I don't really think he'll lose access, but they are absolutely in contact with the SEC and there is a non zero chance he gets charged with market manipulation.
It's also worth noting that if you own above a certain percentage of a company's stock, it's legally required to make your trades public.
Also interesting -- look at the trade volume during the big moves, like 3-June. There's no way retail investors are causing that much volume, especially when it's during pre-market and post-market trading hours.
> If that is the case half of the superstonks subreddit would have to be charged.
You could make a compelling argument that they should be. Superstonks doesn't just post their positions. They, too, try to manipulate the market by hyping up GME.
I would highly recommend "This is Financial Advice" by Dan Olson to anyone not already familiar with the community. https://youtu.be/5pYeoZaoWrA
This is an anon account so I feel safe to admit this. I used to buy into all of that stuff. Basically the (conspiracy) theory is that market makers sold shares in GameStop that didn’t exist. There’s an element of truth to this, at least during 2021 it was confirmed that market makers had collectively sold more call options than they could possibly hedge with shares. But regardless, in order to prove this everyone in superstore started registering their shares with a transfer agent. The number of shares registered was reported by GameStop every quarter. Throughout 2022 I think the number of shares registered linearly before it plateaued at about 25% of the public number of total shares of GameStop. I might be conspiracy oriented but I’m also a believer in science and to me this cast a significant amount of doubt on the theory. Anyways, it’s definitely not a parody and I feel sorry for people who didn’t wake up like I did. I think something like 200,000 people registered their shares, that number also plateaued. I don’t think the GME craze was good for anyone but the company itself and roaring kitty.
IANAL but what he is doing is very close to a pump and dump scheme, which is absolutely market manipulation. And as often with market manipulations, there is a thin and blury line between acceptable behaviour and criminal behaviour (for instance front running vs pre-hedging).
An investor talking up their book isn't market manipulation, but those tacitly coordinated efforts to buy an illiquid stock to artificially raise the price seem to me fairly squarely on the wrong side of the line. The only problem being the "tacit" aspect of the strategy (kind of like mafia boss "take care of him"). This guy doesn't give a direct instruction, but clearly everyone understands his signal as an instruction.
You're right that there is a non-zero change because of the incredibly corrupt nature of the SEC and the markets. Hedge fund owners and billionaires go on social media, Bloomberg and CNBC hyping their positions all the time, how is this any different? It's different because he isn't part of the club, and worse yet, he is costing members of the club money.
To be honest, he's done worse than Keith Gill, but I consider both to be doing a public disservice. They wouldn't post their positions unless they are legally required to and/or it benefits them. Let's see Keith post his positions before he takes them if he wants to help people.