Kick back and hit the meth pipe eh? Ain’t no rona virus getting through these thick totalitarian walls. Gosh I wish I was North Korean.
Anyways, how about that death toll boys? Suuuuuckkss

Hoping for a fun discussion on this!
My take: Lots of casual fantasy players make big mistakes in the playoffs for a variety of reasons, including overconfidence, a "dance with who brought you" philosophy and fear -- the fear of changing things up and losing. (Wrote about it more in my weekly fantasy story for The Associated Press.)
Even if you're winning -- even if you're 11-2 or better -- it's important to scrutinize every last bench spot and every potential hole. I try to set things up so that average performances across the board (not necessarily those projected by the sites) will lead to a win by a healthy margin.
Obviously you want to score the most points possible -- how do you make that happen?

I have watched every minute of DeepFuckingValue's youtube channel Roaring Kitty.
When I found the channel I expected to find a total degenerate. I expected to see some tool sort of like u/WSBGod but with lucky real gains. I was super wrong.
What I found was an extremely smart, soft spoken, humble, and graceful individual.
He found true deep value in a stock and bet on it in a big way. Over the past several months he was welcoming people to challenge him. He was welcoming people to poke holes in his thesis. As GME grew and grew he meme-ed but never gloated.
This GME situation has now exploded into something that no one (not even DFV) could have foreseen. I can't imagine what is going on for him and his family right now.
He has been living in a rented house and now he is a multi-millionaire. People here see him as a deity. Some people here are demanding he speak. Hedge funds probably want to see him ridiculously prosecuted somehow for his DD posts. Some people here are demanding that he announce his next play. I have even seen some people here make serious suggestion that he get into politics.
I think everyone needs to have mad respect for this guy. With that respect we should all understand that what he decides he wants next for himself might not be what some of us envision.
The world is honestly his oyster right now and he could go in any direction. Maybe he doesnt want to be in the public eye and wants to be left alone. Maybe he wants to be the next Burry with his own Scion Capital. Maybe he just wants things to stay the same as possible and just do youtube videos from his likely soon to be not rented basement. Whatever his choice is this entire community and the world in general needs to respect it.
I also see people here writing "If he is holding. I am holding." This is fine but people need to understand that he likely will not tell us when he is selling (he shouldn't tell us for MANY reasons). In addition, we need to respect that he IS ALLOWED to sell if he decides to do so.
GME for many has become a venue to personally fuck the system down to your last dollar, but it may not be the same way for him. I personally am holding my position to the bitter end for that reason, but he may not. Others may not. DVF is at the core a true value investor. You will learn this if you watch his videos. Value investors typically do not buy and hold stocks forever. I am very interested to see how this ends for him. We all need to respect what one another does with their money.
From the early days of this forum there have been some major wins that were phony as fuck. Nothing about DFV is phony. He is completely genuine. He is the real Wall Street Bets God.
His name is u/DeepFuckingValue. Let's put respect on that name for what he has done and continue to respect it when he decides how to end it.
TLDR: In watching hours of DFV content there is no way that you cannot like this guy. He is very smart and very humble. We need to support him should he want privacy. We need to respect him should he exit his position.

The /wallstreetbets GME retail investors vs the 0.1% situation has lead me to a place of clarity. The game is rigged, and the owners of the system will react with haste and break any laws they must to protect their cartel. For those not following the event
- Retail investors, realised the shares of GME and some other companies were heavily shorted and in short supply, so they started buying in the hope of forcing a short squeeze (whereby the holder of the shorts will then have to buy more stock to cover their shorts, sending the price through the roof, an example is Volkswagen [VW] in the 2000's). This is perfectly legal.
- the plan worked, GME went from $2 to $470 in a short space of time.
- Melvin Capital, a Hedge fund took a massive (likely $6 billion) short position in GME and faced closure if the bet went against them, they were losing money at a fast rate and got a bail out last week by other wall street Hedge funds.
- Melvin Capital then went on CNBC and other networks to reveal they had closed their short positions, it's highly unlikely as the options volume did not back up their claim, they were simply spreading disinformation, again this is perfectly legal
- the retail investors at /wallstreetbets simply would not give up, they kept buying, the end goal could have seen the stock reach $5K based on the VW scenario.
- the 0.1% moved to then protect the 0.1% from losing money by using the stock brokerages they own or control(Robinhood, TD, IB and all the other big players) to firstly prevent the retail investors buying more stock, you could simply not buy these stocks, you could only sell, some companies even forcibly closed down open options positons even in the absense of margin calls, so your account is in good standing with enough liquidity and they decide which stock you can have and which you can not, in this time big institutions are allowed to buy as much of this stock as they desire, just the retail traders are locked out of the casino. This is highly illegal and known as market manipulation, it also flies in the face of the idea that we have a free market.
- people like AOC, Elon Musk, Chamath have all come out on the site of the retail traders at /wallstreetbets
- Interactive Brokers chairman and founder Thomas Peterffy goes on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” an is literally weeping, explaining he feels hurt that his large, moneyed 0.1% friends are losing money due to the retail investors, oh the horror, how can these small investors make my friends lose money? Don't they know the implications of their actions? The horror.
The guys at /wallstreetbets simply did not understand that in our world only old money gets to make real money, the little guy must be shut down and should never have a slice of the action, all he gets is inflation and a 9 to 5 job, plus side hustle if he/she's lucky. If the little guy ever finds a way to gain an advantage the loophole is quickly closed.
- the SEC Chair then threatens to investigate the redditors on /wallstreetbets by tracking down their IP numbers with the help of reddit
- The /wallstreetbets discord server is banned.
All the years I talked trash about bitcoin, I apologise, now I genuinely understand the value of having a system not controlled by the government, where they can not on a whim decide to inflate the money supply and bail out their friends, while you carry the load in the form of additional taxes and inflation.

