Back in the 80s, I came from a lower middle class family and became the first person in my family tree to earn a bachelor's degree. I couldn't get loans (not poor enough) and my parents said "you're on your own...pay for it yourself ". The military was my only viable option so I did that and got out of school relatively debt free (~ 5k). I did get bags of groceries from time to time during holiday visits which definitely helped, but no help with rent, insurance, transportation, tuition, books, etc. I also worked 40 hours a week. From what I could tell, most of my college friends did get some substantial help from their family. No jealously - just reality.
Now it seems like paying for a kids education post K-12 is expected. Going so far as to tour multiple schools and let their kids choose their "favorite" (I went where it was close and cheap). And that parents are borderline abusive if they don't. Am I wrong on this impression? What do people think about this cultural shift that I seem to be observing? Or was that level of parental support commonplace in the 80s but I did not see it due to the socioeconomic peer group I had?

I own a rental and renovation business. I have a house valued at approximately $300,000 with a $180,000 mortgage. The property generates a net cash flow of about $600 per month after expenses, and I have a $40,000 HELOC on the house that I haven't used yet. Besides that, my liquid cash reserves are low. Should I use the HELOC funds (and possibly a business line of credit) to purchase another property using a DSCR loan, then focus on building up my cash reserves while paying down the HELOC as both properties generate cash flow? I'm struggling to assess my leverage risk, but I know I would have enough for the down payment and closing costs on a new property that would cash flow, leaving me with around $10,000 for emergency expenses, potentially more if I can secure a $50,000 business line of credit. I have access to places where I can live rent-free, which would allow me to pay down the HELOC and lines of credit more quickly during the cash flow process.

Hello guys,
Found out last week I’m gonna become a dad. I’m thrilled and super happy, but after a week of positivity, I need to take care of some things.
I’m 25 my wife to be is 24.
My take home is €2600 a month (this is base pay, I’m a Sales Manager, and I do get good commission, but some months can be without commission, so let’s just use that for calculation. Commission can grant me up to almost €4000). I work in Telecommunication industry.
My rent is €640 except when it’s a 5 week month, it’s €800.
-rent 640
-electricity 50-70 (winter)
-loan 100 (will be paid of in 2 months)
-humm 80 (will be paid off in 5 months)
-subscriptions 100
-broadband and phones 100 (will be switched to my employer and dropped to 50)
I need to spend around €1000 for a wedding (small wedding just couple of people).
I don’t think we’ll send a kid to creche as I personally don’t have a driving license, and closest creche now taking is 20km away, while she does have a driving license, I have no place to park a car, and car payment + Parking permit + insurance would add too much to our bills right now, and we live in a town center.
If my S/O decides to go back to work, my mother will visit to help with the child, and her aunt and cousins are in Ireland so they offered help also.
How much is: food for the child nappies Other things I need to worry about?
I will get clothes from my brothers children and a stroller.
I am planning of availing free college courses on Springboard+ and eCollege, particulary Business courses so I can get a better paying job. I actually do have BA degree in Electrical engineering but I don’t want to work in that branch.
I have free healthcare through my work.
My S/O is currently working, she doesn’t pay any bills. I just want to use my income, we are saving her money.
P.S I can’t figure out if I get anything from the government so I’m only calculating with my income.

I am buying resale flat in pune. Paid token and have registered agreement to sale with SD etc. Now I have to pay seller large amount 30L before signing deed. What is the fast/safe way to pay this large amount? I am paying seller this to close his existing bank loan. Can I directly pay to bank?

Hey everyone, this will be my first attempt at a serious post on this sub. I’m not exactly practiced in articulating my thoughts (I’m more of a fiction writer) so please bear bull with any mistakes and please correct me if I’m wrong. The last thing I want to do is spread misinformation, I’m not an expert (or a financial advisor) on any of this. I'm here to learn, not to teach.
This post will be the first in a series of me reading through the entire Diamond Handbook (2nd) and just commentating on points I find interesting or discussion worthy. I will be asking questions as well as giving my own personal thoughts based on my understanding of the events that have transpired. I became an ape right after the sneeze, and followed a lot of the discussions back then, but have been zen for a while so I haven't fully kept up with a lot of the new developments.
I haven't actually sat down and read DD in a long time, so I decided to give myself a refresher and actually look at the Diamond Handbook (2nd) for the first time. I had read a lot of these posts as they had come out, so I had never felt the need to look at the full PDF before. For the apes that haven’t read it either, I recommend giving it a read. You can find the full DD library in the pinned post of this sub, and the Diamond Handbook is the first one there.
As I have been reading it, I’ve quickly realized that some of the stuff is a little outdated. That can’t really be helped since so much DD has been done between then and now, but this brings me to the two reasons for this post. The Diamond Handbook is likely the first piece of DD a new ape will be recommended; I want to spark discussion to clear up some things that are misguided or outdated in this handbook. The second reason is more of a personal challenge. Whenever someone denies the legitimacy of the DD, an ape usually responds by saying something like “Well, read the DD and prove it wrong”. The average MOASS denier won’t do this though, in my experience they just think it’s ridiculous on a conceptual level, and won’t take the time to actually look through all the DD available and construct a proper debate. I can’t really blame them for this though, spending so much time on something you have no interest in doesn’t sound like a fun time.
But I have a lot of interest in this, and I am an aspiring author who writes 400K word fanfictions for fun. I’ve got the time and the writing willpower. I am very big into trying to understand how a reader will interpret a piece of my writing, so I’ll be looking through that lens and will be writing this with the assumption that you have already read the Diamond Handbook (2nd). Please take the time to respond/correct what I say here, I want to learn.
With all that out of the way, let’s get started.
​
The Mother of All Short Squeezes (MOASS) Thesis, Published on May 26, 2021, by u(slash)HCMF_MACEFACE
Before we even get into the meat of this section I already see a bit of an issue. A lot of the language implies that MOASS is imminent, take this section for example:

