Tuesday evening.

There are other worlds than this. In another world, nine days ago another version of myself didn’t get retrospective about my failure to take Tesla and Bitcoin seriously, and didn’t vow to try and take more risks in life. That version of myself never invested in Gamestop after seeing it on Friday evening. That version of myself is probably mighty depressed right now for not having jumped on that opportunity. In yet another world, a far more aggressive and risk-tolerant Grigory sold everything on Monday and put it all in Gamestop. That Grigory made a lot of money but he probably also speeds in school zones, gets in fistfights with strangers, and might not be the best influence. In this world, here and now, I sold a fairly large part of my portfolio on Monday morning and spent it on Gamestop to see what would happen next.

In this world, I might be able to triple my investment in only two days.

Today, short-sellers never managed to drive down Gamestop’s stock price, as more everyday investors and more VIPs bought in and spread the word. The stock price went from $80 to $150 in one day. And then, minutes after the trading hours ended, Elon Musk tweeted a single word: “Gamestonk!!” Musk is the richest person in the world and has 43 million Twitter followers. Right after he tweeted that, the afterhours price of Gamestop rose from $150 to $240 (no, this is not a typo) as his legion of fans rushed to buy.

This is the end. The hedge fund that had tried to short more shares than ever existed will be done for. As far as I can tell, all of the short-sellers will end up having to cover: they’ll have to buy those shares at any available price lest they lose even more than they already have. It’ll be frankly phenomenal, even more so than today’s 92.7% price increase prior to Musk’s tweet. I dislike Musk as a person and I mock his continuous attempts to reinvent subways that would include poor people. At the same time, I love his ideas for space exploration and SpaceX. And with that single tweet, with just one word, he helped a lot of amateur investors on Reddit make their dreams come true. My opinion of Musk will remain complicated, but it certainly improved today. In a just and rational world, no single person should have so much power, to wipe out billions of short-sellers’ holdings with a single word. However, this world of ours is neither rational nor just, so it’s all good.

If I had to guess, I’d say that the population of r/wallstreetbets consists mostly of Millennials and Zoomers: everyone between the ages of 18 through, say, late 30s. Our generation suffered greatly in the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse. We got hit with constantly increasing college tuition prices. We entered adulthood only to be greeted by the worst unemployment levels since the Great Depression. We survived multiple “once in a lifetime” financial crises. (So that means we each get multiple lifetimes now, right? Heh.) And here we are. This is collective action. This is redistribution of wealth beating the elite at its own game by its own rules. This is the first of many strikes to come. This is revenge.

I can’t even imagine what will happen tomorrow… Perhaps this stock’s price really will hit the once-jokey goal of $420.69. Perhaps people will cash in their gains and it will slip back to merely $150 per share. Perhaps it will exceed $500 and get close to $1,000 by Friday, when options expire. Literally anything can happen now. Tomorrow, the funds I’d used to buy this stock will finally settle. As curious as I am to see just how much higher it can go, I’ll probably sell and take my gains: if this plays out the way I think it will, I will have made my annual salary (or more) in the space of just two days… There will almost certainly be some potential gains I’d end up leaving on the table, but no one can ever predict the zenith point. (Or the rock bottom, for that matter.)

I have this small and private ritual… Whenever I’m about to purchase some stock, I always say to myself out loud, “I accept the risk.” Whenever I’m about to sell, I say “I accept this profit.” This clear and verbal affirmation helps me put my mind at ease and commit to the decided course of action, much like you have to make peace with your subconscious and relax before you enter a hypnotic trance. The money I invested on Monday will likely triple when I sell tomorrow. It may quintuple, or octuple, or even more in the days to come – but I’ve done my part to help the momentum, and I’m not that greedy. If living in Nevada for 10 years taught me one thing, it’s that you haven’t fully won until you walk away from the table and cash in your chips. As one of my favourite quotes goes, “And never think about the past. No regrets, ever.”

In any case… In covid news, things are getting uglier in terms of the geopolitical vaccine situation. I wrote about Pfizer’s limited supply earlier. Now AstraZeneca is saying they won’t be able to deliver all the promised vaccines to the EU either. Obviously, no one is happy about this, but things are getting heated. Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn wants to stop vaccine exports from the EU to other countries until Europe gets its “fair share.” Right now, it is unclear how serious that proposal was, or how likely it is to succeed, but the very fact that it’s on the table is scary, and quite bad for international relations, now and later. It is an idea, and ideas can be dangerous, and contagious, and remarkably persistent. This will be one very ugly year, eh.

I hope y’all had a day that was at least 10% as awesome as mine was, and I hope you, unlike myself, will be able to get some decent sleep tonight. I’ll likely stay up late, reading, thinking, anticipating. Because in the end, I accept both the risk and the profit. Good night, y’all.