com/thnq . The process-based management of THNQ's holdings targets heavy exposure to companies leading development or execution with artificial intelligence and machine learning. My only issue with it is that for some reason they don't include Facebook in its holdings (and FB is famous with PyTorch and related work). Competitors in this thematic space include Global X's AIQ and iShares' IRBO. A newer ETF, THNQ has performed very, very well since inception, easily beating many other growth ETFs. Certainly a theme to watch for the coming decade.
2. SFY: SoFi Select 500 ETF, https://www.sofi.com/invest/etfs/sfy/ . This ETF is... highly intriguing. It has a 0.0% expense ratio, yes, free, waived until at least end of June 2021 (at which point it might go up to 0.19%). They're waiving the fee to draw in AUM. Its performance over the past trading year is +20%, so it beats the S&P 500 (easily). What they do is take the top 500 US stocks by market cap, then weight them according to a set of equations based on net income and sales growth as per the methodology. Not market-cap weighted, which is very unusual and thus nice to have as a tool in your toolkit. The ETF ends up with more weighted overlap with the S&P 500 than other large-cap growth ETFs such as VUG, IWZ, JKE, etc., because the "value" companies are still in there -- they're just not weighted as highly as they are in SPY or VOO. The usual suspects are still in the top 10: AAPL, AMZN, MSFT, TSLA, GOOGL, FB. SQ comes in at #15, which I think is very nice, and SQ is missing from an S&P 500 ETF. Granted, if the ER wasn't 0.0%, this ETF would be significantly less attractive. Index methodology here: https://www.solactive.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Solactive-SoFi-US-500-Growth-Index-Guideline.pdf
3. DSTL: Distillate U.S. Fundamental Stability & Value ETF, https://distillatefunds.com/dstl . Its methodology is in the prospectus, https://distillatefunds.com/dstl/prospectus . Essentially, they try to combine "quality" and "value" factor investing. The fund's weighted overlap with SPY is only 20% according to etfrc.com. So it's not simply the S&P. It's also not the first ETF to use free cash flow as a factor (see also: COWZ, TTAC, neither of which I really like). Its ER is only 0.39%, which is reasonably low for small-ish specialty ETFs. But how does it perform? Well, since inception over 2 years ago it has kept pace with or outperformed the S&P 500 and iShares' US quality and value factor ETFs every step of the way. Gotta admit, I'm kinda impressed. Their top holdings right now are: JNJ, UNH, INTC, WMT, GOOGL, HD, PG, CSCO, AMGN, and AVGO. Surprisingly, compared to SPY, they're most underweight in financials. I would've thought they scored well on those cash flow metrics but maybe the banks score poorly on their debt metric and they don't compensate for banks having a different business model than, say, JNJ. Really neat non-market-cap weighted ETF!
4. SDG: iShares MSCI Global Impact ETF, https://www.ishares.com/us/products/283378/ishares-msci-global-impact-etf-fund . This fund tracks an index that seeks to "Obtain exposure to global stocks aiming to advance themes related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, such as education or climate change." ARK Investing may also be launching an ETF with this theme in the future (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfhgbZBWgBE&t=30m53s ). Methodology here: https://www.msci.com/msci-acwi-sustainable-impact-index . It's nice to have a fund you can feel good about investing in. It has also easily outperformed the S&P 500 over the past year!
5. FRDM: Freedom 100 Emerging Markets ETF, https://freedometfs.com/frdm/ . It's a very new emerging markets ETF that is not market-cap weighted and filters countries based on human and economic freedom scores. Top holdings include TSMC, Samsung, and CD Projekt Red. If you're concerned about international tensions and based in North America, this could be something you'd like. Also a rare way to get very high weight to tech outside China in an emerging markets ETF. Very unusual and a neat tool to have in your emerging markets investing toolbox!
6. EMXC: iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ex China ETF, https://www.ishares.com/us/products/288504/ishares-msci-emerging-markets-ex-china-etf-fund . Also an ex-China emerging markets fund, but otherwise it follows a broad MSCI mark-cap weighted index. Very top-heavy in Korea, Taiwan, India, and Brazil. It's another tool to stay in emerging markets but specifically tailor your China exposure through some other portfolio choice (or have none at all). Like in FRDM, you get heavy exposure to TSMC and Samsung.
7. IMTM: iShares MSCI Intl Momentum Factor ETF, https://www.ishares.com/us/products/271538/ishares-msci-international-developed-momentum-factor-etf . One of the few ways to get exposure to trending stocks in developed non-US markets. Really heavy on tech and luxury. If you're bored of holding EFA or VEA and want greater returns from non-US developed markets, check this out, it may be something you like. High exposure to Shopify, Sony, Nintendo, LVMH.
8. SWAN: AMPLIFY BLACKSWAN GROWTH & TREASURY CORE ETF, https://amplifyetfs.com/swan.html . Treasuries plus SPY LEAP options. Its performance in 2020 was great -- saved you during the crash, and gets you most of the S&P 500 upside during "normal" times. Kind of a barbell strategy; an interesting conservative ETF. Probably of greater interest to people near or in retirement. Amplify has a whole set of thematic ETFs, much like Global X.
9. NTSX: WisdomTree 90/60 U.S. Balanced Fund, https://www.wisdomtree.com/etfs/asset-allocation/ntsx . Another fund that deals with both US large caps and treasuries. But in this case, it uses treasury futures as leveraged exposure to get 90% equities, 60% treasuries total exposure. Quite a clever package and designed for long-term holding with reduced volatility, while likely outperforming a 60/40 balanced fund. There's a huge thread on bogleheads.org about it with a lot of people who like its design.
10. IGBH: iShares Interest Rate Hedged Long-Term Corporate Bond ETF, https://www.ishares.com/us/products/275397/ishares-interest-rate-hedged-10-year-credit-bond-etf . This is an interest-rate hedged long-term corporate bond ETF. You see, when treasury yields rise, as is expected the next year or two, corporate bond yields also rise. But that means the price of the bonds goes down -- bad for bond ETF values. Hedging the rates allows you to still collect distributions and have lower volatility than equities, but avoid the interest-rate risk. A whole lot of money has flowed into this and its sister ETF, LQDH, in the past 6 months because of historically low treasury yields.