*“If you don't believe me, just look at the chart of GME which our DD (Due Diligence/research/analysis) has been forecasting for a while now. The below pattern has only preceded massive spikes in price, but this time, those on the other side of the trade are going to have a much harder time suppressing the price like they did in January and March. Thanks to the activity on 5/25, we have entered the end-game. The MOASS is beginning.”* 

I think most new apes will look at this, then look at the date of posting (three years ago), and think this is delusional thinking. They will say that MOASS did not ‘begin’ because it hasn’t happened yet. This would be pretty short sighted though, GME has always been a Deep Value investment, long positions are called long for a reason. ‘Buy and HODL’ is such a repeated mantra because that is the investment strategy most apes employ. Like most investments, it takes a long time to realize gains. Your retirement account will be growing for 40+ years before you cash that thing out, GME is my retirement plan so I don’t expect it to be much different.
Just because the sneeze happened in a week doesn’t mean MOASS will, in theory it should be a very long event as both the shorts and longs have a test of wills to see who caves first. However, the sneeze was the ‘beginning’ because it was exposed a lot of the fuckery that is going on in the market right now, I think that is the message that should be taken from this section.

*“These terms are key to understanding the theory and speculated value of a GME investment. Hyperlinks to Investopedia, "the world's leading source of financial content on the web", have been included for most market terms and concepts and it is recommended to check them out if they are not clear. We will be breaking down some of the more complex terms and concepts within the post and framing them within the context of GME.”* 

After the introduction, this post does a great job of explaining all the concepts of the stock market that are relevant to the MOASS thesis. However, I do wish it mentioned some other stock terms for the sake of new investors. Since none of the DD is supposed to be financial advice, I can’t really blame them for these omissions, but at the beginning the OP does say they wanted the post to be good for newer investors, so I think some more pointing in the right direction should’ve been provided. I do appreciate the link to Investopedia, but this DD is already a novel, and the average reader might forget about that link by the time they finish it. So an additional link should’ve been provided at the end.
The two big concepts I see missing are Options and Wash Sales/Stop-Losses.
Options are interesting because they create a different type of buying/selling pressure compared to just buying/selling stocks regularly. There are concepts like gamma ramps and stuff that can be relevant when discussing catalysts for price movement. However, options are pretty scary for most investors, I’ve only ever bought one, and forgot about it so it auto-exercised for me (lol), so it’s not a concept I would call essential. I just think it’s better to be educated than not.
The much more egregious omission is that of Wash Sales and Stop-Losses. Wash Sales are extremely dangerous to new investors who still make decisions based on emotions and are not used to the volatility that comes with GME.
If you are unfamiliar, a Wash Sale is when a person sells a stock at a loss, then buys the stock again within a short period of time. As an example, let’s say you bought a stock at $50, then the stock goes down to $40.00 and you no longer feel comfortable with your investment. You sell the stock at a loss. You lost $10.00 on this transaction, but it’s not all bad. When you go to do your taxes, you can report this $10.00 loss to the IRS. This is good because if you make a $10.00 profit off another trade, you now don’t have to take taxes out of that profit, since the IRS will see this as you breaking even in the grand scheme of your portfolio. You didn’t actually make any money, so they aren’t going to tax you for it.
A Wash Sale is triggered when you buy back the stock you sold in a short period of time, this can even apply if you buy a stock in the same sector. So if you buy a stock at $50.00, sell it at $40.00 then buy it again. That $10.00 loss you took can no longer be reported to the IRS as an actual loss. So when you make $10.00 on some other trade, the IRS won’t see you as breaking even, they will tax you on that $10.00.
For a stock as volatile as GME this can be very dangerous, I know people who brought in the peak, then as the price went back down they triggered a Stop-Loss (auto-sale you can program to trigger when a price falls), only to then buy back in when the stock dropped even lower, creating a wash sale that fucked their taxes.
We say “Buy and HODL” a lot, but I think the ‘why’ of it has been lost in the meme. I personally buy and HODL because averaging down is a lot better for me than accidently triggering a Wash Sale. I fucking hate the IRS and don’t want any of that smoke.

