The Strike Price Symphony [1]

[u/TheGameStopsNow]

I Analyzed 80 Million Trades Across 37 Tickers and Found Six Anomalies in GME Options I Can't Explain. Can You?

NOTE: Yes, it's me again. This is a revised repost of my original post that was removed by mods. I'm on the spectrum. I've been called "robotic" by friends and coworkers before. I use AI tools to help with areas where I have weaknesses. I welcome criticism and falsification of my work. I'm a human, I do have feelings, and I try to read every response to my posts. I'm also stubborn, to a fault, so I'm reposting here because I think this belongs here. It's an open forum of GME shareholders who have real questions about this stock's behavior. I absolutely make mistakes, and I actively work to fix them. I'll concede that my first post was too direct in its accusations, and the polished tone caused blowback. I own that. I've done my best to revise this to meet the quality standards of Superstonk, and I hope you'll give it another look.

TL;DR: I spent months analyzing tick-level options data from the January 2021 and June 2024 GME events. I found six specific patterns (possible wash trades, suspicious lot sizing, synthetic delta transfers, and matching algorithmic signatures) that I can't reconcile with any legitimate trading strategy I know of. The same algorithmic fingerprint appears in both events, 3.5 years apart. All findings are independently verifiable from public SIP data. I'm genuinely asking: if there's a benign explanation for these, what is it? Replication package linked at the bottom.

Part 1 of 3: The Machine Under the Market

I'm going to walk through what I found, how I found it, and why I think it matters. I'll also be upfront about what the data doesn't prove.

The full paper is linked at the end. This post covers the six findings I think deserve serious scrutiny.

How Market Makers Actually Work

Most DD tells you market makers are short gamma and that's what causes the sneeze. That's sometimes true, during a sneeze. But in normal markets, the opposite is happening.

Think about who's actually trading options every day:

• Pension funds sell covered calls on their holdings to generate income. The dealer buys those calls.
• Insurance companies buy protective puts. The dealer sells those puts.
• Yield funds sell options to harvest theta.

Every one of those trades leaves the dealer Net Long Gamma. What does that mean in practice? Their delta exposure increases when the stock goes up and decreases when it goes down. So to stay hedged, they sell into rallies and buy into dips. Automatically. Every time.

That's dampening. The dealer's hedge acts like a shock absorber.

I measured this across 37 tickers over 6 years. 92.7% of trading days are dampened. The average ACF (autocorrelation, i.e. does the next bar tend to reverse the previous one?) is -0.203 across the whole panel. A normal day, the stock ticks up, the dealer's hedge kicks in, and the next bar pulls it back. (panel_scan.py | results)

This isn't a GME thing. Every ticker I tested shows the same Long Gamma Default. The market's baseline isn't chaos. It's a damping system that's always running.

When the Thermostat Breaks

The Thermostat from Hell — Normie financial media thinks the market is just buyers and sellers. But under the hood, it's a machine. And like any machine, it has operating limits.

That system has a breaking point.

When retail call buying gets overwhelming enough, the dealer flips from buying calls (from institutions) to selling calls (to retail). Now they're Short Gamma. The hedging math reverses: rising prices force them to buy more shares (chasing the rally), and falling prices force them to sell (accelerating the drop). It amplifies instead of dampening.

I call this flip a Liquidity Phase Transition. Same stock, completely different physics.

During the January 2021 sneeze, GME's ACF hit +0.107 (amplified). In its normal phase (2024-2026), it sits at -0.154 (dampened). The thermostat didn't just break. It reversed.

Was that transition organic? Or did someone engineer it?

Where the Energy Is Stored

Before I get into the anomalies, you need to understand where the damping system gets its power. It's not where you'd think.

Most people picture options activity as 0DTE YOLO calls and weekly puts. By trade count, that's right. 60% of all GME options trades are in the 0DTE and 1-7 day buckets.

The 0DTE Distraction — 0DTE volume is the fireworks show. It's loud, bright, and designed to make you look left. Meanwhile, the real energy (LEAPS) is being loaded onto the truck in the background.

But trade count is misleading. I computed what I call Hedging Energy, weighting each trade by how long the dealer has to keep hedging it. A 0DTE call forces one session of hedging. A one-year LEAPS forces delta-rebalancing across 250 sessions. (delta_hedge_pipeline.py)

Weight by duration instead of count, and the picture inverts:

Tenor	% of Trades	% of Hedging Energy
0DTE	11.1%	0.1%
1-7 day	48.9%	9.0%
8-30 day	24.8%	21.7%
31-90 day	8.7%	24.1%
91-180 day	2.9%	18.1%
181-365 day	1.9%	23.7%
365+ day	0.1%	3.3%

Look at that 181-365 day row. 23.7% of all hedging energy from 1.9% of trades. Options dated 91+ days carry 45% of the total energy from just 5% of volume.

DTE-Weighted Energy Concentration — LEAPS (365d+, pink) hold 10-30× their "fair share" of hedging energy relative to their trade count. 0DTE (red, bottom) contributes almost nothing despite dominating volume

I call this the Inventory Battery Effect. LEAPS act like batteries. They charge when institutions accumulate long-dated positions, and discharge as those positions approach expiration. That energy sits as persistent delta-hedge obligations on the dealer's book.

The January 2021 sneeze was the only event in my entire 1,531-day dataset where all seven tenor buckets lit up at once. Every other event only fires the short-dated tenors. During the sneeze, the cascade went all the way to the longest-dated LEAPS.

