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sergeeo's personal capsule

Stock Market and Gambling

I know nothing about macroeconomics, market analysis, investments, etc., but I must confess that I find everything related to the stock market interesting. I see it as a “guilty pleasure”, because I really loathe everything it represents: heart of capitalism, engine of labor exploitation, drive for endless growth, etc. But I look at charts, read about different tickers, research about strategies and, I don't know, it just catches my attention and makes me curious. At the same time, reading about all that it involves, somehow helps me to understand a little better how the world works, and how truly insignificant we are for the big fortunes.

On the other hand, I have to say that sometimes, when I have looked for videos related to the subject, I have almost always been repulsed by them. The profiles of the people who look at the camera systematically generate extreme distrust in me. Basically, their messages can be summarized as:

Investing is for everyone, and the sooner you start, the better.
Description of the “magic” of compound interest.
Comparing regular investment vs. market timing.
Defending index funds to the death.
Defense of meritocracy.
Warren Buffett's one-liners.

The blatant lie that “everyone can be rich” is repeated ad nauseam. Of course, they try to sell you their courses and services at all costs, or in the lighter cases, they simply link you to referrals to trading platforms (apps). And be prepared: once you make a click related to this world on YouTube, you will be bombarded by ads from all these apps constantly.

While I think that there is a possibility to enter into this type of investments (at a personal and particular level) from a point far away from gambling, it is time we recognize that some practices of part of the money-related sector (banking, fintech, etc.) is very close to pathological gambling and betting houses. The aesthetics of the ads say it all: can you really push people to put their money anywhere just like that? is it really ethical to give pre-approved loans with a couple of clicks? is it really ethical to offer crazy financing of small items on websites like amazon?

Talking to a family member who works as a controller, when I asked her if it was really worth investing in the stock market she confirmed two things:

If it is with amounts you can afford to lose and in the long term, yes.
No one she knows has ever made a fortune in financial assets alone.

The meme stocks thing is another topic that I am very passionate about and have a lot of fun with. There are certain corners of reddit that genuinely make me laugh, because of the mix of YOLO, memes, bullheadedness and conspiracy theories.

And now, time for keep on being poor :)

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