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As retail panic trades most shorted stocks, a widespread outage of popular brokerage houses is being reported as the cash session begins. This seems to be the norm in the last couple session, preventing some retail traders from participating in massive squeezes of Gamestop and AMC. 

Downdetector reports Thursday morning that users of Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, E-Trade, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and Webull are reporting issues and outages. 

On a geographic level, users of Robinhood are experiencing problems and outages across the East Coast. 

… volumes are not extraordinary… so why are retail brokerages all down simultaneously for the umpteenth day?

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Two decades ago, General Tommy Franks – commander of the original US invasion of Afghanistan back in 2001 – was asked his opinion about a civilian bureaucrat named Doug Feith.

Feith was an academic policy wonk who, despite never having served in the military, was a staunch warmonger who was happy for other people to go fight and die in foreign lands.

General Franks was a straight-talking Texan who wasted no words in his opinion that Feith was “the dumbest fucking guy on the planet.”

Over the years of this publication, I have, from time to time, submitted some candidates for what I call the ‘Tommy Franks Award’.

As you can imagine there’s pretty stiff competition for the dumbest f’ing person on the planet, especially these days. But I feel especially compelled right now to nominate the World Economic Forum.

Traditionally the World Economic Forum’s annual event in Davos, Switzerland has been a pageant of wealth and power.

If you’re there, you’ve made it… at least in the eyes of the global elite; it’s nothing but billionaires and politicians. And in the past, the event was typically just photo ops and pointless speeches.

But lately the World Economic Forum has been much more active in cranking out horrifically stupid policy ideas.

For example, the Forum wants human beings (i.e. us peasants) to be conditioned to eat WEEDS and insects in order to save the planet.

The Forum’s founder Klaus Schwab also penned a book last year entitled Covid 19: The Great Reset, which pushes for a radical agenda involving Green New Deals, strict people controls, “solidarity” taxes, debt defaults, and more.

As Schwab announced last year alongside Prince Charles (who is totally relevant with respect to global economic matters),

“Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. . . In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

They’re not even hiding their agenda– they’re boldly stating that they want to ‘reset’ the economic system that is responsible for the greatest amount of prosperity that has ever existed in the history of the world.

And over the next few days, the World Economic Forum is unveiling more about its Great Reset initiative.

Yesterday they held a live virtual panel entitled “Resetting Digital Currencies”.

And, naturally they sought out the finest ‘experts’ in cryptocurrency, including:

• The CEO of Western Union, a company whose last financial innovation was when they put the Pony Express out of business in 1861;

• The Governor of the Bank of England, a central bank whose entire existence is the complete opposite of the decentralized cryptocurrency ethos; and

• Her Majesty Queen Maxima of the Netherlands.

Yes I’m serious.

Talk about an EXPERT panel!

Honestly it was pretty astonishing to watch.

The Queen started off with a completely incomprehensible rant about how the Dutch guilder was the original ‘stablecoin’ because it held its value for so long.

This is just totally inaccurate from a historical perspective; there were plenty of other stable reserve currencies long before Holland even existed. But I’ll let that one slide.

Later, the panel dove into the real meat of their argument: cryptocurrencies are bad because poor people in Africa can’t use them.

The Queen once again piped up, stating that “digital currencies [depend] on smartphones”, and because most people in Africa still have lower grade ‘feature phones’, they don’t have the opportunity to transact with crypto.

Wrong again!

Feature phones have been able to store and transact Bitcoin and other currencies for at least SEVEN years.

And open source wallets like Electron Cash have been available for even the most basic feature phones since mid-2018.

The Queen and her friends are totally wrong. Just about everyone in the world can use crypto.

But they continue to repeat these incorrect statements– I believe the technical term is “baseless assertions”.

They claim that crypto is not “inclusive”, which is code for ‘social justice’.

That’s total nonsense.

Aside from gold and silver, crypto is the most inclusive asset class in world history. Almost anyone can own it.

What’s not inclusive is the traditional financial system; there’s over 1.7 billion people worldwide who can’t access bank accounts or basic financial services– ironically, according to the World Economic Forum!

Furthermore, if they really care about ‘inclusive finance’, traditional currencies are totally not inclusive.

US Dollars, for example, are exclusive to the United States, a handful of dollarized countries, plus governments, wealthy individuals, and big corporations.

It’s not like some poor person in Africa has regular access to dollars. They’re at the mercy of their local currency, and however much the government wants to inflate it.

