# It's too easy to lose all your money these days



## MrsPartridge (May 15, 2016)

When I started investing, many decades ago, it was something like $30 per trade to buy stocks and only through a broker. So I didn't do many trades and was very careful. Investing was usually mutual funds after looking over a brochure at my bank.
Now I see people getting free trades on apps like Robinhood where they're encouraged to just buy and sell. They're interested in fast riches so they run after meme stocks. 
Then we have 2X and 3X leveraged ETFs where you can make the big bucks or lose hard very quickly. Heard of one man approaching retirement, still renting because he put all his down payment of $200,000 into a 2X ETF and turned it into $2,000.

I thought the stock market was a way to get my money to work for me but today newbies think it's a casino.


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## pwm (Jan 19, 2012)

How right you are MrsP. I've seen a lot in 40 years of investing and this looks like a classic bubble to me. I too remember the days of broker's commissions of $40. A lot of novice investors are about to get a sad awakening.


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## Tostig (Nov 18, 2020)

I agree that zero commission trades is tempting a lot of people to make too many trades. With my commission accounts, I think long and hard before I actually investing into something and when I do, I purchase at least $4000 to keep the commission % low. I also have a WealthSimple Trade account but don't go buying stuff willy-nilly. I buy more of what I already own in my BMO accounts but I purchase in much smaller quantities.

However, these things go in cycles.

Remember the final scene in Wall Street in which Bud Fox is driven to the courthouse by his father? Carl Fox tells his son "Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others. "

I'm sure we all remember those CDOs that caused the 2008 financial crisis. This was about a year after the Congressional Report that allowed relaxing regulations for the US to be as competitive as Europe.

Those leveraged ETFs of today are something that a lot of investors want to do themselves but either don't have the sophistication, know-how or the money to do it themselves. So they hire fund managers to trade options on their behalf via ETFs. A lot of people in this forum say investors into those ETFs lose their principle in the long run. If that truly is the case, how do investors who trade options and on margin generally do in the long run too?


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

With great power comes great responsibility.

I still only make less than half a dozen trades/yr.

I don't think that ordinary people should pay high fees and be excluded to "protect them".


FWIW I've done excellent in the stock market, way better (and cheaper) than with mutual funds.


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## newfoundlander61 (Feb 6, 2011)

For people buying bitcoin; cannabis stocks; brand new theme etf's for sure its easy to loose money.


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

I believe that it is easy to loose money in any market if you are not thoughtful, don't understand the investment, are less than prudent, or invest money that one cannot afford to loose. Or place all of your 'eggs' in one basket.

Amazing as it seems there are people who have lost their entire retirement funds through investing in what turned out to be ponzi schemes. Not stupid people, but careless and trusting of people simply because of some passing acquaintance or their affiliation with some group.

Others put everything on the black and loose the value of their company stock options because they spent too much time drinking the kool-aid while ignoring all the signals and the red flags.

The bottom line is that you cannot protect anyone from their own stupidity, greed, or poor judgement. If it is not a stock, they will find something else to risk too much of their money on. Some people cannot resist the urge of investing in something that they actually believe will deliver significantly above average returns with apparently little or no risk to capital. Alas, it does not work that way.

The sharks are always on the lookout for these people.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

MrsPartridge said:


> Now I see people getting free trades on apps like Robinhood where they're encouraged to just buy and sell. They're interested in fast riches so they run after meme stocks.


This is actually by design, and Robinhood was given yet another penalty from a regulator recently for violating a bunch of rules. A pretty disgusting company.

Robinhood does this deliberately. They make their game like an app, and give cues to the investors to entice them to trade. So the whole purpose of Robinhood is to encourage frequent trading and high turnover. They _encourage_ meme stocks.

This high activity "order flow" is then sold to market makers and HFT intermediaries, who scrape off a little bit from each trade, and share the profits with Robinhood. So far it appears to be a very profitable model. At the same time, they under-invest in their core technology and the real (important) brokerage operations. For example, Robinhood was recently fined for having insufficient backup and safety mechanisms, and also fined for not adequately screening investors for options knowledge before letting them gamble in options.

Robinhood's business model (called 'payment for order flow') was actually invented by Bernie Madoff. Yes, _that_ Madoff!

The idea is that retail investors are stupid, and with a bit of encouragement, you can make them trade like lunatics. The fees they pay are HIDDEN in those trade executions, so they are still paying fees without even realizing it. A few months ago, the SEC completed a study (and gave Robinhood more fines) and showed the effective $ fee in each trade.

