Don't buy GMGMQ (former General Motors stock)

Lot of ya'll have gotten fooled by headlines like "GM Emerges from Bankruptcy" and have immediately proceeded to buyin up shares of GMGMQ. Don't do this, you are making a very bad sucka mistake. What has emerged from bankruptcy is not the GM that went Chapter 11; that company was renamed to Motors Liquidation Company in June, and trades on the Pink Sheets under the symbol GMGMQ. What has emerged is a new company, mostly funded by the U.S. government, called General Motors Company. This new company will be buying up the old assets (like employees, plants, etc.) from Motors Liquidation Company. The money from this sale will go to paying back all the creditors of Motors Liquidation Company, and will not go to the shareholders. GMGMQ, like most stocks whose symbols now end in Q, is dead investment weight...

To quote the Motors Liquidation Company's website:
None of the publicly owned stocks or bonds issued by the former General Motors Corporation (now renamed "Motors Liquidation Company"), including its common stock formerly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "GM", are or will become securities of General Motors Company (the "new GM"), which is an independent separate company. All of these securities relate to Motors Liquidation Company, and will be treated in accordance with the provisions of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and the rulings of the Bankruptcy court.

How to make money off GMGMQ

GMGMQ investors will eventually begin to realize their losses and sell their shares, bringing down the market value tremendously. The chances of your broker being able to lend you shares of GMGMQ to short are extremely small, and they would most likely come with an extremely high cost-to-borrow rate (sometimes charged under the "interest" bucket in yo statements). Instead of shorting the stock, you can short futures of the stock thanks to the new single stock futures available from the ONEChicago exchange. By selling a GMGMQ SSF, you are entering an obligation to sell 100 shares of GMGMQ stock to another party for the amount you sold the SSF for on the date that SSF expires. The market price of the SSF is usually just under the market price for the underlying stock, and unlike the stock, can be shorted without having to borrow any stock from the broker.

The Risk (MUST READ)

If you hold the SSF short until SSF expires, you will have a short GMGMQ stock position created in your trading account. Your broker will immediately liquidate this position on Monday at the stock market ask price for GMGMQ shares so they aren't at risk of "Naked Shorting". You will not be the only person doing this... it's a classic mega short-squeeze, and it could drive the price of GMGMQ shares up just enough to screw you when your broker forces the buy-in. Don't say I didn't warn ya. I plan on buying-to-cover the SSF positions prior to the expiration date to avoid this risk.