Whether it’s college students howling because something upset their delicate sensibilities or Americans saying no to Syrian refugees but also saying no to actually fighting ISIS because that might get icky and bloody, we seem to be morphing into a bunch of softies, like the couch potatoes in Wall-E.
And ladies and gentlemen, we have a new winner. An idiot small-time stock trader wagered his whole wad shorting a biotech stock that soared when an investor group bought 50% of outstanding stock. The stock zoomed from $2 to $16. The idiot faces a $106,000 margin call and is begging for money on GoFundMe. Really? And, special added bonus, he is whining Etrade didn’t liquidate the shares fast enough. See, it’s all Etrade’s fault.
Mr. Whiner says:
At the moment not only is my $37k gone, but I now owe ETrade the negative balance of over $106k. I always knew I could blow up an account and I was financially able to “afford” to lose the $37k. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that Etrade would NOT have some sort of stop or circuit breaker in place that would automatically cut a position if the account went to $0…..how could they ever let it get to -$144k loss on a account that small! Also, why did I have to call them to find out what was going on, why did they not alert me or call me when it went neg???
1) Margin calls are legally enforceable debts in all states.
2) Anyone who bets his whole wad on one stock is both greedy and stupid.
3) Shorting a stock can be theoretically unlimited risk, as bozo learned the hard way. Had he bought puts, he would not had lost more than his investment.
4) He didn’t appear to have a stop (which would turn into a market order to cover the trade if the price went the wrong way.)
Dumb and dumber. And little or no personal responsibility.