Personally I really like paying my $10 trade commissions, at a bank which has good quality operations and maintains a proper infrastructure. These small trade fees are a bit of a disincentive to trade too much, which is also healthy.

It's too bad that novice investors and millennials have been tricked by the likes of Robinhood into thinking that these app platforms are "equalizers". In reality, Wall Street loves what they do. The *real way* to screw Wall Street is to adopt a passive investment strategy where you hardly ever place any trades at all.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

ian said:


> The bottom line is that you cannot protect anyone from their own stupidity, greed, or poor judgement.


You can to some extent. The US has really improved security regulations over the years. So many of the blatant Wall Street ripoffs of the 1960s and 1970s have been terminated.

The crypto koinz is an unfortunate development though, because now all the old tricks have come back to life, and the suckers are being ripped off again -- just like the old days of Wall Street. They don't even realize they are being scammed.

Regulation really does protect a lot of investors and we should appreciate how useful it has been. There are many things we take as granted when we buy stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds, but these things are relatively safe because of 100+ years of securities regulation improvements.


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## GreatLaker (Mar 23, 2014)

It`s also never been easier for almost anyone to invest with broad diversification at ultra-low cost, getting the return of the market with very low long-term risk, setting themselves up for financial security.

30 years ago if you wanted to invest you needed a full service broker with very high trade costs through an advisor or broker. Small investors got shunted into mutual funds with 2% or higher MERs and 8% front-end loads. Now almost any investor can buy an asset allocation ETF that is diversified across thousands of stocks and bonds in dozens of countries, with a MER of 0.25% or lower. Even a decade ago ETF investors needed multiple ETFs to get global stock & bond diversification, and MERs were significantly higher. All most people should be doing is save 20% of their net income or 15% of their gross income (including contributions to a DB or DC pension) in a low-cost asset allocation ETF. One decision, minimal risk, minimize chance of error.

Two of my favourite Warren Buffett quotes:

"Investing is simple, but not easy" referring to the fact that basic investing concepts of risk, return and compounding are simple, but avoiding the hype and hubris is not easy.
"Nobody wants to get rich slow" when asked by Mark Cuban why so few investors followed Buffett's obviously successful strategy of buying good companies at fair prices with his favourite holding time being forever.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

GreatLaker said:


> "Investing is simple, but not easy" referring to the fact that basic investing concepts of risk, return and compounding are simple, but avoiding the hype and hubris is not easy.


It's a great quote. For example, people just can't resist the urge to try timing the markets and forecasting sectors, asset classes, trying to time tops and bottoms, etc.

This happens on a daily basis at CMF too. Even smart and wealthy people can have a very tough time investing. It's really not easy.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

james4beach said:


> It's a great quote. For example, people just can't resist the urge to try timing the markets and forecasting sectors, asset classes, trying to time tops and bottoms, etc.
> 
> This happens on a daily basis at CMF too. Even smart and wealthy people can have a very tough time investing. It's really not easy.


That's why I like Dave Ramseys point, it money isn't a math problem.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

MrMatt said:


> That's why I like Dave Ramseys point, it money isn't a math problem.


And yet it often masquerades as a math problem. I suspect this is why many scientists/engineers get into trouble when investing, or have much worse results than they expected.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

james4beach said:


> And yet it often masquerades as a math problem. I suspect this is why many scientists/engineers get into trouble when investing, or have much worse results than they expected.


Well it IS a math problem.

But for most people, emotions overrule logic. That's why I always say.
1. The pillow test is the most important aspect of your investment plan.
2. Make a plan, follow the plan.
3. Keep it simple.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

GreatLaker said:


> Two of my favourite Warren Buffett quotes:
> 
> "Investing is simple, but not easy" referring to the fact that basic investing concepts of risk, return and compounding are simple, but avoiding the hype and hubris is not easy.
> "Nobody wants to get rich slow" when asked by Mark Cuban why so few investors followed Buffett's obviously successful strategy of buying good companies at fair prices with his favourite holding time being forever.


I've always been interesting in getting rich slowly. I'm 20+ years into steady, regular savings and investing through three major crashes. I looked at the math early, and while earning 8% a year on $10,000 seems like peanuts and not worth the effort, it is a lot more interesting when you get the same 8% on $1 million. For myself and many of my peers, we are now regularly making more money from investing than from employment, and that goes back well before COVID.