TL;DR The system worked for me and I'm tired of the job market being like this. Can anything be done on a grand scale or should I just network throughout my career to help individuals? Also, this is dramatic- sorry.
I graduated in December 2019. This summer, I got a job in marketing. I made 43k (21/hr) and usually only had to work 25-30 hours a week. It was awesome and a major step up from my previous job in allied health where I made 27k/year or 13/hr. I went above and beyond and even created a training document to teach coworkers how to edit HTML code because some days I’d be done after 2 hours. I have ADHD, an average IQ, and have a 2.6 GPA Psychology B.A..
The reason I’m fxcking pissed is because they lied. By "they" I mean the employer, but I also mean everyone in my society who told me that I need a bachelor's or a master's to do tasks in an office that I could’ve done as a freshman in high school. I swear to god a 14 year old who knows basic grammar could do this job EASILY. So why does it say bachelor’s degree required? Why does it say 1-2 years of experience when 2 weeks of training was all I needed to learn this job? It’s so fxcking easy that I literally have spent entire work days learning javascript because there were no more tasks to do.
There are so many people who can’t access jobs like these because they didn’t have the time, energy, or access to money (or people) that would allow them to get through this barrier. I’m not done either because every day I hear from people who have their psych degree or communications degree, heck even their STEM degree saying they can’t find any entry level jobs. So the people that hunkered down for 4 years are now considering more years of their lives, more time, and more energy to get a master’s degree for the chance of getting an entry level job.
So how tf did I get this entry level, marketing job? My friend handed my resume to the marketing manager and said “she’s a hard worker” and then after a 20 minute conversation about what TV shows I like (oh wait that was an interview with the CTO) and an interview with the marketing manager, I was hired on. I do not think I would be where I am now, halfway through my student loans and deciding which mutual funds to invest in, without my closest friend happening to work at a place that hires entry level employees. Most of the people at this company knew someone working there already. The coworkers that got in through traditional applying had multiple years of experience and were much older than me. It’s bullshit.
l got a lucky break in order to make a livable wage. If this didn’t happen, I would have gone into more debt for SLP school, and add myself to the pile of 25-year-olds still living with their parents, because I couldn’t figure out a better way to make more than $15 an hour with a psych degree. I recently accepted an offer making 15k more and I feel like I’m stepping on people who didn’t happen to have a “white-collar” friend to get their foot in the door. I bet this new job doesn’t really require a degree either, but how else can they parse the thousands of applications they get whenever they post a job? I plan to pay it forward whenever I can throughout my career. I can’t think of another way to help this system.
Edit: I love that this is a topic people are interested in. I especially value the critical comments because they alert me to aspects I might not have considered before. I want to make a final point that I've already made in the comments.
If there were more options to make a living wage then there wouldn't be this level of oversaturation. Can everyone agree on that?? The people that say "learn a trade" don't see that if all the new high school grads learn a trade then the wages of plumbers, electricians, welders, etc. will drop and the barriers to entry will rise. I assume the trades are next.
My surface level understanding is that no one wants their kids/students to be excluded from comfortable pay. So they say "finish highschool to get a good job." But it doesn't really work anymore if everyone finishes high school because there aren't enough good paying jobs. So they say finish college. Still not enough to go around. "Should've picked a STEM, should've learned to code."
This is the "industry treadmill" that I disike. You can disagree and say that not everyone deserves to afford a dignified life, but I haven't found one comment arguing that this industry treadmill doesn't exist out of 200 replies.
Will the market even things out or will this lead to your kids needing a PHD in order to afford a 2br house? (Im being dramatic again- notice a trend?) If not those, then what? Who knows. This trend(edit 2: mainly improvements/solutions to the trend) has levels of complexity that I don't understand yet. I plan to learn. If you are interested too, please do your own research. Don't let it end here. Feel free to comment or send me any info you come across even if it challenges my beliefs. Thanks!

I started investing right when I turned 18 in the summer of 2020. I'm talking index funds and ETFs, the boring but good stuff. Ended 2020 with a 34% return thanks to the raging bull market which made me pour even more money into it. I bought into the GME hype at $34 dollars but eventually dca'd my way to a solid $64 average cost. I got caught up in the bullish GME echo chamber that wallstreetbets now is - I was just lucky to get in and out early compared to others.
As WSB's member count went through the roof, more and more users commented price targets and abusing people into not selling. By going to these users' history, a lot - and I mean A LOT - had comments from 2 days ago along the lines of "where to buy stocks?". It just made the echo chamber even clearer. These people, who had no idea, were commenting advice and about the future of GME. I'm a beginner too but I wouldn't even think of pretending like I have a clue. The quote “If shoe shine boys are giving stock tips, then it's time to get out of the market" have always stuck with me, but I never put much credibility into it, until now.
I eventually dca'd my way out at an average cost of $206 after reading about the conspiracy theories regarding why the reported 53% short interest was false. Maybe it is false and maybe these hedge have pulled off a great move in suppressing this % without actually covering in order to mislead investors, but I would never bet on that. Took $3.1k profit which was cool, but this whole situation has made me realize the importance of being independent.
It has motivated me to actually learn how to read a balance sheet, do my own due diligence and come to my own conclusions - not depend on others. Reddit, Seeking Alpha and Twitter are great resources to take inspiration from, but I'll never invest through someone else's thesis again even though it worked out this time. The only thing that separates me from the guy who bought at $400 is that I picked up on the information earlier. We were both "promised" $1000, which I always saw as ridiculous but hey, "everyone is spamming it so it must be true". No, that echo chamber mentality is dangerous and a lot of people have lost a lot of money as a product of it. You never know who's on the other side spamming their thesis. Might be Warren Buffet or a guy who downloaded *insert controversial broker here* 2 days ago - I won't blindly follow their advice either way.

