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DRS count timeline (to 12/8/2023)

Short version:

Date	DRS count	Source
10/30/2021	20,800,000	Form 10-Q
1/29/2022	35,600,000	Form 10-K
4/30/2022	50,800,000	Form 10-Q
5/26/2022	47,016,408	List of stockholders
7/30/2022	71,300,000	Form 10-Q
8/15/2022	72,500,012	Whale #1 DRS'd 1,200,012 shares
10/29/2022	71,800,000	Form 10-Q
3/22/2023	76,000,000	Form 10-K
4/21/2023	76,265,982	List of stockholders
6/1/2023	76,600,000	Form 10-Q
6/20/2023	75,329,434	Mainstar rugpull -1,270,566
8/31/2023	75,400,000	Form 10-Q
11/30/2023	75,400,000	Form 10-Q

Long version:

Date	Shares	Comparing to previous date	Filing Notes
10/30/2021 10-Q	5,200,000 (x4 = 20,800,000 DRS)		"As of October 30, 2021, 5.2 million shares ... were directly registered with our transfer agent, ComputerShare."
1/29/2022 10-K	8,900,000 (x4 = 35,600,000 DRS)	+14,800,000 DRS over 91 days	"As of January 29, 2022, 8.9 million shares ... were directly registered with our transfer agent, ComputerShare."
4/30/2022 10-Q	12,700,000 (x4 = 50,800,000 DRS)	+15,200,000 DRS over 91 days	"As of April 30, 2022, 12.7 million shares ... were directly registered with our transfer agent."
5/26/2022 list of stockholders	Total shares: 76,129,034 (x4 = 304,516,136) !! Owned by Cede: 64,374,932 (x4 = 257,499,728) !! Implied Non-Cede: 11,754,102 (x4 = 47,016,408 DRS)	-3,783,592 DRS over 26 days
7/30/2022 10-Q	71,300,000 DRS	+24,283,592 DRS from 5/26/2022 list of shareholders (over 65 days) or +20,500,000 DRS from 4/30/2022 10-Q (over 91 days)	"As of July 30, 2022, 71.3 million shares ... were directly registered with our transfer agent."
8/15/2022 Whale #1 DRS'd 1,200,012 shares	72,500,012 DRS
10/29/2022 10-Q	71,800,000 DRS	+500,000 DRS over 91 days (5,494 per day)	"As of October 29, 2022, 71.8 million shares ... were directly registered with our transfer agent."
3/22/2023 10-K	Owned by Cede: ~228,700,000 !! Non-Cede: ~76,000,000 DRS	+4,200,000 DRS over 144 days (29,166 per day)	"Excluding the approximately 228.7 million shares ... held by Cede & Co on behalf of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, approximately 76.0 million shares of ... were held by record holders as of March 22, 2023."
4/21/2023 list of stockholders	Total shares: 304,717,022 !! Owned by Cede: 228,451,023.9 (+16) !! Non-Cede shares: 76,265,982.1 DRS	+265,982 DRS over 30 days (8,866 per day)
6/1/2023 10-Q	Owned by Cede: ~228,100,000 !! Non-Cede: ~76,600,000 DRS	+334,018 DRS over 41 days (8,146 per day)	"Of those outstanding shares, approximately 228.1 million were held by Cede & Co on behalf of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and approximately 76.6 million shares ... were held by registered holders with our transfer agent as of June 1, 2023."
6/20/2023 Mainstar rugpull	Minus 1,270,566 DRS shares
8/31/2023 10-Q	Owned by Cede: ~229,800,000 !! Non-Cede: ~75,400,000 DRS	-1,200,000 DRS over 91 days	"Of those outstanding shares, approximately 229.8 million were held by Cede & Co on behalf of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and approximately 75.4 million shares ... were held by registered holders with our transfer agent as of August 31, 2023."
11/30/2023 10-Q	Total shares: 305,514,315 !! Owned by Cede: ~230,100,000 !! Non-Cede shares: ~75,400,000 DRS	0 DRS over 91 days	"Of those outstanding shares, approximately 230.1 million were held by Cede & Co on behalf of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and approximately 75.4 million shares ... were held by registered holders with our transfer agent as of November 30, 2023."

Discussion points:

It seems "odd" on some of the DRS count fluctuations since the beginning.
There have been 2 "somewhat hidden" 2022 rugpulls (May 2022 and Aug/Sep/Oct 2022), the June 2023 Mainstar rugpull, and now the Sep/Oct/Nov 2023 rugpull.
It seems "odd" on recent DRS count stagnating (excluding the Mainstar rugpull of 1.27 million shares). From a very simplistic view assuming 200,000 Computershare accounts:

Buy X number of shares a month	Multiply by 3 months per quarter	Total DRS per quarter if 100,000 active accounts	Total DRS per quarter if 200,000 active accounts
1	3	300,000	600,000
2	6	600,000	1,200,000
3	9	900,000	1,800,000
4	12	1,200,000	2,400,000
5	15	1,500,000	3,000,000

The April 2023 List of stockholders DRS numbers seem correct and line up with SEC filings.
Possible some investors have had to un-DRS.
Possible economic slowdown has reduced investor purchasing power.
Whale investors who helped inflate DRS numbers alot, have dramatically slowed down their purchasing.
Tinfoil - forces inflate DRS shares 9 to 18 months back, then drain their DRS shares later. Probably spread across say 3,000 accounts to make it seem like normal activity.
Tinfoil - operational efficiency draining from DRS non-Book shares on certain dates.
Tinfoil - possible something funny with SEC filing reported number.