But most people really struggle with it. It's just too easy to panic in market crashes. People underestimate the value that a paid investment advisor has in these situations unfortunately. Most people just do not have the patience and foresight to stick with it. This is why most people are happy enough to just invest in their houses.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

MrMatt said:


> Well it IS a math problem.
> 
> But for most people, emotions overrule logic. That's why I always say.
> 1. The pillow test is the most important aspect of your investment plan.
> ...


Great advice.


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## :) lonewolf (Feb 9, 2020)

Trading multiple leg option strategies back in the 80s it was easy to pay a few hundred in commission. Stock brokers & brokerage firms were making a killing. In the late 80s or early 90s I made some phone calls, bank wired some money & mailed in some forms to the United States & set up a discount brokerage account with Lind Waldock. I was able to trade futures, commodities, options, options on futures, stocks @ a far lower cost then I could with any brokerage firm in Canada. I could also use MIT orders (market if touched) which worked well with Elliott wave. I closed the account years ago & have not been as happy with the Canadian discount brokerage that I use now.


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## :) lonewolf (Feb 9, 2020)

MrsPartridge said:


> When I started investing, many decades ago, it was something like $30 per trade to buy stocks and only through a broker. So I didn't do many trades and was very careful. Investing was usually mutual funds after looking over a brochure at my bank.
> Now I see people getting free trades on apps like Robinhood where they're encouraged to just buy and sell. They're interested in fast riches so they run after meme stocks.
> Then we have 2X and 3X leveraged ETFs where you can make the big bucks or lose hard very quickly. Heard of one man approaching retirement, still renting because he put all his down payment of $200,000 into a 2X ETF and turned it into $2,000.
> 
> I thought the stock market was a way to get my money to work for me but today newbies think it's a casino.


Einstein theory on investing " those that do not understand compound interest pay it Those that understand compound interest make it "

Google "leverage for the long run Dow award" for source following info

From Oct 1928 - Oct 2015 S&P
10,000 buy& hold turned into 19 million.
Using 3X leveraged ETF with 1%MER turned 10,000 into "9 Trillion" using the following strategy buy 3X leveraged S&P ETF when S&P above 200 day moving average sell when below 200 day moving average, average 5 trades per a year.

Max draw down 4 largest bear markets


bear years Unleveraged Leverage 3X
1929 - 1932 -86.4% - 49.8%
1973 - 1974 -44.8% -36.7 %
2000 - 2002 -47.4% -45.8%
2007 - 2009 -55.2% -31.1%


Used with proper money management leveraged ETFs can reduce risk when used with a method that gives an investor an edge while turbo charging the gains


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## :) lonewolf (Feb 9, 2020)

MrMatt said:


> Well it IS a math problem.
> 
> But for most people, emotions overrule logic. That's why I always say.
> 1. The pillow test is the most important aspect of your investment plan.
> ...


People that are successful in other fields often have trouble admitting they are wrong which is not good for trading/investing


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## Chrysaphius (Jun 16, 2021)

MrMatt said:


> With great power comes great responsibility.
> 
> I still only make less than half a dozen trades/yr.
> 
> ...


Agreed. There is also the aspect of personal responsibility. Own your mistakes, learn from them, and carry on.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

It has always been easy to lose money. I made a lot of bad investments on the way to learning how to do it right which I finally figured out when I was 66. I don't know anybody who got it right first time. We all had to learn and we all had to pay for our lessons.


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## Chrysaphius (Jun 16, 2021)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> It has always been easy to lose money. I made a lot of bad investments on the way to learning how to do it right which I finally figured out when I was 66. I don't know anybody who got it right first time. We all had to learn and we all had to pay for our lessons.


Agree with you completely.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> It has always been easy to lose money. I made a lot of bad investments on the way to learning how to do it right which I finally figured out when I was 66. I don't know anybody who got it right first time. We all had to learn and we all had to pay for our lessons.


I learned how to "do it right" from the beginning.
All the information is out there.

That's not to say I didn't make mistakes along the way, I did, and I learned from them.


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## MrBlackhill (Jun 10, 2020)

There's good and bad in everything. I prefer low commissions.

I'm with Questrade, I pay $5-$10 to buy and sell stocks. And it's free to buy ETF (but $5 to sell).

When I started investing, it allowed me to try some opportunities by taking a much smaller position without throwing most of the money to commissions. If commissions were $40, my threshold for smallest trade would be 8x higher and that means I could lose 8x more money if I'm wrong. That also means that maybe I wouldn't have taken some risky small positions that made 3x, 4x and 5x since the 2020 crash. I also took some risky small positions and lost -50%, but since the commission was only $5 and since I took only a very small position, I haven't lost that much money. On the other side, when I'm confident about a stock and I take a big position and add more on a frequent basis, I get more for my money with low commissions.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

MrMatt said:


> I learned how to "do it right" from the beginning.
> All the information is out there.
> 
> That's not to say I didn't make mistakes along the way, I did, and I learned from them.


