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WHO WAS PAYING attention to GameStop a month ago other than committed gamers and punters on the stock market?
The bricks-and-mortar computer game retailer burst to prominence in recent weeks as a pawn in a supposed David-and-Goliath story, a battle of wits between plucky nerds and the wolves of Wall Street.
Spotting a chink in a hedge fund’s armour, small investors organised themselves through a small corner of the internet, a sub-Reddit forum bearing the fitting moniker #WallStreetBets. Basically, the hedge fund had reached the not-unreasonable conclusion that computer game shops were going the way of Xtra-Vision. They borrowed shares in GameStop and sold them, hoping to buy them back at a lower price before returning them to their original owner and pocketing the difference.
The problem was some punters realised that if the share price went up instead of down, the hedge fund was massively exposed and the ordinary guys could make a killing. In the very short term, it didn’t matter whether GameStop was a good business or not. All that mattered were the mechanics of the market.
A self-fulfilling pile-on ensued, egged on by media coverage, sending the share price rocketing 25-fold in the second half of January before the bottom fell out.
David slayed Goliath. Fortunes were made and lost. Social and traditional media were flooded with blink-of-an-eye rags-to-riches stories. But, is there any deeper lesson from the story?
When a financial system allows for gambling
In a market, or even a mixed economy, there is a role for a sound financial system that facilitates payments, keeps savings secure, and promotes productive investment. Indeed, up to a certain point, financial sector development is associated with higher and more equitable economic growth. Ireland is probably past that point.
Likewise, stocks and shares and even many of the more esoteric derivative products all have a sound original basis. The stock market is an appropriate vehicle to channel excess savings into more or less risky investments. Futures originally allowed farmers to lock in a price for their produce ahead of harvest time, and to plan accordingly, for example. Options, which were central to the GameStop saga, allow governments dependent on oil revenues to budget for the year ahead without having to worry about a collapse in prices. They function like insurance and can play an important economic role.
However, the same instruments allow speculators large and small – from hedge funds to any punter with a smartphone – to gamble for financial gain. Let’s call them ‘Wall Street Bets’. For the most part, they serve no useful economic purpose. In fact, they can even be a source of financial instability. As we saw a decade ago during the financial crisis, unsuspecting taxpayers can be on the hook in a worst case scenario.
For policymakers, an important question is how to encourage saving and productive investment while discouraging pure speculation that poses systemic risk. Regulation and taxes are the tools of the trade.
Perhaps the easiest approach would be simply to ban speculation. But, sometimes the distinction between gambling and investment is in the eye of the beholder. How about a tax that weeds out the speculators but only puts the lightest of burdens on investors? Such a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) is not a new idea, but maybe one whose time has come.
How it would work
The idea is to put a tax on something that damages society, both to discourage that activity and to raise funds to spend on things that benefit society, like new schools or nurses salaries.
If you bet on horses or football in Ireland the betting company pays a 2% tax. Has that brought gambling to a shuddering halt? Hardly. A 1% tax – stamp duty – is also charged on the purchase of Irish registered shares, but nothing on government bonds, foreign shares, or most derivatives, like options.
Following failure to secure unanimous agreement among member states in 2011 on the implementation of an EU-wide FTT, the European Commission tabled a proposal in 2013 that would allow an initial 11 countries forge ahead. The Irish Central Bank estimated in 2012 that such a tax – amounting to 0.1% on all stocks and shares, and 0.01% on derivatives – could raise up to 0.5% of GDP for Irish taxpayers. In 2021, this would amount to about an extra €1 billion in tax revenue.
This takes into account the replacement of existing stamp duty on shares and the expected reduction in transactions provoked by the tax itself. Ultimately, though, Ireland opted out.
Frustrated with snail’s pace progress at EU level, Spain moved unilaterally. As of last month, they levy a small 0.2% tax – a tenth of the size of Ireland’s gambling tax on shares – on the purchase of shares in big Spanish firms. That is, it doesn’t affect day-to-day transactions of ordinary people. It is a tiny levy on households and businesses fortunate enough to be able to play the stock market. It is a small fraction of what people with a private pension pay every year to their money managers, for instance.
Very soon, once vaccination is approaching critical mass and the economic recovery gathers steam, the fiscal hawks will reassert themselves. There will be talk of ‘paying for the pandemic’, as if we haven’t all already paid enough. Rather than reaching first for swingeing spending cuts or increased taxes on work, how about we start at the top?
It’s time to stop the games: tax the speculators.
Victor Duggan is an economist.
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Why is there no mention of the 33% CGT you must pay if you make a gain of over €1350 while selling stocks, bonds, currency or on any profit form trading.
How has the author forgot to include that.
@Dj Magee: nail on the head, one of the highest rates in Europe if not the world.
@Dj Magee: Considering we pay about 50% tax on our money before we get to invest it, this is tantamount to double taxation.
@Ned Gerblansky: it’s not. You’re paying tax on further income.
@Dj Magee:
“How about a tax that weeds out the speculators, but only puts the lightest of burdens on investors”
Is the writer not inferring here that the tax burden on investors might already be high?
