Dumb Ways to Lose Money
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Dumb ways to lose money. I’ve been around a long time, long time, and I’ve seen many, many different ways, many different ways people have managed to lose money. Dumb ways to lose money. There was actually a, there was an Australian safety video many years ago. It was called Dumb Ways to Die. And it was, I it was kind of funny. I kind of went.
viral at the time. I should do way dumb ways to lose money because we’re seeing it again. Things that you shouldn’t do things that you shouldn’t do. And I know I’ll get I’ll get the pushback. I’ll get the pushback. astute trader. Sure you are. Don’t day trade. That just don’t do it.
Don’t do it unless again, are someone that is enormously disciplined. It is something that quite frankly, it’s a full-time job.
It is a full time job, which quite frankly, in my humble opinion, there’s better uses of your time.
If you invest properly and you build wealth properly, you’re going to see great returns that’ll build you wealth over time, where you don’t have to sit in front of a computer and have five screens in front of you, playing various different rules, trying to guess what’s gonna happen next. You could use that time to be a hell of a lot more productive. Start a business.
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Start a business, go do something. know, volunteer your time. Go to church. I don’t care. Coach a little league team. Sitting in front of a screen all day. Trading. No, no, no, that’s that’s it’s not an application. It’s a way to go about losing money. It was funny. Funny is actually I was reminded it was that from all the places you go, Dr. Seuss and I off.
talk about people being stuck in a waiting place. But before that, in the story talks about how you’re doing great and everything’s fantastic and you’re flying along and awesome. And then all of a sudden, the opposite happens, you’re caught in a lurch and you’re down in the dumps. And, know, this whole thing that that soos does in that story. That’s what happens when markets are running up. People all of a sudden, I can do this day trading thing. yeah, this is easy. This is a piece of cake.
People, I want to remind you, I was…
I lived in New York City during the whole dot com run up 1990s and I watched, I watched all of these trading houses pop up. This is where you would go in and you would, people would go in and they’d bring, again, 10,000 bucks and then the trading company would lever you up.
Maybe give you, make it, you $5,000 on top of your 10. They let you borrow it at high interest rates and you would sit there and you would trade all day. I remember there was, was on the cover of Forbes or Fortune, some kid, know, with pimples all over his face, big smile on his face, all the money he made trading story after story. There was E-Trade Center in Midtown Manhattan, frickin’ casino that was set up there.
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Where are the winners from all of that day trading? Where are they now?
Where you think it turned out all right for them because the reality of the situation, markets don’t go up in a straight line. Okay, if it was that easy, everybody would do it and people end up crushing themselves. Now the dumb way to lose money. Another dumb way is using leverage. Yeah, margin. yeah, whoa, this is a great idea. Why don’t I go ahead and borrow money?
Lever my position up. what if there’s a major down day in the market? Yep, you’re getting those calls, margin calls. You have to put more money into your account. Don’t do it. What I put along with this, it’s basically what you’re doing is you’re gambling. Day trading combined with leverage.
You’re borrowing money from somebody to lever your, and you’re gambling away money. Another one as well. If you don’t know, and the funny thing is, they’re saying there’s a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. We use options. And I think I’m pretty good with understanding options, but I don’t trade options.
I don’t know, this is just one day. I don’t do any of that. I use options for a specific purpose. More often than not, you’d like to hedge positions. I watch people get wiped out all the time on these things. Again, dumb ways to lose money. You don’t have to participate in this crap, people. Again, get your finances in order.
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Build a portfolio the right way. Brick by brick over time. You’re going to become wealthy anyway. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.