My mom was the sort of person to look like a wallflower until you got close and then spout out facts about her favourite animal. It was an emperor penguin. She said their journey for love and parenthood was the hardest and most connecting with her.
I’m told all the usual things about her; she had a smile that could light up a room, her laugh cut through the malaise of an awkward party, her stride was confident and her form was elegant. From the day I could understand what it was to be remembered, she was painted to me as a true goddess.
After all, aren’t all moms supposed to be that to their children growing up?
Mom died when I was 4. Aggressive cancer riddled her body with tumours, stole her stride, her smile, her laugh. Everything in just 18 short months.
I didn’t see her for much of it. But if I did, I obviously didn’t remember. I heard somewhere we don’t start forming memories until we’re around 2 years old and implicit memories - those unconscious memories that stick with us automatically - aren’t even until we’re 7.
So essentially my mother was already dead for 3 years before I could even unconsciously think of the word “Mom” and go to her face. A face that was stolen from me. A face that I’ll never see.
I’m giving you this background information now because it’s vital that you understand my mom before we get into the thick of it.
I can’t sit here and tell you I loved my mom unconditionally. I didn’t know her. Dad was never in the picture, so Grandparents were where I was shipped off to. Good people, kind people. They raised me on stories of my Mom and made sure to do the one thing she’d requested when her sickness finally got her:
”Show Nick the milestone tapes.”
For those unaware; a milestone tape is something where a loved one, usually a parent, records a loving video to congratulate their kin on a moment they’re missing out on. First day of school, marriage… you get the picture.
I remember being 5 years old, I’d not long tripped on the stairs after miscalculating my steps and smashed my front tooth on the top step, sending my first baby tooth flying. Thankfully, the pain was short-lived in my mind, I was mere days from my birthday and a surprise trip to Disneyland was coming up. In the middle of packing, I was sat down in front of the TV with my Grandpa Mihail and him putting in these pristine discs, a gaudy logo flashing up on the screen still burned into my retinas to this day:
“Gone, but not deleted: A video message from Leanora Stankowski.”
The image would flicker for just a moment, always just a moment each time, then she’d appear.
A young woman sat in a black leather armchair with a small table to her side and patterned wallpaper behind her. She was in her late 20s with her raven black hair tied in a messy bun, strands curled and dangling down her porcelain face, a beauty mark sitting just beneath her right eye, the pair of them shining like emeralds that caught the first ray of sunshine, black lipstick gave way to shimmering teeth and a smile that made even an oblivious little me feel… lost.
“Hi pumpkin, it’s mommy! I hope my little prince is watching the throne while i’m away… how can you be nearly six years old and already losing your baby teeth? You’re growing up too fast, little man!”
She puffed out her cheeks as she feigned a frown before giggling. My heart sank in my chest, I knew something wasn’t right even then. Her tone was playful, buoyant and full of joy, like she’d never missed a moment of my life.
“Make sure you put your tooth under your pillow tonight, Deda Mihail will make sure the tooth fairy comes and nothing else!” She raised a single finger with a wink, posing for a moment before her face fell, her posture sank and she fell back into the armchair a tad, growing smaller as she coughed. After a moment, she cleared her throat with a quiet dignity and made sure the hand she coughed into went out of shot as she fixated on the camera with a weak smile.
“Mommy loves you, my little crown prince. Close your eyes and breathe with me…”
I looked at my Grandfather and with tears streaming down his face and a bite on his lip; he put a hand on my shoulder and nodded. I did as I was told and took a long breath in, the air cold and filling my lungs, intoxicating me as I heard her words. The same words i’d come to hear at the end of every video she recorded:
“I’ll always be with you.”
-
And so it went. For every milestone I undertook, there was an accompanying video. When I graduated middle school, when I rode my first bike… even when I broke my first bone, she had a video ready.
I was around 11, when biking home from school, I collided with a speeding driver. The bastard didn’t even stop as my small body careened over his windscreen, rolled over the hood and smashed into the concrete, tearing my right arm to pieces.
Passers-by said it was a freak accident; that the car just appeared out of nowhere and then vanished. But hell, what do hit & run drivers do? Speed, speed, speed.
Medicated up to my eyes and sitting up in hospital, Grandpa handed me a mini-dvd player and the familiar face shot up. I could never tell you in those earlier videos if these were done back to back or months apart, but Mom still looked radiant… albeit with more coughing in each iteration.
“Hi pumpkin, it’s mommy! Though, i’m sure by now you’re probably cringing at the mere mention of me referring to myself that way… oh god, do people still say cringe? It’s hard to know what the world you’re in is like anymore, but moms are never supposed to be cool, are they?” She chuckled, a faraway look in her eye as the pit of my stomach expanded.
“No…” I thought, tears in my eyes, gripping the sheets with my good hand. “I WANT you to say those things. I WANT you to embarrass me…”
“Well, if you’re watching this, then you’ve broken your first bone… I hope it’s a bit later in life and not when you’re so upset you can’t even hear me. But sweetie, this is an important life lesson that I wanted to be there for; pain happens. It’s a part of our world, and everyone in it must experience it. Sometimes it’s physical, like now when your body hurts so much that you wanna yell and cry out. Sometimes it’s emotional, which you get when someone upsets you, hurts your feelings… something you might also feel from seeing my face right now, which I’m sorry for.” She trailed off, that weak smile plastered across her face like the greatest lie ever told. She took a breath, and I heard the quivers in her voice. Both from sadness and from sickness. “BUT, you are my little crown prince, and while you’re watching the throne, I know you’ll do great things and overcome ANYTHING that stands in your way. You know why?”
“Why…” I breathed, my body radiating with hot pain but my heart aching. I leaned in as she leaned in, like sharing a secret only we would ever know.
“Because you’re my son and my love for you will push you to do anything.” She whispered, my face involuntarily growing into a smile without even realising.
“Just don’t look at the wall behind me.”
My eyes were fixed on hers, a small sliver of the background visible behind her ear. As my eyes slowly broke from her gaze and travelled over, she spoke again.
“DON’T.” A frantic whisper escaped her lips. My eyes snapped back as a pale shade shifted out of sight.
Blinking once, I saw she was sitting back in the chair, talking as if nothing had happened. Had I dozed off? I was on high pain medication; it wasn’t impossible…
“I’m running out of time, these are only supposed to be short, so i’ll finish up here. “Mommy loves you, my little crown prince! Close your eyes and breathe with me…”
Again, I did as instructed and heard a distinct creaking sound from the speakers, undoubtedly her settling into her chair.
“I’ll always be with you.”
-
So the years went, fewer milestone videos popped up. Some of them were simply mundane or not that noteworthy. Not why we’re here. But the usual events; first day as a freshman, last day as a senior, prom night and even an embarrassing one wherein a 17-year-old me had the most uncomfortable 15 minutes of being explained dating etiquette and safe sex by my long-gone mother.
By the time I’d reached 21, only four tapes remained. Grandpa Mihail had passed and Grandma Suza was getting on, so they were given to me with the obvious instruction to not watch them until the time was right.
And this is the part where things take a turn.
A bad breakup, bad life choices, even worse friendship choices with substances readily available, a lifetime of insecurities stemming from no parental figures (all the love in the world to my grandparents, but it’s not the same) and a series of videos from your long-dead mom are enough to fuck anyone up.
So, I grabbed a bottle, some pills and put the next video in, planning to binge them before I took my leave. I mean, fuck it, what’s the harm if I’m ending it all, right?
The video flickered and cast a long shadow across my dismal apartment before the visage of my mom came into focus.
It’d been a couple of years since the last video and in my emotionally unstable, drunken state… I was not prepared for what I saw.
Emaciated, sunken eyes and a slack jaw, her tongue hanging out and drooping to the bottom of her chin, thick pungent saliva with her concave chest heaving under the weight of the oxygen machine wrapped around her face. A looming shadow with two bright blue orbs for eyes and jagged pillars for teeth, wrapping its arms around her.
It locked eyes with me and cocked its head to the side.
“NEW.” It croaked, my skin bubbling with fear and chilling my blood, I had never felt a terror like it.
It felt like it knew me and saw into me.
I recoiled and in my cocktail of fear and horror, retched up everything I’d downed not 10 minutes earlier. A torrid mixture of bile, acid, pills and booze spread over my carpet as tears ran down my face. My stomach ached and every cell in my body screamed at me in protest. The thoughts swirling in my thick skull were that of disappointment, disgust and repulsiveness. I felt weak, alone and broken as I collapsed onto the floor in the fetal position, sobbing.
“Sweetie, it’s Mom.”
Through blurred eyes and a haze of pain, I looked at the TV half expecting some emaciated creature to lurch through, but there was my mom. She looked tired, her hair now matted to her head and exhaustion racking her bones, but beauty radiating through her as she held her hands in her lap and leaned forward, smiling.
“If you’re watching this… then things are bad. I don’t know how bad, but I can guess. Grandpa wouldn’t have let you watch this if you’d gotten your heart broken or were at that age where emotions are as high as a kite and just as volatile… so I can assume that, much like me, you’re in a bad place…” She coughed and I felt the need to sit up and give her my full attention, this woman no more than 6 years my senior frozen in time still finding ways to command my attention with her every word.
It was like I was 5 again.
“Sweetie, I know I can’t talk to you like a child anymore, so I won’t. Honestly, I’d been so excited to see you grow up, go through that phase where we bicker and argue over small things before finally settling in the longest and most beautiful phase of our family dynamic…” I watched her lips quiver and eyes glaze over, my own mirroring as she shakily concluded “The one where we’re best friends who always look out for each other.”
That broke me. Every emotion I’d trained myself to hide away when kids started asking questions I couldn’t answer, situations I’d wanted my mom in, moments I felt alone… I let it out in one volatile evening of self healing, the words on that tape echoing in my head long after it stopped playing.
“The road ahead will be tough without me. It was always going to be. But, you’re the crown prince and you’ll eventually have that throne, survey your kingdom and know you can do ANYTHING and conquer ANYTHING… it’s getting closer now, but we still have some time left. So don’t let whatever is going on beat you, nor the thing after that. The Penguins didn’t, did they? I’m sure Grandpa told you, but they’re my favourite… those little birds share the burden of parenthood, walk over 100 miles and nearly starve to cultivate new life… I’d do all of that and more for you, honey. Because…”
She closed her eyes, and I did too, without prompting, we said it together;
“I’ll always be with you.”
-
It took time to get better. All things do. I would spend so many nights in withdrawal with the shakes, vomit, and staring up at a horrific beast looming over my bed. Like the thing on the tv but foggier, it’d imitate my movements and try to get closer. With every step, its eyes would glow just a bit brighter, everything else remaining shrouded in darkness, even if light passed through my curtains.
I don’t know how I made it through that time of my life.
One night, as it made its way to the foot of my bed, I closed my eyes and breathed on instinct, reciting my mother’s mantra. I suppose in moments of crisis; we turn to our most personal coping mechanisms and I wasn’t about to go back to the bottle. When I finished, it was gone.
Over the years, I completed my program, got clean and went through therapy to cope with the grief. When I hit 26, I met the 2nd most important woman in my life; Natalie. She knew what it was like to go through pain, to go through suffering alone. To play with the wrong demons.
We fell in love; we got engaged and eventually married. As she had been countless times before, mom was there to congratulate us.
Natalie had seen some tapes, but this was her first one that in its own way was directed to her. Mom was nearing the end by this point, her thin frame barely clinging to her always beautiful dresses and her skin beginning to stretch like paper. She took great gulps of air from the oxygen tank before talking, but somehow retained that exuberance she’d always had.
“I knew you’d find someone wonderful eventually, Nick. Penguins always find their mate for life and you’d be no exception!” She giggled through strained coughs, turning her head slightly as if she could see Natalie. “I don’t know you, but I bet you’re the most beautiful woman in the world if my crown prince chose you. Well, after me of course!” Another laugh, this time accompanied by tears from the two of us. “There’s just one more to go… So, look after each other. Love well and experience everything you can. And don’t forget…”
Natalie gripped my hand with her left, a hand on her bump with the right as we closed our eyes. I could hear the scratching sound more prominently now, but I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to ruin the moment.
“I’ll always be with you.”
-
We were so excited to have a baby. Natalie had come from a big family and was eager to start expanding our own. Even though I was reluctant, I couldn’t help but share in her enthusiasm when so many late nights were spent fawning over baby names, cute outfits and lofty plans for the future on how our kid would even behave around us. Determined to be “cool parents”.
But in between all of that, my mind would cast back to those tapes of my mom, the only parent I really knew. I wanted to use them as a guidebook for my own steps. She’d been such an integral part of life, it seemed… odd to not have her in it now.
Keeping the last tape separate, I re-watched the entire set one by one, reliving those moments I couldn’t truly appreciate until my own burgeoning journey into parenthood.
But when I got to the broken bone tape, I froze.
Once again, she leaned into the camera and whispered, eyes full of fright and panic.
“Don’t look.”
I pushed pause on the video and took a moment. Surely I was just highly medicated at the time, there couldn’t *really* be anything there, right?
So why was I so reluctant to move my eyes to the right to find out?
Taking a breath, I moved the video frame by frame and watched the corner where her face didn’t cover.
That shadow. That same fucking shadow. Looming in the background, eyes burning red with fury.
“DON’T LOOK. DON’T LOOK. DON’T LOOK. DON’T LOOK.”
I jumped, the video was skipping, stuck on the sounds of my mother’s panic stricken voice begging me not to stare, but I couldn’t help it. I stared and watched this creature take confident, unnatural and twitchy strides from the background, getting ever closer to the camera. I saw the muscles on its face twist and undulate as it pressed its cheeks up into a twisted grin, the sight of rot and earth and unspeakable things in its mouth all displaying themselves in full glory as it intonated one word that sent screams through my home before shutting off.
“SOON.”
-
Natalie was 8 months gone, petite and a history of prior drug abuse. They said her heart just couldn’t take it, her body gave out, and that it was a miracle our daughter survived.
I took it all in and yet none of it as I cradled my entire universe in my arms, the second greatest woman I’d ever known now taken from me too.
“Phoebe.” I breathed, unable to take my eyes off of her perfect little face as she slept soundly just 12ft from her dead mother. “Her name is Phoebe, and she is the crown princess.”
Somewhere in the corner of my eye, a shadow cast itself over Natalie’s bed, right as they put the sheet over her.
From that night on, there would always be noises outside our home. Always faint howling. Always a solitary spot in the front of the property where no light could touch it.
For a while, I forgot about the videos. Forgot about everything that wasn’t Phoebe. Raising her became priority #1 and I would work any extra hours I needed to, give up any friendship I had to and spite myself in whatever way was necessary to ensure that my perfect girl slept soundly at night.
It wasn’t until Phoebe’s 2nd birthday last week that I finally got the courage to dig out the videos and watch the last one.
How many times had I sat in a home, emotionally destroyed and at a crossroads in my life, waiting to see this woman’s face and hope she’d somehow have the magic words to guide me?
As the picture flickered on, the logo shining up on screen; I cast my head back with a mixture of surprise and sadness as I realised the significance of the year;
I was older than her now.
“Hi sweetie, I guess we’ve finally reached the end, huh?”
Her voice sounded… younger. I looked down and saw her standing up. No chair or wallpaper in sight. It looked like she was recording this in her bedroom, a picture of health, all things considered. Her eyes red from crying but her voice unwavering, like she’d prepared these words carefully.
“This is technically the final video for you, but the first for me. Weird how this all works, but this is how it needs to happen… if you’re watching this, you’ve got your own little princess to protect. The crown prince has now become the king, and I couldn’t be prouder!” She beamed, but my stomach tightened at those words.
“Your own little princess.”
I breathed, my chest tightening. How did she know?
“I imagine you’re now wondering how I know. Well, that’s not the important part. What’s important is if you saw what you think you saw. Within the videos, between the frames. There is something lurking here, Nick. Something ancient.”
I felt the house shudder, settling into place, no doubt. But I couldn’t separate myself from the fear running through my body.
“It feeds on misfortune. It watches from the shadows and waits for small, tiny windows to make itself known. I don’t know where it came from or what it is, but I know what it wants…”
A rumbling behind me, the sound of wood splintering and creaking. The unmistakable sound of tapping that i’d heard every time we did the mantra at the end of a video. I was shaking, but I didn’t stop watching.
“It wants us, Nick. We seem to be a… source for it. When it finishes using us, it moves on. A long time ago... I was told that if I captured it in film, solidified it in these repeatable tapes, it would slow it down… maybe even stop it. I have no idea if it’ll work, but you deserve to know now that you can almost certainly see it too. Because if it doesn’t stop here, if YOU start to see it… start to experience misfortune…”
My heart skipped. Tripping over the stairs and narrowly missing cracking my skull as a child, losing my first tooth. The hit and run that shattered my arm, my first broken bone. Marrying and losing Natalie, my first love…
Oh no.
Oh god, no.
I willed my body to move, to leap out of the seat and rush to Phoebe’s room, but I had to hear the rest through, screaming at my mom to tell me the solution.
“When your Deda Mihail told me about our curse… how he took me in after my Father died... about how it passes from father to daughter, mother to son, and so forth… You can try to avoid it, but it always finds a way…" She looked down in shame, clutching at her sleeves. "Truth be told; I didn’t want to get pregnant. But, things have a way of happening and I knew I couldn’t give you up.” She glanced behind her, something off camera scaring her into grabbing at her arms and rubbing them, shame and fear on her face. “I’m so sorry, baby. But I want you to know that there is power in these words. In these videos. I will do EVERYTHING I can to protect you, just like I know you’ll protect your child. No matter who it hurts in the process. Because…”
One last time. I just had to close my eyes one last time and it would all be over.
I did it on instinct. It didn’t matter that there was a slew of sounds alerting me to an invading presence in my home. That it was rapidly approaching me.
All that mattered was the mantra.
“I’ll be here for you, always.”
But what I heard parroting me back was not my mother.
A guttural, inhuman voice barked back the phrase and I swear I felt its breath inches from my face. I felt eyes unrestricted by pupils or sockets spin around, focusing on my weakest point. But I didn’t waver.
After a few agonising moments, it darted away and out of view, leaving only the static of the TV to keep me aware that I wasn’t in fact dreaming.
As soon as I knew it was safe, I ran to Phoebe’s room and checked on her, convinced that she was next in a long line of losses. Convinced that some otherworldly spectre had taken her from me.
Convinced I would be alone again.
You can imagine my relief when I opened the door to find her softly sleeping, clutching her teddy bear with his own attached blankie. The same toy my mom had given me.
I looked at her with the enormity of the situation overshadowing me. The realisation she was the same age I was when my mom got diagnosed.
The realisation that soon, I would be the one making a slew of videos for milestones I’d never get to see her inherit.
My crown princesses’ kingdom of nightmares.
And I don’t know if this is what my mother intended, but I took those words at the end to heart.
“Protect your child. No matter who it hurts in the process.”
-
I’m sorry, everyone.
I don’t know HOW this translates across mediums, but there is power in describing an old and malevolent force. Just like there is seeing it in the corner of your eye or when you experience a lucky break from death. A mis-step here and a wrong turn there. You’ll always see it.
My mother gave up everything to buy time, give me the chance to right the wrongs and find a better way, a way that involves my daughter growing up with her father in her life, without the plague of whatever this is hanging over either of us.
Maybe you won’t be the one, maybe it will simply look at you and find you not to its liking as it did me that fateful night, inches away from my flesh and determining that I simply wasn’t “ripe enough” yet.
But someone will come across this, and it will bite. It will bite and never let go. Be it nightmares, sleep paralysis, a slew of unfortunate mishaps or something flitting in the corner of your eye, it’ll be there. Whatever it is.
Waiting.
I wish you well, and I hope you don’t judge me too harshly.
But to me and to Phoebe, family is everything.
So close your eyes and take a deep breath.
Because they’ll always be with you.

