Protest and profit
Options
We're giving new meaning to activist investor with this protest tactic that borrows a tool from the financier elite. I'm talking about options.
Options are the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell shares of a stock at a specified price on or before a chosen future date.
Activists that purchase options on evildoer stocks prior to unleashing a social protest will profit if their protests influence the corporation's stock price.
And while it might not be easy for activists to impact stock prices, it has been accomplished many times before. For example, Goldman Sach's stock crashed a staggering 40% during Occupy Wall Street in 2011 and Hong Kong protesters pushed the country into recession in 2019.
The beauty of this options tactic is that the more effective the protest—the more profitable the protest. Elegant!
EXAMPLE CAMPAIGN
I hear April will be a hot month of social unrest. If so, let's direct some rage against Wells Fargo, an undeniably evil corporation.
Among it's many crimes: defrauding millions of Americans, funding the Dakota Access Pipeline and financing the destruction of public housing in New York City. Wells Fargo deserves the death penalty.
I'm thinking that visceral street protest demanding the nationalization of Wells Fargo combined with a canny options strategy that profits as the stock moves would be an explosive mixture... Can we pull it off?
— Micah White is the co-creator of Occupy Wall Street, the author of The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution and the Program Director of Activist Graduate School, an online school for experienced activists.
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