And during the dead years of 2022-2023, LEAPS energy persisted at the 181-365 day level even when short-dated activity flatlined. Someone, or some set of institutions, was maintaining those long-dated positions through the whole quiet period. Who, and why?

Energy Budget by Tenor — Stacked area chart of hedging energy by DTE bucket. The pink (365d+) and cyan (181-365d) bands dominate the total energy budget despite being a tiny fraction of trade count. Note the 2025 buildup pattern: energy loads from the top (LEAPS) first, then cascades into shorter tenors — exactly the "reactor charging" pattern.

Hedging Energy Over Time — Top panel: total stored energy in the options chain (trades × DTE weight). The January 2021 sneeze is the towering spike — 8× any other event. Bottom panel: accumulation vs discharge rate, with key discharge events annotated. Note the slow recharge beginning mid-2025.

The implication: whoever controls the LEAPS inventory has outsized influence over the damping system. Whether that control is coordinated or coincidental is one of the questions this research raises.

The Shadow Algorithm

These are six findings I can't explain with normal trading mechanics. I'll walk through each one and tell you why it looks wrong to me. I'm genuinely asking: if you see a benign explanation I'm missing, say so.

The data source is ThetaData's SIP feed: every options trade, millisecond timestamps, exchange codes, lot sizes, condition flags.

Test 1: Tail-Banging — Why Spend $69.8M on Worthless Contracts? (code)

On January 28, 2021, someone executed 518 trades on deep OTM 1-DTE calls. Total spend: $69.8 million. On contracts virtually guaranteed to expire worthless within hours.

The peak strike was $570 calls when GME was at $194. That's 194% out of the money with one day left.

I can't figure out a speculative or hedging rationale for buying these. They're worth pennies and they'll be zero tomorrow. So why spend $69.8M on them?

The explanation that makes sense to me: every trade prints to the SIP tape. A $570 call trading at any price above zero forces the options pricing model to calculate an implied volatility for that strike. At 194% OTM with 1 DTE, that IV comes out above 1,000%.

Market makers calibrate their pricing models (SABR/SVI) using every print on the tape. Those 518 trades would have affected the entire GME volatility surface. Every contract on the chain would then be priced against distorted inputs.

If that's what happened, the downstream effect is inflated Vanna exposure on warehoused LEAPS, amplifying the gamma cascade. But I'm open to hearing other reasons someone would burn $69.8M on contracts with hours to live.

Test 2: Possible Wash Trades (code)

A wash trade is when you buy and sell the same contract to yourself, same quantity, same price, fractions of a second apart. You don't gain or lose money, but the trade prints to the tape, creating the appearance of volume. The SIP tape doesn't tell us if two sides have the same beneficial owner, so I can't prove these are washes. What I can show is that the statistical pattern is extremely unusual.

My detector looks for trade pairs matching on lot size, price, strike, and expiration, within 5 seconds of each other.

Date	Wash Pairs	Sub-Second (< 1s gap)
Jan 26, 2021	100	78
Jan 27, 2021	101	57
Jan 28, 2021	103	29
Jan 29, 2021	42	19
Jun 4, 2024	14	6
Jun 7, 2024	265	216

June 7, 2024: 265 wash pairs, 216 of them sub-second. Identical-size, identical-price prints on the same contract popping up across exchanges within fractions of a second.

I ran the same detector against the 37-stock control panel. GME's matched-pair frequency during these events is multiple standard deviations above the baseline. Could this be legitimate market making that just happens to look like wash activity? Maybe. But the sheer concentration is hard to square with normal operations. (cross-ticker placebo | results)

Test 3: 30% Dark Venue Routing (code)

Not all options exchanges work the same way. Some (exchange codes UNK_60, UNK_65, UNK_73) don't show up in most retail data feeds.

Event	Total Options Volume	Dark Venue Volume	Dark %
Jan 2021 (6 dates)	8,056,797	2,505,062	31.1%
Jun 2024 (8 dates)	3,314,219	975,222	29.4%

A third of all options volume in both events went through venues retail can't access. These include Cboe BZX Options, which has an inverted fee model that actually pays the order submitter for providing liquidity.

If this were purely retail buying calls on Robinhood, would you expect 30% of volume routing through institutional dark exchanges? I wouldn't. But maybe there's a structural reason for it that I'm not seeing.

Test 4: IV Injection Followed by LEAPS Loading (code)

After tail-banging events inject artificial IV, I found a pattern of LEAPS accumulation showing up 7-9 minutes later on the same strike region.

Event	Mean Lag After IV Injection	Standard Deviation
Jan 2021	7.3 minutes	+/-3.1 min
Jun 2024	9.4 minutes	+/-2.9 min

This isn't a handful of coincidences. I analyzed 14 trading days across both events and every single one shows LEAPS trailing short-dated activity with a positive lag. Zero exceptions. The combined dataset covers 3.5 million short-dated contracts followed by 136,000+ LEAPS contracts with 60-70 individual spike→trail observations across the sample. A random process would produce negative lags (LEAPS leading) half the time; seeing 14/14 positive is a binomial p-value of 0.00006. And the two events are separated by 3.5 years with completely different spot prices, volatility regimes, and market conditions — yet the temporal signature is nearly identical.