*“SPOILER: GME and \[Popcorn\] have tons of FTDs reported.”* 

I just kinda don’t like the mention of the Popcorn stock here, it has never been a deep value investment. If you are unfamiliar with the Deep Value investment strategy, please take a look at the old Roaring Kitty livestreams. In summary, Deep Value investing is defined by looking for stocks that are extremely undervalued and unpopular due to no fault of the company. These external factors that are making the stock undervalued can be anything, shorting, COVID, stuff like that. But what makes it a Deep Value investment is always strong management within the company. If the company is not mismanaged in any way, then it is very unlikely to go bankrupt, and will have opportunities to make a comeback. GME has Ryan Cohen leading, a proven successful businessman that has already taken precautions to ensure GameStop never goes bankrupt. Popcorn just doesn’t have that. It is very short-squeezable, but it’s not deep fucking value.

*“Short sellers must eventually close, or cover, their short position.”* 

Ok, but why ‘must’ they? This is another point I think has been lost in the memes. There are two problems with just saying ‘shorts must close’ without providing context. The first is the simple fact that there isn’t a due date. Unlike a common car loan or mortgage, a short position doesn’t operate on a time table. They can wait forever to close, unless they get margin called.
This next part I’m a little shaky on, I’m probably getting some things wrong here:
Ok, well how are they going to get margin called? The problem I see is that these Short Hedge Funds (SHF) are making a lot of money by selling naked shorts. It’s really hard to get margin called when they are literally printing money, and since they don’t have to report these their books just look to be filled with an infinite amount of cash.
So, there are a couple solutions to this:
1, Government regulation. If the SEC puts a stop to naked shorting, these SHF can’t print money anymore. Eventually the interest from their positions will eat them alive, and they will get margin called. Unfortunately, MOASS has the potential to destroy the economy like in 2008, so they probably aren’t too keen on just doing this without creating some kind of safety net. So I can’t really count on them to help, because the government has a vested interest in keeping MOASS from happening. It’s just not something I believe will be the catalyst. Although they might just do it on purpose given the right reason, like pinning the economic collapse on a scapegoat, or by GameStop forcing their hand by exposing the fraud somehow. I’ve seen a lot of apes hoping for one of these reasons to come to pass, but for me, I don’t see enough motivation from the participating parties.
2, A price run-up. If the price of the stock can unbalance the books of the SHF enough then they could also get margin called. I’m not counting on this either, since the price is manipulated by the process of naked shorting. Sure, they are digging a bigger grave when they suppress the price like this, but it can also help smaller SHFs with exiting their positions with OTC stuff. Over-The-Counter trades are trades made off the lit exchanges, historically it was intended to kind of simulate a transaction between two individuals, like buying a video game from a buddy off the books, no taxes, no regulation. Unfortunately, this is abused by institutions and can’t even be used by individuals, making dark pools of trades full of fraud and undermines the free market. Smaller SHFs that are more at risk of getting Margin Called due to their lack of collateral, can make OTC trades with the big naked-shorting market makers to ‘close’ their positions using fake shares. Of course, this only passes the buck so to speak, but it’s a viable strategy for them since the big SHFs that take on these ‘bucks’ are less likely to get margin called. A lot of historic short squeezes happen because a small SHF gets margin called, then drives the price up and causes a bigger SHF to get called, and so on until they’re all in the grave. This is why I don’t really give a shit if the price goes up to $80 in a week, it’s not enough, the buck has been passed. (To be clear, I don’t have proof that this is the reason for the uptick in OTC transactions, it’s just a theory. If a smarter ape than I can get on this that would be great.) But, even if a price run-up itself doesn’t cause MOASS, it may give motivation for the true trigger:
3, Interest Rates. Here is the big one that I look at, that I believe will be the true cause of MOASS. Now please, correct me if I’m wrong again, I am just an ape who dropped out of college. So, from what I understand a Short institution has to pay a certain amount of interest to the people they borrow the stocks from. This is the cost of borrowing and is how these Lenders make money. For a long time, the interest rate was at like 1%, this means that selling one naked short could cover the cost of the interest 100 times over. However, let’s say that the interest rate becomes 110%, sounds crazy, but this would mean that borrowing the share would cost more than the share. This would destroy the balances of the SHFs and ensure they get margin called. Why would this ever happen though? Because these lenders want to make money. These lenders are the real winners of MOASS, and they aren’t talked about enough in my opinion. Lenders can’t sell the shares they’ve lent out, their income is in the interest rates, there has to be a balance here between it being more profitable to lend the shares or to sell them. If Lenders start to think that lending their shares aren’t making them more money than the alternative, they will raise interest rates to make these profits until SHFs can’t pay them, then the SHFs have to return the shares, causing MOASS with the massive buyback, then lenders can just sell the shares on the way down. Lenders have a monetary business interest in causing MOASS, so they are the most likely cause of it in my opinion.

