I don't quite get how the market responds to option trading. So Softbank is buying a bunch of call options. Why is that pushing the market up? Is it just magnifying momentum because they exercise calls when prices go up and that in turn makes prices go up more? And then the opposite happens when it goes down?

We're having a big pullback on tech. Is it all or mostly attributed to this one company? If so, that's scary.
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Oops, sorry everybody.
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Get out of options! You're killing me!
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I imagine the entities selling them a ton of calls are hedging the bet by purchasing a lot of shares. That's probably pushing prices up. I doubt it's the only thing. A lot of new traders/investors are pushing money in too. There are always traders riding momentum too. It got going and went a ways too far.
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The Dow went up almost 3k in August so a pullback was definitely warranted. What’s interesting was this same thing happened in May. May 1st to the 1st week of June the Dow went up a similar path then stabilized and then came back in August.

I’m thinking this will be similar
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Sure. So Softbank buys such a large amount of calls and they do so from market makers. Market makers can hedge by buying the calls back, but that's not possible given the volume they're selling. These single stock calls just aren't liquid enough. So, they buy the underlying stock back as a hedge. But the delta of a call option increases as it goes into the money. So if Softbank bought 10 AAPL 50-delta calls, the market maker would have to buy 5 shares of AAPL to start. If AAPL goes up some amount, the delta might increase to 60 and then the market maker would have to buy 1 more share. That pushes the price up and increases the delta further to 70. Then he has to buy another share. Etc. On the way down, it's the exact same impact but the other way.

Anyway, take that to an extreme where market makers are short a lot of calls (i.e., something called 'gamma' which is the amount the delta changes as the underlying stock moves) and the market is going parabolic. It's made worse because of the Robinhood crowd who's been chasing returns left and right.

Hope that helps.
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I wonder if Softbank will reveal they have a rogue trader within their organization? That's some serious risk.
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Softbank is massive. This isn't a rogue trader situation. The article speaks to that.
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My email to customersupport@softbank.com must have worked. It seems they went back to buying calls as everything has turned around and shot back up.
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Next time give us a heads up before you kill the dip.
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BMO Bank of Montreal doing very well for me, plus a dividend payment this quarter.

Just bought BNS Bank of Nova Scotia 2.72 Div (6.36%) this week. And PNNT Pennant Park Investment 0.48 Div (13.15%)

Nice Green day for my portfolio after an up and down week.
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Here you go Rainman, Don't sweat the dip!


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Amazon is a good buy because this Plandemic wrecked all their competition. There's no more small business to worry about. It's clear sailing to a Monopoly.

And if you like Amazon, check out BABA stock. It's Chinese Amazon but with 1.5 Billion customers.
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DO NOT BUY CHINESE STOCKS

CHINA IS...ASSHOLE!
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IDEX is china
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