“Imagine” a market where there is one strong hand representing smart money and 20,000 weak hands representing fearful money. The strong hand knows the game of shorting stocks both directly (2 to 5% of float) and indirectly using put options 95 to 98% of float) and has been playing it for decades squeezing the weak hands. The ruse goes like this:
- They dump a large order of 50 million shares for $6 a share
- A few months later they sell short another 30 million shares for $5 a share
- A few months later they sell short 10 million shares for $4 a share
- A few months later they sell short 5000,000 shares for $3 a share
- A few months later they sell short 3000,000 shares for $2 a share
- A few months later they sell short 2000,000 shares for $1 a share
- At the end of this special operation (bear raid) spanning many years the strong hand would have sold short 100 million shares for $513, 000,000 ($5.13 per share on average) bought by some 20,000 retail investors who are now faced with two options :
- 1- Surrender to the shakeout and sell for $1 and realize your loss.
- 2- Realize you are the target of financial bullies fishing for liquidity and hold the line until short sellers get squeezed when the business cycle turns
If all hands are weak and sell at $1 the strong hand walks away with over $400 Million dollars. It is a big game that is why they can afford paid bashers spreading fear all day every day.