*“This is the GME MOASS thesis. GME is a stock that stands to hit an unprecedented price point due to the fact that manipulators of the market have failed to bankrupt GameStop thanks in huge part to the Legendary Keith Gill AKA* u(slash)DeepFuckingValue*, Ryan Cohen, and all of the GME investors who took part in this saga. It may not be today, this week, or even this month, but one day soon, these toxic participants have no choice but to buy the stock to close out their short positions.”* 

I don’t think this is necessarily inaccurate, but I think it’s misguided, and the language here is a bit to emotive for my taste. I think the reason the company didn’t go bankrupt is because of the strategic share offering made by Ryan Cohen to build up more cash than the company’s valuation (at the time). All the other stuff was just dressing, DFV and retail did not make RC do this, this move by RC is what ensured the company literally can’t go bankrupt, until then (and at the time this was posted) it was still a risk in my opinion. So this huge thanks feels kinda like a pre-cum celebration, and I've never really liked putting Keith on a pedestal, he's just an individual investor, just like the rest of us.
​
FAQ, Published April 12, 2021, by u(slash)BYE_TRIANGLE

*“Why does Holding do anything?”* *“They need your shares to cover their short positions! They got greedy. Thinking GameStop would fail, the short sellers started Naked Shorting the stock. Long story short they created synthetic stocks with their special privileges as Market Makers. But they can’t cover a short with a synthetic share. So because of the Naked Shorting, the Short Sellers, multiple large greedy money managers, and Hedge Funds need a total number of shares greater than the number available to purchase. THEY NEED EVERY SHARE, EVEN YOURS CONAN!”* *“aRe YoU GuYs MaNipuLatIng THe MaRKeT?!”* 

Holding does something else that I think is really important. It proves that retail is not responsible for the manipulation of the price. You see it in the mainstream media every time the price fluctuates, they say that retail and Roaring Kitty is driving the price up for the memes, and that the ‘meme stock craze is dead’ whenever the price falls, claiming that retail is selling. However, it quickly becomes clear to anyone with the willingness to research that retail holds. Holding doesn’t move the price at all, so they literally can’t blame this sub for the fuckery that happens.
Now, on the flip side, I know people on the old sub to buy and sell with these fluctuations, they did it during the sneeze and I’ve seen comments claiming to do it last week. I think this is why Roaring Kitty really had to speak to congress about this, because a legitimate-seeming argument could be made that retail was buying and selling at high volumes. The loss and gain porn on the old sub could be presented as evidence. Here though, apes hold, we glaze purple doughnuts.
So when MOASS does happen, the massive price increase will be only due to buying pressure from SHFs, so they are the only ones that can take the blame for what happens next.

*“No one knows how high the squeeze could take the stock price. The best rational reasoning says that these numbers \[500k per share\] are possible through the laws of supply and demand. Furthermore, it is likely that the Short Percentage is a lot higher than reported, with many suggesting that the short-sellers, cumulatively, need more than 100% of the float to cover.”* 

A lot of naysayers will claim people are insane for thinking that phone number prices are possible. They will cite that it would make the company’s valuation higher than the amount of money in the world, which is true. However, with the nature of fraudulent naked shorts being fake, the price is fake too, and the valuation of the company doesn’t necessarily mean that the whole float will be sold at those prices. Yes, it shouldn’t be possible, by all accounts it wouldn’t make sense, but it is possible due to the naked shorting. Also, institutions that own shares likely won’t HODL out for the phone number prices, they will sell when they think it’s safe, and when they won’t get in trouble with the SEC for destroying the economy. The infinity pool (the shares that will be sold at these prices) will be a small fraction of the total amount even among retail investors. So the argument that I see against the possibility of this doesn’t hold a lot of weight.
Keep in mind that even though ‘buying pressure’ moves the price up, someone has to be willing to sell in order for someone to buy. So as the price creeps up from $100 to $1000 to $100000 to $8675309 someone will be selling on the way up to get there.

*“Synthetic long positions could be used to disguise their short positions as well, the mechanisms behind this practice utilize the options markets and could explain some of the crazy options activity that we have seen in GameStop the last few months.”* 

So uhm… I don’t understand ‘Synthetic Longs’ at all. Could an ape with more wrinkles elaborate on this? From what I can extrapolate, this may refer to an institution purchasing a naked shorted share from someone else?

