Friday night.

I find it funny how many Friday nights I’d stay home, just enjoying some alone time, and how much I want to go out and party it up now that the option is not available. Some think there’ll be a huge economic boom from all the pent-up demand when everyone finally gets vaccinated – whenever that may be.

Meme stonks took a break from being slaughtered and had a mostly fine day. Gamestop jumped from $51 to $95 before settling on $63.77. Heh. Perfectly normal behavior, eh? If and when it finally returns to its previous sub-$20 level, I’ll buy exactly one share, and ask my broker to send me a paper stock certificate thingy (whatever it’s officially called) that I can frame and hang on the wall. I want to look at it every day and laugh at the sheer randomness of that ridiculous week. (And yes, I recognize that luck was definitely a factor in my money-making trade. It always is.) Meanwhile, I decided to do a small experiment with stock options: I tried it once about four years ago, and I never lost so much money so quickly. Heh. I bought one small call for Blackberry for January 2022, with a $12.50 strike price, and it’s already gone up in price by 26% in the last 24 hours. It’ll go even higher if Blackberry’s price goes up. Just a small side-bet…

It still blows my mind how successful this investing hobby of mine has been. My hand-picked little portfolio has gone up by 164.5% since May. So wild. Combined with the pandemic, this makes my reality feel ever more surreal: two incredibly unlikely developments transpiring at the same time, side by side. How weird is that?

I plan to spend this weekend reading everything I can find online by Michael Burry (the guy behind the Big Short) and a fellow who goes by DeepFuckingValue on Reddit (aka TheRoaringKitty on Twitter). His name is Keith Gill, and just like Burry, he’d recognized Gamestop’s potential months ago, when everyone else thought it was a joke. (One could say that Gill was the prime mover for the Gamestop saga. Then again, if not him, it would’ve been someone else. The target was simply too big.) I want to learn how exactly they saw all that using nothing more than publicly available information. The two of them were the only ones to recognize the stock’s potential. (Efficient Market Hypothesis is a lie, kids.) I want to understand how their brains work – not unlike Sylar from the TV show Heroes, but mildly less creepy. I figure setting myself little weekend research projects on varying subjects (since it’s still below freezing outside) will help keep things interesting. Who knows, I might actually learn a thing or two, eh?

In covid news, the Biden administration is ramping up the vaccination campaign: the goal is to set up 100 mass vaccination centers around the US, and get up to 10,000 troops to assist. It’s remarkable what can be done when a baseline-competent person is in charge… Also pretty remarkable how many options a country can have when they have their own Pfizer factory. Must be nice. Here in Canada, there are still more delays. The exact numbers are unclear, but it sure looks like Moderna will send fewer vaccines than expected in the coming weeks. What’s worse is that this time there isn’t even any explanation from their side. Justin Trudeau keeps assuring everyone that all shall be well, that all the vaccines for this quarter will arrive by the end of March. It’s not like he has any other choice, though: put on a happy face and smile and nod. There’s nothing he himself can do: you can’t exactly bribe or threaten European companies with maple syrup and cute animals. Just gotta sit back and wait… Waiting isn’t even the hardest part. Not knowing is.

There are passionate debates about vaccine delays and timelines on social media. No one knows anything, so naturally we speculate on everything. (Gotta have a hobby.) I’ve made two bets with random online strangers: a $100 bet with one who thinks the phase 3 (aka free-for-all) vaccination will begin in June; a $20 bet with one who thinks it’ll begin in August. The loser(s) will donate the money to the homeless: there’s no way to enforce it, so it’s just virtual funny-money, but it’ll be interesting to get that automated reminder a few months from now and check to see how much has changed. As always, I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong…

Good night, y’all. I hope your weekend is fun and free of covid.