ok, here's a bonus #11:

1. PPA: Invesco Aerospace & Defense ETF, https://www.invesco.com/us/financial-products/etfs/product-detail?audienceType=Investor&ticker=PPA . This is a broad defense industry ETF, and may have some deep value right now as the industry has lagged for the past year. But the world is still a dangerous place and if war breaks out these companies will benefit; a good ETF to have watchlisted. US and allied defense spending keeps chugging along. Also, many of these companies may be in Cathie Wood's ARKX. ITA is an alternative but lacks $HON, which is an important company in the sector.

Disclaimer: this is not financial advice and I currently have no position in any of those ETFs at time of posting, but that may change at any point in the future.
What do you guys think? Any of those look like something you might invest in? Anyone else want to comment on a personal favorite small/medium sized fund?
​
edit, 6 hours after OP: wow, this post blew up! I'm so happy many people are finding this discussion informative. Thanks for the awards and comments.

First of all, the most important is your mindset. You will never progress by blaming your teammates, being toxic, not using your mic, getting super tilted super quickly etc. You always have to be positive, it's ok, anything is winnable. No backseat gaming, no focusing on your team's mistakes. Just play together.
Secondly, stats don't equate to skill. Just because you can go 15-5 doesn't mean you're a good player. Getting better means playing your character properly, and making the right decisions. Also, try not to look at the scoreboard. You may tilt if you are not doing well.
Another thing that held me back at first was not warming up. Not warming up because I was just too excited to play, I wanted to get right into the game; and I'm still like this. But, I have the discipline to warm up, spend 15-30 minutes practicing my tracking, crosshair placement, flicks, trigger discipline and decision-making. I got a lot better when I started doing that.
Watch pros. Watch pro matches in particular, see what the commentators say and evaluate certain plays particular to your agent. Trust me, you'll learn a lot without even realizing it. You'll be able to pick out others mistakes a lot more. BUT don't constantly tell them their mistakes.
After I learned all this, I was still hardstuck gold, but I knew I was better than golds and even some plats, because I didn't make all the same mistakes they did, and I was frustrated; I wanted to quit sometimes. But I ran into this guy and holy shit was his aim bad, but he was definitely smarter than everyone in the rank. We were hardstuck gold together, but since we became friends and we both could accept criticism, we helped eachother out.
Fast forward one week, I meet some of his friends he meets some of mine and we have about 12 of us in a discord server, then we started 5 stacking.
If you're hardstuck, it's very possible it is your teammates but you should always focus on your own mistakes rather than theirs. Right after we began to 5 stack, we went on an 11 game win streak with the new season, because we were all better than gold players but we were stuck there because of our attitudes. We had great chemistry, and I really hate to say it, because I know not many people have much friends, but you have to stack.
If you're better than the rank you're in, you have to stack. Not with just anyone though, it has to be with people that are just as capable/reliable as you. You can't be stacking with people who are negative, toxic just because they're good because you'll lose games. Trust me. Stack with people who have good mindsets, because once you start becoming friends you can help eachother out with plays, and warm up routines etc and you can grow together. Our friend that was gold 3 with us, got to immortal in a matter of a week when we started playing together. We knew he was good, but we didn't know he was that good.
Now, let me make this clear. This does NOT mean you can just blame the fact that you're hardstuck on your randoms / not having enough friends. ALWAYS look into yourself first.
Obviously this isn't everything that got me to diamond, the rest is the basic stuff that everyone else will tell you. Just know that it takes time to improve, it's not going to happen over night unless you're a very very fast learner. Give it patience, and good attitude and you have to trust in yourself, and your team. Players in platinum and below, are not that good. Even some diamond players aren't, a lot are boosted; or have all aim no brain. Don't be that player, it's better to have better game sense/knowledge than to have great aim. My aim isn't that good, I can barely get 20 points on the medium bots in the range. You just have to be smarter.
If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them, I hated seeing all the other Reddit posts from other diamonds who talk about the same shit and give advice that spoiled a lot of my experience in-game. Not all advice works for everyone, but don't spoil people's games.
Edit: people are literally only taking it that you NEED a stack to rank up. In the first paragraph I said not to blame your teammates. If you're a bronze player, you won't get to diamond by stacking. You HAVE to look into your own mistakes first, you have to solo queue to gain the skill to prove you deserve a higher rank before you stack. Stacking will rank you up but you won't gain as much skill while ranking up. Stacking is not the secret to ranking up, learning from your mistakes is.