** Post preface: I own GME, GE, NOK, and AMC. I am a man of the people; I have 14,000 Karma and have been active on this sub for well over 1 year.
** BEGIN BIG DICK DILIGENCE**
This is prime buying szn for Castor Maritime and I would absolutely hate to miss the next goddamn 🚀 to paying off my mounting law school debt. For this reason, I’m going long on 20,000 shares to start. This summer, I’m looking to sink another 40,000 shares in them. 2021 is going to be a big year for maritime shipping.
Why is it a good buy, you might ask? Let me fucking tell you. The maritime shipping industry hemorrhaged during COVID and lost 4.1%. It is on track for at least a 4% gain industry-wide this year. The industry itself is gearing to boom. Freight prices are increasing and importers have signaled their willingness to pay the increased rate. CTRM is going to have unprecedented growth in the next two quarters as a result.
With Biden’s clean energy agenda coming down the pike, reformation of transportation emissions guidelines are to be expected. CTRM operates six dry bulk carriers with one capsize carrier being acquired just last week. The dry bulk carriers are among the lowest carbon-emitting vessels available for maritime transport. CTRM is already positioned well for this environmental leap.
It’s also stupid fucking cheap at $.45 per share. Most analysts with more than feces in their skull will see the $3+ one year target potential organically. If WSB gets behind them, anything is possible. Look at the lucky fuckers who got in at $.19 a few months ago. I bet life sucks from their sheep's wool jump seat window in their Gulfstream G650.
Get in loser, we aren’t going to the Moon or Mars. We are going to the motherfucking Andromeda Galaxy 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Edit: u/floatyfish brought to my attention the fact that their 2005-built dry bulk carrier is called “Magic Moon.” This should be enough DD for most of you. You know what to do.
Edit 2: CTRM now has its own symbol-specific sub