And in addition to manipulation and inflation, traditional currencies can also be subject to capital controls. Nothing about this is ‘inclusive’.

Nevertheless, the World Economic Forum elitists continue to repeat their baseless assertions about cryptocurrency.

In reality, they’re terrified of it, because cryptocurrency represents a rejection of the system that they control.

People aren’t stupid, they know they’ve been betrayed.

Corporations have betrayed them by going completely woke. Politicians have betrayed them by abandoning individual liberty and fiscal restraint. The media has betrayed them with its lack of truth and transparency. Tech companies have betrayed them through blatant censorship.

Trust is at an all time low. So why should anyone have any trust in the currency or financial system?

Crypto is a natural alternative for anyone who’s fed up with the people who pull the strings.

This isn’t about price… or even a single currency; Bitcoin, for example, has a number of flaws, though there are plenty of other promising options that still present substantial upside potential.

This is really about the concept of decentralization: taking power away from people who have constantly abused it, and redistributing that power freely across the market.

Some of the greatest advances in human civilization, from the Reformation in the 1500s, to the early days of the Internet, were based on decentralization.

But these people stand for the opposite. They love centralization and concentration of power… especially when they’re the ones in power.

Now they want to tell us what currencies we can/cannot use, which weeds we should be conditioned to eat, and how we should ‘reset’ capitalism.

Perhaps it’s the World Economic Forum that requires a Great Reset.

*  *  *

On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Two decades ago, General Tommy Franks – commander of the original US invasion of Afghanistan back in 2001 – was asked his opinion about a civilian bureaucrat named Doug Feith.

Feith was an academic policy wonk who, despite never having served in the military, was a staunch warmonger who was happy for other people to go fight and die in foreign lands.

General Franks was a straight-talking Texan who wasted no words in his opinion that Feith was “the dumbest fucking guy on the planet.”

Over the years of this publication, I have, from time to time, submitted some candidates for what I call the ‘Tommy Franks Award’.

As you can imagine there’s pretty stiff competition for the dumbest f’ing person on the planet, especially these days. But I feel especially compelled right now to nominate the World Economic Forum.

Traditionally the World Economic Forum’s annual event in Davos, Switzerland has been a pageant of wealth and power.

If you’re there, you’ve made it… at least in the eyes of the global elite; it’s nothing but billionaires and politicians. And in the past, the event was typically just photo ops and pointless speeches.

But lately the World Economic Forum has been much more active in cranking out horrifically stupid policy ideas.

For example, the Forum wants human beings (i.e. us peasants) to be conditioned to eat WEEDS and insects in order to save the planet.

The Forum’s founder Klaus Schwab also penned a book last year entitled Covid 19: The Great Reset, which pushes for a radical agenda involving Green New Deals, strict people controls, “solidarity” taxes, debt defaults, and more.

As Schwab announced last year alongside Prince Charles (who is totally relevant with respect to global economic matters),

“Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. . . In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

They’re not even hiding their agenda– they’re boldly stating that they want to ‘reset’ the economic system that is responsible for the greatest amount of prosperity that has ever existed in the history of the world.

And over the next few days, the World Economic Forum is unveiling more about its Great Reset initiative.

Yesterday they held a live virtual panel entitled “Resetting Digital Currencies”.

And, naturally they sought out the finest ‘experts’ in cryptocurrency, including:

• The CEO of Western Union, a company whose last financial innovation was when they put the Pony Express out of business in 1861;

• The Governor of the Bank of England, a central bank whose entire existence is the complete opposite of the decentralized cryptocurrency ethos; and

• Her Majesty Queen Maxima of the Netherlands.

Yes I’m serious.

Talk about an EXPERT panel!

Honestly it was pretty astonishing to watch.

The Queen started off with a completely incomprehensible rant about how the Dutch guilder was the original ‘stablecoin’ because it held its value for so long.

This is just totally inaccurate from a historical perspective; there were plenty of other stable reserve currencies long before Holland even existed. But I’ll let that one slide.

Later, the panel dove into the real meat of their argument: cryptocurrencies are bad because poor people in Africa can’t use them.

The Queen once again piped up, stating that “digital currencies [depend] on smartphones”, and because most people in Africa still have lower grade ‘feature phones’, they don’t have the opportunity to transact with crypto.

Wrong again!

Feature phones have been able to store and transact Bitcoin and other currencies for at least SEVEN years.

