Wall Street Fund Wants To Hire r/WallStreetBets Users To Help Pick Meme Stocks (gizmodo.com) 27
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Cindicator Capital is the kind of investment fund that relies on software and algorithms to model investment strategies based on any number of disparate factors. In the wake of the WallStreetBets subreddit throwing hedge funds into chaos and driving stock prices to non-sensical extremes, Cindicator has posted a job listing on LinkedIn hoping to hire one of the Redditors to conjure up some unintuitive data points.
The listing, for a Sentiment Trader, limits its search to applicants who have at least a year's active membership on WallStreetBets and at least 1,000 of Reddit's goodwill karma points. Job seekers should understand probabilities, but "higher education in economics or finance" is disqualifying. "In-depth knowledge" of the language of the finance world and its mechanisms is required. The rest of the listing gets more esoteric, saying prospects should display "unbiased thinking that defies authority," and they will spend most of their time "on Reddit, Discord chats, and Twitter to feel the pulse of the tens of millions of retail traders." Additionally, "a refined taste for memes and a sense of humour" is essential. The salary is $200,000 plus bonuses.
The listing, for a Sentiment Trader, limits its search to applicants who have at least a year's active membership on WallStreetBets and at least 1,000 of Reddit's goodwill karma points. Job seekers should understand probabilities, but "higher education in economics or finance" is disqualifying. "In-depth knowledge" of the language of the finance world and its mechanisms is required. The rest of the listing gets more esoteric, saying prospects should display "unbiased thinking that defies authority," and they will spend most of their time "on Reddit, Discord chats, and Twitter to feel the pulse of the tens of millions of retail traders." Additionally, "a refined taste for memes and a sense of humour" is essential. The salary is $200,000 plus bonuses.
Government seeks anarchists for cabinet positions (Score:5, Funny)
As an anarcho-syndicalist whose goal is to destroy capitalism from the inside, I think I'm the perfect candidate. Also, I like memes about sherry and antique hunting.
Re: (Score:2)
PR (Score:3)
Whether or not Cindicator Capital goes on to hire any of these Redditors, and whether they go on to listen to the advice of any Redditors they do hire, they just bought them a lot of seemingly good publicity at minimal cost...
Re: (Score:2)
Good publicity? They plan to hire people to perform pump and dump scams for them.
My guess is they will keep their usernames secret so the idiots at WSB don't catch on.
Re: (Score:1)
WSB insider needed (Score:3)
In a 2 player game, if you're playing both players, you'll definitely win. Or at least that's what they think. Way to sow discord in a community though. "Who's the shill?"
You can’t employ such people (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Kinda where my head was here too. If they do hire someone, the system will beat the spirit out of them that lead to the GME craziness within a month or two and they'll just be another cog in the wall street machine. No way they'll actually listen to them or let them trade as they please.
A no brainer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
$200k is cheap to see if having a non-finacial person trade on sentiment and make money.
Don't they also generate sentiment?
I thought the bigger effect came from them leading/influencing a bunch of people on reddit, not their financial analysis per se.
Re: (Score:3)
$200k is cheap to see if having a non-finacial person trade on sentiment and make money.
Don't they also generate sentiment? I thought the bigger effect came from them leading/influencing a bunch of people on reddit, not their financial analysis per se.
My guess, from reading the job posting is they want to gauge sentiment and trade on that rather than create it.
There approach seem to be to trade on what they calculate is the market "sentiment" and use that to predict what stocks to short or go long in. It looks to me like a variant on the chartist approach and it will be interesting to see how well it works long term. It's interesting they want someone with no training in finance; the cynic in me says the reason is not they want an "untainted" person
Re: (Score:1)
My guess, from reading the job posting is they want to gauge sentiment and trade on that rather than create it.
They're not going to advertise for someone to 'astroturf and the manipulate market'.
It's interesting they want someone with no training in finance; the cynic in me says the reason is not they want an "untainted" person but that someone who could gauge sentiment and understands finance would demand a lot more than 200K
The cynic in me says the reasons are more likely that they don't want someone that knows the law, or they want someone that doesn't know what they're actually doing, or both.
As for creating sentiment, I suspect that would come close to doing a pump and dump so they'll stay away from that and simply make money trading
That's a fair point. I maybe lack the faith that they'd accept large profits when they can flirt with the boundaries of the law in pursuit of massive ones.
Re: (Score:2)
It's interesting they want someone with no training in finance; the cynic in me says the reason is not they want an "untainted" person but that someone who could gauge sentiment and understands finance would demand a lot more than 200K
The cynic in me says the reasons are more likely that they don't want someone that knows the law, or they want someone that doesn't know what they're actually doing, or both.
Fair point. Either way they want someone who'll work cheap and be easy to get rid of.
As for creating sentiment, I suspect that would come close to doing a pump and dump so they'll stay away from that and simply make money trading
That's a fair point. I maybe lack the faith that they'd accept large profits when they can flirt with the boundaries of the law in pursuit of massive ones.
True, but if you can accurately gauge sentiment and watch what other big traders are doing you could legally make a lot of money and, depending on how good you are at it, the amount left on the table simply wouldn't be worth the risk; especially since
Re: (Score:2)
Just don't tell them what the real traders make.
Hire me! Hire me! (Score:2)
I'll tell them to buy tons of RKDA.
Not because I bought thousands of shares, or anything. I just feel like it would be a good meme.
Translation (Score:3)
Memes are just a popularity contest (Score:2)
Back in the old days, there was Hamster Dance. A crude (even for the time) Web Page, with animated hamsters and a catchy wav file being played in a loop.
Because the site got popular, they made a new version full of flash animation and extended the song and gave each hamster personalities.... To a point no one cared, and it never got a Blockbuster movie out of it. (Yet?)
The Redit GameStop surge, was a blip, it just got popular for a little bit, then it became old news and it died down. Stocks were a bit c
How about hiring slashdotters to spot stupid ideas (Score:2)
Memes are a complex distributed function of social media, unpredictable and uncontrollable. You could know everything there is to know about memes and still be helpless to guess what will spread and what will die.
This job makes about as much sense as corporations and governments creating their own blockchains. Arguably the most useful part of a blockchain is decentralization, which becomes pointless when you try to own one.
Re: (Score:3)
If they want to understand memes, it is probably best for them to talk to their PR department..
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The point or expectation isn't to bat 1.000. Perfect is the enemy of good, or even decent given the very insignificant 200k annual cost.
Re: (Score:2)
And the job isn't to create meme stocks. It's simply to spot them as they ferment. Granted the observation may affect the germination, but the observation simply needs to adapt. Being a little bit behind is a lot better than being totally unaware.
Sounds like a scapegoat (Score:2)
Going to need at lot more than that compensation to pay for your defense when the SEC comes knocking accusing you of market manipulation.