That's because you are smart and I am not. It seems to take me 10 or 20 years to figure out things everyone else grasped at the age of 12. I did manage to figure out a few things that might have done me some good years ago, now it is too late. As for the information being out there, possibly it was, but not available in small town Ontario in 1966.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> As for the information being out there, possibly it was, but not available in small town Ontario in 1966.


Honestly I don't think the information was easily available back then.
As a kid I remember buying the Globe and Mail once a week to check stock prices back in the late 80's. My Grandmother "bought me" a few shares of a company when I expressed interest in the stock market.
I did benefit greatly from people encouraging me to learn.

Today the information is out there, but people need to.
1. Filter good from bad.
2. Act on it.

These are both hard, there is too much information, and we don't tend to make rational decisions.


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## Chrysaphius (Jun 16, 2021)

MrMatt said:


> Honestly I don't think the information was easily available back then.
> As a kid I remember buying the Globe and Mail once a week to check stock prices back in the late 80's. My Grandmother "bought me" a few shares of a company when I expressed interest in the stock market.
> I did benefit greatly from people encouraging me to learn.
> 
> ...


Just as a quirky aside, I remember being 15-16 in high school and going to read one of the newspapers in the library and learned that you could trade things like pork bellies and frozen pork bellies. I thought that that was so cool at the time. That got me interested in investing overall - although I never grew up to buy pork belly contracts lol. I don't even think you can buy them now. Maybe you can still buy frozen pork futures? Anyone know about this?

Anyway, just thought I would add that little anecdote about what personally got me interested in stocks in my middle teens.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Chrysaphius said:


> Just as a quirky aside, I remember being 15-16 in high school and going to read one of the newspapers in the library and learned that you could trade things like pork bellies and frozen pork bellies. I thought that that was so cool at the time. That got me interested in investing overall - although I never grew up to buy pork belly contracts lol. I don't even think you can buy them now. Maybe you can still buy frozen pork futures? Anyone know about this?
> 
> Anyway, just thought I would add that little anecdote about what personally got me interested in stocks in my middle teens.


Just googled, but Pork bellies aren't traded.

FCOJ still is, and of course that was part of the plot of Trading Places, which is from when Eddie Murphy was at his best.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

MrsPartridge said:


> I thought the stock market was a way to get my money to work for me but today newbies think it's a casino.


Right on, Mrs. P. I've been dabbling 40+ years now too....ever since my old uncle gave me this sage advice:
"Don't just put you money The Royal Bank (wasn't called RBC yet), buy SHARES in the Royal Bank"
So, I've seen a few bubbles burst too.
Trouble is, most of us usually see bubbles best in hindsight...and I suspect the next will be the same.
Me? As I'm into my 70th year, I've been slowly redeeming some stock profits & converting them into boring fixed income options. (still clinging to my Nfld. Light& Power.....er, I mean Fortis(FTS) chunk of shares though...🤪


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

pork bellies are DOWN today, BTW...LOL🤪


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

MrsPartridge said:


> I thought the stock market was a way to get my money to work for me but today newbies think it's a casino.


I think most people think the Stock market is a casino. They also think every company and businessman is just some person who got lucky and became super rich.
I don't think they actually understand that there is a lot going on that they don't see.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

Back then the go to for information was the public library. Our library had about 6 books on investing, all basic kindergarten type stuff about saving and the stock market. I decided to get into real estate investing, on which there was no information at all, since I was used to living in a house and people around me seemed to know something about it. Only later did I find a few books like Loeb's The Battle For Investment Survival in second hand book stores. There wasn't even a new book stores within 30 miles.


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## MrsPartridge (May 15, 2016)

MrMatt said:


> I think most people think the Stock market is a casino. They also think every company and businessman is just some person who got lucky and became super rich.
> I don't think they actually understand that there is a lot going on that they don't see.


Yes, so many people think that those who make money in the stock market have some inside knowledge or are super smart. That's how scammers like Madoff can hook them in. They heard him boast of 15% growth per year and thought he's a genius who knows how to work with the market. Instead he was a genius who knew how to write software to show your portfolio growing 15% while he was quietly stealing the money.