And open source wallets like Electron Cash have been available for even the most basic feature phones since mid-2018.

The Queen and her friends are totally wrong. Just about everyone in the world can use crypto.

But they continue to repeat these incorrect statements– I believe the technical term is “baseless assertions”.

They claim that crypto is not “inclusive”, which is code for ‘social justice’.

That’s total nonsense.

Aside from gold and silver, crypto is the most inclusive asset class in world history. Almost anyone can own it.

What’s not inclusive is the traditional financial system; there’s over 1.7 billion people worldwide who can’t access bank accounts or basic financial services– ironically, according to the World Economic Forum!

Furthermore, if they really care about ‘inclusive finance’, traditional currencies are totally not inclusive.

US Dollars, for example, are exclusive to the United States, a handful of dollarized countries, plus governments, wealthy individuals, and big corporations.

It’s not like some poor person in Africa has regular access to dollars. They’re at the mercy of their local currency, and however much the government wants to inflate it.

And in addition to manipulation and inflation, traditional currencies can also be subject to capital controls. Nothing about this is ‘inclusive’.

Nevertheless, the World Economic Forum elitists continue to repeat their baseless assertions about cryptocurrency.

In reality, they’re terrified of it, because cryptocurrency represents a rejection of the system that they control.

People aren’t stupid, they know they’ve been betrayed.

Corporations have betrayed them by going completely woke. Politicians have betrayed them by abandoning individual liberty and fiscal restraint. The media has betrayed them with its lack of truth and transparency. Tech companies have betrayed them through blatant censorship.

Trust is at an all time low. So why should anyone have any trust in the currency or financial system?

Crypto is a natural alternative for anyone who’s fed up with the people who pull the strings.

This isn’t about price… or even a single currency; Bitcoin, for example, has a number of flaws, though there are plenty of other promising options that still present substantial upside potential.

This is really about the concept of decentralization: taking power away from people who have constantly abused it, and redistributing that power freely across the market.

Some of the greatest advances in human civilization, from the Reformation in the 1500s, to the early days of the Internet, were based on decentralization.

But these people stand for the opposite. They love centralization and concentration of power… especially when they’re the ones in power.

Now they want to tell us what currencies we can/cannot use, which weeds we should be conditioned to eat, and how we should ‘reset’ capitalism.

Perhaps it’s the World Economic Forum that requires a Great Reset.

*  *  *

On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

GameStop’s surge over the past two weeks has prompted Citi analysts to warn investors that some ETFs are facing distortions due to an outsized influence from the video-game retailer as its boom has altered their composition and may force “ad-hoc rebalances and strategy adjustments”, Bloomberg reports.

As Citi’s Scott Chronert wrote, GME’s sharp move in the past month “has increased its prominence in a variety of ETFs. Users of the ETFs highlighted within, whether for long or hedging purposes, should be aware of the outsized influence that GameStop’s price action can have on their positions.” Citi also warned to “take special note of ETFs that incorporate leverage.”

The bank screened for ETFs with a greater than 3% exposure to GME and found that Niche Thematic, Equal Weight Industry, and differentiated, more concentrated Small Cap portfolios stand out. Among the ETFs highlighted are the following”

The good news is that “broader index implications are still limited” as traditional Size & Style ETFs still have somewhat limited allocations to GameStop. And while “most Small/Mid Cap indices are diversified to a point where single-stock impacts are somewhat limited” they still bear watching. Among the Traditional small and mid-size and style indexes with exposure to GME the bank listed: IJS, SLYV, SPSM, SLY, IJR, IJT, SLYG, IWN, BBSC, IWM, SCHA, PBSM, VIOV

In parting, the bank cautions that “rebalance dates should be considered when assessing the GameStop influence going forward” as “index rules around concentration may trigger ad-hoc rebalances in some cases or strategy adjustments.” FInally, the bank urges clients to “note the ETFs where GameStop has become a much larger allocation following its sharp move. This may significantly change fund performance and use case suitability until rebalance dates.“

Authored by Peter Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

Facebook has hired Roy Austin, former Obama administration official and a member of President Joe Biden’s transition team, as the social media company’s vice president of Civil Rights and deputy general counsel.

Austin used to serve as civil rights prosecutor and supervisor in the Department of Justice (DOJ) before becoming a deputy assistant to President Barack Obama for the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice and Opportunity in 2014. In 2017, he went into private practice as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis. In November, Biden named him as one of the volunteers on the Agency Review Team for the DOJ in his transition.

