Short sellers notch $8.7B profit as SpaceX shares dip to IPO price

ChrisArchitect

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48938001

W-Stool

If you make money shorting a stock, who do you make money from?

londons_explore

Insiders who have locked up stocks but still want to sell could presumably just short the stock and take out a loan secured on the stock to get the financial effects of selling, without actually selling... I wonder if that's what's happening with ~$1T of stocks currently locked up...

godwinson__4-8

Interesting as some very prominent short sellers had publicly indicated they were not going to attempt this given the stock's "meme" potential and the "cult of Elon". Seems to have happened anyway. Good for those short sellers that committed. It's easy to speculate. Actually risking the bet when the market has a history of being highly irrational when it comes to Elon is another thing entirely. And the insiders haven't even been allowed to offload yet...

ck2

it is just so weird to me that nearly $9 BILLION can be created out of nowhere for nothing how can that be healthy for civilization

jacobgold

I completely understood the idea of Starlink and expected that it would be successful and useful, which it is. I've worked in data centers for decades now, and I am incredibly skeptical of the "data centers in space" sales pitch. It seems like an actual scam. Data centers submerged in the ocean or placed in the desert seem much more promising. But I have only an enthusiast's understanding of rockets and physics, so I'm genuinely open-minded to the possibility. Is there anyone credible who thinks this is a plausible pathway for SpaceX to make huge amounts of profit?

throwaway7783

Does anyone think here shortselling should be banned?

agustechbro

okay, but shorts have to take profits sooner than latter, so upside is comming

zugi

SpaceX has accomplished spectacular things in reusable launch vehicles and space-based networking. It will soon restore the heavy launch capability that the US lost when it retired the Saturn V in the 1970s, but in an affordable and sustainable manner. SpaceX is almost single-handedly keeping the US ahead in space. I'm bullish on SpaceX as a company in terms of technical accomplishment. Buying SPCX would make sense at about 1/4 of its IPO price. The IPO price and subsequent rise was inflated via hype and artificial supply restriction, i.e. publicly selling just 4% of the total company ownership.

sharts

“SpaceX has created 8.7B of wealth and GDP growth within weeks!”

nikolay

Well, that's a market economy, so deal with it!