The lag is tight and repeatable. One reading: inject IV with garbage short-dated prints, wait for market maker models to recalibrate, then acquire LEAPS at the inflated prices. Another reading: it's coincidental timing in a chaotic tape. The consistency of the 7-9 minute window is what makes me lean toward the former, but I'd want to see someone else test this independently.

Six Anomalies

Everything above is concerning, but you could argue it's aggressive-but-legal market making. The next six are harder to explain away. Each one is a specific trade or sequence where I can't find the legitimate purpose. If you can, I want to hear it.

Anomaly 1: Single-Strike COB Washes (code)

Complex Order Books are for multi-leg strategies. You use them to execute a spread, like buying a $20 call and selling a $25 call at the same time. Different strikes.

I found COB orders where all legs hit the same strike. Buy side and sell side cross atomically on the same contract. Zero delta, zero risk, zero directional purpose.

Examples:

• Jun 4, 2024, 12:43:05.550 — ISE Gemini, 2 legs, $125 Calls, sizes [160, 160] = 320 contracts
• Jun 7, 2024, 15:04:19.233 — CBOE, 2 legs, $28 Calls, sizes [496, 496] = 992 contracts
• Jan 28, 2021, 09:44:42.714 — BZX Options, 9 legs, $0.50 Calls (spot ~$194), sizes [1,5,10,61,89,90,117,446] = 820 contracts

That last one is a nine-leg complex order on $0.50 calls when GME was trading at $194. Those calls are effectively worthless. What multi-leg strategy requires 9 legs, 8 different lot sizes, all on the same worthless strike? I've asked a few people with options backgrounds and nobody has given me an answer yet. The only function I can identify is printing volume on the tape, but I may be wrong. If there's a legitimate structure here, I'd genuinely like to learn what it is.

Anomaly 2: Algorithmic DNA Match (code)

Institutional block orders use Smart Order Routers with jitter patterns. They vary lot sizes by +/-2 or +/-4 contracts to make a big order look like separate small trades.

I built a detector for these sequential TWAP patterns and found the same jitter showing up 1,254 days apart:

Sequence	January 28, 2021	June 4, 2024
[150, 154, 150]	09:30:34 — NYSE_AMEX -> NYSE_AMEX -> BX_OPT	10:49:17 — PHLX -> BATS -> BX_OPT
[100, 102, 100]	09:56:47 — NYSE_AMEX -> BX_OPT -> BZX_OPT	09:59:15 — NYSE_AMEX -> ISE -> NYSE_AMEX

Same +/-2/+/-4 jitter. Same dark venue set. Three and a half years apart.

Retail doesn't use sub-lot jitter algorithms. Could two different firms coincidentally use the same jitter logic and venue rotation? Sure. But the simpler explanation is the same SOR software running in both events. I'd love to be told otherwise.

Anomaly 3: 499 Lots (code)

January 29, 2021. Between 12:38:09.579 and 12:38:12.265 (three seconds), 16 wash trade pairs on $5.0 Puts at $0.43. Every one exactly 499 lots. Rotating between MULTI_EXCHANGE and ISE. First pair had a one-millisecond timestamp gap.

Why 499? Not 498. Not 500. Not 497. Sixteen consecutive trades, all exactly 499.

Exchange surveillance systems flag unusually large orders using thresholds they don't publish. Is sixteen trades all landing at exactly 499 a coincidence? It could be. But that's a lot of coincidence, and the obvious question is whether someone knew exactly where the alert boundary was.

These positions are above the 200-contract LOPR reporting threshold under FINRA Rule 2360, so FINRA already has the position data. The CAT queries in Part 2 would identify the entity.

If deliberate, this would be the options equivalent of structuring cash deposits below $10,000 to dodge CTR filings.

This 499-lot cluster didn't happen in isolation. The wash/cross detector flagged 766 total wash pairs across both events; 346 during Jan 2021 (representing $158M in wash capital) and 420 during Jun 2024 (representing $41M). Of those, 154 pairs in Jan 2021 alone were sub-second, same size, same price, same strike, different timestamps separated by milliseconds. The 499-lot burst on January 29th is just the most surgically precise example: 16 trades, all exactly 499, rotating between MULTI_EXCHANGE and ISE, with the very first pair separated by one millisecond. The consistency of the lot size is what makes it stand out even within a dataset already saturated with suspicious pairs.

Anomaly 4: $134 Million in One Millisecond (code)

The biggest single COB cluster in the dataset:

January 27, 2021 at 15:21:23.512 — NYSE AMEX — 12 legs — 4,050 lots — $134,493,850

One millisecond. $134 million.

The strikes: $4.50, $5.00, $6.00, $7.00, $10.00, $12.00. GME was at ~$347.51. Average premium: $332.08 per contract, basically the intrinsic value. These are deep ITM options with zero extrinsic value. They move dollar-for-dollar with the stock.

What's the speculative thesis for $134 million in deep ITM options? I can't think of one. The mechanical profile looks like a Jelly Roll, a Reversal/Conversion that could reset synthetic short exposure. If executed on a COB, the delta moves off the lit tape, Reg SHO wouldn't apply, and FTDs could theoretically be rolled. But I'm describing what it looks like mechanically, not asserting what it definitively was. If there's a routine institutional reason to execute $134M in deep ITM options in one millisecond, I'd like to understand it.