*“While at the same time they employed the use of social engineering to slowly depress the positive sentiment for the stock on Reddit and elsewhere.”* *“You may have been called a Shill for one of a number of reasons. This community is very inclusive and open to everyone, but because of the blatant attacks this forum has suffered a lot of people are understandably paranoid. (Myself included). Please, unless you really are a shill, don’t take it personally.”* 

I want to address this, because there is a lot of misconception about SuperStonk. A lot of people will claim that this sub is just an echo chamber cult that can’t handle anyone questioning the narrative. This may seem true on the surface, but I think the reality is just that we’ve become hyper sensitive to the social engineering the old sub fell victim to, and I remember this sub being attacked with that as well. So whenever we see a post that has extremely emotive language, we become skeptical and down vote it. Emotions have no place in investing, that is a common rule touted in even the oldest investing books, so posts that try to incite an emotional response are shot down. Apes aren’t about to be manipulated again. That being said there are emotive posts that still get upvoted, ones with positive hype-filled narratives. Since these get upvoted and the negative ones don’t that sometimes gives the impression of an echo chamber. This is because the facts do support the MOASS thesis, so a hype title and opening paragraph is just more agreeable with the facts-based narrative. Some people are just scrolling on their phone and don’t have time to read the whole post.
However, if you go into the comments of these posts, there are apes investigating the profile history to determine if posters are bots, regardless of the pushed narrative. If you look past the upvote counter, apes are very skeptical of any post that isn’t based in fact or harmless memes. The comments rule the post, and I have to say I’ve very proud of this sub for staying vigilant in the wake of Reddit restricting moderation tools.

*“Ryan Cohen clearly believes in Gamestop, to the point of announcing that he will be taking equity as compensation. In fact, as of writing this all of the new Gamestop board members are going to be taking equity as compensation. This is seen as an incredibly bullish sign of the company's future success.”* 

This is one of the principles of Deep Value investing, I wish this was elaborated on more of why this is bullish. This means that the board, and more importantly Ryan Cohen, is tying their individual self-worth to the company. Due to this tie, they will essentially ‘go down with the ship’ if the company goes down. This means that the board and Ryan actually have an interest in the company doing well, instead of having an interest in making money off the company. You may think this sounds like the same thing, but it’s not. If RC cared more about money than the company, then he could destroy the company to make money (this is what’s happening to popcorn), but by tying his worth to the shares, the only way for him to become richer is for the company to flourish.
I don’t really like the language being used here, stuff like ‘clearly believes’ ‘seen as incredibly bullish’ are all pretty emotive and doesn’t actually explain why these are positive growth signs for the company, they are just saying it is ‘bullish’, the average new investor isn’t even going to know what that really means. Even though GME is extremely manipulated, causing Technical Analysis to become increasingly difficult to depend on, the investment is still rooted in fundamentals of deep value.

*“Below is a shortlist of some of the potential catalysts people are speculating about:* 

-A Stock Split, or some similar move from Gamestop that recalls shares
-Gamma Squeeze
-Gamestop’s Q1 Earnings Call
-Some speculate Gary Gensler (Newly appointed head of the SEC), may make some move that sets things in motion
-DTCC rule changes taking effect
-Appointment of a new CEO”
Yeah… this feels bad man. I’ve talked about this already, but we can rapid fire down this list.
The stock split didn’t work out, since those in charge of distributing the splits did it fraudulently. Gamma Squeeze is the kind of thing that could trigger a smaller hedge fund to get margin called and cause a domino effect, but I’ve shared my theory of the OTC action. Earnings are nice, but public sentiment has always been more tied to the media manipulation than actual facts. Fucking Gary.
On the subject of bringing in new talent, I do feel like a big move will happen soon. We’ve already seen a lot of job offerings from the Corporate side of GameStop so this could be the next phase of the plan. I really think that RC has spent these last few years taking precautions to make sure the company can’t go bankrupt, the last thing he wants is to turn out like Toys-R-Us. A lot of downsizing happened, so now he can start thinking about upsizing again.
I’m not necessarily saying that these things can’t trigger the squeeze, but I am saying that depending on something to start it is just inviting disappointment. I think the ‘no dates’ rule has been sorely forgotten lately with all the hype and speculation around Roaring Kitty’s tweets and stuff. I am a zen ape, it happens when it happens.

*“First of all, it is incredibly important to note your potential biases when determining if someone is just a shill trying to spread FUD. Not all FUD is invalid, someone may bring up a solid point against an otherwise great DD, and that could scare you. Remember that just because you do not like what someone is saying, doesn’t make it invalid. It is important users here work with constructive criticism to refine their theories.”* 

Damn, wasn’t I just talking about this? This critique isn’t going to just be wagging fingers, this is really good stuff that still applies today, and from what I’ve seen apes are doing a great job of distinguishing between FUD and legitimate criticism. I also want to take a second to thank the mod team, especially after their tools were restricted, they’ve been a great help.