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## Eclectic21 (Jun 25, 2021)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> Back then the go to for information was the public library. Our library had about 6 books on investing, all basic kindergarten type stuff about saving and the stock market ...


Interesting ... granted, it was more like the early '80's but the town of sixteen hundred had a bit under twenty books plus several investment newsletter subscriptions. The high school library had five with zero subscriptions.

My uncle would go down the to the broker's office to watch the stock ticker, in addition to the morning G&M stock listings.


Cheers


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

MrsPartridge said:


> Yes, so many people think that those who make money in the stock market have some inside knowledge or are super smart. That's how scammers like Madoff can hook them in. They heard him boast of 15% growth per year and thought he's a genius who knows how to work with the market. Instead he was a genius who knew how to write software to show your portfolio growing 15% while he was quietly stealing the money.


Well they often think they're all scammers, and they feel scammed, so that's why they're okay seizing your money to redistribute it.

They don't believe anyone "earns" money, so they're okay taking it.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

MrsPartridge said:


> Yes, so many people think that those who make money in the stock market have some inside knowledge or are super smart. That's how scammers like Madoff can hook them in. They heard him boast of 15% growth per year and thought he's a genius who knows how to work with the market. Instead he was a genius who knew how to write software to show your portfolio growing 15% while he was quietly stealing the money.


The uninformed thought Madoff was a genius, market insiders who knew how things worked, knew he was cheating. They thought he was stealing for them not stealing from them lol. But they knew his results weren't honest.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

If anyone is trying to sell you something, you know they are making their money from you. No one is trying to do you any favours.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Eclectic21 said:


> Interesting ... granted, it was more like the early '80's but the town of sixteen hundred had a bit under twenty books plus several investment newsletter subscriptions. The high school library had five with zero subscriptions.
> 
> My uncle would go down the to the broker's office to watch the stock ticker, in addition to the morning G&M stock listings.
> 
> ...


When Winnebago became a big RV company, the people in Winnebago County who had invested in the company spent their days at the local coffee shop where they had a stock ticker installed.

They just sat around drinking coffee, talking to the neighbors, watching their ticker, and called it a hard day's work.

The stock first traded in 1966 for $12.50 a share. The stock splits made people incredibly wealthy.



Yes.June 17, 1966 - 2 for 1 splitDecember 14, 1966 - 5 for 1 splitSeptember 16, 1967 - 2 for 1 splitMay 27, 1968 - 2 for 1 splitMay 27, 1969 - 2 for 1 splitSeptember 13, 1971 - 2 for 1 splitJune 7, 1972 - 2 for 1 splitMarch 5, 2004 - 2 for 1 split


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## Chrysaphius (Jun 16, 2021)

MrMatt said:


> I think most people think the Stock market is a casino. They also think every company and businessman is just some person who got lucky and became super rich.
> I don't think they actually understand that there is a lot going on that they don't see.


Yeah, I know. But I was talking about when I was 15 which was 24 years ago when they were still traded on the CME. I think now they still trade lean hogs? Can you check?


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## Chrysaphius (Jun 16, 2021)

MrMatt said:


> Just googled, but Pork bellies aren't traded.
> 
> FCOJ still is, and of course that was part of the plot of Trading Places, which is from when Eddie Murphy was at his best.


Sorry this was the reply I meant to reply to regarding pork bellies, and now lean hogs. Do they still trade lean hogs?


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## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

Chrysaphius said:


> Sorry this was the reply I meant to reply to regarding pork bellies, and now lean hogs. Do they still trade lean hogs?


Can't attest to that, but I think "good heavy bologna bulls" are still in vogue.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

MrMatt said:


> I think most people think the Stock market is a casino.


Yeah, very true. The general public thinks of Wall Street movies with traders furiously speculating. People who gamble on Robinhood or gamble in penny stocks really think this is what stock market investing is.

Only a tiny % of people learn and understand that the stock market (in aggregate) goes up over time due to the equity premium, and this power can be harnessed using a diversified portfolio or index. To complicate matters further, even using the index, the stock market outcome is highly unpredictable and volatile which *makes it all look like gambling.*

It really is very complicated, overall. I don't expect people to figure it out. And even when you actually do figure it all out, you still have unpredictable outcomes with no guarantees.

Quite an amazing game, overall.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

MrsPartridge said:


> Yes, so many people think that those who make money in the stock market have some inside knowledge or are super smart


This is a very important point and I think you're right. Some of my closest friends, very well educated guys, really think making money in the market is all about having access to a guru, or some kind of super smart hedge fund guy who knows all the secrets.