Long time lurker and listener and I´m proud to say that I encountered my very first Karen!
So this happened about a week ago when I was asked to fill in for a friend at a skicenter (Yes ski centers are allowed to be open in my country due to it being outside). The layout of the area is somewhat important to the story, so allow me to give you a short tour. There are five ski lifts from left to right: Family lift, kiddie lift (which is just a rope that the kids hold on to and it takes them about 10m up), two anchor lifts beside each other and the last one leads to "the street" which is for rails and jumps, none of them are gondola lifts as the center only requires anchor lift.
I was working at the, so called "family lift", which is meant for families with little kids, this means that the slope is small compared to the rest so that everyone in the family can ride together. Next to the thre lift I was working at is a "sledding slope" which is for people who just want to come sledding and this is free, meaning you don´t need a ski pass to enter.
Also every lift has a snowmobile, and I had mine parked next to the lift so I could have somewhere to sit if I wanted to and due to the cold the suspension was somewhat frozen which meant that when someone took a seat on the snowmobile it made a sound.
Now to the story, we have Entitled Snow Karen ESK, Heckspawn HS 1 and 2 and Me being me.
I was helping a young girl onto the lift as she was having problems (that was one of my tasks at work) and when I had my back turned while helping the girl I heard the suspension creak and my first thought was that "Oh my turn to go get lunch", as I thought it was my co-worker, buuuuut nope.... I turn around and see two of Karens heckspawn trying to start the snowmibile!
Me: Hey! What on earth do You think you´re doing??
HS1: We want to drive the snowmobile!!
HS2: Yeah! We´re going to drive it up the slope!
Me: No you can´t do that.. You are not old enough, (you have to be at least 16 to drive one and they were about 5-6 years old), and you can´t drive this unless you work here.
HS2: But mum said we could!
Me: Idc what your mum says, you are not allowed on it. I need you to lea... aaaaand guess who cut me off..
ESK: WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO MY BABIES?!?!
Me: Ma´m, are they your heckspawn?
ESK: Yes! Now tell me why you are talking to them!
Me: They were on the snowmobile and trying to start it to take it for a joyride.
ESK: Sooooo? I told them they could!
Me: Ma´m they can´t do that.. they´re not old enough, they don´t work here and they haven´t been trained on how to operate it!
ESK: Oh stop being so rude! Just teach them how to operate it now.
Me: I can´t, they´re not old enough and unless you work here you are not allowed not drive it on the area.
HS1: MUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!!! I WANA DRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
HS2: Tell him ti staaaaaaaaaaart it!
ESK: Now look at what you´ve done! You made them sad! I demand you start the snowmobile and let them ride!
At this point one of our regulars and former co-worker came to the lift and gave me a look "You need help son?" I told him "Oh Hi Mike (not real name)! Tell (insert bosses name here" I said hello".
Ik it sounds cheesy to say we used a code, but we have all been told that if we are in a situation where we need the owner and we dont want to say it out loud, for one reason or another, to if possible tell someone who works or has worked there to tell the owner I said hello and the boss would come down if possible.
Anyway he understood and he went up with the lift and down the slope towards the office.
Now during that 10 secind window the ESK had climbed the fence and joined her kids at the snowmobile to get it started. And then something struck me and I don´t know why I didn´t notice it before, but no one of them was in ski gear, no helmets, skiboots, skis or anything and the ESK had left two sleds behind the fence
Me, still somehow polite: Ma´m why aren´t any of you in ski gear?
ESK: Because we decided to just go sledding
Me: Uuum you can´t be on this side of the gate if you arent´t planning to ski.
ESK: Yes we can, we are paying customers!! We ate inside the restaurant!
Me: Doesen´t matter you can´t be here unless you are going to ski..
ESK: NOW SHUT YOU LITTLE IDIOT WE ARE PAYING CUSTOMERS AND THAT MEANS WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE HERE AND THE RIGHT TO RIDE THE SNOWMOBILE!
At this point I lost it and I decided to use my army voice (We have compulsory military service in my country)
Me: Ok that´s it, get off the snowmobile now!
I commanded them, and they all looked shocked, I guess they never expected a reaction like that from me
ESK, still shocked: H-how dare you talk to me like that?! You need to show your elders some res.. I cut her off
Me: I have tried to be polite and to tell you kindly to leave the snowmobile and yet you have refused! Do you realize that your kids could die or get injured or even worse kill or injure someone if they drove this thing?! You and your kids need to leave as you clearly have nor right nor deserve the right to be here!
At this point she tried to play the victim card when a family of six came to the lift
ESK: HELP! HELP! This boy is harassing me and my babieeeees!!
Luckily for me the family didn´t belive her when I explained the situation and I assured them that I didn´t need help.
Now the ESK decided that she would play the infamous "I know the owner card"
ESK, with a smug look on her face said: You know I know the owner, so unless you want to lose your job I suggest you start this snowmobile! (Don´t know why she didn´t care about my warning about her kids killing or injuring themselves or others)
Me: OOOOOOH you know the owner?
ESK: Yes.
At this point I saw the owner walking towards us as the regular had sent him
Me: Well, here is your chance to explain to him why I should get fired, I said as I waved at him
I could see the ESK worry a little, but she quickly shook it off
Owner: So what is the problem here then?
ESK flew into a rant: Your employee has been SO RUDE towards me and my kids and refused to let my babieeees ride the snowmobile even though I know we are allowed to do so as paying customers!
Owner: No.. you are not allowed to because it is dangerous and wasteful. Also I can see that none of you are dressed to be on this side of the fence and thus I can assume you have not paid to be here.
ESK: Well what about HIM! She said as she pointed at me, He is not dressed for skiing either!
Owner: Well.. that is because he works here and he should bot be dressed for skiing..
ESK, slowly realizing she is fighting a losing battle decided to go for the harassment claim..
ESK: Well he harassed me and my babies and I demand he is fired for his behaviour!
Now the owner is a chill guy and has a great sense of humour and does not take bs from anyone and he saw he had an amazing chance to strike down this Karen
Owner: Well then, should we see what audio the cameras have recorded?
ESK: No-no that is not necessary, but I demand he be fired for his behav..
The owner cut her off
Owner: And I guess I should also tell my daughter that her boyfriend is a horrible person for harassing a mother and her children right? Oh how devastated she will be, he said sarcastically.
You see what the ESK didn´t know is that I have been dating the owners daughter for two years and when I have time I spend the weekends at her familys house.
Now the ESK realized that her battle was lost and just on cue started shrieking about how she will leave a horrible facebook review, how the police will hear about this, how she will never come back because we are so horrible to customers yada yada yada, you guys know the drill.
After she left, me and the owner started laughing and he said he would save the security footage because he wanted to keep this as a "Karen takedown trophy".
Not long after I got my lunch break and I called my girlfriend to tell her about the encounter and she started laughing aswell.
I do hope I get to see her again so I can ask her if she would like to see the owner again.
Thanks for reading, hope you guys liked it