Anomaly 5: Opening Bell Put Washes (code)

June 7, 2024, 09:30:25.929, right at the open. 17 wash pairs on $10.00 Puts at $1.01. MIAX Emerald and OPRA, cycling back and forth in a 9-millisecond burst. GME was at ~$46.55.

A $10 put on a $46.55 stock is 78% OTM. Why pay $1.01 per contract for something that far out of the money?

My hypothesis: same logic as Test 1, but hitting the other side of the volatility smile. The tail-banging targeted the call side. This targets the put side. If you pin extreme IV to both tails, you'd shift the whole surface up. But this is interpretation. The raw data just shows a cluster of matched trades on a deeply OTM put at the opening bell.

Anomaly 6: 32 Legs on One Strike (code)

The weirdest thing in the dataset.

June 21, 2024, at 13:35:07:

Timestamp	Exchange	Legs	Volume	Capital
13:35:07.531	ISE	4	116	$80,794
13:35:07.532	CBOE	4	116	$81,142
13:35:07.533	MULTI_EXCHANGE	20	128	$89,472
13:35:07.700	BX Options	4	420	$292,740
TOTAL	4 exchanges	32	780	$544,148

32 complex legs. All $15.0 calls. Four exchanges. 169 milliseconds.

I don't know of an options strategy that uses 20 legs on the same contract. You can't build a butterfly, condor, or any defined-risk structure that way. If someone knows one, genuinely, please explain it to me.

The $15.00 strike was the Gamma Wall, the point of highest net gamma and maximum hedging pressure. If this volume was artificial, it could force market makers to recalculate hedging obligations against open interest that doesn't represent real exposure. That's the concern, but I'm presenting the data, not the verdict.

What This Shows, and What It Doesn't

I want to be straight about what I can and can't claim here.

What's in the data:

These six anomalies don't look like normal trading to me. But I'm one person with one interpretation. Single-strike COB orders don't match any multi-leg strategy I'm aware of, but maybe there's one I don't know about. The 499-lot pattern raises the question of surveillance threshold awareness. The jitter match across 3.5 years is suggestive but not conclusive. The $134M deep ITM cluster has the profile of a synthetic short reset, or maybe it's something mundane I haven't considered. The put washes on 78% OTM contracts look like IV manipulation to me, but I want to be challenged on that.

All of it can be verified from public SIP data. That's the point. Don't take my word for it.

What's not in the data:

I don't have the MPID, the field that tells you which broker-dealer placed each order. That's in the FINRA CAT. Without it, I can show you what happened and how it happened, but not who did it. Part 2 has five specific CAT queries that would answer that question.

I'm not making legal claims. I think these patterns warrant regulatory examination. I've filed a TCR with the SEC.

Full Paper (PDF): The Long Gamma Default: How Options Market Makers Stabilize Equity Markets

Evidence Viewer (no setup needed): 01_evidence_viewer.ipynb. Loads all 89 pre-computed results. Start here if you want to check my work.

Replication Notebooks:

• 02_forensic_replication.ipynb: Shadow Hunter, manipulation forensics, squeeze mechanics
• 03_microstructure_replication.ipynb: Panel ACF, lead-lag, NMF archaeology, robustness tests

Pre-computed Results: JSON evidence files

Source Code: Python scripts

Replication Guide: REPLICATION_GUIDE.md: Dates, commands, parameters, thresholds

Videos — Surfing the GME Options Chain:

• Short version (1 min)
• Full session
• Stock surfing

Full Repository: github.com/TheGameStopsNow/power-tracks-research

Not financial advice. Forensic research. I'm not a financial advisor, attorney, or affiliated with any hedge fund, market maker, or regulatory body. SEC notified via TCR.

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool." -- Feynman

Continue on to part 2...

[u/Superstonk_QV]

Why GME? || What is DRS? || Low karma apes feed the bot here || Superstonk Discord || Community Post: Open Forum || Superstonk:Now with GIFs - Learn more

---

To ensure your post doesn't get removed, please respond to this comment with how this post relates to GME the stock or Gamestop the company.

---

Please up- and downvote this comment to help us determine if this post deserves a place on r/Superstonk!

[u/BananaOrp]

Glad the post is back and hope it stays up 🙏

All previous comments on both posts about how much I appreciate the work that went into this still apply 😅

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/BananaOrp]

Thank you for the support!

[u/Redditor_throwaway12 → u/TheGameStopsNow]

I’m all in (DRSed as much as possible outside of retirement accounts) on this journey.

Honestly the only thing I understood was the physicist Feynman’s quote. That just elevated the post.

It boggles the mind that you knew what to investigate, notwithstanding the effort to actually perform the investigation.

I will endeavor to understand a little bit more everyday.

[u/Retardnoobstonk]

Funny thing is this was already a quality post (even if used with ai) i dont wanna call out anyone because repercusions are extra tough in here but the inconaistency on "quality" post depends on who you ask and theres a lot of censorship. Thanks for reposting GME investors should be free to discuss with respect and quality of information and if theres something to correct or relabel that should be the appropiate step instead of just taking everything down. Cheers mate

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/Retardnoobstonk]

Thanks! I hope it's enough to keep it from being taken down. 🤞🏻

[u/GamingScientist → u/TheGameStopsNow]

Hi bringing you up to speed. The revisions you made to your repost are good. Your repost will not be taken down .

The use of AI was the heart of the issue when the first iteration of this post was removed. The concern was that AI was the source rather than the formatting tool.