*“…but since then retail investors have been buying on every single dip in the price… That's more than two whole months of buying-the-dip. Now, I will not speculate on numbers here, if you want to know more you will have to read the DDs on that.”* 

This is pretty outdated now. Apes have been buying for three years now, and with the advent of Direct Registering we have a much better idea of how much apes hold. I can say with confidence now that retail owns a floats worth of shares. Since there is so much naked shorting, a lot of institutions probably own their own floats too.
I glaze those purple doughnuts, yum.
​
Citadel Has No Clothes, Published March 14, 2021, by u(slash)ATOBITT
Ohhhh, this one is special to me, I read it when it first came out, first time I was there on release night. Let’s see how it hodls up.

*“TL;DR - Citadel Securities has been fined 58 times for violating FINRA, REGSHO & SEC regulations. Several instances are documented as 'willful' naked shorting. In Dec 2020 they reported an increase in their short position of 127.57% YOY, and I'm calling bullsh\*t on their shenanigans.”* 

58 times. I don’t actually know how much that number has gone up, but I’m sure it has. I am reminded of an old saying, that if the punishment for a crime is a fine, then it only a crime for the poor. The crime being done to GME is class warfare, it’s nothing less.

*“$295,347,948,000 of that is split into options (calls & puts), while $78,979,887,238 (20.52%) is allocated to actual, physical, shares (or so they say). The rest is convertible debt securities.”* 

This is why I’m skeptical that it’s even possible for Citadel to get margin called by a normal price run-up. Let’s do some math here. GME’s float is at 232 million-ish shares, let’s say they shorted 300% of that, just to be conservative (lmao), so that’s 696 million. To take what the first post said, Margins don’t get called unless an entities’ collateral becomes less than 80% of what they’ve borrowed. If they use their entire $384,926,232,238 portfolio as collateral, then GME would have to soar to a price of… divide by 4, multiply by 5… $691.32 per share. That may sound relatively reasonable, but I don’t think a normal catalyst would be enough for that. I really think interest rates are the key, think about it, if they have to pay like 30% interest on all of those shares, their portfolio will be reduced by that much (kinda) and we can find a much more reasonable midpoint. Now brace yourselves, I’m about to spend an unreasonable amount of effort on something that is probably wrong because I don’t know shit about fuck about margins or getting called (I have a cash account and I lack rizz).
In order to calculate that we gotta do one of those double equation variable bullshit things we all hated in school, I forgot what they were called but I remember how to do them.
So, we have a few variables:
C = Citadel’s Portfolio = $384,926,232,238
S = Shorted Shares = 696,000,000
I = Intrest = 0.30
X = Price Per Share
Y = Citadel’s new portfolio amount after paying interest
So, X and Y are undetermined, but we have two equations to work with
C – I(X*S) = Y
This one calculates how much money is going to be in citadels new portfolio after paying interest, we calculate the interest by multiplying the cost per share, by the amount of shorted shares, and multiplying that by the interest rate, then subtracting it from their total portfolio.
Y * 1.25 = X * S
This one calculates the total amount those shorted shares have to be in order for Citadel to get margin called, by multiplying their new portfolio by 5/4 and calculating the total cost of the shares.
X * S has a direct value; we can plug the left side of the second equation into the first to get
C – I(Y*1.25) = Y
Now we just gotta isolate Y on one side of the equation.
C = Y + 0.3(Y*1.25)
C = 1.3Y * 0.375
C= 0.4875Y
C * 0.4875 = Y
Y = $187,651,538,216.03
Now we gotta find X, we can just plug in the other stuff.
(Y* 1.25)/ 696,000,000 = X
X = $337.02 per share for shitadel to get margin called on 30% interest.
Holy shit, now that’s what I call reasonable. See how much interest can completely fuck a portfolio? They lost almost half of their portfolio value to a 30% interest to this. This is why the whole market will bleed red on the run up to MOASS, they will have to sell half of their portfolio just to pay the interest.
Citadel is probably not a good example of this, since they print the naked shorts themselves... so they would be paying interest to... themselves... when they borrow them? Citadel is so fucked up, I don't have enough wrinkles for this.
But hey, I think the concept of what I said is fine. High interest rates can reduce collateral and cause margin calls. Hey, just out of curiosity, how much is the borrowing interest rate looking now?
16.5%
SHF are fucked.
​
Anyway, I’m writing this on a Wordpad document so I’m not sure if I’ve come up on the character limit, but I think I’m getting close so I’ll end this part here. Please let me know what I’ve got wrong or any insights you want to share, I’ll be sure to talk about any interesting comments when I do a part 2!
TLDR: I am reviewing the Diamond Handbook (2nd) and seeing what has changed in the three years since it’s been compiled. I have a bias in thinking that high borrowing interest rates are what will cause MOASS, and that is shown here. This is not meant to be an impartial analysis, just my thoughts. Not financial advice.

