BC BUSINESS
Saved by @ThomassRichards

The Mother of All Squeezes

How Volkswagen went from being on the brink of bankruptcy to the most valuable company in the world in two days

/THREAD/

 1/ At the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, Volkswagen was considered a very likely candidate for bankruptcy.

Heavily indebted and already financially struggling before 2008, with car sales expected to plummet due to the ongoing global crisis.
2/ With GM and Chrysler filing for bankruptcy in 2009, shorting the VW stock would seem a safe bet.

If you are not familiar with stock shorts and short squeezes check my thread below.

https://t.co/ABGshetm9x
3/ On October 26, 2008, Porsche announced it had increased its stake at VW from 30% to 74%.

This was a surprise to many who were led to believe that Porsche wasn't planning a takeover of VW, based on the company's announcements.
4/ Before the announcement, the short interest was approximately 13% of the outstanding shares, a number considered relatively low.

Porsche had a 30% stake, the Lower Saxony government fund held 20% of the shares, and another 5% was held by index funds.
5/ Due to VW's high weighting in the German index (DAX), the VW stock comprised 17% of the total index at the time.

This left 45% of the available shares to cover for the 13% of short shares.

However, with Porsche acquiring an additional 44% the outstanding shares were only 1%.
6/ Porsche in their statement said that they “decided to make this announcement after it became clear that there are by far more short positions in the market than expected.”
7/ They added that “the disclosure should give so-called short-sellers, meaning financial institutions which have betted or are still betting on a falling share price in Volkswagen, the opportunity to settle their relevant positions without rush and without facing major risks.”.
8/ This triggered a panic among short-sellers trying to rush to the exits, after Porsche's announcement on a Sunday with markets closed.

Due to the short squeeze, VW's stock rose 66% on Monday and skyrocketed to more than $1,000 on Tuesday.
9/ At that moment, VW was valued at a market cap exceeding $420 billion, surpassing Exxon Mobil and Microsoft.

In a single day, it became the most valuable company in the world.
10/ However, on Wednesday, Porsche provided 5% of its shares to the short-sellers, bringing the price down by 50%.

By December, it had returned to its normal levels, in the mid-200s.
11/ This trade shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with Porsche's activities.

The company was basically a hedge fund selling luxurious cars on the side.

In 2007, 3/4 of the company's profits were from trading derivatives and the rest from selling cars.
12/ From the 2008 VW squeeze, Porsche profited by more than $8 billion, with its CEO, Wendelin Wiedeking, pocketing a $100 million bonus.

The hedge funds that were involved in shorting the VW stock incurred collective losses exceeding $30 billion.

/END/
If you liked this thread click below and retweet the first tweet, and follow to stay updated.

https://t.co/rahchSIXcC
For more educational threads on financial independence and investing for beginners see below for a collection of threads 👇👇👇

https://t.co/eRwAf5k7oe

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If you want to become financially independent and don't know where to start, here is a thread that will help you get started

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This year I started writing daily on Twitter about finance and investing and gained more than 500 followers in 2 weeks

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/THREAD/

1. Brand
You need to find a niche you are interested in and focus on it
E.g. finance, fashion, travel, etc.

Adjust your profile by adding a profile picture and banner that will show someone what your profile is about and why they should follow you.

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1/ On January 24, 1848, a carpenter named James W. Marshall discovered gold at John Sutter's Mill in Coloma California (close to present-day Sacramento), where he was employed.

Californian residents were the first to rush into the area in late 1848.


2/ By 1849, the word had spread around the world with almost 100,000 gold-seekers and merchants immigrating to California from across the US and abroad, being named forty-niners.

By 1855 the number reached 300,000. It was the biggest immigration movement at the time.


3/ The gold influx into the money supply system rejuvenated the country's economy giving statehood to California.

The rise in population led to an expansion in various sectors, such as agriculture, ranching, and merchandising.


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Isaac Newton: A brilliant scientist, a terrible investor

How Issac Newton lost $4 million due to the first stock market bubble in history and insider trading

/THREAD/


1/ Sir Isaac Newton is considered one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution.