From the guys who brought you The Greatest Short Burn of the Century..

Oh man, oh man, oh man.
Not again.
-Drizzy

Preface:
Please believe me when I say I really wanted to take this month off and enjoy the snow in Tahoe. But as I was driving, something caught my eye...
Make no mistake. This stock is not going to be nearly as volatile or profitable as GME. In fact, this might be so boring that most of you will ignore me yet again. And that’s exactly why I like it. I’ll do my best to make this engaging, but the fact is, this is going to be a slow grind. Both this DD and the stock.
Also, as a bonus, Reddit is currently public enemy #1 in the eyes of the media. Why don’t we do a quick heel-turn and join their side? Are they gonna hate us for buying boring value stocks? They won’t know what hit them. That will be a fun show to watch.
Anyway… let’s take a look under the hood. As always, not financial advice. Just education. NOTHING IS A RECOMMENDATION. We are just sharing knowledge here. Ok SEC?
Intro:
Ford (NYSE: $F -- NOT NASDAQ:$FORD), is another depressed deep value multiple expansion arbitrage play. No short squeeze this time. The GME asymmetry may not be seen again for 10 years.
It might seem boring and unsexy on the surface, but Ford is a fantastic company in the midst of one of the best turnarounds in American history. And with a little help from our friend Mr. Options (or as Buffett called, Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction) we can turn a boring old Ford into a lightning fast Ferrari using the quadruple income option wheel strategy. Don’t try this at home. If you don’t know what CSPs, CCs, or vega are, stick to shares. Those should work just fine.
Let’s break this down into 5 parts: electrification story and leadership, multiples expansion, technical analysis, options, and the trade.
By the way, in 2019, the Ford F-Series was second only to the Apple iPhone, which raked in $55 billion, in terms of total revenue generated. The F-Series generated more revenue than the NFL, MLB, NBA, and the NHL combined, which added up to $40 billion. Just something to think about.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round...

Electrification story and leadership:
Let’s jump into history for a second. Ford had a meteoric rise from 1997 - 1999 from $15 to around $32 at the peak. This was due to $F reporting massive earnings increases each quarter:

• Dec 1996 - 1997 Ford F-150 - Truck of the Year
  
• Jan 1997 - Ford profits up 82 percent
  
• Oct 1997 - Ford profits up 64 percent
  
• Jan 1998 - Ford profits up 56 percent
  

They were just feasting and feasting. Jim Farley looks like the best person alive to revitalize Ford, capable of tripling the stock in 2-3 years. Look at the last two quarters:

• Q3-2020 - Adjusted EPS: 65 cents vs 19 cents expected, Automotive revenue: $34.71 billion vs $33.51 billion expected (due to pent up demand)
  
• Q2-2020 - Adjusted EPS: A loss of 35 cents per share versus a loss of $1.17 per share expected, Automotive revenue: $16.6 billion versus $15.95 billion expected.
  