I have a house valued at approximately $300,000 with a $180,000 mortgage. The property generates a net cash flow of about $600 per month after expenses, and I have a $40,000 HELOC on the house that I haven't used yet. Besides that, my liquid cash reserves are low. Should I use the HELOC funds (and possibly a business line of credit) to purchase another property using a DSCR loan, then focus on building up my cash reserves while paying down the HELOC as both properties generate cash flow? I'm struggling to assess my leverage risk, but I know I would have enough for the down payment and closing costs on a new property that would cash flow, leaving me with around $10,000 for emergency expenses, potentially more if I can secure a $50,000 business line of credit. I have access to places where I can live rent-free, which would allow me to pay down the HELOC and lines of credit more quickly during the cash flow process.

I have a house valued at approximately $300,000 with a $180,000 mortgage. The property generates a net cash flow of about $600 per month after expenses, and I have a $40,000 HELOC on the house that I haven't used yet. Besides that, my liquid cash reserves are low. Should I use the HELOC funds (and possibly a business line of credit) to purchase another property using a DSCR loan, then focus on building up my cash reserves while paying down the HELOC as both properties generate cash flow? I'm struggling to assess my leverage risk, but I know I would have enough for the down payment and closing costs on a new property that would cash flow, leaving me with around $10,000 for emergency expenses, potentially more if I can secure a $50,000 business line of credit. I have access to places where I can live rent-free, which would allow me to pay down the HELOC and lines of credit more quickly during the cash flow process.

Hi all!
I currently am sitting at 109 qualifying payments (so I have 11 more to go). I’ve been employed at a public employer since February of 2014, but didn’t graduate until May of 2014 with my Masters so my payment period started in November of 2014.
In 2019-2020 I started working on a PhD (I work for a public University so I can go for free) and put my loans in deferment like an idiot because my old plan didn’t count for PSLF so I figured why not save the money? Fast forward to today and I’d like to buy that time back because my income in 2019/2020 was about HALF of what my income is in 2024, which means hopefully I could buy those months back for a significant savings. However I’m very confused about when to apply. Do I need to wait until I have 112 qualifying payments and then keep making payments until I get my buyback amount? Will I get refunded for any overages?
It would be a lot easier if you could give them the date range and get an estimate and then just buy them back without having to be so close to forgiveness. I’m just worried I’ll end up paying both the monthly payments and the buy back and then it will take forevebe a fight to get the funds back I overpayed. Any advice on how this works would be greatly appreciated because I’m very confused by the website on it.

My brother is the type of person who told his waitress, "I want this steak medium-rare. If you bring my steak out, and it is anything other than medium-rare, my meal is free. If my steak is medium-rare, you get a $150 tip." Not only did they comply, but they waited on him hand and foot. My brother is not in my life anymore, so I can't ask how he did this with his student loans. He decided to pay $10/month for the rest of his life. My husband was forced into school by his family because he was an unwanted child and they just wanted to be rid of him. He had to drop out to help care for the people who were dumping him off at school. Now he has $9k in student loans that we will never be able to pay off. How do we do what my brother did?

I am moving to a new city for a Masters program. Ideally I would have signed a tenancy agreement already but I have been holding off because applications for Postgraduate Master’s Loans from SFE are not open yet.
I have checked guidance and I should be accepted for a Master’s Loan but I am scared to commit to signing a tenancy agreement in case I am not.
Is it normal to sign a tenancy agreement before student finance has been confirmed?