I know advice isn't the usual sort of post here, but this does relate to the sub's goal of 'free dialogue held in good faith' and this is a growing trend so hopefully people can give some good advice. Here's what happened:
For context, I am white and my wife and SIL are mixed race, and they sometimes refers to themselves as black too. We live in the UK.
I was giving my SIL a lift to my house with my kids in the back, and we were going through a particular part of town where people often cross the road with little warning. I was chatting about how people always seem to jump out, when ahead of my a guy was stepping out on to the road. I pointed and said, "Look at this old asian guy!" He looked like he was south asian (Indian or Pakistani etc). In the UK it's common to use the term "asian" to mean people from south asia.
After we had arrived home, she said "csvfa, there's something important I want to talk to you about". I was like, "ok this must be serious, she's never like this". She said "When we were in the car you called that man an "old, asian guy". That made me feel uncomfortable. I know you've got nothing against asian people, but it's important we're aware of our words, especially with your kids in the car"
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was very offended at her inferring that I made a racist comment. Not to mention lecturing me about what I should say or not say in front of my own kids!
I said "Well if you're uncomfortable in my car then it's best I don't give you any more lifts" and I walked out.
Later, she apologised "that this had become a big thing" (she did not apologise for what she said to me).
My wife (who is trying to stay neutral, understandably) told me she has done this to other people, who protest to her that they didn't mean anything racist, then for SIL to give them a lecture on how they are unconsciously biased, suffer from white fragility, and that we live in a systemically racist society, "words matter" etc etc.
I now refuse to debate that sort of nonsense - I am not going to lower myself to that level. I briefly had that sort of debate with her a couple of years ago when she was reading one of those awful books ("why I don't talk to white people about race or something) and when I said something about how I'm not racist she said "the book said you would say that!".
Has anyone had similar experiences? How do you deal with someone close to you who genuinely believes they are "fighting racism" by lecturing you like this? I've told her my relationship with her is important (otherwise she is great and helps with the kids quite a lot), and I want to sort this out.
But I won't put up with being told I'm racist and I can't talk to a robot that mindlessly repeats phrases from woke ideology.
Thoughts or advice?