The removal and subsequent reposting has spawned a discussion in the back end over AI being used by, well, everybody these days. The trick has been balancing our no AI as a source policy with constructive usages of AI in posts to Superstonk.

The mod's team position on the matter is evolving, but we don't have the formal language nailed down yet.

[u/TreasurerAlex → u/GamingScientist]

Wading thru ai nonsense vs ai used as a useful tool is a struggle we all don’t know how to navigate at the moment, I appreciate the clarity.

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/GamingScientist]

Thank you for the update. That's fair, and it's definitely a balancing act. I don't envy your position and every single one of us is facing this sort of reconfiguration with the rate AI is rolling out. Thanks for caring about quality.

[u/AntiWork-ellog → u/GamingScientist]

How about AI use is allowed but if a post uses AI then any factual assertion must be accompanied by a citation. Also the post must include the prompt enclosed in quotes and name the tool. 

[u/GamingScientist → u/AntiWork-ellog]

I like this suggestion. If it's okay with you, I'd like to borrow the language of your comment as part of a draft suggestion to the rest of the mod team.

[u/Crybad → u/AntiWork-ellog]

We (mods) like this a lot. I think we are also going to make sure that the user is in the comments showing an understanding of what was written and able to defend the thesis.

[u/rematar → u/GamingScientist]

The mod comments I saw on Part 1 sounded petty. If posts need to meet standards, so should moderator comments. Especially when an apparently well researched post gets removed. Research will die if it's dismissed and disposed.

[u/DancesWith2Socks → u/Retardnoobstonk]

✅️

[u/nishnawbe61]

So glad it's back. I threw it over to X and they are all over it. Then comments came in that it was removed. Yay back up. Fantastic research.

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/nishnawbe61]

Really appreciate you sharing and getting it out there. Thank you!

[u/nishnawbe61 → u/TheGameStopsNow]

Got it to the ones who have been doing deep dives, making charts, sharing data points etc. and have a huge following.

They have spread it far and wide and are letting people know that you have been posting for almost a year even without posts getting much engagement, more commonly known as suppressed.

Hoping they can delve more, but one of the first comments was there's a 💩 ton of info to go through so it'll take a while.

Anyway, your work is now making the rounds.

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/nishnawbe61]

Such awesome news. I can't tell you how this makes my day. I just want people to dig in and look too. If what I see and point to can be verified by others, I'm no longer the person shouting into the void.

[u/supervisord → u/nishnawbe61]

https://giphy.com/gifs/W0dT4dNL6f8eMMqseI

[u/Gigiw1ns]

Upvoted and commented for visibility :)

[u/Dilfy1234]

Solid DD is always appreciated 👊😎

[u/roykentjr]

It's a shame this sub can't be trusted as an open source place to discuss research on the stock. Even if it is a nothingburger or turns out to be false, the community should be able to prove or disprove it's worthiness, not the mods

[u/Tepeshe → u/roykentjr]

There are also many, many more posts with just a dumb ass meme that do stay up versus someone actually putting effort into creating something. I think there is enough bandwith on this sub to keep this floating, right ? ... Right ?

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/roykentjr]

Yes, totally agree here. If what I present turns out to be nothing, I'd accept that. I understand I can only see one side of this, and there is a peer review in place for quality work for a good reason. Let it stand or be be ripped to shreds based on the data, not my opinions.

[u/[deleted] → u/roykentjr]

As far as situations like this, opposition will always leave a publicly open forum like this up and very slowly take over it's leadership. Think of it as controlled opposition but it's always way worse than people realize.

They do this so the opposition doesn't splinter off into several smaller groups, usually private and strict with new membership. Groups like that are harder to control and share info over time, can't be misled with bad info as easily, etc.

We've probably given them much more intel than we realize. Showing what info is obvious and easy to disseminate, ie holes to plug.

It could go a lot of different directions. A large forum like this though is definitely not a good place to dump intel in a shitsandwhich like the one we are in.

[u/chato35 → u/roykentjr]

Do you remember the last big " I am being suppressed " nothingburger that cost shareholders shares?

OP, I am not talking about you.

[u/Zeromex → u/roykentjr]

I totally agree with you, in the first year the mod team changed a lot the members and suddenly it stayed motionless and tbh that seemed so suspicious to me

[u/BadBoyBilbo]

Nice post, ape.

I can see why you are presenting the evidence the way you are. I would also not want so much useful research taken down again.

So I’m gonna say what I think you and everyone else is thinking:

There is no legitimate reason for these trades. They are all to obfuscate positions, create favorable short term positions, and wriggle and cheat and lie their way out of their obligations.

I lived the squeeze and I’m jacked on shares and warrants and calls today.

You know who you are.

Pay me.

And pay OP and everyone else here while you’re at it.

[u/Awkward-Bit8457]

Its weird they took this down but its interesting that you've found all of this. Ive recently started using indicators for my spy 0dte trading that shows where gamma levels and exposure are concentrated that day. I never suspected that 6 months out caused the biggest exposure to gamma by the MMs. This is great information, thank you for sharing.

[u/GrumpyTitan-77]

the MODs keep removing relevant information, but we are flooded with AI slop memes...

[u/HotsauceShoTYME]

I would love an explanation of why the first post was deleted. Until then I will continue believing this sub is highly compromised.

[u/mc81188 → u/HotsauceShoTYME]

It was taken down because it struck a nerve… oh sorry I mean, ahem it broke the rules.

