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More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

wsj.com

491–500 of 640 posts

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't know how you preserve much-needed anonymity, while also binding humans to their personas and holding them accountable for their actions.

Why do you believe anonymity is "much-needed"? Human society was built for tens of thousands of years on "stay away from Ben because he has a bad habit of not paying back what you loan him" Anonymity is new and probably not something the human brain, which isn't meant to handle more than a few hundred familiar faces, can manage reasonably. If you want anonymity 200 years ago, you had to print your own pamphlets and h…

Anonymity is, in fact, quite crucial to a surprisingly wide range of people: https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22R...>

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I think the reality is the "don't try to be smart, do these low-risk things because statistically you're too stupid to beat the market" has logic to it, and stats to back it up. But the unspoken part is, "let the rich do that stuff, and their wealth advisors and folks on the golf courses". So there's an elitist aspect to telling people to back off. We all know people who made a killing on individual stocks,…

It's not really elitist. Picking individual stocks is essentially saying "I have brand new insight that nobody else has, and I'm going to earn profit by incorporating that knowledge into prices and be rewarded forgetting it right". This is clearly a very specialized activity, you shouldn't expect to be able to bring brand new, accurate insight, and out predict everyone else in the world, without a deep understanding…

Well… yes, index funds are a safe, default choice most people. And yet, a funny thing about investing, versus other things professionals do like dentistry, is that it doesn’t necessarily require any skill. Dumb luck sometimes works just as well as sophisticated analysis. What other professions are like that?

I don’t think I had any particular insight into Google, but I worked there and never got around to exercising my options until I had to because they were going to expire. (Good thing HR sent me an email.) The slightly more sophisticated people were doing same-day sales and immediately diversifying, which I believe in, in principle. But I procrastinated, because it seemed like delaying was working out pretty well. Past performance is no guarantee, but why not wait a few months?

I thought Google was doing well, but so did everyone else. It was conventional wisdom the whole time. Apparently conventional wisdom wasn’t priced in, though?

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#493
post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven't already, now might be a good time to sell some of that bitcoin

okay I don't comment on here often, can check my post history, but absolutely would not sell your bitcoin any time soon considering we have a pro crypto president and have an approx 40% chance of a bitcoin strategic reserve within the first 100 days. terrible advice tbh.

I think the word some is doing most of the work there. There are other investments, too, you know. Diversifying means you sleep better.

(Also, Congress just showed that many Republicans won’t listen to Trump, or Musk, when they have other ideas.)

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#494
post #225

The regular 9-to-5 is seen as a last resort now—it’s almost like you’ve failed if you don’t have a side hustle. That’s the vibe. With AI and machine learning platforms making waves, especially for traders, the game has completely changed. The barrier to entry? Practically gone. These platforms have made it so easy to get started that anyone with a bit of curiosity can jump in. It’s not the exclusive playground of the…

> Trading isn’t just something “some people” do—it’s turning into a thriving industry where regular folks are learning the ropes and doing well for themselves. Said every forex / options / crypto course seller ever. Anybody remember the "Day Trade your way out of Debt" late night infomercials in the '90s?

> Said every forex / options / crypto course seller ever.

And they're correct on this. The only catch is that you don't need to buy their courses to know it.

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I answered you in the other comment, but my "resolution" would've been not carving out a chunk of a number of middle eastern former colonies and turning it into a Jewish ethnostate. But that's done now, and now Israelis have lived there for so long that simply "packing it up" and moving them elsewhere is now also, if not equally IMO, problematic as an action. Israel is itself a project of the latter end of colonialis…

Israel is not the product of "the latter end of colonialism". It was the product of the Holocaust, which occurred just three years before its founding. Should Europe have used Palestine for this purpose, that is debatable. But to lump it into the same colonial endeavors such as England's occupation of India or Belgium's occupation of the Congo just doesn't add up.

Complex entities such as states can be the product of many things.

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I answered you in the other comment, but my "resolution" would've been not carving out a chunk of a number of middle eastern former colonies and turning it into a Jewish ethnostate. But that's done now, and now Israelis have lived there for so long that simply "packing it up" and moving them elsewhere is now also, if not equally IMO, problematic as an action. Israel is itself a project of the latter end of colonialis…

Israel is not the product of "the latter end of colonialism". It was the product of the Holocaust, which occurred just three years before its founding. Should Europe have used Palestine for this purpose, that is debatable. But to lump it into the same colonial endeavors such as England's occupation of India or Belgium's occupation of the Congo just doesn't add up.

That is an oversimplification of history

https://www.britannica.com/event/Balfour-Declaration

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#497

After losing my first chunk of cash during 2000 .COM crash I became be quite contrarian. Thought real estate is way too high, thought the stock market is nuts, bitcoin is a scam. Turns out the big crash never happened and everything ket going up. Three years ago for some reason I jumped into the stock market, bought a house, bought some bitcoin. Turns out so far the gains have been life changing. If I ever get laid o…

If you haven't already, now might be a good time to sell some of that bitcoin

Hard disagree. 2025 is going to be a huge pro-crypto year IMO.

Gensler is resigning (bc Trump was going to nuke him on day 1). The SEC replacement, Paul Atkins, is pro-crypto.

https://www.npr.org/2024/12/04/g-s1-36803/trump-crypto-paul-...

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#498
post #343

I lost my life savings chasing the dopamine hit and can relate to this. I'm in my mid 30s and suffering from career burnout. I know I can't afford a home when I can barely work full-time so I figured I'd trade. I was up, and up and up! Then I was down, then up, then down. One morning I woke up and I was so down, I sold out of fear. Now I'm left with so little I might as well be starting from scratch. This feels like…

Because the way you did it, it is gambling.

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#499

> They expect the problem to worsen. The stock market has climbed 23% this year... The problem will resolve itself if (when?) the market crashes. I remember the run up to the dot-com bust. I was too much of a bumpkin at the time to even know how I would trade stocks — but I listened to an acquaintance go on and on about how much he was making on the market. At the time I guessed that he was much smarter than me — tha…

> At the time I guessed that he was much smarter than me — that it would take me years to become as investment-savvy as this guy was. You lucked out by mistakingly believing he was intelligent. The classic scenario is when your neighbor is obviously an idiot, making tremendous amounts of money in the market, and you have to explain to your spouse why you can't/won't emulate them. That's when even bright, (normally) l…

Indeed, most frustrating is when someone (stupid) is proven right, even though they used completely wrong reasoning (in spirit of Gettier problem).

Re: More men are addicted to the 'crack cocaine' of the stock market

#500
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SPY and QQQ charts zoomed out are starting to look like the biggest parabola of all time in markets. 1999 is just a blip on this monster. Seeing all kinds of warning signs from family members who never traded or got into crypto until just this past 6 months.

> Seeing all kinds of warning signs from family members who never traded or got into crypto until just this past 6 months. That's just jealousy, Those who sit on the sidelines complain the most. Like I said in my previous post if you didn't see it. I see it as that the barrier to entry for making money has never been lower. Right now, it’s one of the best times in history for anyone to start earning, not just the Wal…

I thought people HN know better than random "traders" on reddit/YouTube/TikTok
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