Reality is worse than fiction : just imagine!!! Imagine a market scenario where there is one strong hand representing smart money and 2000 weak hands representing dumb money. The strong hand knows the game of shorting stocks and has been playing it for decades while laughing all the way to the bank so they play their chips this way:
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They dump a large order on the market by selling 5 million shares short for $6 a share
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A few weeks later they sell short another 3 million shares for $5 a share
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A few weeks later they sell short 1 million shares for $4 a share
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A few weeks later they sell short 500,000 shares for $3 a share
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A few weeks later they sell short 300,000 shares for $2 a share
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A few weeks later they sell short 200,000 shares for $1 a share At the end of this special operation (bear raid) spanning between a few months to a few years the strong hand would have sold short a total of 10 million shares for $51,300,000 at an average price of $5.13 per share bought by some 2000 retail investors who are faced with two choices :
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1- Sell at the current price of $1 per share to the strong hand who started it all and allow him to cover his short position for a total profit of around $41,000,000 (after fees, interest and commissions…) or
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2- Get smarter and stronger and keep holding until the short sellers are forced to cover.