
20yo Robinhood Customer Commits Suicide After Seeing $730K Negative Balance - xoxoy
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/06/17/20-year-old-robinhood-customer-commits-suicide-after-seeing-a-730000-negative-balance/
======
threatofrain
Recent big discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23523246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23523246)

~~~
dang
Also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23523379](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23523379)

------
protomyth
_Kearns may not have realized that his negative cash balance displaying on his
Robinhood homescreen was only temporary and would be corrected once the
underlying stock was credited to his account. Indeed it’s not uncommon for
cash and buying power to display negative after the first half of options are
processed but before the second options are exercised—even if the portfolio
remains positive._

 _“Tragically, I don’t even think he made that big of a mistake. This is an
interface issue, they have slick interfaces. Confetti popping everywhere,”
says Brewster referring to the shower of colorful confetti Robinhood routinely
deploys after customers make trades. “They try to gamify trading and couch it
as investment.”_

Am I reading this correctly and he really wasn't in the hole badly, but a
crappy presentation of information broke him?

Firstly, if someone reading this is in the same situation, take a breath and
know this is not Student Loans, you are young and bankruptcy is about as bad
as its going to get.

If you are the interface designer, well, I don't know what to say to you other
that sort your damn self out. Its your job not only to convey the truth, but
show what the final result is approximately going to be. Conveying just the
current facts is as misleading as outright lying.

~~~
birdyrooster
Yes, he could only lose as much as he bought for the contract price. I don't
see how someone's cash balance should ever be affected by the strike price of
an unexecuted contract.

Can someone correct me?

~~~
wallawe
It happen when you use spreads. I have personally had this happen and it's
jolting at first but is usually back to normal within hours. Here's how it
works:

1\. You sell a call credit spread. This is where you sell a call at say $100
and collect premium (let's use $2 for this example), then buy a call at $105
to cap your possible losses.

2\. The options expire and the price of the stock is $110. I have lost the
maximum amount. I sold a call and collected premium of $2, and bought a call
at $105, so my total maximum loss was the difference ($3).

3\. Robinhood will settle these assignment after hours, and will for whatever
reason show the balance as if you hadn't bought the $105 call protection. So
my balance may show a massive loss until the reconcile both the short and the
long end of the calls.

I have seen my balance go to -200k before when it was way in the positive
before the day ended. This happened to be a Friday and it wasn't resolved
until the markets opened the following Monday.

Luckily, I realized what was going on, but many novice investors may not.

~~~
cesarb
Could it happen that, due to some unusual circumstances, the call at $105
doesn't work, increasing your loss above the supposed maximum amount? For
instance, what if the one who sold the call at $105 does not deliver the stock
for some reason?

~~~
retzkek
There is so-called "pin risk," that could cause a larger loss than the
"maximum". In this example, say the underlying closes at $102. The call you
sold is ITM and is exercised, leaving you on the hook for 100 shares. However,
the call you bought was OTM, so your broker won't exercise it for you, and
you'd need to buy the shares at market to cover. However, you can't do that
until the market opens on Monday. So if something happens that causes the
stock to open substantially higher on Monday, you will be out whatever that
difference is.

Many traders will close their positions before market close, leaving a
relatively tiny amount on the table to avoid the risk.

~~~
wallawe
That's a really good point. I'm pretty sure Robinhood exercises behind the
scenes for you on the day of expiration 30-60 mins prior to close to avoid
this.

------
chrisco255
This is really tragic. For one, he never ended up that much in the hole and
two, even if one finds themselves bankrupt at 20, it's not the end of the
world, you simply file bankruptcy and it's difficult to borrow money for the
better part of a decade...but other than that your life goes on as normal. I
opened a business at a young age and was bankrupt by the time I was 24. It was
sad and painful, but it is far from tragedy or hopelessness.

~~~
seph-reed
Depression is a serious problem these days. I imagine this was just the last
straw. But if not... that would _also_ really suck.

~~~
skinnymuch
The last straw even if they knew the loss was how much they put in too? For
now, we don’t know if the person knew they weren’t that much in the hole or
relatively speaking, how benign a huge debt would be at a young age without
dependents.

------
AcerbicZero
Remember ~6 months ago, when RH had that little "glitch" that let traders
access essentially unlimited leverage? Stuff like that is why RH is a meme,
and options trading has become wallstreetbets favorite game. Its not like RH
even makes it particularly easy to setup these kinds of trades, or has any
useful tools that make it a better platform. If you want to setup a put
spread, or an iron condor, or any other fancy options trading strategy on
e-trade its a few clicks away. On RH? Not a chance, you're going to have to
build those strategies yourself, one leg at a time.

I still love gambling on RH, but you have to know its gambling before you
start. I feel bad for this kid, getting caught up in the hype and throwing
away his life over a few dollars that really never existed anyway.

~~~
alexbanks
The reason (probably only reason) RH is successful/popular is because of their
$0 transaction fee. I wouldn't use it if I had to pay for anything.

