title: We Reddit in a Forum: The influence of Message Boards on firm stability

authors: Corbet, Shaen

abstract: The use of messaging boards to instigate coordinated manipulation of stock prices is not a novel phenomenon. However, the growing breadth and sophistication of social media, the widespread availability of technological cloaking techniques, and the ready accessibility of leveraged derivatives have all significantly contributed to the growth of the infamous Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets. Using a lexicon of terminology designed to identify explicit and implicit manipulation attempts, this research presents several novel findings. The results indicate significantly positive, pronounced, and persistent abnormal returns in the aftermath of manipulative events, with the results being robust across several testing procedures. These abnormal returns have increased significantly in line with the growth of forum users and the reach of manipulation-related comments. Significant effects on market liquidity and analyst recommendations are further identified across tests. Such continued predatory headwinds are certainly of interest to market-makers, regulators, and policymakers alike, as the irrational exuberance incited by millennial meme stocks and sarcastic GIFs is found to have played a significant role in disrupting market functionality. The desired outcome of some of these five million monthly forum users is to create enough momentum to trigger algorithmic responses to move out-of-the-money options into a profitable state. Our results present evidence that this potential threat to corporate stability is concrete.

text: We Reddit in a Forum: The influence of Message Boards on firm stability The use of messaging boards to instigate coordinated manipulation of stock prices is not a novel phenomenon. However, the growing breadth and sophistication of social media, the widespread availability of technological cloaking techniques, and the ready accessibility of leveraged derivatives have all significantly contributed to the growth of the infamous Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets. Using a lexicon of terminology designed to identify explicit and implicit manipulation attempts, this research presents several novel findings. The results indicate significantly positive, pronounced, and persistent abnormal returns in the aftermath of manipulative events, with the results being robust across several testing procedures. These abnormal returns have increased significantly in line with the growth of forum users and the reach of manipulation-related comments. Significant effects on market liquidity and analyst recommendations are further identified across tests. Such continued predatory headwinds are certainly of interest to market-makers, regulators, and policymakers alike, as the irrational exuberance incited by millennial meme stocks and sarcastic GIFs is found to have played a significant role in disrupting market functionality. The desired outcome of some of these five million monthly forum users is to create enough momentum to trigger algorithmic responses to move out-of-the-money options into a profitable state. Our results present evidence that this potential threat to corporate stability is concrete.

year: 2022

title: Why do youth step out of sport and into court? A narrative-based exploration

authors: Clarke, Gloria Hinemoa

subjects: youth

abstract: Motivated by my son’s incarceration months after he stopped playing sport this thesis attempts to answer the questions that plagued me as I began dealing with lawyers, courts, and prison visits: If sport is all that it is supposed to be why is my son sitting in a prison cell?  Had his fourteen years of playing sport been for nothing?  Why hadn’t sport honoured its promise to protect my son from such a reality?    

Consequently, this thesis explores ‘Why youth step out of sport and into court?’  My objective is to provide parents and those interested in youth issues with new research that confirms, supplements, and/or challenges what is arguably ‘known’ about youth sports attrition and deviancy.  However, rather than produce a traditional academic text I offer a polyvocal interpretive narrative text, where my own voice (as mother and academic) has been interwoven with the lived experiences and voices of five young men who had also ‘stepped out of sport and into court’ as well as the voices of published theorists and researchers who have broadened my understanding of the issues.  As a result this thesis honours the lived experiences of the research participants as relayed to me during three semi-structured interviews, and is hopefully engaging enough to encourage you/the reader to think about the issues and to discuss them with others.  

The study highlights the complexities of sport and deviance, in that we live in a world of multiple realities.  For instance, while many of the research participants had had similar experiences they had also come from different social, cultural and historical locations.  Three of the participants had had two parents, two had had two parents living in different locations, and one had been raised by extended family.  Three were raised in environments where gang ideology and drug use were normalised, while the other two had experienced environments to the contrary.  One had been arrested on only two occasions, while the others had been arrested anywhere between five and thirty times before their nineteenth birthday, with charges ranging from painting on public property through to burglary and extreme violence.  Their common experiences included their participation in rugby and/or rugby league; they had participated in sport and crime at the same time; they had been coached by intimidating people, and they had ‘stepped out of sport’ between thirteen and eighteen years old.  