Like with all economists, Victor could supply any outstanding information on demand!
@Dj Magee: CGT applies to returns on individual shares. If you are spreading your risk by investing in funds e.g. ETFs, you pay a whopping 41% Exit Tax on returns and you have zero allowance on that.
@Rory J Leonard: he absolutely is. But his idea is to add another tax?
@Dj Magee: If the Gobsheen that wrote the article is actually , as he describes himself, an “economist” then it’s all the freggin one
@Dj Magee: I wonder how many people that affects. I do agree that stock earned as an employee should be offset against paye but otherwise gains taxed as income.
@Ned Gerblansky: plenty of investors don’t pay PAYE. Some offset against PAYE should be allowed. If you reduce this tax though you put the burden of tax on workers again.
@Mark: presumably that’s an income tax. Why should people pay less tax on speculation?
@Dj Magee: the key point is on the ‘gain’, so you pay 33% tax on the gain and keep 67% plus capital invested. What is wrong with that, do you want profits on share trading to pay even less tax on the gains than in any other line of business where you pay income tax rates.
@David Falkner: The issue I have is that the author failed to mention it.
Unfair to compare gains from trading and gains from running a business in the same sentence.
@Dj Magee: We have excellent services here tho! s/
@Dj Magee: It should be higher. Capital gains tax should be made similar to income taxes.
@Tomo: It’s not really the same as investing is a far riskier means of making money, CG tax is already high compared to other countries and if it was higher again it wouldn’t be worth the risk thus there’d be no motivation for anyone in ROI to bother with the markets.
Sounds like the author doesn’t want the small kid playing with the big boys.
Small kid takes all the risk and government get 33% of the reward.
@Peter O Donnell:
I’ve seen better analysis by tech people that knew nothing about shares / shorting until the story was emerging over new years, just since it’s Gamestop it fell into their arena
Speculative investment is a cancer on society. Everything from exorbitant costs of housing and rent to financial bubbles which cause society-wide havoc when they burst, can be traced back to the basic premise of people buying, hoarding, and selling goods that they have no personal use for solely for the purpose of profit. It’s unproductive economic “activity” and harmful to society as a whole, and it is fundamentally immoral that it is seen as a legitimate way to make a living considering it involves reaping the rewards of others’ work with zero productive input, and tying up the entire economic system with the fate of those speculators in the process.
There are so, so, so many reasons to actively despise the financial system as it currently exists. It is responsible for a vast multitude of everyday problems for ordinary people, from the rising cost of living to artificial scarcity. A system in which the few can profit from the many’s blood and sweat is a broken system, simple as that.
@Patrick FitzGerald: It’s good to see one commentator making some sense, everyone else seems to think hedge fund managers are motivated by altruism.
@Patrick FitzGerald: It’s like Pokemon, but with massive societal implications, who cares tho eh! Gotta catch ‘em all.
Taxing speculators is just weasel wording to punish people for taking control of their own investments. A lot of these funds don’t even outperform the market so how sophisticated/speculative are they really. And Irish people already pay 33% CGT when disposing of shares and it’s not even mentioned here.
As for gamestop, small time punters identified hedge fund overexposure in short positions and acted accordingly to profit. And the solution is to tax these people for getting it right?! If anything, they weeded out speculating funds who take short positions and then try to drive share prices into the ground of otherwise viable companies.
All this article proves is that when retail investors start making money and outperform funds, the banks, lobbyists and journo-economists look to change the rules to preserve their existence. Like it or not commission free trading is as good as here and the dinosaur banks and investment managers can see the writing on the wall. Long gone are the days of ringing up stockbrokers to push a button and make a trade just so they take a big slice too.
Case and point: I thought the Irish banks trying to join together and set up an app to take on revolut recently was laughable. CCPC rejected it naturally. Patently obvious what is was. Anti-competitiveness on the banks’ part to try and keep their monopoly. And it was probably for the best. The banks can hardly get their own websites to work properly nevermind old fellas who couldn’t turn on a computer suddenly discovering fintech. Laughable.
@RogersRabbit: they only pay 33% on the gain
@RogersRabbit: Thank you! A voice of reason. This was not a good article.
This is such a bad take, to look at this scenario and come away thinking we need to tax regular folk is really bad. The fact that you only bring this up when regular folk start making some income from casual trading says it all. Instead you should be asking how there were more shorted shares than actual shares in existence – this is not possible.
Been in Ireland 6 years and while I love the country and think it’s people are class I have to say the tax system on middle income earners is the worst of the 4 countries I have lived in.
Shocking to see how much tax burden middle earners wear comparative to what services there are.
System doesn’t reward anyone striving to move up the ladder. Recently took a promotion and by the time the taxman got his knife and fork out the pay increase wasn’t worth the stress, extra hours or hassle. Should have stayed in my old position.
Taxed to the bone on anything >35k, PRSI, USC, tax on investments, taxed on health insurance that your employer pays for.
Shocking.