Just yesterday I hit free twitch turbo partner on twitch after roughly 5 months of streaming (somewhat) consistently. Today I'm hoping to share some decent advice and give my own (learned) opinion on some of the frequent yet not always useful tips shared around here.
Before writing this I did a cursory search through the subreddit for frequently asked questions so hopefully this answers most of the ones that I myself have any experience to answer.
My simple request: I'm not going to be posting any links to my stream or anything but if you go out of your way to find it please don't follow/subscribe to the channel unless you are genuinely interested. Thanks big boss.

Should you stream?

If I have to read another thread or comment of a person asking if they should stream I am going to scream. What do you people expect to hear? Yes, please stream the world needs you, you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams and have all the clout to have ever been cloutted.
I know people who usually type out questions like that probably don't read posts but here is a hack I've used to answer my own dumb questions through out the years. Say that shit out loud and respond to it like someone asked you the question. Nine times out of ten, you end up answering it yourself and on the off-chance you actually don't you should have a more actionable question.
Example: Instead of asking "should I stream?" you end up realizing the only thing holding you back is having no mic or something. The question then becomes "I want to stream what's a good cheap mic?". Which is a lot better and doesn't make people want to pelt you with rocks.
For those of you who ask "should I stream or is it a waste of time?" please, I BEG YOU, stop. Most of the shit you do is a waste of time, you either want to stream or don't. Make a decision based on that.

Webcam, do you need one?

This question is asked so often that I see it every time I come on the subreddit. Unsurprisingly, the answer is always the same as well, yes you do.
However I disagree.
I have never streamed with a webcam, not a single time, yet I'm still here and somehow managed to get partnered.
Now, I know why every one parrots the same advice, it is because the people making tip threads, youtube videos, etc., all say to use a webcam. Harris Heller said it once and I'm pretty sure that was enough for the people who copy and paste what he says in text threads here to become their mantra.
The truth is, all that matters is the content. Ask yourself do you do/want to do a lot of react/just chatting content? If so, you probably want a webcam since your content will focus around reacting to content. Lirik doesn't use face-cam because his content is his gameplay and commentary, not his face. Corpse literally blew up and is famous for not showing his face (even though he is still a personality).
I know the whole "Lirik doesn't use a face cam" argument is going to be met with people saying "exception not the rule!!!" but seriously, just use your head. Half the people you watch probably don't need face cams. MoonMoon probably doesn't need a face cam, Critikal didn't have a face cam until he already had over a million subs on youtube, schlatt didn't either, Dream doesn't, AdmiralBahroo doesn't, almost every DBD streamer I watch doesn't, just think for yourself.
The point I'm trying to drive home here is not just that a webcam isn't required, but also you need to look at what you want to create and decide for yourself.
Edit: I saw someone say somewhere that you need a webcam for sponsors. That's cap. I've had a sponsor and nobody has seen this ugly mug.