The first take home message is that parents need to be diligent for the duration of their child’s sporting career and to be aware that whilst sports can do great things for young people, sport may also dampen a child’s sensitivity to fear and normalise and reinforce deviant beliefs, attitudes, justifications and orientations.  The second take home message is that it is time for us to consider other forms of sport and physical activity and to give youth the power to define what sport means to them.  Furthermore, if we agree that things need to change, this study recommends that attrition and deviance research be made more accessible and that the interested parties work together rather than independently.

text: Why do youth step out of sport and into court? A narrative-based exploration Motivated by my son’s incarceration months after he stopped playing sport this thesis attempts to answer the questions that plagued me as I began dealing with lawyers, courts, and prison visits: If sport is all that it is supposed to be why is my son sitting in a prison cell?  Had his fourteen years of playing sport been for nothing?  Why hadn’t sport honoured its promise to protect my son from such a reality?    

Consequently, this thesis explores ‘Why youth step out of sport and into court?’  My objective is to provide parents and those interested in youth issues with new research that confirms, supplements, and/or challenges what is arguably ‘known’ about youth sports attrition and deviancy.  However, rather than produce a traditional academic text I offer a polyvocal interpretive narrative text, where my own voice (as mother and academic) has been interwoven with the lived experiences and voices of five young men who had also ‘stepped out of sport and into court’ as well as the voices of published theorists and researchers who have broadened my understanding of the issues.  As a result this thesis honours the lived experiences of the research participants as relayed to me during three semi-structured interviews, and is hopefully engaging enough to encourage you/the reader to think about the issues and to discuss them with others.  

The study highlights the complexities of sport and deviance, in that we live in a world of multiple realities.  For instance, while many of the research participants had had similar experiences they had also come from different social, cultural and historical locations.  Three of the participants had had two parents, two had had two parents living in different locations, and one had been raised by extended family.  Three were raised in environments where gang ideology and drug use were normalised, while the other two had experienced environments to the contrary.  One had been arrested on only two occasions, while the others had been arrested anywhere between five and thirty times before their nineteenth birthday, with charges ranging from painting on public property through to burglary and extreme violence.  Their common experiences included their participation in rugby and/or rugby league; they had participated in sport and crime at the same time; they had been coached by intimidating people, and they had ‘stepped out of sport’ between thirteen and eighteen years old.  

The first take home message is that parents need to be diligent for the duration of their child’s sporting career and to be aware that whilst sports can do great things for young people, sport may also dampen a child’s sensitivity to fear and normalise and reinforce deviant beliefs, attitudes, justifications and orientations.  The second take home message is that it is time for us to consider other forms of sport and physical activity and to give youth the power to define what sport means to them.  Furthermore, if we agree that things need to change, this study recommends that attrition and deviance research be made more accessible and that the interested parties work together rather than independently.

year: 2012

title: Developing an effective education reform model for indigenous and other minoritized students

authors: Bishop, Russell

subjects: indigenous

abstract: Educational disparities between indigenous Maori students and those of the majority continue to be a major issue in New Zealand. Te Kotahitanga, an iterative research and development programme, which commenced in 2001, supports teachers to implement a relationship-based pedagogy in their classrooms in order to improve Maori students' achievement in mainstream secondary schools. This article addresses the question of how gains in Maori students' achievement can be sustained and expanded. Schools, from an earlier phase of the project, in their 6th and 7th year of the programme were examined, using a theory-based model designed to evaluate and promote dimensions necessary for effective institutional support of the teaching innovation. This article demonstrates that schools that have been the most effective implementers of the intervention have seen the greatest gains made by Maori students in the 1st year of national assessments. This article then discusses effective leadership for addressing problems schools encountered while implementing the pedagogic reform.

text: Developing an effective education reform model for indigenous and other minoritized students Educational disparities between indigenous Maori students and those of the majority continue to be a major issue in New Zealand. Te Kotahitanga, an iterative research and development programme, which commenced in 2001, supports teachers to implement a relationship-based pedagogy in their classrooms in order to improve Maori students' achievement in mainstream secondary schools. This article addresses the question of how gains in Maori students' achievement can be sustained and expanded. Schools, from an earlier phase of the project, in their 6th and 7th year of the programme were examined, using a theory-based model designed to evaluate and promote dimensions necessary for effective institutional support of the teaching innovation. This article demonstrates that schools that have been the most effective implementers of the intervention have seen the greatest gains made by Maori students in the 1st year of national assessments. This article then discusses effective leadership for addressing problems schools encountered while implementing the pedagogic reform.

year: 2012