Here are excerpts from the Q3 earnings and some other notable highlights:

Farley: Now that plan, which was introduced to the Ford team and many stakeholders on October 1, is very straightforward. Among other things, No. 1, we will compete like a challenger, earning each customer with great products but as well services with rewarding ownership experiences. Number two, we're moving with urgency to turn around our automotive operations, improve our quality, reduce our cost and accelerate the restructuring of underperforming businesses.
And third, we're going to grow again but in the right areas, allocating more capital, more resources, more talent to our very strongest businesses and vehicle franchises; incubating, scaling and integrating new businesses, some of them enabled by new technology like Argo's world-class self-driving system; and expanding our leading commercial vehicle business with great margins but now with the suite of software services that drive loyalty and generate reoccurring annuity-like revenue streams; and being a leader in electric vehicle revolution around the world where we have strength and scale. So now speaking about EVs. To start with, we're developing all-new electric versions of the F-150 and the Transit, the two most important, highest-volume commercial vehicles in our industry. These leading vehicles really drive the commercial vehicle business at Ford, and we're electrifying them.

Quick sidebar here from my buddy M: "Whereas traditional manufact / consumer / industrials are valued on an EBITDA multiple, SAAS has historically been valued on a revenue multiple, which translates to flat out higher valuations. EVs themselves are not necessarily a higher margin product that justifies a higher multiple (at least not that I've seen), but tech services / subscriptions are the real money makers in this game. Hint Hint companies like Apple throwing everything they have at trying to integrate services and subscriptions over the last 5 years"
This further justifies the expansion multiples we expect will catch up to leading EV automakers (see below).

We own work at Ford. And these electric vehicles will be true work vehicles, extremely capable and with unique digital services and over-the-air capabilities to improve the productivity and uptime of our important commercial customers. The electric Transit, by the way, will be revealed next month, and you heard about it here first, for all of our global markets. We believe the addressable market for a fully electric commercial van and pickup, the two largest addressable profit pools in commercial, are going to be massive.
Now you're going to see our strategy of electrifying our leading commercial vehicles and our iconic high-volume products expand very quickly at Ford.
When you look at our results, they reflect the benefit of our decision two years ago to allocate capital to our strongest franchise, namely: pickups, a whole range of utilities across the world, commercial vehicles and iconic passenger vehicles. Additionally, we saw higher-than-expected demand for our new vehicles in the quarter.
Together, these factors, plus the strongest performance from Ford Credit in 15 years, led to a total company adjusted EBIT margin of 9.7%. That's 490 basis points higher than last year.
As an outcome of all this, we generated $6.3 billion in adjusted free cash flow.
The strong cash flow in the quarter gave us the confidence and the ability to make a second payment on our corporate revolver, which we did on September 24. So now we have fully repaid the entire $15 billion facility, and we ended the third quarter with a strong balance sheet, including nearly $30 billion in cash and more than $45 billion of liquidity, which provides us with the vital financial flexibility we need.

Check out this credit downgrade weeks before Ford paid off their revolving credit facility. Smells like GME?
Alright. What about Q4-2020 and beyond? Ford is expected to post a loss. TA is signaling a beat (see the TA section). Ford is spending this money in order further restructure and deliver on the following items in their pipeline:
Bronco:

• Within the first month of open reservations, the Bronco had received an estimated 230,000 reservations. 230,000 reservations is an incredibly impressive figure, especially when put into the context of Ford’s total vehicle sales. 230,000 sales would represent 4% of Ford’s total sales.
  
• Current estimates place over 20% of reservation holders as first-time Ford buyers.
  
• The most expensive trim, the limited ‘First Edition’, has already sold out.
  

Mach-E vs Tesla Model Y. Just the fact that there is debate between the better car is bullish for Ford.

• Source 1
  
• Source 2
  
• Source 3
  

The upcoming 2021 F-150 has positive consumer reviews as well:

• The 2021 Ford F-150 Is So Stuffed With New Tech & Gadgets That Even Tesla Owners Are Impressed!
  
• DeMuro - The 2021 Ford F-150 Is Totally New and Really Impressive
  
• Some other nice features: Fold down the shifter, lay seats down completely flat, speakers in headrest, tailgate worksurface (pen/pencil holders, rulers) C clamp, 120V outlet, bottle opener, light), sensing running board, tailgate step and railing, and more. Watch the video.
  

Ford Raptor launch (just happened today, customers are excited. Look at the comments on YouTube and IG)
Further potential tailwinds:

• Ford partnering with Rivian in a $500M deal. Product yet to be released.
  
• Google partnership that caused the intraday spike on 2/2.
  
• Ford is rumored to secure the USPS contract since deal talks are falling through with WKHS.
  

The Postal Service told Trucks.com that it expects to reach a contract with one or more of the teams bidding for the business in the federal government’s second fiscal quarter of 2021. That works out to the first quarter of next year.

• There is a historical inverse relationship between gas prices and car sizing. Tell me if I'm reaching here. But as America continues to head towards electrification and energy independence under Biden, larger gas cars will be more in demand. Furthermore, the aftershock of COVID will continue to propagate the dedensification of cities. Less commuter vehicles, and more travel vehicles. And look who is conveniently positioned to take advantage of all of this?
  
• Dr. Anning Chen is also a killer CEO of Ford China. This is largely intangibles (which Wall Street cannot model), but watch his interviews here and here.
  
• Dr. Chen used the COVID shutdown to improve the operational efficiency of the company. It has not shown on the bottom line thus far, but it will later.
  
• CTO Dr. Ken Washington bio. Ex Lockheed.
  
• Kennard on the board.. PE guy, on the AT&T board and former FCC chairman.
  
• Vojvodich. Ex CRM and ADHZ.
  
• Regarding the above leadership and BOD members, experienced executives are a better fit for running the day-to-day than any other. Add a sprinkle of savvy techfin folk and you have a recipe for a elite transition.
  

English please? Ford is a strong company. Farley is delivering on his promises and can lead the company towards an operationally efficient turnaround towards electrification. Combine this with a loyal customer base rivaled only by AAPL, and you get another special opportunity. This is the turning point.
Multiples Expansion:
Now here lies the crux of the thesis. Amidst all the EV hype, Ford is being unfairly ignored at an extremely depressed multiple compared to the other companies in the EV space. Here are some comparisons (numbers may be slightly outdated, pulled earlier this week, more relative comparison than absolute):
$Ticker - Market Cap - TTM Revenue MM - TTM EBITDA MM - Revenue Multiple - Ebitda Multiple
TSLA - $810B - $28B - $4B - 29X - 202X
NIO - $92B - $12B - ($7B) - 7.6X - (NaN)
GM - $78B - $116B - $18B - 0.7X - 4.3X
F - $44B - $131B - $10B - 0.3X - 4.4X
That’s an eyesore. Let’s focus on just TSLA and Ford, because why not. Assuming Ford can quickly turn towards electrification (from the evidence above), these two companies are fair comparisons. No Tesla is not a software/energy company, look at their automotive % of revenue. Stop it. It has only recently dropped to 80% due to the expansion of their leasing division. Energy is still a tiny part of TSLA.
Revenue Multiple:
TSLA = 29X
F = 0.3X
EBITDA Multiple:
TSLA = 202X
F = 4.4X
Yes those numbers are correct. Look at them for 60 seconds and tell me what you see. Quick quote from my buddy M:

Just zoom out and think. TSLA is for sure ahead of the rest on their tech and charging infra right now. But in terms of just overall bottom line infrastructure and manufacturing capability; once the GMs, Fs, and VWs of the world can get the ball rolling, they are way ahead in that aspect. Much more experience in production and retail / distribution channels, as well as logistics sourcing. Plenty of battery makers, and self driving tech makers out there too right now. Small to mid scale M&A will probably be the name of the game if I had to guess.