It’s not clear what will be Austin’s specific responsibilities at Facebook. The company didn’t respond to a request for further details and an attempt to reach Austin for comment was unsuccessful.

“I am delighted to welcome Roy to Facebook as our VP of Civil Rights. Roy has proved throughout his career that he is a passionate and principled advocate for civil rights—whether it is in the courtroom or the White House,” said Facebook General Counsel Jennifer Newstead in a Jan. 11 release.

“I know he will bring the same wisdom, integrity, and dedication to Facebook. It’s hard to imagine anyone better qualified to help us strengthen and advance civil rights on our platform and in our company.”

Austin’s appointment underscores the closeness of Facebook to the Biden administration.

Former Facebook associate general counsel Jessica Hertz was the Biden transition’s general counsel and is his new White House staff secretary. Jeffrey Zients—Biden’s coronavirus czar—used to serve on Facebook’s board of directors in 2018-2020. Austin Lin, a former program manager at Facebook, was on one of Biden’s agency review teams before reportedly being tapped for a deputy role at White House’s Office of Management and Administration. Erskine Bowles, a former Facebook board member, reportedly advised the transition team.

Hertz, Zients, and Lin used to hold roles in the Obama administration. Bowles served as President Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff.

Facebook chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, gave $500 million to election officials ahead of the 2020 election for measures such as ballot drop boxes and mail-in voting described as tools to make voting safer amidst the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic. The grants violated election laws and were distributed unevenly, favoring Democrat-heavy areas, according to The Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, a constitutional litigation organization.

Austin was to start his role at Facebook on Jan. 19, based in Washington, D.C., the company said.

“I am excited to join Facebook at this moment when there is a national and global awakening happening around civil rights,” Austin said in the release.

“Technology plays a role in nearly every part of our lives, and it’s important that it be used to overcome the historic discrimination and hate which so many underrepresented groups have faced, rather than to exacerbate it. I could not pass up the opportunity to join a company whose products are used by so many and which impacts the civil rights and liberties of billions of people, in order to help steer a better way forward.”

His referral to “underrepresented groups” raises the ghost of political bias, as the underlying reasoning has been tied to tech companies enforcing their content rules unevenly.

Facebook moderators were told, for instance, that prohibited “Hate Speech” against certain groups was to be left alone under some circumstances as long as it aligned with the company’s agenda, according to a 2018 memo to moderators working at Cognizant, a firm that at the time contracted with Facebook to shoulder part of the content policing.

“Anything that is DELETE per our Hate Speech policies, but is intended to raise awareness for Pride/LGBTQ” was to be temporarily allowed, the post stated, specifying that “this may occur especially in terms of attacking straight white males.”

In 2019, Facebook updated its policy to allow “threats that could lead to death” against those on the company’s list of “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations.”

Aside from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and individuals tied to Nazism, Facebook also placed on the list people such as populist commentator Paul Joseph Watson and conservative activist Laura Loomer.

After backlash, Facebook quietly removed the exception from the publicly available version of its policy, but this change was never communicated to its content moderators, and, in practice, the exception remained in place, according to Zach McElroy, who used to work as a Facebook moderator at Cognizant.

Facebook isn’t the only tech company that seems to interpret its own policies unevenly.

Google tweaked its products to promote what the company considered the interests of “historically marginalized” groups, according to insider documents and recordings.

The approach aligns with the tenets of the quasi-Marxist critical theory, which divides society into oppressors and the historically oppressed based on characteristics such as race and gender along the lines of Marxism’s class division.

Q4 GDP rose at an annual rate of 4.0% in the fourth quarter of 2020, missing consensus estimates of 4.2%; it was down from the record 33.4% annualized print in Q3. According to the BEA, the number reflected “both the continued economic recovery from the sharp declines earlier in the year and the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, including new restrictions and closures that took effect in some areas of the United States.”

For the full year, Real GDP decreased 3.5% (from the 2019 annual level to the 2020 annual level), compared with an increase of 2.2% in 2019. The decrease primarily reflected decreases in consumer spending, exports, inventory investment, and business investment that were partially offset by increases in housing investment and government spending. Imports, a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.

The decrease in consumer spending was more than accounted for by services (led by food services and accommodations, health care, and recreation services). The decrease in exports reflected decreases in both services (led by travel) and goods (led by non-automotive capital goods).

