It's been a while since I did this, but last time I transferred shares from one brokerage to another, it took several days.
It seems to me that if you are holding GME, the last possible thing you want is being stuck in a position for a while.
For this particular case, it might be a better choice is to liquidate your position, cash out and just open another brokerage account. I know this is the total opposite of what the WSBs are looking for but the alternative is transferring a position with $50k and when you can trade again its only worth $500.
I've transferred to and from multiple financial and brokerage firms including crypto and have never been charged a fee. Not one dollar. Robinhood is charging $75.
*As others have mentioned, this is an ACAT not just ACH transfers. ACATS usually have fees. I also have done an ACAT but it was by chance that it was with one of the three companies listed in the link with $0 fees.
Etrade charges the same $75 fee for total account closure, but i think the fee for ACATs without closing the account is lower. It's not entirely uncommon to screw customers already severing ties with their brokerage, but the receiving brokerage is usually happy to cover it or throw you some other bone to incentivize you.
Anecdotal reports are pointing to this being very true.
People who opt to transfer shares are going to be locked out of trading them for days, maybe weeks.
When the GME stock comes crashing down (it will), you don’t want to be locked out of selling. Despite what the memes are saying, you won’t come out on top by holding the stock forever (while everyone else sells)
Further, at the moment there are still 62m outstanding short positions (with 71m yesterday). However, there was only 50m (likely revolving) trading volume today on GME.
Honestly, it looks like the redditors are going to successfully cause a squeeze.
WallStreetBets is a heavily moderated subreddit. They remove any posts or comments that don’t toe the line.
Make no mistake, it’s a pump-and-dump group. They’ve been honing the narrative and it finally triggered all the right points to go viral.
This idea that Redditors are only hurting hedge funds is completely false at this point. They’re also going to be taking a lot of money from each other on the way down.
None of them have any gains until they press the sell button.
The early buyers will probably sell a little bit to lock in profits. This drives the price down. They’ll then go on to social media and pump GameStop everywhere with memes and stories about taking down Wall Street. This brings in new money to pump the price back up.
This is what they’re already doing: Pumping the stock to bring in new money, which they collect by selling the new entrants some of their shares. The new entrants catch on to the game and start recruiting more people to pump the price further, and so on.
Eventually people realize this can’t go on forever. New entrants might see their value drop 50% as old entrants cash out. They’ll panic and sell everything, which triggers more people to panic and sell, which drives the price down.
Some will try to buy the dip, but eventually the pump will run out of steam and new players will get tired of bleeding money for a mythical “infinity squeeze” that never happens.
> New entrants might see their value drop 50% as old entrants cash out.
New entrants are the bag-holders. The ones left holding the bag after everyone has pulled the money out.
Actually the bag holders are likely anyone foolish enough to try and transfer GME to another brokerage and ends up watching the share price plunge while they wait for them to show up in their new account.
> Humor me for a second - what happens the the (unlikely event) they ALL hold until it hits $10,000, and the "infinity squeeze" really does happen?
At some point, you can't squeeze infinite money out of short sellers. In theory, if they're still short when the price passes a threshold higher than their margin limits, they'll get margin called and forced to sell. If the brokers and clearing houses didn't get the risk math right, they'll have to cover some of the difference. This is part of why RH had to pay (a lot) extra into collateral pools just to trade GME at all today. I don't exactly know which parties bear the risk in extreme scenarios.
Practically speaking, if they suspect a squeeze is happening they'll start competing against each other to get order fills. If they all set sell limits at $10K, they risk losing out to someone who sets their sell at $9999. That person risks losing out to someone who sells at $9800, and so on down the line. Again, there isn't actually infinite money to be extracted from the system, so it becomes a competition to sell before your WSB peers.
Even worse, the subreddit will be full of posts about "buy the dip" and "diamond hands" that encourage the naive players to not exit the trade. This creates more room for savvy players to get their sells in before the situation resolves and the price comes crashing back down. Again, it's a race to the bottom.
Sadly, much of the profit going to WSBers will come not from hedge funds, but from other WSBers who think they're "buying the dip" or front-running a short squeeze when in reality they're just buying shares from other WSBers.
The hedge funds have to pay them, when they go out of business the brokerages are on the hook. Realistically the govt will bail them out or change the rules of the game.
The price is fueled not by holding a stock, the price changes when the stock sells. The current blitz is being fueled by Johnny come lately bag-holders.
At some point the buyers will run out, the price will go down and the only ones left will be the broke bag-holders.
It seems to me that if you are holding GME, the last possible thing you want is being stuck in a position for a while.
For this particular case, it might be a better choice is to liquidate your position, cash out and just open another brokerage account. I know this is the total opposite of what the WSBs are looking for but the alternative is transferring a position with $50k and when you can trade again its only worth $500.