As probably everyone here is aware, the movie Dumb Money is coming out on September 22.

I just watched the trailer and have a few first impressions.

The trailer makes it seem like Keith Gill picked a stock at random and that it just happened to be GameStop, that it was just pure dumb luck. from the trailer: “Yo what up everybody, Roaring Kitty here, I’m gonna pick a stock and talk about why I think it’s interesting. And that stock is… GameStop?” His face is expressing uncertainty and it sounds as if he is asking a question, as if he possessed no real belief or conviction in what he was doing.

Throughout the trailer I get the impression that DFV is portrayed as somebody without much confidence, someone kind of nervous and uncertain. To me this contrasts with the actual videos posted by Roaring Kitty, I see a person who is knowledgeable, charismatic, and has a great deal of conviction in his belief in GameStop’s potential.

At the end of the trailer, Ken Griffin spills some ketchup on his leg. My immediate thought was that it was interesting how there was a scene at all that featured Ken Griffin with some sort of condiment. What could possibly be the significance of this in the actual movie that makes it worth featuring as part of the trailer? Impossible to know, but I kind of get the feeling like the entire point of the ketchup thing might be a deliberate attempt to obscure the infamous lore of Ken Griffin refusing to share his mayonnaise.

What are the true motivations for the creation of this movie? I don’t know. Is it fundamentally a high-priced hit piece masquerading as a dramatic retelling of a story that has apparently concluded? Maybe. Is it an attempt to rewrite history for the masses and deliberately omit key pieces of information in order to misrepresent the factual reality of what really caused the January 2021 GameStop sneeze? Maybe.

Will the movie mention naked short selling and failures to deliver? Maybe, but I suspect most likely not. Will the movie discuss the concept of the cellar boxing strategy? Not a chance.

If it’s anything like the trailer, it seems to me that this movie will be the story about how a group of dumb money retail investors drove the price up of a particular random company that happened to be GameStop, based on nothing but pure luck, excitement, and the desire to stick it to the short hedge funds.

All in all it looks pretty fun and I intend on eventually watching it. I don’t expect that the side of household investors will be represented fairly, and I don’t expect the true fundamental causes of the situation will be made clear.

I am kind of expecting the price of GME to tank as we get closer to September 22. I suspect that there will be many that watch the movie will go: “that was a pretty entertaining story about an event that happened 2 years ago. I wonder what the current price of GME shares is today?” Only to then find that the trading price at an all time low from January 2021, which would have the potentially intended effect of reinforcing in the minds of many that the whole saga is in fact over, something that happened once, it concluded, that only a dumb money fool could believe GME will ever soar to high heights again.

Despite that, I am excited for the renewed attention that this movie will give to GameStop and to GME. Dramatic stories, in the form of movies or otherwise, do have the powerful ability to excite people’s passions and there will certainly be some curious-minded people who finish this movie with the desire to understand the whole situation better and eventually fall into the rabbit hole and DRS some shares.

  • @[email protected]
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    121 year ago

    That trailer made me cringe I couldn’t even finish it. Like you said it kind of makes it seem like he by chance picked gamestop, when in reality it’s because he did lot’s of analysis and came to the conclusion it was a good investment. I think it kind of downplays his skill as an investor.