This is why Burry is short $TSLA, but two scenarios can unfold: either the high-flying stocks drop, or Ford rises. I believe we will land somewhere in the middle, with Ford rising as we begin to enter the optimism phase in the final third of our bull market.
Shorting is a dangerous game anyway... So I’ve been hearing on the news...
TA, Options:
Exhibit A from our resident chart whisperer J (who will remain unnamed because you monkeys keep bothering him).
Larger view.
As you can see, the trendline has broken out.
Exhibit B from our resident quant T (also to rename unnamed):

Starting on 1/4 you'll find right tail distributions into any liquidation which represent large buying. Which has led up to a recent run-up and eventually left tail distributions which represent short coverings which lead into the gaps and thinner distributions where there aren't any major bids. Even with the pullback on 1/22 we see more right tail distribution after the profit taking from the recent run-up, which means someone is buying up the inventory.
This is unusual for F, where F trades within tight ranges. On 2/1 you can see a bimodal distribution which means a new player has stepped in, which we assume has additional knowledge apart from the larger players that were already in the market. The recent range between 10.70 and 11.20 indicates that the market has accepted this price range as fair value. Without additional research at first glance we can see that a large player (or players) is buying up a significant amount of inventory.
On 1/4 we find that the volume increased to 77,559,128 from the previous trading of 34,462,454 (125% increase) and 33,127,776 the day before that. Volume has been higher since.
On our first major left tail distribution (which represents short covering) since the buying on 1/4 the volume was at 113,707,973.

Exhibit C
250k shares of F 10.92; 100k F 11.04; 3.53m F 9.78; 708k F 9.78; 500k F 9.64; 377k F 9.50; 338k F 9.50; 201k F 9.75; 192k F 9.80; 150k F 9.77
These are blocks of shares bought in the past 7 days
Top OI changes:
+19610 F 02/05/21 11 C 43821 38% 13% 48%
+12904 F 02/05/21 12 C 31929 38% 11% 52%
Top OI positions:
170902 F 02/19/21 10 C +807 26% 49% 25%
112480 F 02/19/21 12 C +3207 29% 29% 41%
The percentages are bid mid ask.
Someone is bullish on Ford.
For an earnings play, daily RSI is oversold looking towards an uptick.
Options gamma is interesting to note as well.
Open interest on 2/5 $13 and $15Cs are also notable. Could be covered calls? Could be someone knows something?
Could be Jeff reading too much into the tea leaves. Not financial advice. Just showing you what I see.
The Trade: The simplest way is just to purchase shares and collect dividends as Ford may reinstate them sometime in 2021. Possibly leaps if you feel adventurous.
For the option junkies like myself, and as a tribute to the greatest company in American history, I will use the wheel(s). The GME trade was a very special and momentous occasion. Now that we have a bankroll, we’ll just quietly play theta gang as we enjoy our lives and spend time with our families and loved ones. Here’s a good summary.
This is not for amateurs. I mean, none of this is financial advice anyway, just educational.
But in a nutshell, I will: 1) Buy shares, 2) Sell CSPs 30-45 days out with 0.3 delta, 3) sell CCs with 0.3 delta (will reconsider this if Ford goes vertical) 4) Collect dividends.
The Wheel doesn’t work on everything. Here are the qualifications from the above post, let me know if this sounds familiar:

• Profitable company that has solid cash flow
  
• Bullish, or Very Bullish, analyst ratings
  
• Priced around $10 to $50 so that I can afford to take the assignment if needed and I stay away from sub-$10 stocks as a rule
  
• A stable chart without wild gyrations (especially those caused by CEO tweets!)
  
• A nice dividend is always a good thing, both that you may collect it if assigned the stock but also that dividend stocks tend to more stable and predictable.
  

Hmm...
Conclusion:
Ford is a massive, complex, multinational corporation so I’ve likely missed very many things, but I wanted to get this out before ER so I can flex again. (No market manipulation here lol. My buddy's multi-million dollar block buys didn't move the needle one iota.) There are many things I haven’t covered, and simply don’t know yet. As more facts begin to unfold, and as I spend more time with the stock, I’ll share the information here. Also, every time I post about an equity, it seems to go down. Lol... (GME). With all this in mind, this is still a very risky bet.
Nevertheless, I like what I’ve seen thus far. Ford looks like a fantastically healthy company in the midst of a turnaround towards electrification with a phenomenally depressed multiple according to the market’s appetite. It deserves a multiple trending towards TSLA’s, not a dying auto manufacturer. Jim Farley has shown early to be a great CEO and I think he can continue the transformation. We’ve begun to enter a phase of exuberance, so I’ll choose to long Ford instead of short TSLA.
As a bonus, we have the opportunity to join forces with the boomers and talking heads and bet on one of their favorite companies. Time for America to be on the same side again. We’ve been divided for too long.
I know my GME posts were lucky. I’ll stake my reputation on another bet. One call sure is lucky. What about two? In any case, investing is a marathon, not a sprint. Glad to be a part of this journey with you all. Note: I will not discuss GME in the comments, which all depends on Ryan Cohen. There is nothing further to add until Q4 earnings.
And finally, we’ve officially entered the last phase of our very long bull market. This is not necessarily a sell signal yet, as some of the greatest returns can come in this period and can last for a long time. I will do my best to look for the signal and sound the alarm. The world will be celebrating, and I will be bearish. Burry’s passive indexing bubble call in combination with Thiel’s government debt bubble call will lead us into a dark time of unprecedented proportions. Tail risk hedging won’t work as the declines will be slow at first, and then fast and violent and unrecoverable. Be careful. Listen to Ken Fisher. Thank you very much for your time.
Positions: Bullish shares, LEAPS, on-going quadruple income wheel strategy as Ford reinstates the dividend. Timeframe 12-18 months. Watch out VIGILANTLY for macro risks. Bear market is on the horizon. Drop some Fs in the chat to pay respects.
PT: $32 with a chance of $98 if we start to see exuberance in the broader market.
-JA

Heya lads, i was recently forced into re-reading the entirety of Harry Potter by my partner, a series which i'v been highly critical of for the past decade. Now having re-read it, i'm inspired to write a long long rant on why it has some of the worst world-building i'v read.
This will probably be a 5 or 6 part series of rants to be honest, as i intend on going very indepth into every aspect that i think sucked. I know a lot of these are going to be the obvious criticisms that we've all heard a million times before, including a hundred times on this very subreddit, but hopefully i can provide a more detailed analysis on why it's so detrimental to the story. Having every individual aspect be a different post can also help contain the responses to relevant information, and i can be corrected on anything i get wrong.
​

Felix Felicis, the Luck Potion

The potion makes you very lucky, for approximately 12 hours if a full dose is taken. The luck is described as being potent enough to make an "average day" into a "perfect day". The main trio takes small doses of the potion each before the final battle of Hogwarts, against Voldemorts army, and basically manages to just dodge/run past the hundreds of deadly spells being shot around them effortlessly.
JK Rowling attempts to justify the potions limited narrative use in the story (and thus the world) by adding some in-world limitations. These limitations include:

1. Relatively rare ingredients.
2. Difficult to brew, and deadly if the brewing is messed up.
3. Takes six months to finish brewing.
4. Causes recklessness and dangerous overconfidence.
5. Toxic in large quantities.
6. Banned in all competitive sports.

