Trimbath keeps banging the drums on FTD's but GME has very little FTD's going on. I do think FTD's are a big problem and they should carry consequences but I don't think it's the biggest problem.
The biggest problem, and the one most relevant to GME, is infinite liquidity.
If there is infinite liquidity, then shorts can buy to close, and then immediately short two or three times more and walk away with even more money. Why FTD when you can roll over your shorts, and just keep piling them on?
When it's time to close those shorts, you close them and short sell twice over again.
Then when it's time to close those shorts, you close them and short sell twice over again.
And then when it's time to close those shorts, you close them and short sell twice over again.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
This is how Citadel Securities traded over 964 million shares of GME over the past 3 years.
The way I understand is that FTD are a symptom of infinite liquidity for what they are unable to close out. When there is huge action and more buys are going on this is when they lose control and we see more FTD.
In the congressional hearing they even mention that infinite liquidity is just part of the system as they try to allow everyone to buy.
They have had years to learn how to hide their crime. It’s a mix of PFOF, FTD, swaps and probably much more that we have yet to uncover that allows them to hide it all from both us and the SEC. The issue is they have the tools and with both a hedge fund and a market maker branch are able to internalize everything in their system preventing outside eyes. Are there other metrics that we are missing? Is the Consolidated audit Trail (CAT) not enough and have loop holes we have not noticed. What about the netting system?
The only way we are able to find out and take away liquidity is to DRS. Eliminate the middleman and take back ownership