@Jack Inman: Spot on Jack, but I’m afraid it will come home to roost if people aren’t incentivised to progress. The other side of the coin is all the incentives handed out to not earn more. Affordable housing and at cost rental for lower paid which seem all the vogue, just one example.
It makes me sad because Irish are naturally some of the most dedicated and hard working in the world, but the system makes them look like mugs. Is it any wonder that the psyche is to speculate or gamble to earn a buck.
@Jack Inman: the tax on health insurance has to be the most idio tic tax of all. Stay out of the crippled public health system, should anything happen to you and get taxed for the privilege.
@Jack Inman: there’s always Cape Verde !
@Jack Inman: Same. 100% nail on the head.
GameStop story will make a great film (similar to The Big Short ). Must have been great excitement among the gamer community when they realised they could burn the hedge funds.
This reads like someone who didn’t have a clue what was happening until a week and after the peak of the frenzy. It wasn’t just gamer nerds that invested, it was the fact that the new wave of apps like revolut, etoro, trading 212 and robinhood made this all easier for the layman to get into trading when the initial wallstreetbets crowd noticed just how shorted the shares were. And the point of this madness surely should be that hedge funds shouldn’t short as many shares as they did. They were the ones that lost billions casually gambling on businesses to fail. They are the ones that caused the apps to stop trading stock altogether because the little guy was making too much off them. It showed how rigged the system was in the billionaires favour, and how easy it is to expose them with collectivism.
Taxing a casual app investor when theres already a transaction fee and capital gains tax at 33% is really tone deaf.
Poor article.
Shorting is largely harmless. The people who hate it with good reason are the underperforming managers of listed companies who get held to account for the weaknesses of the businesses they run. Otherwise criticism of shorting tends to be handwaving about profiting from failure.
Don’t shoot the messenger. It’s not hedge funds killing GameStop, it’s the move of game retailing to digital downloads.
Also, this has precisely nothing to do with any economic or social malaise in Ireland. You might even argue that reducing speculation opportunities in the stock market might drive speculators to seek new opportunities, e.g. in housing development. Look where that ended up.
also the fact that gamestop’s prices are absolutely exorbitant compared to other outlets due to them having to cover the loss for bad collector merchandise on the other side of the shop that nobody buys anyway. Games in software zone are often 10-15 euro cheaper and even more on some websites. Digital downloads are obviously hurting them but maybe they should look at their own pricing also.
How can the author write that full article without mentioning the current taxes and archaic rules the average Irish investor is subject to? CGT, exit taxes, deemed disposal, high fees with money managed funds through life insurance companies. With pensions the only tax efficient way to invest in Ireland where you can’t touch your money for 30+ years and you still can’t do as you please in the end.
With property being the main way to make a return in this country with little or no investing alternatives, we have a developed a cultural obsession and created a housing crisis we can’t seem to fix. Meanwhile we have increasing taxes, and property taxes a further burden which vulture funds buying up property in Ireland don’t have to pay because they are domiciled in a different country.
So if I put 10k on shares, money that was taxed from my day job you want to tax it again?? Get the boat.
@Dav Nagle: Just the profits , as opppsed to the spend
@Gavin Power: tis called Capital Gains Tax and is already a thing at a whopping 33%
The article mentions short selling but fails to mention naked short selling which amounts to counterfeiting shares.
With short selling you borrow a share and sell it on with a promise to buy one back to replace it in future.
More shares were being shorted for GME than existed meaning hedge funds were selling shares that they didn’t possess.
I’d love more stability and less speculation in the market but we have to be very careful when it’s brought in that it’s not simply a way to stop the little guys from playing.
I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.
Thomas Sowell,
Let’s ban “short selling”.
Global stock markets valued at about $90 trillion.
Derivatives i.e futures & forward contracts, options, warrants & swaps have a notional value of about €1 Quadrillion. Are they teaching this in school? I don’t think so
Very exciting time for crypto and especially Altcoins in this bull run now.
Remember its one percent Stamp Duty on Uk and Irish Shares, paid at the point of purchase,the Trader is also paying Transaction charges to the platform, and on the Nye and Nasdaq for example, Irish Traders are also paying upfront charges to execute trades, thousands of Irish people have lost their shirts in Pensions and Property, how is Taxing individuals for investing in products they have already paid Tax on their monies any better or worse than how certain people view Short Sellers
@Gavin Power: I paid tax on my earnings and then they charged me VAT, Duty on things I bought. That’s the way it is everywhere and why should gambling be exempt.
“Short selling” only benefits its a very small % of the mega rich and serves no meaningful economic function, it should be banned ! What this really showed was who is in charge, Wall Street quickly changed the rules and all those so called apps “robinhoood” were exposed for what they ate , puppets of wall street
Tax on tax?
Investing is no longer a mystical thing only for the rich. I can literally right now download an app and start investing with 1 euro.
@matthew mc manus: go for it Jordan !
pay tax on stocks that we buy with taxed money and then pay more tax when we sell. Its already hard enough to make money investing with the ridiculous taxes we have to pay and you want to add more.
Total nonsense!!!
What a spanner. There already is CG Tax in ROI at levels well beyond that of other countries.
have your say