The vipassana training is a great offering to the world and the visions and contributions of Goenka-ji are beyond wonderful. People who serve here out of dharma service and their willingness to help are admirable.
However, as a participant of the training, I’d sadly have to give a poor review. Whether the course is free or not, or the meditation technique itself has nothing to do with these feedbacks.
The way the training is structured is more like a military training than a learning experience. There are a long list of rules including no phones, no books, no journaling, no exercises etc., while I appreciate some of the rules like noble silence which helps attendants focus inwards, all other rules are rigid beyond reasoning. There, in my opinion, must be a middle way. Also I believe these should be suggestions or advices rather than rules. Goenka spoke so much about blind devotion this is kind of hypocritical.
I am not sure if this is universal across all Goenka’s centres however the people running this centre near Barcelona are like slaves to these rules, without ANY discernment. Speaking of attachment! You are not allowed to exercise, you are not allowed to skip meals or a dharma talk, or walk outside at this time. I felt like I was in a concentration camp where every move is being monitored. The manager came to my bed to ask why I am not having breakfast, and said I am not allowed to fast. I found this so ridiculous! I chose to listen to my body need, I don’t eat when I am not hungry. Then I had to go to the teacher to explain why i skipped breakfast! Man we are not in the kindergarten!
Honestly they are so rigid to following the rules I think they are just sheep attached to the idea of having control over people in the group rather than wishing the best for everyone’s learning process and seeing each person’s needs as they are, and accept each one has different needs. This entirely makes the whole experience torturous, and prison-like. If the goal of awakening/enlightenment is to see through the illusion and become the true self, I believe blindly following rules others impose on you without critical thinking is a huge obstacle. Since when exercising interfere with meditation? Yogis have been practicing asana for centuries to aid meditation. There must be some sort of explanation to these rules sadly these are not explained at all. I think they completely miss the plot. This is not the type of Sangha I want to practice with. Everyone behaved like sheep in there.
Everyone seems to be bowing down to the teacher Victoria whom I have no idea who she is and where this superiority comes from? Not to disrespect her but there was no prior communications about having a teacher and who this teacher is. The way I was told to interact with her was like asking me to meet the queen, look at her all the time and sit like this and that etc. Every little thing even non meditation issue has to go through her which I found ridiculous! Unfortunately, as a dharma teacher herself she has very little to no skill to hold space for my concerns. She sits on her dharma throne trying to fake compassion and brushes off whatever I had to say is the worst kind of compassion. She even told me I had signed an agreement to listen to everything she said, I had no idea where I signed this but this is so unbelievable coming directly from a dharma teacher. So much attachment to rules and her inflated superiority, so little equanimity and compassion and love.
regarding the Goenka’s material, I honestly think l it can be improved so much! I admire what this man has done to the world but man, precise communication is not his thing! He keeps on looping through same ideas with his word salad and fluff, some of the discourses are great but most of them are redundant! He could have covered so much more Buddha’s teaching in those 15 hours but it was literally the same ideas everyday. I have studied Buddha’s teaching for around 2 years now and I regret I didn’t learn anything new in this 10 day intensive course. The vipassana instructions are tedious and redundant, the off pitch chanting is a huge test to my equanimity! if I were to record some materials and use them globally for 30 plus years, I would put my effort to script it to perfection.
The female dorm is claustrophobic, with bunk beds facing each other where the space between can only fit one person. One person snores the whole dorm can’t sleep.
I hate to have to provide a bad review, i sincerely hope more people can benefit from this technique to step into mindfulness. If you want to rough it through 10 intensive days striping off all your freedom, repeatedly listening to Goenka’s off pitch chanting and 60% redundant and tedious vipassana instructions, this is THE place to develop equanimity. Otherwise there are better places to learn how to meditate!

Hi Everyone,
I’m in a fortunate but challenging position and could really use some advice from this community. This decision is eating at me!
Here are my two options:

1. HBS with Deloitte Sponsorship: Deloitte will cover my tuition at Harvard Business School, but I would need to return to Deloitte after graduation.
2. T15 School with Full Ride Scholarship and Potential MBB Offers: I’ve secured a full ride to a T15 school (think Tuck, Yale, Ross, Fuqua, Darden) and have two interviews guaranteed with MBB firms so far (through pre-MBA programs like BASE, Empower, Inspire). And based on my email exchanges with a recruiter, I believe I'm likely to secure a McKinsey interview as well. I'm very confident in my casing ability and think I can secure an offer as I've already been casing the last month.

Additionally, I technically could forego the Deloitte sponsorship and still go for MBB from HBS, but then I'd be on the hook for $200K in tuition and living expenses, and I’m not keen on taking on loans at insane interest rates. I'm not really considering this option.
Pros and Cons I’ve Considered:
HBS with Deloitte Sponsorship:
Pros:

• Harvard’s unparalleled prestige and extensive alumni network.
• Financial support from Deloitte, reducing my financial burden.
• Job security with Deloitte post-MBA.

Cons:

• Obligation to return to Deloitte, limiting immediate career flexibility.
• Potentially missing out on MBB opportunities right after graduation.

T15 with Full Ride and Potential MBB Offers:
Pros:

• Full ride scholarship means graduating debt-free.
• Strong potential for landing a role at an MBB firm, given my interview progress and preparation.
• No return commitment, allowing for career flexibility.
• Strong alumni network from both the T15 school and potentially from an MBB firm.

Cons:

• T15 schools, while excellent, don’t have the same universal recognition as HBS.
• The MBB offers are not guaranteed yet, though prospects look good.

Foregoing Deloitte Sponsorship and Attending HBS:
Pros:

• Harvard’s unparalleled prestige and extensive alumni network.
• Flexibility to pursue MBB or any other opportunities post-MBA.

Cons:

• $200K in tuition and living expenses, leading to significant debt.
• High-interest rates on loans.

Given the likelihood of securing MBB interviews and my confidence in my casing abilities, I’m strongly leaning towards the T15 option. The financial freedom and the potential opportunity to work at an MBB firm seem incredibly appealing. But turning HBS is hard and I also recognize the lifetime value of an HBS degree and the network that comes with it.
Questions for the Community:

1. How significant is the HBS brand compared to an MBB brand in the long run?
2. Are there any long-term career advantages to choosing HBS and Deloitte that I might be overlooking?
3. Has anyone here made a similar decision? What was your experience like?

I’d appreciate any insights, experiences, or advice you can share. I have to make a decision very soon as the interview for Bain is approaching. Thanks in advance!

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I have been using them more and more recently as BlockFi keep reducing their interest rates / limits.
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