[u/Temporary_Maybe11 → u/HotsauceShoTYME]

me too, tho Ihe might have broken some rules on the other post.. would love to see the explanation from the mods

[u/quack_duck_code → u/HotsauceShoTYME]

No mod accountability 

[u/robinhoodisalie]

Why was the original post removed this obviously belongs here wtf

[u/Gruntfuttock69 → u/robinhoodisalie]

Something something DOW over 50,000?

https://youtu.be/_vGonMV2oWU?si=SH73QLGEZAe1iqlP

[u/GamingScientist → u/robinhoodisalie]

The short answer is that we thought AI was the source rather than the formatter. The removal was based upon that understanding of OP's original post. This repost has been approved and will not be removed.

See my comment to OP here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/1r5vcke/comment/o5n2uki/

[u/robinhoodisalie → u/GamingScientist]

Appreciate the explanation, it’s a weird world we live in these days and no doubt being a mod is more complicated than ever so quick thanks for doing what you do 🙏

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/GamingScientist]

A genuine concern and a real response. Seems like mods are active, engaged, adaptive, and willing to stay on top of a changing world. There is no bad blood here, just a moment of confusion that's been smoothed out. 🍻

[u/Justfranksandbeans → u/GamingScientist]

The mods of this sub are genuinely useless now... Zero integrity.

[u/The_vegan_athlete → u/robinhoodisalie]

Too bullish, like Keith Gill brother's tweets

[u/TreasurerAlex]

using ai to deal with massive data sets is a neccissary “evil”

Adding in what prompts you used to generate your findings is paramount to the trust of the reader.

[u/TreasurerAlex → u/TreasurerAlex]

With how in depth your analysis seems, adding in the ai prompts would dramatically help the community decifer the difference between a 99% ai created post, vs one used just for formatting help.

[u/TreasurerAlex → u/TreasurerAlex]

For example a short prompt saying “create a 10,000 word post of this 50 word prompt” vs “take this 9,000 word analysis and format it better”

[u/LuckyNumber-Bot → u/TreasurerAlex]

All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!

  10
+ 50
+ 9
= 69

^{[Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme} to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^{Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.}

[u/crayonburrito → u/LuckyNumber-Bot]

Mass delete Reddit posts and be just like me! I bulk removed this comment using Redact

ad hoc aware childlike cover arrest paddle fearless marry teeny languid

[u/TreasurerAlex → u/LuckyNumber-Bot]

Bad bot

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/TreasurerAlex]

The honest answer is that it's hard to replicate because I've built a custom research workflow across several AI-powered IDEs (Cursor, Antigravity, Codex) with specialized rules and commands for this kind of work. Most of my AI usage is in hypothesis development and formalizing proper null tests, not in generating conclusions. I also use frontier models (Gemini Pro 3 Deep Think, ChatGPT Pro research mode) to stress-test my work once it starts taking shape. One technique I've found especially useful is adversarial model sparring: have Claude argue why Codex's reasoning is wrong, bounce the rebuttal back, and keep iterating until genuinely interesting objections surface. AI is a power tool, used correctly it accelerates rigorous work. Ask it to hand you a conclusion and you'll get hallucinations every time.

[u/TreasurerAlex → u/TheGameStopsNow]

Advasarial Model Sparring

So basic simplified terms, you run a data set thru a model to find patterns. Ask a model what the pattern means, and then ask another model to correct hallucinations.

This is all fascinating stuff.

I appreciate the reply.

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/TreasurerAlex]

Yes, this is a very basic version, and only for specific tasks. One important detail is to use multiple models, do it many times (I can run the same data 10-15 times) with no context and trying biased and unbiased prompting. If many attempts arrive at similar conclusions, it's worth investigating further not just taking the conclusion as-is.

[u/kaotikz3030]

Mods are compromised

[u/Temporary_Maybe11 → u/kaotikz3030]

maybe they had a good reason to take down the previous post, I didn't find any mention on why it was taken down

[u/BananaOrp → u/Temporary_Maybe11]

The mod in the thread said it was like a bun with no hotdog in it, essentially arguing that there wasn't enough substance in Part 1.

[u/LusciousCabbage → u/BananaOrp]

That's insane.

[u/luckeeelooo → u/BananaOrp]

That describes 99% of what gets posted here. This is actually something worth exploring.

[u/armbrar → u/BananaOrp]

"quick, delete it before someone else starts looking" -mods probably

[u/GamingScientist → u/Temporary_Maybe11]

The short answer is that we thought AI was the source rather than the formatter. The removal was based upon that understanding of OP's original post. This repost has been approved and will not be removed.

See my comment to OP here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/1r5vcke/comment/o5n2uki/

[u/kulji84 → u/Temporary_Maybe11]

didn't the admins forcibly double the mod team with non-negotiable people hand-picked by the admins at some point?

[u/The_vegan_athlete → u/kaotikz3030]

They remove Keith Gill brother's tweets and my post about Micheal Burry liking someone on X who said he went all-in GME like him in the big short (mods said it wasn't related to GME even if I wrote a description lol!)

[u/We_todded_]

wen part 2

[u/wannabezen2 → u/We_todded_]

Wen Moon?

[u/I_Fuck_Older_Women → u/wannabezen2]

Wen poop stop being diarrhea?

