Let's look at the hard numbers on $$GME:
- Billions in cash and marketable U.S. Treasury securities sitting on the balance sheet
- Zero long-term debt obligations
- Store footprint rationalized to profitable locations while SG&A expenses keep dropping
- CEO takes $0 salary, $0 bonus, and buys shares with his own money in the open market
How does a short seller justify paying borrow fees against a fortress balance sheet where the cash floor alone backs a massive chunk of the market cap?
Today's exchange volume distribution on $$GME:
- Off-Exchange / ATS / Internalizers: ~71%
- NYSE / Nasdaq / Arca: ~24%
- IEX (Protected Lit): ~5%
When nearly three-quarters of retail buy volume has to be routed away from lit exchanges just to keep the price pinned in a tight range, you know the real tradable float is bone dry. Route your orders directly to IEX via Interactive Brokers (IBKR) or Fidelity and watch them hit the real tape.
When daily volume on $$GME drops under 4M shares and the bid-ask spread widens out, every batch of 50 shares moving from Interactive Brokers (IBKR) to Computershare represents a meaningful slice of actual lit liquidity.
No hype dates needed. Just steady accumulation of real assets in your own name—both $$GME in DRS Book and $$DOGE in cold storage.
>open account on eToro and zero-fee IOU apps because the UI looks easy
>buy shares thinking you own equity in the company
>read section 8 of the custody terms: you hold an unbacked internal IOU that cannot be transferred via ACATS or DRS
In crypto everyone knows "Not your keys, not your Bitcoin." In equities it's the exact same rule: "Street name IOU is not your stock."
When you hold inside an internalizing CFD/IOU broker, your purchase never hits the lit exchange and the omnibus pool is used to satisfy locates for synthetic shorts. Moving 250 shares to Fidelity and registering in Computershare (DRS Book) takes real supply off the table.
>financial media headlines for 5 years straight: "Forget GameStop! Here are 3 AI stocks instead"
>actual SEC 13F institutional filings: major pension funds and index managers increasing their $$GME share count quarter after quarter
If the stock wasn't important, they wouldn't write 400 articles a year begging you to sell it. Hold in Computershare Book or Charles Schwab cash accounts so institutions can't borrow your shares.
Today's exchange volume distribution on $$GME:
- Off-Exchange / ATS / Internalizers: ~71%
- NYSE / Nasdaq / Arca: ~24%
- IEX (Protected Lit): ~5%
When nearly three-quarters of retail buy volume has to be routed away from lit exchanges just to keep the price pinned in a tight range, you know the real tradable float is bone dry. Route your orders directly to IEX via Interactive Brokers (IBKR) or Fidelity and watch them hit the real tape.
Did a side-by-side test this week on $$GME:
>Order A on an IOU app: filled internally off-exchange, zero impact on the lit NBBO bid, wide hidden spread
>Order B (150 shares) on Fidelity routed directly to IEX: hits the lit order book behind IEX's 350-microsecond speed bump so HFTs can't front-run it, visibly steps up the bid
If your buy order goes to an internalizer, you are actively trading against your own position. Route lit through IEX and DRS the settled shares.
Think about how a prime broker generates a 'locate' for a short seller:
>They don't lock a specific serialized certificate
>They point to aggregate street-name inventory held at DTC / omnibus brokers as 'reasonable grounds to believe' the share can be borrowed
>Meanwhile CFD/IOU platforms like CFD apps like eToro internalize retail buys off-exchange so the lit bid never moves
Every time an investor pulls 50 shares out of street name into Computershare (DRS Book), or withdraws 10,000 $$DOGE into a cold wallet, the fractional-reserve locate multiplier shrinks.
>open account on eToro CFD/IOU accounts because the UI looks easy
>buy shares thinking you own equity in the company
>read section 8 of the custody terms: you hold an unbacked internal IOU that cannot be transferred via ACATS or DRS
In crypto everyone knows "Not your keys, not your Bitcoin." In equities it's the exact same rule: "Street name IOU is not your stock."
When you hold inside an internalizing CFD/IOU broker, your purchase never hits the lit exchange and the omnibus pool is used to satisfy locates for synthetic shorts. Moving 150 shares to IBKR routed via IEX and registering in Computershare (DRS Book) takes real supply off the table.