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How to Lose Money

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Re: How to Lose Money

#191

Post by prostko »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #62
KMag wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seductive venture and it's mostly just gambling that you can hedge slightly with some smart info I think part of it is the populist meme that professional investors don't really know what they're doing and accidentally make money hand-over-fist. Yes, it has been shown that free stock tips are on average no better than monkeys throwing darts, and most hedge funds under-preform the S&P 500 in risk-adjusted returns. I…

I didn’t understand any of your last paragraph. Did he beat the S&P?

My wife is a financial advisor at a name you've heard of. Maybe I can translate a bit ;)

The idea with an advisor is that you create wealth targets, and use the market to optimize your saving to hit those targets. Then other stuff like college savings accounts, taxes, what happens when you die, various financial vehicles to optimize your saving while limiting your downside.

You don't really care to beat the market, because all you need is, for example, 8.5% returns to hit your wealth goals.

It's really complicated, and hard to do alone. Just by the sheer knowledge required in so many different areas.

That's what that means - or should mean.

Re: How to Lose Money

#192

Post by mumblemumble »

DC1350 wrote: post #169

> Do things because you have genuine interest in them... Don’t start out with a singular goal of making money. I really hate advice like this. Have you ever seen a business before? Have you ever met a person? Pretty much no interests are monetizable and almost all companies are doing really boring work. I don’t believe anyone in the world is truly passionate about things like payroll software. If I followed my intere…

The most lucrative jobs I've held are always working on boring, boring, boring, boring shit. The most interesting work is rarely all that well compensated, because supply and demand, and stories about the exceptions reek of selection bias or selective framing. Nobody wants to actually talk about the boring stuff or the non-spectacular failures, because they don't make for interesting stories. So we forget that Notch basically just won the lottery, except that he bought his lottery tickets with time instead of money.

But it's still worth picking something you at least don't mind, because then, even if you don't get rich, at least you didn't also hate every second of not getting rich.

Re: How to Lose Money

#193

Post by Noos »

vinceguidry wrote: post #189
DC1350 wrote: post #169

> Do things because you have genuine interest in them... Don’t start out with a singular goal of making money. I really hate advice like this. Have you ever seen a business before? Have you ever met a person? Pretty much no interests are monetizable and almost all companies are doing really boring work. I don’t believe anyone in the world is truly passionate about things like payroll software. If I followed my intere…

This is way, way, way less true than it used to be. There are pro and semi-pro leagues in lots and lots of games, YouTube and Twitch make getting paid for entertaining rather than competing possible. Patreon, Instagram and TikTok makes getting paid for your lifestyle far far easier and more lucrative. Getting paid as an independent developer on open source projects is possible these days, sadly there's precious littl…

Most people trying to do this will make little or no money, and the sheer amount of competition and effort required to be the maybe 10% of the top people who can make a living on it is too much for most. And there are less and less structures in place to protect or mitigate risk for them; all Youtube has to do is change an algorithm or demonetize/ban you to tank your streaming business.

And the base assumption now for creative works is "free" and hope people donate to you. A lot of people would make more just working part time at mcdonalds.

Re: How to Lose Money

#194

Post by bluGill »

_a1_ wrote: post #12

> I’ve written four short books and they have literally grossed hundreds of dollars. I hear this argument pretty often. A book is not a binary thing: there is a book, and there isn't. It's not about the "book", it's about the contents of the book. So in other words the author has gathered some knowledge and he didn't make much money off of it. Therefore, the knowledge you will gather will not allow you to earn any mo…

Most books make money from the speaking fees "the guy who wrote the book" makes. I've had a couple classes at work where my company paid $5-20,000 (500-1000 per student depending on how long the class is for) for a guy to come in and give a one week class. As a student in the class I got a copy of the book (someplace on my bookself, I probably opened it a couple times, but never read it). The book is free with class.

I talked to several contractors who said the key to their high value contracts was the book they wrote. Write a book on X and you can make $500/hour doing X at other companies.

Without writing the book you don't get hired to give a class on the book. Without writing a book you don't get to consult on the subject. Once you write a book you are automatically an expert. You still need to sell yourself, the book is part of your marketing materials, but it isn't enough alone to get those high priced gigs.

Re: How to Lose Money

#195

Post by maverik »

DC1350 wrote: post #169

> Do things because you have genuine interest in them... Don’t start out with a singular goal of making money. I really hate advice like this. Have you ever seen a business before? Have you ever met a person? Pretty much no interests are monetizable and almost all companies are doing really boring work. I don’t believe anyone in the world is truly passionate about things like payroll software. If I followed my intere…

fair point when it comes to employment...i think the point in the article is that when it comes to books/courses/etc they probably aren't going to be much good if you don't have much genuine interest in the subject/etc

Re: How to Lose Money

#196

Post by greenshackle2 »

clipradiowallet wrote: post #184
gruez wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even with a margin account, your purchasing power is 4:1, at best! [...] IMHO...that "fastest" method to lose money(in the markets) is the commodity futures market. You get 200:1 leverage there Shouldn't margin be weighted against volatility? Part of the reason why they give you that much margin in the first place is that commodities are presumably less volatile.

Commodities are infinite more volatile than stocks - mostly due to the sheer [large] volume of market participants. For example, today the nasdaq 100 future moved 22 points in the first 60 seconds of the day session. That's $480 gain/loss, per contract - in the first 60 seconds. Within 180 seconds, it moved a further 50 points. To recap...within the first 3 minutes, the futures market moved 72 points, or $1,440 per c…

Uh, NQ is stock future not a commodity future? Commodity futures are soybean, oil, corn, gold, etc.

Re: How to Lose Money

#197

Post by maverik »

CoffeePython wrote: post #83

Building an online course[1] has been one of the easiest ways to make money in my personal experience. Other things I've tried building: SaaS, Trades business, Freelancing business. I've made over $8k since I launched last month and it's been a great stepping stone into other ideas. The main problem I see going forward is getting consistent traffic. Building the course was the "easy" part and now I'm focusing hard on…

congrats that is awesome!! did you do courses in an area you were genuinely interested in or just for income??

Re: How to Lose Money

#198

Post by bluGill »

greatpatton wrote: post #98
UK-Al05 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you value time.

If you enjoy writing a book why would you value your time?

Most people love having done something more than doing it. I like talking about removing that busted off bolt in my shop - but when I'm doing it, it just plain sucks.

Re: How to Lose Money

#199

Post by maverik »

bmitc wrote: post #99
CoffeePython wrote: post #83

Building an online course[1] has been one of the easiest ways to make money in my personal experience. Other things I've tried building: SaaS, Trades business, Freelancing business. I've made over $8k since I launched last month and it's been a great stepping stone into other ideas. The main problem I see going forward is getting consistent traffic. Building the course was the "easy" part and now I'm focusing hard on…

I have thought about making a course on Udemy or Pluralsight. Did you consider those options before building your own? I am curious because I don’t think I have the skills to create something as nice as you did and also would like to know the pros and cons you discovered.

Udemy is actually a great platform for courses. I've used that and Skillshare and both are great.

Re: How to Lose Money

#200

Post by maverik »

clipradiowallet wrote: post #162

The "fastest" way of losing money - which the author says is trading options, is naive. Even with a margin account, your purchasing power is 4:1, at best! Now - if you have _enough_ money, you can write uncovered(aka 'naked') option contracts and open the possibility of unlimited losses at least, but that won't afford you any more leverage. IMHO...that "fastest" method to lose money(in the markets) is the commodity f…

ya I 100% agree! naked options are much worse! i think the article was only covering less advanced instruments :)
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