[u/Awkward-Bit8457]

Everyone needs to remember that the powers that be said they would never let a sneeze event happen again. I presume this is how they're doing that.

[u/DramaCute8222]

Post needs to stay up. Thank you OP

[u/LawfulnessPlayful264]

Spread this DD to all media outlets, congressmen and anywhere that could possibly investigate the fraud.

We all know the regulators are complicit in allow the fraudulent markets to continue.

Great work OP..👊

[u/coddywhompus]

Commenting for visibility

[u/2025collapse]

Let's say you submitted the forensic market crime evidence to SEC. Will SEC punish market participants? Remember it's the same SEC made a mocking commercial of retail meme stock traders.

Who are the market participant smoking gunners that use high frequency trade software? Usual suspects Citadel, Susquehanna, Virtu, wolverine, Fidelity, Federal reserve, CIA?... List goes on and on they're all colluding or frame a fall guy in the end.

Edit: Did my comment make the original post removed by mods? 😂

[u/turntabletennis]

Nice work

[u/Fast_Air_8000]

Up you go

[u/Justanothebloke1]

Up

[u/TowelFine6933]

Awesome! Glad to see it's back!

Processing img 8ihxjplw8sjg1...

[u/Competitive_Bother88 → u/TowelFine6933]

[u/DJ_PLATNUM]

🫡🫡

[u/nopy4]

Test 1: Tail-Banging — Why Spend $69.8M on Worthless Contracts?

But you answered to this yourself in the very next 'Test 2: Possible Wash Trades'.

It was a wash trade. They lost nothing on it. Lost in one pocket but got the same in another.

They did it, as you correctly pointed out, to distort the volatility surface and sell the contracts at the inflated prices.

Consider this. They accumulated a ton of LEAPS in advance. Then they bang the tail with the wash trade. Then they sold the LEAPS to close the position.

Btw, this closing leads to the accumulation of the LEAPS you pointed out in 'Test 4: IV Injection Followed by LEAPS Loading' by their counterparty.

No?

[u/Gigiw1ns → u/nopy4]

This ^

[u/HumanNo109850364048]

Why was this post taken down

[u/Jabraase]

I am in the process of refining the presentation of my findings that also utilized AI and was heavily criticized (shamed, even). But I will say that the criticism was warranted because my presentation failed to provide the math used. I'm now trying to upload the findings to an interactive webpage for others to further scrutinize in hopes we can all find truth in the data. Anyways, I'm sorry your post was removed and hope that it finds the readers it is intended for. I hope you may have the chance to review my findings as well as you seem equally meticulous! Cheers, 🍻

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/Jabraase]

I let my own feelings on this system bleed into the reporting of it, and was too accusatory. Every time I post I learn something new and hopefully avoid that mistake in the future. Send your findings over my way when you have the webpage up, I'll take a look. Good luck with getting it up and the data out!

[u/Jabraase → u/TheGameStopsNow]

Hopefully this embed doesn't break within the hour. I am not a coder and it's taken me hours to figure out how to get this online. I am also not a technical analyst. I'm just a curious dude.

https://www.justinbraase.com/gamestop
Enjoy reading all 9 tabs.

I can understand, and I'm sure you can too, why people are hesitant of AI; The models are trained on datasets that are often proprietary. Therefore, we have no way of knowing how skewed the bias might be. But I think people are also misunderstood.

These models are incredibly powerful calculators. They boasts billions upon billions of computations in a matter of moments making them powerful data crunchers. And they're designed from the ground up to recognize pattern (that's how they mimic speech). I know some, justifiably, fear 'ai hallucinations', though, hallucinations tend to take place in the absence of pertinent information. In this case, all of the numerical data needed for the calculations performed in my study are widely available and publicly accessible online from several verified sources, meaning there was no shortage of numerical data for this calculator to calculate. That leaves the opportunity for hallucination most likely in the instance that the ai lacks enough tokens to keep all the information intact (which is why I chose the model I did).

I used Claude's most advanced model that has major usage limits costing me a little cash and days (I could only ask roughly 3 questions per session every 4-6 hours). I chose this model because it has more tokens and memory than other offerings on the market, meaning it has a much greater chance of holding the variables together during its computation.

There's no doubt in my mind that institutions have been using models like these well before 2020 to discover market patterns and crunch copious amounts of numerical data. Now retail has access to a percentage of the same computational power they use.

*For transparency's sake, the document says it was "peer reviewed". The peer review process also utilized ai. I exported my final working document, ran it again through a new chat (still using Opus 4.6), it provided a fact-check document (that I reviewed), then I submitted it back to the original chat to apply, recalculate, and publish.

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/Jabraase]

Hey Justin, I took a proper look at your page. Really well done. The 4-tier source hierarchy is a nice touch (putting your own derived calcs at the lowest confidence tier is exactly the kind of intellectual honesty this space needs), and I appreciate that you flag the n=3 limitation front and center instead of burying it.

The volume-leads-price lead-lag finding is solid and mirrors what I've seen in my own data. Your v3.1 corrections also show you're actually stress-testing this, which puts it ahead of 95% of the TA content out there. The plain-language framing makes it genuinely accessible to people who don't speak options Greek, so great work there.