~~~
high_derivative
I never understand why people are _so_ desperate to save a few bucks when
risking their life savings versus using a professional tool if they desire to
trade options (say, interactive brokers).

You save fees and then get screwed when Robinhood is down on expiration day.

~~~
toast0
If you're trading in small amounts, the comissions add up pretty quickly, a
$10 comission on a $1000 purchase of stock ends up being 2% of the price,
considering you have to pay to buy and to sell. That's way better than a $30
comission from the before times, but it's still big.

That said, we can all thank RobinHood for driving comissions down to zero, and
then do business at brokerages that work. I personally wouldn't trade at IB,
because I only do a tiny amount of trading, and don't want to go into the
rabbit hole of individually routing my orders; it's great that it's available,
but I don't need that, nor do I want an API or stuff.

------
superfrank
For anyone who doesn't understand what happened, he didn't actually over 700k.
He got assigned one side of a put spread which took his balance negative and
it takes 24h to exercise the other side.

As an analogy, imagine you owe friend A money (one side of the spread) and
friend B owes you money (other side of the spread). Friend A calls and says
pay me back, so you venmo them money, and then you call friend B and ask them
to pay you back. Basically, he was caught in that period where the money to
friend A left your account, but the money from friend B hadn't settled yet.

While it's easy to be mad at Robinhood and blame bad UI, I think it's
important to note, that every platform I've traded options on has displayed
this situation in the exact same way. I've traded on Schwab in the past and
currently use Robinhood and Tastyworks for options trading and all three have
given me massive margin calls for this exact same situation that iron
themselves out 24 hours later. While Robinhood is the platform in question
here, this same thing would have happened almost anywhere else, so I have a
hard time blaming Robinhood's UI. Additionally, the negative balance actually
triggers the exercise of the second side of the spread, and there's nothing
that says the second side of the spread needs to be exercised if his balance
was still positive. Because of that, it's not possible (or doesn't make sense)
to just say something like, "well if one side is exercised, just do the other
right away". Maybe the UI could be improved, but unless a user fundamentally
understands what is going on, you're more than likely going to run confusing
situations.

What I DO blame Robinhood is having pretty much no standard for who they give
options trading to. It's been 7 or so years since I had to apply for options
trading on Schwab, but the process was fairly in-depth to get anything beyond
level 1 options trading (maybe things have changed). When I applied for
options trading on Robinhood, it was a few clicks and I had level 3 trading
permissions (the highest they allow) with almost no information being
verified.

Again, I'm sure Robinhood isn't alone in their lax policies around options
account approval, but between the way they've built their platform to feel
like a game, their targeting of younger investors, and the fact that
/r/wallstreetbets talks about them constantly, they have become THE platform
for investors who don't fully know what they are doing and they need to take
extra precautions to protect their users from themselves.

------
gooseus
> In fact a screenshot from Kearns’ mobile phone reveals that while his
> account had a negative $730,165 cash balance displayed in red, it may not
> have represented uncollateralized indebtedness at all, but rather his
> temporary balance until the stocks underlying his assigned options actually
> settled to his account.

This makes it even more sad, better UI could have saved a life. Putting a
notification with a link to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on
an account that moves that far and fast into the red might not be a bad
addition either.

~~~
vorpalhex
That's a bit like saying "People in your situation often commit suicide. Would
you like me to dial the Suicide Prevention Lifeline for you?" isn't it? You
risk causing it by suggesting it when it may have never entered the persons
mind to begin with.

~~~
ceejayoz
That's a harmful myth.

[https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140112-is-it-bad-to-
tal...](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140112-is-it-bad-to-talk-about-
suicide)

[https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-
Blog/September-2018/5-Common...](https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-
Blog/September-2018/5-Common-Myths-About-Suicide-Debunked)

~~~
boomboomsubban
I would view this kind of notification as different than discussing suicide.
You presumably just encountered something very shocking, and are likely
considering what options are available to you.

There's no real need to mention suicide in the notification, "feeling
distressed? Call" would work fine.

------
tathougies
Okay look... it's really terrible and robinhood can improve their interface.
However, this kid also probably had some kind of anxiety problem. Most people
in this situation would panic, but most would not take their own life. We
cannot expect companies (or anyone) to insulate us from the realities of life.

The lesson of the story is ultimately that... if you can't handle the heat,
please, for the love of everything good, don't enter the kitchen. Options are
a gamble. Everyone knows that. It's written in every article on options
trading.

------
subsubzero
Not really a fan of RH at all, used it for a few months and the interface
seemed 'slick' but lacked detailed information I care about similar to schwab
etc. I made one trade, then closed out the account. As for options I always
felt like it was mostly gambling, serious long term investors should probably
stay away unless they have a very detailed understanding of strike prices and
all that goes into it. I would like to see a bit of training or a
certification of understanding before anyone opens a margin account and starts
trading options, as it seems irresponsible and scenarios like this will happen
in the future.