Going back to the Q4 print, some of the highlights were that Personal consumption rose at 2.5%, well below the 3.1% estimate; at the same time Core PCE rose at 1.4%, above the 1.2% expected while the broader price index rose at 2.0%, below the 2.2% consensus.  Disposable personal income, a measure that has reflected the loss of jobs and the influx of government stimulus, fell 9.5% in the fourth quarter. That compares with a 16.3% contraction in the prior period.

The fourth-quarter increase in real GDP reflected increases in exports, business investment, consumer spending, housing investment, and inventory investment that were partially offset by a decrease in government spending. Imports, a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

The increase in exports primarily reflected an increase in goods (led by industrial supplies and materials). The increase in business investment reflected an increase in all components, led by equipment. The increase in consumer spending reflected an increase in services (led by health care). The decrease in government spending was primarily in state and local.

As Bloomberg notes, in nominal terms, GDP remains $267 billion below its peak, reached in the fourth quarter of 2019 (that hole is roughly the size of Finland’s economy).

The number of Americans seeking first-time jobless benefits has been trending significantly higher for the last two months as lockdowns spread virally across the nation. The most recent week did see the number of initial colaimants drop modestly but it remains well off the lows (and well above the pre-COVID norms)…

Source: Bloomberg

Smoothing out the noise with a 4-week average pushed claims back to the highest since September…

Source: Bloomberg

Pandemic Claims rebounded significantly last week as ‘normal’ continuing claims limped lower…

Source: Bloomberg

Given the pure coincidence of sudden reopenings across many (blue) states in the last week (since the inauguration), it is possible that we have seen the worst of this labor market pain for now.

One day after TD Ameritrade implemented unprecedented restrictions on trading in GME, AMC and other massive short squeezes, on Thursday morning reports are circulating on social media that Robinhood is no longer allowing GameStop or AMC share purchases.

“Robinhood Removes GameStop, AMC; Puts Notice On Pages Saying ‘You Can Close Out Your Position On This Stock, But You Can Not Purchase Additional Shares’,” Benzinga reported at about 0830 EST. 

Users are reporting the same on Twitter.

pic.twitter.com/uXcCcortsB

— Derek Ross (@derekmross) January 28, 2021

There are also scattered reports that the app has restricted BlackBerry. Users on social media are furious:

In case it wasn’t obvious yet, they’ll do anything to prevent retail from making lots of money in the stock market. Robinhood just proved this by removing $GME, $AMC and more.

— Michael Handschuh (@mhandschuh) January 28, 2021

Is @RobinhoodApp really blocking $GME sales so these fucking hedge funds can cover their short? Disgusting

— Maeds (@Themaeds) January 28, 2021

Funny to see @RobinhoodApp promoting Finance Democracy whilst blocking people who are exactly exercising finance democracy from buying $GME, $AMC and $NOK. pic.twitter.com/fjkDcupZxT

— Derek 🇭🇰💎👋🚀 (@derekhkwok) January 28, 2021

Developing…

Wedbush’s Michael Pachter just can’t seem to get any love.

Pachter, whose claim to fame last year was being “hugely bearish” on Netflix while the stock exploded to all-time highs (Pachter has had an “underperform” rating on Netflix since 2017 when it traded at $68 per share), is now realizing that no one is taking his $16 price target on GameStop seriously. 

Pachter has been covering GameStop for 19 years, according to a new CNBC report, and says he is still comfortable with his $16 price target despite the stock trading at about 20x those estimates at the time of this writing. According to the report, he “knows his opinion doesn’t matter right now.” This, of course, prompts us to ask: has it ever mattered?

He told CNBC: “There’s not a single institutional investor who’s sitting back and waiting for me to weigh in on whether to buy at $300. We’ve long past the time where anyone who values my advice is involved in GameStop.”

“It’s just a feeding frenzy. There’s nobody in this stock based on fundamentals,” he continued. He noted that the volume in GameStop shares is what was truly incredible. More than 170 million shares traded each of the last three trading days, the report notes. There’s currently only 73 million shares outstanding. 

He has “never seen anything like this,” he said. “The guys buying it at $300 think some greater fool will buy at $400, and so far the greater fools keep showing up. It’s a pyramid scheme.” 

Hilariously, Pachter also covers AMC and FuboTV, two other names that have jumped 260% and 70%, respectively, over the last two days on short squeezes. 

The average GameStop price target among FactSet analysts is $13.44.