It was a rough news week for people who wanted to tweet something topical but had no idea what the fuck the stock market actually is. I never thought I would need to know more than just the general idea of what stock is but I was assured even my general understanding was wrong. To stay topical, I asked someone to explain it to me, so I can sort of explain it to you, and you can explain it to someone worse. It’s like the telephone game where at the end the person says something stupid.
To start at the beginning we have an economy; we work at places that make us sad to get money to buy stuff that will make us happy. This is called capitalism. Rich people are in charge of doing capitalism and create companies to keep most of the money. But they got bored and created a complex system of buying, sharing, borrowing, chunks of the companies to each other, other companies, and us. They called it the Stock Market.
The company sells chunks of itself called stock. You buy a stock and now you own a chunk of that company, maybe? You must get a receipt or certificate?!
Stocks are worth money, any number next to your stock is how much it’s worth. If you had stock and it had a “1” next to it then that stock would be worth one money. Find a chart. Down is bad. Up is good.
When a popular person like Elon Musk says “stonks” the stonks say “how high”. When the numbers are high, it’s bull. When the numbers are low, it’s bear. You look at the graph and you find out whether your stock is bear or bull and then you decide to keep, sell, or buy more. I’m a libra. This sounds like a nightmare of choices.
When rich people hang out they do hedge funds. Hedge funds can do whatever they want because they are friends with the stock market. They love short.
Short is when they take stocks that aren’t theirs and sell them on the stock market to a sucker. Then they wait for the bear and boom, buy it back. They pocket the money and return the stocks they stole.
Reddit, a place where upset people go to be upset, got upset and decided to get revenge. Reddit bought GameStop. Gamestop was bad but it’s good now because Reddit. Now the hedge funds are losing and the rich people changed the rules so that no one gets to stocks. You get it?
Here are some loose words I wrote down, Nasdaq, derivative, go long, liquid, Mr. Jones, and portfolio. Plug those in wherever. Just be confident when you explain it and if it’s wrong, whatever. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful, I think the person who explained it to me had just had it explained to them.