Equipment in general

People like saying that they need this this and that before they start streaming. This is just stalling. Until last month I hadn't owned a desktop PC my whole life. Before that it was just laptops and using my phone to read chat or look up things. You obviously need SOME equipment to start, i.e. a computer and some form of internet connection, but that doesn't mean you need to pick up a shure, a streamdeck, 4 monitors, 6 consoles, and whatnot.
Here is my setup. Keep in mind I literally just upgraded this last month after saving up for several months:

• Blue Yeti: Hell ya baby got a free game with it too so I'm for sure pleased with this purchase. Edit: I recommend shopping around for mics since the yeti isn't as much of a "get this for streaming" mic as it once was. Plenty of good options out there for cheaper
• Two BenQ monitors: Like I said, I was using my phone for chat but that got old fast. These monitors are cheap and 144hz. There are some color issues but eff it I barely notice anymore
• Streamer PC from NZXT: My old laptop was from 2016 and made editing literal hell. Averaged 3 crashes every time I would try and render (and the renders took about an hour). Upgrading to this was the most worth purchase I've ever made. Also, the streamer PC got upgraded since I purchased, so you can grab a 2070 instead of the 2060 ti like I have :)
• Red Dragon Keyboard and Mouse: I'm a cheap ass so when I see light up peripherals for like 40 bucks total I am sold.
• Earbuds: Legit don't know the brand. I stole them from my sister like a year ago. I prefer these over a headset anyway since I don't want that gamer dent lmao

For those of you who are probably saying "GROSS A PRE-BUILT" remember that part prices are actual aids right now, not to mention the availability of even finding good parts. If you have the cash go pre-built that shit is amazing.
My recommendation:
Stay with your shitty set-up as long as possible but make sure to pick up a good mic first. Big streamers (looking at you Ludwig) shit on the Yeti, but straight facts all you need is to EQ that shit a lil bit and nobody will bat an eye. You don't have to pick up the Yeti (there are lots of cheaper options) but that's just the one I and many others have gotten since it is reliably a good ass mic.
Audio <- chat engagement <- pc upgrade

YouTube

How many people have to tell you bums to focus on YouTube before you do it? Twitch sucks ass. I'll say it, i'm brave. No discoverability, especially to those of you at the very bottom. Make a goddamn YouTube and start pumping out videos, it is not hard.
Ludwig made a power point on how to be a streamer that talks about a few things but the most important point of all was what he said on creating content for stream/YouTube. This isn't the exact timestamp but it do be close: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/896089267?t=01h24m14s
That advice is coming from a top streamer who also has over a million subs on YouTube by almost exclusively taking twitch vods and editing them for YouTube.
As for getting views on your videos here is my advice from my personal experiences:

• Thumbnail and title are important but there are outliers that can thrive without doing shit. One guy I saw has their most watched video (over 250k views) with a title like "[game] [character] gameplay" and the literal default thumbnail that youtube makes. AND to top that off it was just a VOD from their twitch channel.
• Audience retention matters. There is a reason massive YouTubers have these weird zoom in pans and flamboyant gestures all the time. Lots of movement and noises keep our tiny attention spans happy and frequently cutting is usually the key to success, although don't overuse it. I do very light edits and have been growing but that's more of my personal preference rather than a growth strategy.
• Respond and engage. If you have one comment on your video and they are complimenting you, why aren't you responding? This is by far the easiest way to get someone to continue to engage with you and trust me, that is the most important thing in the algorithms eyes.

