charles payne has been um getting a
great deal of coverage here
talking about what he thinks is really
going on here and that that populist
wave has
more to it than it's generally been
appreciated that it's the little guy who
gets punished for simply making money
where some of the big guys have really
had the roost to themselves he joins us
right now
charles um you know you you hit a chord
with many americans hearing that they
think that it is a rigged system and the
proof is going after
uh these you know trading firms that
that have
provided this means by which individual
investors can can pounce and do this
where is this going is is your fear that
washington will screw this up or that
they're targeting the wrong guys my fear
is washington
we'll screw this up uh neil uh you know
i put out a tweet a moment ago
where president biden has promised an
economy that works for everyone that was
his main catchphrase during the campaign
my question is is he going to guarantee
a stock market that works for everyone
uh
and you know it's it's the most
democratized uh avenue out there
for people to change their lot in life
you know i'm an evangelic
evangelist for for the stock market i
have been for over 30 years
and i'm more of an intermediate to
long-term buy and hold guy but i do some
trading stuff as well
my whole thing is that not get rich
quick but change your lot in life and
have
a chance to do it in a level playing
field and it's just quite simply it's
not a level playing field
a lot of people have recognized that
it's it's kept a lot of people out of
the stock market many americans
have missed a rebound from 2009 with a
serious distaste in their mouth
because wall street was bailed out for
its reckless behavior now this is the
same wall street
that now claims it's looking out for the
little guy by
by by unplugging the system you know
making it so that you have a stock and
the only thing you can do with it is
sell it
so you can't buy it you can sell it and
you can actually join those folks who
are liberally trying to send it to
to to just zero because you know here's
the farce
occasionally i'll do a short for a trade
i think a stock a hundred dollar stock
is probably seventy dollars
but what's been happening for decades is
where
these short campaigns aren't designed to
take advantage of mispricing
or looking for a trade they're really
looking to hurt these companies and they
find the most vulnerable companies
those that have very little
institutional or brokerage firm support
so you don't have a whole lot of buy
ratings on it maybe none
and they know that the books are a
little tough i mean but gamestop does
have it did have about four billion in
sales last year
and then they pounce and again it's okay
if you want to bet that game stop goes
down
but then when you get to sell more stock
that is even out there available you're
not just making a bet
you're almost guaranteeing an outcome an
outcome to go in your favor
and by the way in the process of
creating that outcome you are crushing
literally crushing millions of
individuals
who saw something saw you know a company
they they liked it a lot
uh they went there as kids maybe some of
them still going there you still get
four billion dollars of revenue
and they and they wanted to invest in it
they thought they were following the
american dream you know so it's not just
the ritted
traders in here this whole thing by the
way neil the genesis of this goes back
it was revealed in march and april of
last year we had the fastest bear market
in history
almost every wall street expert said
it's going to get worse
what did individual investors do they
piled in
they learned the lessons they're not
dumb they knew
they remembered back in march of 2009
when wall street said it's only going to
get worse
so they sold stocks at the low they
remember back in a tech bubble and they
said it's only going to get worse and
they sold stocks that they looked later
and they regret it this time they
followed the first axiom of wall street
they bought low and they've been riding
a wave that has blown the minds of wall
street
and in the process has usurped their
control and power
over individual investors who are
supposed to normally just fork over all
their hard earned money
be happy with five percent a year while
wall street goes for a whole lot more
you and i both know
when goldman sachs reports their
earnings when bank of america reports
their earnings or any of these banks
if their trading income for three months
is 20
30 that stock's going to get hit they're
looking to make a lot more than that so
wall street's looking to make 40 a
quarter in its trading operations
uh and the stocks and the things that
they invest in but they want the average
investor to settle
for five or eight percent a year and and
sometimes it doesn't work you know it
just it's just people
these younger folks are watching where
their parents did everything wall street
told me to do
and 20 years ago they loaded up on ge 20
years ago they loaded up on ibm
they got to work longer now yeah there
is that but you know
do you worry that the further along it
gets in the cycle some who
genuinely wanted to counter the the
moves of shorts
um and they've made you know if it's
full of money
others come into this you know late
parade and start saying gee look at
gamestop
do you look at american airlines look
look at all these others that are on the
short list
that are suddenly now being targeted for
for great buys and that
some are coming late to this party does
the government do
regulators have any responsibility to
them or should it be
let the buyer and or seller beware and
leave it at that
let the buyer and seller be where who's
who's
whose job is it now to determine fair
value do we really want the government
doing that that is the absolute function
of the market
every day people buy and sell whoever
sold it thinks is not going higher
whoever bought it thinks it's going
higher
that is the function that is the role of
the stock market
uh and who out there all of these folks
who think the government should get
involved
who's the ultimate omnipotent expert
analyst that thinks that okay uh i'm
going to assign fair value for gamestop
at eight and if it ever goes above there
will stop people from buying it
who is that person what is that entity
the same ones that told people not to
buy tesla
the greatest investment in a generation
how many people did not buy it listening
to all the experts on financial
television
the stock that could have changed their
life how many people did not own it
right at this very moment
did not buy it so who makes those
decisions let the market make it
i just said these these the younger
people they saw their parents lose a lot
of money in a tech bubble they saw their
parents lose a lot of money in a great
recession
they were around for that so they
understand their risk and yes people are
going to lose money
just like last year when 40 of the s
p was down an average of 17 each
the top 20 losers in the s p last year
were down 47
who protected the little guy from that
because that stock
is in somebody's retirement account and
they were counting on it to go up 47
not down do you worry that you know we
always talk about the kind of
you know nefarious postings they can get
on the on the internet and uh it
goes to politics and goes really if you
think about it to to finance and uh you
know
people who short of stock will say all
sorts of crazy stuff about it to get
their way
people who want to counter that move
will say all sorts of stuff
to get their way should it be
you know just a free open forum where
people can say and do
and make comments whatever they like and
just that the the
the investors just got to be aware um
that there's a pro and a con to each
stock in each position
yeah you know listen deliberate attempts
to lie
i mean obviously i think should be uh
should be investigated you know those
kind of things on either side
uh whether you're the short uh who gets
to put together a 50-page manual
and can spend 40 minutes on cnbc beating
the heck out of a company that you just
shorted
or or whether it's some to your point
some nefarious person trying to
trigger the emotions of others obviously
those areas you want to make sure
you can protect the average the public
uh you know there should be greater
efforts to educate the public with these
platforms hey this is what history shows
us uh
but ultimately i you know people have to
be able to to make decisions on their
own
and and you know there's this sort of
idea that there's some sort of
omnipotent
uh force out there uh or or that that
somehow now
everyone who wants to think about this
you're gonna you wanna help
the little guy by making sure that the
stock he he or she just bought two days
ago
can only be sold it's like
and and by the way you know i i the
money i've lost in the market most of us
come from
things that that look great you know the
the you know fantastic looking companies
they just
it's creative destruction you know it's
uh not long ago
neil sears was the biggest biggest
company in this country in the world you
could order a house from the sears
catalog
you know so creative destruction takes
out even the most well-capitalized
biggest companies in the world it's it's
just not a given that there's some kind
of stock that you can buy that will go
up in perpetuity
so i listen you know me no i tell people
to do their research
i've written two books on the stock
market and it's all focused on research
research research and
containing your greed
and it works it works i love your
passion and your smarts
charles payne thank you very very much