17 comments

DiamondHansGruber

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0 DRS over 91 days

This is so fucking fishy.

Net zero change of tens of millions of shares across thousands of owners?

I’m not saying it’s impossible, just that I myself cannot shake my doubts that something is rotten here.

burntpie2000

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When the investors saw the list of stockholders and then confirmed with peoples that their share numbers were correct, were there any people who had their numbers confirmed that had both book and plan at that time?

If so, were they what they were expected? e.g were both book and plan number correct? Because if they were correct then it makes it more unlikely that there was operational efficiency draining from DRS non-Book shares on certain dates.

Chives

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Yes, there were, and yes, they all matched exactly.

However - that doesn't mean your conclusion is correct. Remember that the stock list does not track ownership, but voting rights. Whether or not operational efficiency is responsible for lowered DRS reporting, it would not appear on the stock list as voting rights are maintained in the names of investors holding through the DirectStock plan.

burntpie2000

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Interesting, Still trying to get my head around it...

If the 10-K on 3/22/2023 had ~76,000,000 Then the stockholder list on 4/21/2023 had 76,265,982 (did the investors count this themselves?) Then the 10-Q on 6/1/2023 had ~76,600,000

If you look at the stockholder list, which contains book and plan, it seems to correlate well with the 10-Q and 10-K, for which we don't know what type of shares are included. If the 10-K/10-Q didn't contain all or a portion of plan, wouldn't you expect the stockholder list to have higher amounts of shares compared to the 10-Q/!0-K since you know the stockholder list had plan shares whose numbers were confirmed to be accurate?

lovetoburst

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The DRS count incrementing 76.0m > 76.26m > 76.6m seems "ok, no 'major' f--kery" but still a bit on the low side. Which partly leads to questioning if we are overestimating retail investor purchasing power and how many are DRS-ing in that timeframe.

Without access to the Computershare dashboard to see daily account and count changes, we're left in the dark guessing. Like the +4.2m for 3/22/2023 versus +.5m on 10/29/2022. One theory is "they" load up DRS accounts, then many months later drain shares to confuse retail.

burntpie2000

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It just doesn't seem right does it that you go from 0 to 70,000,000 in a year, then nothing for the next year, especially the last 3 months when the price has been under $15, which is why we have all these theories and no one trust the number.

But because everything is opaque, no one really knows. If 'they' did load up early on DRS counts, how do they know how many to un-DRS to keep it at a constant number, I guess with their algorithms and data from the bi-monthly buys from computer share plus brokers data it could be possible to know how much retail is DRSing.

Actually there must data from bi-monthly buys for the last 3 months, has anyone calculated how many shares have been bought via this mechanism since we know the times when they are bought?

lovetoburst

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Check out TheUltimator5's posts on recurring buy fills: https://www.reddit.com/user/theultimator5/

I think 6days1week had the Computershare recurring buy dates marked on a calendar, or maybe TheUltimator5 mentions in one of his posts.

I used the most basic average $1.2 million buy every 2 weeks and used only $14 a share as an example. So 85,714 shares * 6 times a quarter = 514,284 shares from just recurring buys each quarter. Mileage will vary of course on GME share price at the time.

I think the DTCC side can see all broker transactions.

Computershare's bi-weekly recurring and daily purchases go through a broker.
Broker DRS transfers to Computershare notify the DTCC that a stock withdrawal is taking place.
I think I saw a redditor mention a rule/agreement that the DTCC can ask to see a transfer agent's books at any time, too.

Chives

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Would you happen to have any info on that rule or agreement that you mentioned in last bullet? I'm not aware of something like that but would be cool to read about.

What DTCC could do is go through the same channels to view (since Cede is a named owner) but that would have the same time restrictions Retail does. DTCC could also use simple deduction/subtraction to know how many non-Cede shares are on the issuer ledger at any time without inspecting through the transfer agent.

lovetoburst

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Sorry, don't have a source on that. Scrolled a million bananas on reddit this year and everything is a blur. :)

I'm assuming DTCC just watches Computershare's broker for Computershare's transactions. Doubt they would ever contact Computershare and leave a trail.

jersan

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great post OP!

also, TIL that Lemmy in fact does support tables. It isn't obvious how to do it, but thank you OP for demonstrating to me that it is possible.

lovetoburst

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Yeah, I wish the default Lemmy editor included tables like reddit's Fancy editor. I copy-paste from my reddit post (in Markdown mode) and it preserves the tables over in Lemmy.

jersan

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that's awesome. i should have clued in earlier that markdown is valid in Lemmy

for anyone else who is curious: Markdown table: How to Create a Great Looking Table

Item	Price	# In stock
Juicy Apples	1.99	739
Bananas	1.89	6

you can go to the original post, or this comment for example, and click the view source button and see how markdown text can create a table

dust_accelerator

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Possible economic slowdown has reduced investor purchasing power.

Also, inflation.

lovetoburst

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Thank you, adding inflation for next week's post.

bibic_jr

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I'm curious as to where the exact number of mainstar shares came from. Did Mainstar state how many there were? I only remember seeing ~1.2 mil come from the stockholder list viewing anyway, so just curious where the exact digits came from.

Chives

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To my knowledge the only source for the figure is the stock list viewing as you said, but it's a bit more specific than you are remembering. The stock list data shared by investors from Grapevine reflected 1,270,566 GME shares they were custodian for at that time.

bibic_jr

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Ah you know for all the time I've started at this infographic I never fully clocked it 😅

Good to know it's a reputable source at least!