When I tell them about indexing, couch potato, and diversified portfolios they refuse to accept it.

I have this recurring conversation with one of my friends (a rich guy, was a manager in the energy field and retired young). He keeps saying "but with the economy as screwed up as it is right now, where can you put money?"

He keeps telling me, "it's impossible to invest under these conditions, it can't be done"

And I always have the same reply. Buy some XAW and VAB, or maybe just XBAL, and move on with your life. But no... he says that doesn't sound right. He wants to find a super smart hedge fund kind of guy, or a super smart manager.

If anyone wants to see an interesting version of this in action, check out the 'Rational Reminder' discussion community. They are an educated bunch of new investors, some of them are in engineering and even academic finance. But if you look carefully you will see a salesman for a fund company called _Alpha Architect_ hanging around there. Using his pseudo scientific sales pitches, he tries to convince people to invest in his hedge fund and high fee actively managed funds. And the "smart" investors eat it up... they absolutely love this guy, because *he sounds so smart*, and has an impressive resume, has a PhD, and has published academic papers.

Smart and educated people fall for this "smart guy" routine just like everyone else does. All I need is one really smart guy and hand over my money to him... LOL


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## MrBlackhill (Jun 10, 2020)

MrMatt said:


> I think most people think the Stock market is a casino


This guy is hilarious.


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## MrsPartridge (May 15, 2016)

james4beach said:


> When I tell them about indexing, couch potato, and diversified portfolios they refuse to accept it.


The smart way to invest is the boring way. It'll make money over the long run and you can sleep at night. 

You know who made money during the gold rush? Not those in the water panning for gold, it was those on the road selling pickaxes and pans. 

I wonder how rich Atlantic Packaging Products got over the last year. Atlantic Packaging Products Ltd., is the largest privately-owned integrated corrugated packaging company in Canada. With Amazon and so many others shipping products round the clock, this company must have made a killing.


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## coptzr (Jan 18, 2013)

MrMatt said:


> Honestly I don't think the information was easily available back then.
> As a kid I remember buying the Globe and Mail once a week to check stock prices back in the late 80's. My Grandmother "bought me" a few shares of a company when I expressed interest in the stock market.
> I did benefit greatly from people encouraging me to learn.


LoL, WOW, there's a flashback. I forgot about sitting at kitchen table in the evening, reading the Ottawa Citizen or Sun, updating spreadsheets of the stocks I had picked. That was 25yrs ago. It was a simple time.


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## spiritwalker2222 (Nov 7, 2017)

LOL, same here. Except I got the paper from my boss once he was done with it. And I would input the data into Lotus123 to mine it for information.


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

The biggest victims where we live are those in or approaching retirement who pulled savings and RSP's out of the market when it tanked and never got back in. They went with term deposits and the like. Inflation and low interest rates has further reduced their pre or post retirement buying power.

Now, they need a quick hit and are marks for the usual affinity type ponzi schemes. The usual promise is high, high returns with 'guaranteed capital protection". Often because you are such a fine person but keep this fantastic opportunity to yourself. They all seem to end in the same manner....in tears and a zero investment balance.


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## MrsPartridge (May 15, 2016)

ian said:


> The biggest victims where we live are those in or approaching retirement who pulled savings and RSP's out of the market when it tanked and never got back in. They went with term deposits and the like. Inflation and low interest rates has further reduced their pre or post retirement buying power.


This is why Drip Investing is works so well. It the markets tank like back in the spring of 2020, you don't sell but instead get even more stocks when when auto reinvesting. It's a good way to protect the investor from panic selling. 

All those "smart" investors who knew to sell when the market dropped are in for a lot regret.


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

We are in our very late 60's. Our investment horizon continues to be a moving 10 year average. We keep moving forward at a rate that exceeds inflation adjusted for our after tax buying power. 

It is not exiting. Simply a proven method of building equity in the long term for us inexperienced investors. If anything, we increase our equity allocations when the market drops rather than selling.


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## jimbob.seeker (Sep 12, 2013)

GreatLaker said:


> Two of my favourite Warren Buffett quotes:
> 
> "Investing is simple, but not easy" referring to the fact that basic investing concepts of risk, return and compounding are simple, but avoiding the hype and hubris is not easy.
> "Nobody wants to get rich slow" when asked by Mark Cuban why so few investors followed Buffett's obviously successful strategy of buying good companies at fair prices with his favourite holding time being forever.


Thanks for sharing the Warren Buffett quotes, GreatLaker. I always pay attention to anything WB says.


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