He was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author.

2/ The most prominent part of his work was the formulation of the laws of motion and the law of gravity.

However, his most prominent failure was losing an entire fortune in the first stock market bubble in history, the South Sea Company in 1720.


3/ Newton was usually a cautious investor.

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4/ Newton began in 1720 with stocks and bonds worth approximately £32,000 (close to $6-million in current U.S. dollars).
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Tulips, the #Bitcoin of the 17th century

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/THREAD/


1/ During the beginning of the 1630s in the Netherlands, tulips were difficult to cultivate and preserve.

This made them a luxury good reserved for the rich and affluent of the upper class living in mansions with big gardens.


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GREG ISENBERG
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I interviewed 5 billionaires this week

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A startup idea isn't "one" idea

It's a 10000 ideas, 100,000 decisions and 1,000,000 headaches

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So I tried to explain the GameStop situation to some of my students using Pokémon. And I think what I said is mostly true so I figured I would share here (A thread)
#GameStop

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A solo media founder like Rogan or Mr Beast can make as much money as a strong tech founder, with significantly less managerial stress.

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The process of converting social influencers into media founders (a trend that has been going on for 10+ years at this point) will be increasingly streamlined.

V1 is link-in-bio, Substack, and sponcon.

V2 likely involves more angels & tokenization a la @tryrollhq. What else?

Why lack of awareness? Influencer monetization numbers are not as public as tech numbers.

There isn’t a TechCrunch & CrunchBase for media founders, chronicling the valuations of influencers.

But that’d be quite valuable. If you are interested in doing this, please DM with demo.
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Good news everyone, Jay Hoag gave us the simple 5 point playbook for finding Magical Companies in consumer technology.

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Thread:
An explosive new criminal complaint against Martin Inacker, the former CEO of @wpmeurocom in #Germany shows Inacker potentially double crossing his #Saudi clients by colluding with #Qatar to cover up Doha's #Hezbullah's sponsorship in exchange for hush money.


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Wracając do sedna dzisiejszego zamieszania z artykułem autosportu / motorsportu. Kubica mówi w nim, że podejmie swoją decyzję w ciągu kilku dni. Rozważa opcję z Williamsem lub posadę kierowcy symulatora w Ferrari. Więc za kilka dni dowiemy się co go czeka za rok. #F1PL

Autosport / motorsport zmienił nagłówek swoje tekstu, bo pierwotnie sugerował on że Kubica jest numerem jeden na liście Williamsa na tytuł mówiący tylko tym, że nadal jest na liście kandydatów. Zrobili to po interwencji zespołu. Same wypowiedzi Kubicy z wywiadu się nie zmieniły.

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Nanganallur Anjaneya Temple
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Bhaktha Anjaneya temple at Nanganallur in Chennai is one among tallest Anjaneyar Vigraham. Here Anjaneyar blesses with relief to all illness. Vigraham is about 32 feet height made of single  stone.
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Sri Vishwaroopa Aadhivyathihara Baktha Anjaneya Swamy.

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Jai Sri Ram
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Some ofthe biggest breakouts occur after Volatility Contraction, the analogy is that more a spring is pressed, higher it jumps whenever it gets released.

There is a VCP Scanner on chartink (Not mine). This may also be used to find potential Breakouts.
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Important paper from Google on large batch optimization. They do impressively careful experiments measuring # iterations needed to achieve target validation error at various batch sizes. The main "surprise" is the lack of surprises. [thread]

https://t.co/7QIx5CFdfJ


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Master Thread of all my threads!

Hello!! 👋

• I have curated some of the best tweets from the best traders we know of.

• Making one master thread and will keep posting all my threads under this.

• Go through this for super learning/value totally free of cost! 😃

1. 7 FREE OPTION TRADING COURSES FOR


2. THE ABSOLUTE BEST 15 SCANNERS EXPERTS ARE USING

Got these scanners from the following accounts:

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2. @sanjufunda
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4. Curated tweets on HOW TO SELL STRADDLES.

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