My understanding of YouTube

So obviously, clickthrough rate and audience retention are the things that are constantly brought up when talking about gaining more views and what not, but I am fairly comfortable in saying that there are other metrics that you should be paying attention to.
Let me hit you with a something that would make Dream shake in his boots. I don't subscribe to anyone on YouTube. *gasp*
The reason for that being, I almost always have the videos I want to see on my home page. I never have to go, "wonder if x YouTuber made a video" since YouTube knows I watch and enjoy their stuff. The question for most people being, how does YouTube know what people like and how does it suggest it to them? Basically, by seeing how often people engage with your content AND also what type of content you create. (although keep in mind, youtube tries to throw new videos at you a lot as well, these are usually in-line with content you engage with though)
For engagement, think of it as like affinity points in a video game but in reverse. Before you get to bang that smoking hot sim, you got to woo them. Every time someone likes your video they get a point, every time they comment they get two, every subscription counts as like 10, watching an entire video might be 20, etc. Obviously, these are made up values but I hope you follow what I'm putting down here. Once they get enough points you start showing up more in their home page.
I know this because I have a different account on my phone that doesn't have the same suggestions as my main account because I watch different things on my PC than my phone. However, I do like to look at the comments while I'm taking a dump or something. Problem was, my videos were rarely every recommended. I solved this easily by liking a couple videos. I didn't even watch them, just liked and read comments. LITERALLY NOT EVEN SUBSCRIBED AND I GET NOTIFICATIONS ON MY PHONE SOMETIMES WHEN A VIDEO DOES WELL!
In other words, by getting people to like and comment on your videos you are almost guaranteeing they see future videos from you.
Now, keep in mind, engagement is only a small portion of the whole pie. And even though you might engage with a content creator often, there is still a chance you miss some of their videos because of one other reason, the content's genre.

Content Genre

You might have noticed this phenomenon on various different creators YouTubes, but sometimes they create a video that bombs. Usually, this happens when they create something outside of their niche. This could be as simple as changing games, or as radical as changing the entire direction of the channel. Even if you engage like crazy with a creator, if they change the content enough, you won't get that shit recommended to you.
This is the main reason some creators have several channels and why some even get pigeonholed to one type of content. The reality of it is, if you build your audience on one piece of content and then want to change it, you will be fighting an uphill battle. One of the best ways to fight that is to diversify early OR better yet, emphasize your personality over the content. Jschlatt shits views and he does whatever the hell he wants really. Same goes for jacksepticeye, markiplier, Ludwig, Critikal, XQC, and numerous other creators.
That being said, doing one game/genre isn't a bad strategy either. A metric fuck ton of OfflineTv's videos are the same game. DisguisedToast played Hearthstone on repeat, then switched to TFT, THEN switched to among us, and his videos absolutely kill. Valkyrae is one of the biggest streamers period and all she does is play/upload among us and rust. Then of course we have all the minecraft streamers too.
It's really up to you to decide, but I'd recommend going towards personality content since that allows the most flexibility.

Other Social Media (Twitter, IG, etc)

Lots of people here seem to think that they don't have time to do YouTube or some other BS they think up as an excuse, so they think that twitter, instagram, tiktok, etc are all ways to grow. Trust me, they are not good ways to grow.
These are all stupid treadmills that trick you into thinking you're doing something when in reality you aren't moving the needle by much if by any at all. Posting ten dumb tweets and reposting memes on IG seem "productive" if you frame it in the light of "content creation" but the two people that see all of these things don't really give a shit. Spend that time working on a video for YouTube.
Don't give me this "I don't have time" bullshit. Do small videos and work yourself up, become better and faster. Perfectionism is a cute word for procrastination.
Ok, now that I took a shit on them so hopefully, you won't grind on them all day, these are still ways to grow and are important. Having multiple platforms for fans to communicate and engage with you is always a good idea, but don't spread yourself so thin early on when nobody knows who you are. Prioritize the thing that will get eighty percent of your results.
I personally have a discord for people to come and chat in. Thing is, I had no intention of doing so because I don't really use discord that much. The only reason it exists is that people kept asking for it in the comments on my YouTube videos so I made one.
TL;DR: Don't put the cart before the horse :)
Edit: Oh ya I forgot to mention. TikTok is trash for growth. I won't mention names cuz that's probably toxic(?) but there is someone signed on luminosity who has 690k TikTok followers and 95k YouTube subscribers who barely cracks 100 views on Twitch and has a hard time getting over 1k on YouTube. So don't go thinking TikTok leads to immense fame ya darn kids

Hosting/Raiding

Getting hosted/raided means actual jack. I remember pretty clearly when I had like ten viewers, I got hosted by someone with twenty-five or something. I think only one person ended up saying anything in the chat to me about it and although some stayed for the entire stream, by the time I went live again I lost all of the people who were in the host. This seems to be something others have mentioned as well, you won't retain almost any views from hosts/raids.
Edit: Please do try raiding/hosting or otherwise networking with other streamers at least once. Your mileage may vary and it could end up blowing up your channel. Who knows?
Edit edit: Having something that you can do during the stream is huge when getting hosted/raided. Most of the time, if not all of the time, a streamer is ENDING their stream and sending viewers to you rather than timing it for your own content. So if you are doing something uninteresting or are in the middle of something you are going to get less retention than if you did something crazy to impress the newcomers. In other words, having a strategy for hosting/raiding growth is key.

