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For those who didn’t tune into any national news network this past week, you are the only ones who don’t know about the sub-Reddit community, WallStreetBets.

WallStreetBets is an odd community. They refer to themselves as, “degenerates.” This was adopted when a hedge fund manager referred to them as such, and claimed they wouldn’t have any effect on the stocks, or his wealth. They will often adopt Wall Street insults as their own identifier, basically giving Wall Street the finger.

They falsely claim their own wife has a boyfriend (who they appreciate taking care of “business” they want to avoid), or they are sleeping with another member’s wife, in conversation with them. They call each other “gae” (misspelling intentionally, so they don’t violate Reddit rules). They claim they are, themselves, “smooth brained” (or a “retarb” or “autist”). Those are just a few of the oddities among the WallStreetBets crowd. There are others I won’t repeat on this post.

Some insight about them may be gained when you read this post on their Reddit.

Few get angry at being insulted by another in the community. Members expect it. The names and accusations were all directed at the community by Wall Street millionaires, and they adopt each insult as a badge of pride. Another middle finger to Wall Street.

It will be impossible to drill down into the details of the phenomenon happening with some stocks and retail investors, but I’ll try to provide a basic summation of what is occurring.

A few months ago, WallStreetBets had about 600,000 members who discuss the stock market and individual stocks. Not all were “Dumb Money,” as Wall Street millionaires and Hedge Fund managers would refer to a middle class investor like you and me (Retail Investors).

As “Dumb Money,” we are the “apes” that willingly invest money in stocks we think will go up in price (referred to as, “long” investors) and provide them with their wealth, as they take it from us, when they help the stock go down in price.

Only one of these millionaires actually admitted to stock manipulation. It may surprise you it was Jim Cramer, stock guru of The Street. If you want a wake-up call of how “shorts” manipulate stock prices WATCH THIS VIDEO of him in a 2006 interview, as he reveals his dirty tricks. It was quickly removed from his podcast library, but was captured by YouTuber, Judd Bagley.

It’s the video The Daily Show used to very nearly ruin Jim Cramer’s career, says Bagley.

Some retail investors on WallStreetBets actually know how the millionaires and hedge fund managers manipulate stocks, and nobody likes being referred to as, Dumb Money. They decided to hunt for the Wolves of Wall Street.

What they found was that some stocks were heavily “shorted,” meaning millionaires were betting the price of the stock would go down, and if it did they would actually make money off the retail investors who were buying “long.”

“Long” retail investors are those of us who buy a stock and make our profit when the stock goes up.

If the millionaires who shorted a stock wanted to drive the price of a stock down, because it might be rising, it sometimes only took a piece of bad news, or a rumor (whether true, or not) being provided to news outlets. The price of the stock would take a dip down, retail investors’ fear of losing money would take hold, and they would sell their shares, causing the price to further decline.

As the price went down, those hedge funds/millionaires would trigger their options. The difference between the high price that they opted in at, before the decline, and the low price where they got out of their options, would be their profit.

Those WallStreetBets members I spoke of earlier noticed that some stocks were heavily shorted by the institutions (hedge funds).

One particular stock was shorted to 140% of its available “float.” The float is the amount of shares available for trading (Which begs the question, “How can there be 40% more shares shorted, than are actually issued?”).

That company with the unbelievable short position at the time?

GameStop (GME).

The word was put out on WallStreetBets. If GME (a company that really does have some poor fundamentals) was purchased by retail investors and the price of the stock rose, the “shorts” would have to cover their positions, costing them money by purchasing the higher priced stock.

This, in turn, makes the price of the stock rise, because the shorts are being forced to buy the stock, because of margin calls. However, it takes many of millions of dollars to influence a stock price.

WallStreetBets never advised any member to buy the stock (that would be illegal). They only put out the information that the shorts had placed themselves in a “squeeze” situation.

From that spark, a fire began. Retail investors on WallStreetBets poured money into GME stock, buying on every bid offered.

GME was selling for about $4 in August of last year. It was around $15 when the fire became an inferno, as word spread outside the WallStreetBets community. GME went over $480 last week.

New millionaires and almost-millionaires have been created. Student loans, mortgages, and other debt was paid off by retail investors.

And the amazing part of it all, is that the “squeeze” continued, as many buyers refuse to sell shares, keeping them unavailable to the shorts.

Retail investors continue buying shares, wanting to buy up every available share, so that at some point, they can determine what their selling price will be, to the shorts who are obligated to buy them. In theory, if no shares are available on the open market, the owners of the shares can determine the price of a share. Shorts would have to pay a ransom and the millionaires would have to sell their yachts and home in the Hamptons.

WallStreetBets now has almost 7 million members, and they’ve killed one wolf already.

Melvin Capital closed all it’s short positions on Wednesday, as they continued to pour more cash into covering margin calls to retain their short positions.

After $12 Billion lost, including $3 Billion they obtained from friends on Wall Street, they threw in the towel and closed their positions. Some estimate the total loss of all short sellers combined, could be close to $25 Billion.

Citadel, another short seller, is still carrying on the battle with retail investors, and the fight is getting dirty (which I’ll write about in my next post).

With the discovery of GME being excessively shorted and the yet-to-be-determined outcome of that battle raging, other highly shorted stocks (above 40%) are being squeezed by millions of retail investors that includes those who aren’t followers of WallStreetBets.

Among them are, AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC), Bed Bath and Beyond (BBBY), and Express (EXPR), to name a few.

Before anyone thinks this is “easy money,” Squeezes come with high risk. HIGH RISK!

If you are considering hunting for wolves, understand that squeeze plays often end in disaster for those YOLO investors (YOLO = You Only Live Once) who re-mortgage their house, or draw on credit cards to invest in a squeeze play, hoping to become millionaires. I suspect that there are some currently in these squeeze plays who have done exactly that.

So, if you don’t have a job, can’t afford to post a cash bail, or get your car out of impound, then being part of a squeeze isn’t for you. Use your next stimulus check to pay off some of your debt.

A squeeze may last months, weeks, or only days and there is no guarantee the ultimate goal of pushing a  stock to $1000 and beyond can be reached. The last time that happened was in 2008, when Porsche squeezed short sellers of Volkswagon in just a matter of days. Hedge fund short sellers lost $30 Billion.

In an irony of sorts, even though Porsche managed to burn many short sellers, it couldn’t pay up for the large margin positions it had created, and ended up being acquired by VW instead.

Notice: Any and all discussion of a stock(s) should not be considered financial advice and is for entertainment purposes only. I often lose my car keys and forget where I park my car. I am not a financial advisor.

Full disclosure: I have a long position in AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC).

UPDATE 11:00 : I sold all my position in AMC this morning.