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Last night I was just getting my chill on when I hopped on Reddit and saw that Asian markets were just absolutely plummeting. “Huh, crazy,” I thought before going back to watching The Unauthorized Full House Story on Lifetime before lethargically falling asleep while listening to rain sounds on Spotify.
Sure enough, I wake up this morning, scratch myself, shave (which is my personal Everest on a Monday morning), and head into work only to see Twitter blowing up with people complaining about how far the Dow Jones has plummeted. I mean, people are really freaking out right now, man. Hell, they’re even calling it Black Monday which I have to assume is a bad thing even though I feel like I was always told “being in the black” meant that you were banking hard.
Call me ignorant, but like, I have zero clue what’s going on out here. It’s like the Wild West and I’m sitting here at my desk hoping one of my coworkers has a Postmates code that I can piggy back on so I don’t have to bankrupt myself because I’m too lazy to drive five minutes for pick up. I’m the guy that buys The Wall Street Journal and The Economist in airports purely so hot girls at my terminal think I’m baller as hell even though I skip straight to the Life sections that discuss drink recipes, insider guides to traveling Europe, and new iOS features.
The closest I’ve gotten to taking a finance class was when I read a Jim Cramer back in 2011 where I maybe kind of knew what some of the things he was talking about meant. My best friend loaned it to me in hopes it would stoke my fire to learn more about the markets, but instead I spent most of my time Googling what things meant instead of picking up on the actual themes of the book. Unfortunately, to me, it still sounds like Dow Jones is a panelist on The View and Bernie Madoff was my childhood neighbor that paid me to let his dogs out when he’d be out of town for an extended period of time.
Sure, I can drop certain financial phrases but I can assure you I learned 100% of them from Mark Cuban, Robert Herjavec, and Mr. Wonderful during all the episodes of Shark Tank I watched mid-hangover. I figure that if I know what they’re talking about, I have to be smart enough to be loaded as hell too. After all, those guys are making an absolute killing out there and I can pretty much always tell when they’re going to pass or invest on something.
Just last week I almost dozed off during a 401K presentation and ended up having to forward all my paperwork to my buddy at Michigan Law in hopes he’d just steer me in the right direction. Next thing I know, I’m contributing 3% of every paycheck to some retirement fund that I can’t even recall the name of. And then I tried to adjust my contribution and I couldn’t even remember my password so I muttered to myself and promised I’d handle it the next week (which I didn’t). Now all I can do is hope that this multi-billion dollar global dip in the market doesn’t fuck up my early retirement that I’m still blindly assuming will happen.
Am I jealous of the Patrick Batemans and Jordan Belforts of the world? Of course, I am. I want to be pounding my chest with McConaughey and doing uppers off girls’ boobs too, but numbers just escape me. I’ll never get to drunk-drive a Lambo or drive my yacht through a tropical storm without a care in the world. I’m just going to be the dude who loses all his money when one of those guys Madoffs me, and I’m filing for bankruptcy with my thumb up my ass wondering what just happened.
All the finance apps I have on my phone are for show. I want someone to catch a glimpse of my screen when they’re next to me on a plane and think, “Damn, that dude must make hella investments,” when in reality, I’m just waiting for them to look away so I can check some Snapchat stories. It’s all about putting out the vibe and faking it ’til I make it, right?
Until I’m actually faced with some financials that need immediate attention, I’m just going to get by with a little help from my friends and hope they’ll lead me to an island in the sun. Ignorance is bliss, and I’m too lazy to learn anything about trading at this point in my life. And that you can bank on. .
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Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
@willdefries
@willdefries
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will@grandex.co
You know nothing about investments? Well let me tell you about this great investment opportunity I have, it’s a sure fire win. Just send me over your SS# and 10 grand.
You’ll go through life like this, and then complain that your retirement wasn’t set-up for you and demand that government cover your expenses so you can retire. Just kidding, you aren’t a baby boomer. Fuck you, baby boomers.
I dunno…Will strikes me as exactly that type of person – albeit obtuse in his demands.
<a href="http://giphy.com/gifs/how-i-met-your-mother-yes-agree-xnNKRYdeemYi4"
I finally got smart and moved most of my money out of savings, and into the market. That was one week ago today. One of the worst market weeks in recent history follows. Nice.
Huh, the ole buy high sell low routine? Let me know how it works out.
Just buy more.
Just don’t sell, because everyone is freaking out. You should only care about prices lowering if you want to retire soon. As long as you invested in sound companies they’ll bounce back. If you sell now you just lose. This would be a great time to buy if I wasn’t still racking up student loan debt. My source is an audio book about Warren Buffet I checked out from the local library so I could sound smarter.
Yeah I’m not worried about it. Just long term investments, just shitty timing on my end but no big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Sound, dividend-paying companies*
No need to get wrapped up in what Wall Street thinks will happen every day.
From what I (barely) understand, it’s less 2008 financial crisis and more “China can’t keep building abandoned cities to pretend it has crazy-high growth.”
Ashley Madison gets hacked and know everyone realizes they are gonna need to free up some cash for attorney fees.
Don’t let the commies take credit for this…
Throw in a side of a somewhat artificial bull market held up by QE.
And a collapse in commodity prices
I’ll give a shit about investments when my student loans are paid off
I work for an investment firm and have zero financial background. I’ve been here 2+ years and still stare blankly when everyone else is talking during meetings.
This scares me…so much
Haha I’m more on the marketing side…but still
I made 4k in 2 days buying put options on Chinese market
Sometimes I buy options so I get the rush of gambling while I’m sitting at work. However, I’m the kind of person who would have bought call options minutes before the crumble occurred, and would have lost my entire investment. Such is life.
Go get a financial advisor. They make money based off of your financial growth, so there’s incentive for you to do well. May as well do it now that the market tanked.
*Investment Advisor – financial advisors work on commission (no aligned interests) where IA’s usually charge a % of assets under management. Most people don’t know or think there is any difference but the two actually operate in substantially different ways… If you do go out to find some help, make sure you ask if they’re an IA or an FA and if they look confused or don’t give you a straight answer; chances are they’re probably not a great choice for watching after your money.
Also request them to sign off on fiduciary duty or they can fuck you (Most don’t have fiduciary duty)
That’s not really true. They still will likely to be found to have some fiduciary duty, or at least to be prudent investors.
Made $1.10 on Robinhood today. PGP.
Just cashed out my IRA Account to use as the down payment for a house. Up $30K in 6 months. #system
#paidexcisetaxlikeadumbass
Roth IRA. After Tax Money
#GotLucky
Please give a blowjob to a chainsaw running on full power so I don’t have to look at your worthless comments again.
#notTwitter