Speaking on stream

This seems to be something a lot of people struggle with on Twitch since so many people ask how to do it when nobody is watching/chatting. Coming from someone who had this problem, the answer is pretty simple, talk for the content not the chat.
What I mean by this is you should be focusing on your content more than the chat. Since I play games, what I do is just say some shit about whats happening on screen and sometimes say something that is hopefully funny. Pick up a garbage item? Say something about how garbage the item is, ez.
If you're streaming to NO VIEWERS you shouldn't be streaming to stream anyway. What you should be doing is making a YouTube video in the hopes of getting viewers to watch your stream. The only way to do that is to have good content planned out that should effectively act as your script. Again, Ludwigs stream on this is good (it'll probably be a video soon) so make sure to check it out.
A more recent problem I've had was just how much I engaged with chat (suffering from success I know). When I went to edit the videos I had to cut large swathes of the video because I was just chatting to people. Make sure to avoid this when you are actually trying to get content out for YouTube as it can mess up the flow of a video and make it harder to edit. You still can chat with people just make sure not to go overboard. Again, Ludwig is a perfect example of this, just look at his videos and streams and notice the difference between the two.

Streaming as a job/hobby

I hate this dumb argument of streaming isn't your hobby or twitch isn't your job. You have 24 hours in the day, subtract 8 for sleeping and depending on your job, 9 for work. All that extra time can be spent doing whatever the fuck you want. Want to get big and make money streaming? Do work. Want to just stream while you're playing games anyway? Do that.
IF YOU WANT TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL AT SOMETHING YOU PUT IN THE AMOUNT OF EFFORT REQUIRED TO DO SO! So stop telling people it has to be a hobby or it has to be a job. It can be either for christ's sake.

Partner difference

I have a checkmark which makes me a better person.
No, but seriously, partner doesn't really do much other than add more emote slots and some quality options. Also, you don't gain extra cash as a partner either. I don't have the mystical bounty board or god-tier split, just the checkmark to flex baby.

Opinion on affiliate

Devin Nash made a video about how affiliate is a scam, which is kinda true but only for people with no viewers. Having the sub button is huge and even when I was small small, affiliate gave me a couple hundred bucks a month for no effort on my part. Patreon is probably better though, no lie.

Twitch "grind"

If you stream 5+ hours a day without making content that lives somewhere else please form a neat line so I can smack you all. People saying they have no time drives me nuts, but when they also "grind" all day AND say that, it makes me want to punch air.

1. Stream YouTube friendly content
2. Stop stream and edit content
3. Upload and plug twitch in the video
4. repeat

That is the only "grind" you should be on. Affiliate is stupid if the 3 viewers you have are all just you on a different ipad.

Luck

You know what? Maybe PewDiePie got lucky and that's how he is such a big YouTuber. Maybe early twitch streamers got all their views because they were early adopters. Or maybe these people only got lucky because they showed up and actually put the effort in.
There are plenty of videos on my channel that looked like flops at first. They got like a couple of hundred views and didn't do well. However, after continuously publishing, a whole bunch of them ended up blowing up and becoming some of the most-watched. Without publishing more videos they would have ended up dead in the water. Consistency > luck.
I don't believe too much in luck when it comes to doing very simple things (LIKE MAKING A YOUTUBE VIDEO) but you literally cannot win the lottery if you do not purchase a ticket, it's that simple.

Editing Software

A couple of people asked this so I thought I should add it here. I use davinci resolve for my videos. Previously, I used hitfilm or something like that I can't quite remember the name, but I had to switch because they don't allow you to have split audio channels (i.e. one for desktop audio and one for mic audio).
I've literally never touched any paid software like premier or anything because, again, I'm a cheap ass.

What should you upload to YouTube?

Seriously just look at Ludwig, smallant, DisguisedToast, literally every top Twitch streamer with a YouTube. All three of the people I just mentioned are over one million subs on YT and are top streamers, so they are definitely doing something right.
In terms of off-stream content, guides are king. If you're a small YT channel with ZERO subs you can still get thousands of views by hitting the search algorithm of YT. My first 3 videos were uncut gameplay, guide video, guide video, in that order. Guess which ones have tens of thousands of views and which has less than a thousand? Guide videos are insane for small channels.
Edit: Actually, let's just call it searchable content. Searchable content is king

Ending notes

I think that's about it for this post. Hopefully, I covered everything although I doubt I did. If you have any questions I'll try my best to answer them and will probably edit the good ones into the post.