These limitations are used by JK as a half assed explanation that she (or her fans) can fall back on when criticized, the issue is that absolutely none of them hold up as reasonable justification. The truth is, the existence of the Felix Felicis would fundamentally alter the culture and economy of the world.
​

Human Ingenuity

The main reason JKs attempted reasonings to limit the existence of FF don't hold up, is because she VASTLY underestimates human ingenuity. In fact this is something many MANY authors struggle with, particularly young-adult or fantasy authors.
Human beings are far more innovative, motivated, and imaginative than authors care to admit. This is especially true in matters of financial profit or having a leg up in society. The majority of humans will go to very great lengths, and often dedicate the entirety of their lives if they have to, trying to capitalize on any advantage they can get.
This issue is somewhat related to the author attempting to make the protagonists stand out as being more resourceful or clever than their peers. However, since the author lacks the ability to make the protagonists genuinely resourceful or clever by real life standards, they resort to dumbing down everyone around the protagonists. All side characters, and all citizens of the world, are essentially brain dead morons with no aspirations or motivations, and no common sense.
Now you could be thinking that perhaps i'm expecting too much of JK, or expecting too much of any author. No author could possibly live up to the standards i'm trying to set when it comes to consistent world building with realistic character ingenuity. Well....
​

Mistborn Series and Atium

Mistborn is a series of books written by Branden Sanderson (highly recommend him to anyone that wants new age fantasy). In this world, certain human beings, called Mistborns, can consume different metals to gain different powers for a short amount of time. One of those metals is called Atium, which allows them to see the future in real-time. Essentially they gain precognition to their opponents actions. The way Atium is utilized in this story is:
If you're fighting a Mistborn with Atium, you will always lose.
If two Mistborns are fighting, the one without Atium will always lose.
Two Mistborns both consuming Atium cancels out one anothers effects, resulting in a balanced fight. This however creates room for counterplay, by characters needing to judge how much Atium the opponent consumed, and how long it might last.
The fantastic part of this world however, is that the existence of Atium fundamentally alters its history in a realistic way

1. Atium is the gold standard of the worlds economic trade. What do i mean by this? All the banks, government, and rich families, keep Atium storages in the case of a financial depression, since Atium has real applicable value which paper money does not. This is most closely comparable to the use of gold storages in real life. The entire worlds free-market revolves around the existence of this Metal.
2. Different rich families attempt to keep one another in check by all trading for Atium, since if a single family ever gained a monopoly over the metal, that family would become the undisputed ruler of the world, since no one without Atium could challenge them.
3. All Mistborns carry a small vial of Atium with them wherever they go, just incase of emergencies.
4. Entire slave trades were created by the wealthy families, in order to utilize the slaves to mine as much Atium as possible. The existence of these slaves ends up playing a pivotal role in the worlds history and bigoted culture.

Now, i want you to replace the word "Atium" with "Felix Felicis" in the last few paragraphs, and you'll notice that it still makes near perfect sense. This is because they both play an identical role in terms of the practical advantage they offer, the difference being that one story put in a lot of effort into making it feel like it fits into the narrative of the story and the world at large, whereas the other basically ignored any impact it would/should have.
​

Felix Felicis' limitations

The reason for discussing Mistborn, was to give you all a baseline to establish that the existence of this potion COULD have been handled properly, and why none of the in-world limitations JK created are an effective counterargument.
Rare Ingredients: Here's the first issue, because yes, while the ingredients needed to make the potion may be rare in the setting JK created, they wouldn't actually be rare when you take human innovation into account.
Lets say it requires a phoenix feather, and some elderwood tree bark, and both of these are exceptionally rare things to find. Great. In JK rowlings numbnut brain she explained away the problem.... Except in real life, people would just farm the fuck out of those two things, in order to artificially create more supply. You know, like what we do with meat and vegetables anyways? Humans are capable of manipulating the supply of just about anything to suit their needs, and as i already established, people will dedicate their entire lives to financially supporting themselves if they have to. If a large enough demand for something exists, someone will ALWAYS create a business to cater to that demand.
Difficulty to brew: It's almost as if people could spend a decade or more of their adolescent years studying and practicing this thing to perfection, and then using those skills to join a business which pays them for their expertise... Huh.
The six months taken to brew is a none factor since it would only impact the projects start up period, and would have a consistent supply after.
Causes recklessness, dangerous overconfidence, and is toxic: You mean like Alcohol? Or almost any other drug? Right, because NO ONE ever drinks alcohol or takes drugs. Of course you could argue that FF is way more toxic than most drugs, fine, but it's also way more advantageous than all drugs too. Heroine just makes you pass the fuck out on your couch all day, and people still take it. This is a drug that gives you an objective advantage over everyone else, you bet your ass people would be taking it for job interviews, or criminals would be taking it before heists, etc.
Banned in competitive sports: This is the part that's most bewildering to me, JK actually had the foresight to mention its illegality in sports, but then her bird brain totally forget all the other aspects of every day life it would impact? This makes its lack of use even more strange, because JK herself is acknowledging the insane objective advantage it provides.
However, even if she had made it illegal for consumption in all scenarios, it still wouldn't have solved the world building problem (though it would have been a step in the right direction), since real world drug dealers have existed for almost as long as the human race. All Death Eaters etc would still have it, and most Aurors would keep some on them too for when they went up against criminals using it.
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TLDR:

The existence of Felix Felicis is, in my opinion, the single biggest flaw to Harry Potters world building when you consider its impact on the plot and world, compared to the impact it should have had to the plot and world. Even bigger than the time turner, since TT's can at least be excused as being genuinely very rare and with massive ramifications to their use.
JK fell into an amateur writers trap by writing her world in a way which assumes no one ever existed in this universe before the first page of the first book. The people and characters living in this world never demonstrated basic common sense to capitalize on a gold mine throughout the entirety of the worlds history, simply because, the worlds history and functionality has no purpose past the elements which directly impact the protagonist.
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The next rant is going to be about the history and origin of magic, and its lack of religious and cultural evolution in the Harry Potter-verse. It might take a couple days, since this took a surprising amount of time and research to finish, but it was an absolute blast to write. Hope you enjoyed reading it :)