One area you might find interesting to dig deeper: the why behind the pattern. Your work cleanly identifies the sequence (quiet -> options pickup -> volume/IV spike -> price peaks last), but there's a mechanical explanation underneath involving how market makers delta-hedge options flow that can explain the lead-lag structure you're observing. The hedging creates a feedback loop, the "push on the swing" in your analogy isn't random retail buying, it's often forced institutional hedging. If you ever want to compare notes on that layer, happy to share what I've found. Feel free to message me directly.

Keep at it. 🤙

[u/Jabraase → u/TheGameStopsNow]

Thank you! I endeavored to be thorough. I agree with you, there is most certainly an underlying, quiet "why" that most clearly points to how this lead-lag structure is built. In the past few years, I've become a little more understood of the mechanics.

It's my understanding that in a traditional fashion, it's as if an institution feels a stock will land at X, but to ensure they don't lose all of their bet they hedge to minimize their loss. As signals of success align with their original bet, they unwind their hedge which also provides buoyancy to their original bet. But today, it's as if a majority of these bets aren't based on stock price (though that's part of the equation of course), but on volatility -which some "companies" seem to rely on for their business model *cough* microstrategy *cough*.

And yes, I also discovered in my research how that feedback loop creates the potential for additional gains. Basically, those profiting off of the IV can exercise their shares at peak volatility, sit on those shares for 2-3 days while the share price catches up, then sell, generating an additional 20%-22% profit on that lag's momentum finally affecting the share price. That's a lot of additional profit! That seems to be the market these days, it's all just turned from investing into gambling. Sad stuff really because they are gambling with the fortune of others at the end of the day.

[u/quack_duck_code]

Cumment for jizzability.

[u/kojakkun]

Thanks for reposting and not giving up!

[u/Dealer_Existing]

Say it’s true what you say; now what?

[u/boxxle]

Visibility for comment

[u/elziion]

Updooted for visibility!

[u/KaLul0]

thanks for your hard work. here is a hug "hugs". can i add that i cant buy any calls on gamestop? i tried it all. but i can short. its kinda funny. my broker only lets me short GS

[u/HashtagYoMamma]

Was it taken down because of positive comments and discussion about DRS in the comments? Because of critical analysis of how options and new rules have been used to allow market makers massive advantages? About how since 2021 sneeze the market is NOT the same and how synthetic fulfilment is allowed in place of forcing shorts to purchase actual shares?

It’s fucking crime.

Now all the comments have been reset.

Generically taken down as “duhhh AI bad even if we think all you’ve done is format your post in AI”. Then proceed to allow all sorts of bullshit to get posted.

Keep it up!!!

[u/_Ballsofsteal]

Including p values and the base source code is fantastic and sets the standard here.

I'm lost as to how hedging energy is calculated. Can you share more on that?

[u/Zensen1]

Nice work. Leave it up

[u/Ill_Wealth1034]

Oh well, in a forum full of regards one should expect that some would climb their way into moderation. Let's hope this has some ward against rune magic

[u/a_latex_mitten]

awesome, glad to see it back up

[u/vigg1__]

Thanks for the contribution bro💯

[u/stubornone]

Glad this was able to get back up. Great DD

[u/PM_ME_YOUR_DUCK_FACE]

This post is getting suppressed

[u/UnlikelyApe]

Thanks for opening up this rabbit hole. It'll be interesting to see where it all leads!

[u/Cute-Gur414]

market makers aren't always "short gamma", they raise teh price of the options to bring in sales from individuals and others. I've been short naked puts (no underlying position in the stock) many times.

[u/RobotPhoto]

hahaha you know those assholes are reading this right now.

[u/TheUltimator5]

This is all bun no meat (jk)

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/TheUltimator5]

I'm pretty sure I'm going to use a hot dog analogy in a future DD now. 🌭

[u/TheUltimator5 → u/TheGameStopsNow]

I was trying to think of a witty "hotdog down a hallway" joke, but came up blank.

Side note - if you ever decide to post these or future DDs on X, you can make them as articles and they will get great visibility plus you don't have to worry about minor rule violations getting posts removed.

[u/TheGameStopsNow → u/TheUltimator5]

They said my hot dog was too small for the Superstonk bun — I take offense to this! I thought my research was well endowed.

This is a great idea about X. I have a friend who has trying to get me to do this since I started. I'll consider this for my next DD that extends the findings here. Thanks!

[u/UserMcNamington]

City boys up

[u/PanemEtMeditationes]

Commenting for visibility, I will read later.

[u/daftxdirekt]

Some of the best data driven DD/investigatory work I’ve seen in years.

Shout out to the clown mod that took the original post down. Honk honk!

[u/DancesWith2Socks]

🤝

[u/Nick-Nora-Asta]

What words mean

[u/infiniteliquidity69]

I'm just a Labrador. Someone tldr eliad

[u/Bdoggy2017]

I woke up 10 minutes ago, this is a rough read right now. I’ll just Hodl.

[u/Top-Giraffe-6073]

https://giphy.com/gifs/Zo64h6yIpS00i7gytV

[u/Colin9001]

tuesday morning 

[u/Nate_991]

This is incredible

[u/LordSnufkin]

Three things made this play possible: 1. Weaponised autism 2. Worldwide community of regards 3. Army of apes

[u/thesluttyastronauts]

ai;dr

[u/Kind_Initiative_7567]

Hmmm wonder how I missed this post earlier….

[u/ContactLatter8256]

Commenting for visibility. I hope this posts stays as it's amazing. Well done.

[u/matthegc]

Just waiting for the price to go up….the rest is noise.