------
reidjs
Does anyone else think that in an awful way this story is incredible
advertising for Robinhood? How many young people are going to read this story
and think they can trade 730K on margin? If you’re already broke there isn’t
much downside, but relatively unlimited upside.

~~~
fullshark
I wonder if Robinhood lost any users really after their outages. I know they
have a ton more cause of so many retail investors flooding the market but what
really was the consequence of that even for them?

~~~
kumarm
In early days of twitter, they used to go down almost everyday and showed
failed whale.

Every day media covered news that twitter went down again and thus creating
more publicity resulting in more users.

------
brianzelip
Recently saw my main checking account show a negative balance, with lots of
red all over the calendar for the coming week, after logging in some time
before 7am. It created a major sense of "OH SHIT", and took up a half hour of
working and re-working out the ledger to come to my own conclusion that the
web app was having some kind of problem. Logged in two hours later to confirm
my math that everything was alright. So fucked up.

------
1e-9
Very sad.

The extraordinary push by firms such as Robinhood to encourage unprepared
individuals to participate in day trading is a troubling development. They can
call it "investing" all they want, but it is clear that unlimited commission-
free trading without any meaningful vetting encourages uninformed day trading.

The markets benefit from having a highly diverse set of entities, each with
its own particular area of expertise that gets pooled together.

The markets are damaged by high rates of uninformed trading, which only
promote instability and general disfunction. More importantly, these traders
have overwhelming odds of getting hurt. The only ones who benefit from such
trading are 1) firms like Robinhood who get paid for their unsophisticated
order flow, 2) market makers, and 3) informed entities pushing markets back
towards efficiency. Speaking as one who benefits, I can say that we would all
be better off as a society without this particular order flow.

I think there should be a limit on the rate of commission-free trading until
an individual can demonstrate a reasonable level of proficiency. A firm like
Robinhood could do some good if they provided a great paper trading
environment and tools that allowed users to evaluate expected profit and
variance in particular strategies they want to pursue. Once a trader
demonstrates profit beyond random noise, commission-free trades could be
gradually increased. I think this would encourage people to learn how to
provide services of real value to markets through their trading or else
recognize they are unable to be profitable. Unfortunately, I doubt Robinhood
would ever do this as it would significantly undermine their current business
model.

------
orthecreedence
Poor kid. Even if the ending balance was -730K he could declare bankruptcy.
Most college kids don't have a lot of assets so it's not like starting from 0
will set him back 10 years, although maybe his situation was different.

Either way, this is really unfortunate. The way we treat debt, especially in
regard to our younger population, is kind of despicable. But hey, whatever
keeps the wheels turning, right?

~~~
jbverschoor
Most people on RH are fully aware what they're doing. Even filing for
bankruptcy in such a case seems unfair to me. Why would you allow someone to
gamble for almost 1m? It's the same logic that if an underage kid shouldn't go
to jail if he kills someone.

~~~
orthecreedence
> Even filing for bankruptcy in such a case seems unfair to me

I have a debt, I cannot pay the debt. What do you suggest as an alternative to
bankruptcy? Indentured servitude?

> Why would you allow someone to gamble for almost 1m?

My point exactly. The lender is responsible for lending to people who can make
good on their bets.

> It's the same logic that if an underage kid shouldn't go to jail if he kills
> someone.

I think it's more about finding a sweet spot between lender/borrower
responsibility. If you're giving some kid who's day trading after watching a
few youtube videos $1M, you're irresponsible and deserve to lose your $1M. The
system shouldn't protect these people. I would apply the same logic and
processes to student loans as well.

~~~
derision
> I have a debt, I cannot pay the debt. What do you suggest as an alternative
> to bankruptcy? Indentured servitude?

wage garnishment. take some $ from each paycheck automatically deducted from
payroll. i believe credit card companies and other debtors can do this

~~~
mywittyname
Things like this encourage irresponsible lending.

Credit card companies created a bunch of services designed to "help" you get
out of debt without declaring bankruptcy. Which is really just a way to keep
debtors tied up paying on a debt they can never pay back for as long as
possible. To the point where the total interest payments and arbitration fees
exceed the interest and principal on the initial loan.

Bankruptcy is an important part of capital markets. It's there to make clear
the risks of lending to people who don't have the ability to pay back the
loans. The more difficult it becomes to declare bankruptcy, the more predatory
lending becomes.

If you knew it was impossible for someone to declare bankruptcy, why wouldn't
you loan as much as possible to them? This is exactly how we got into a
student loan crisis. If debtors could declare bankruptcy, then lenders would
be much more judicious with their money. But as it stands, there's no real
risk to giving an 18 year old hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans
because it's practically a guarantee of 7% interest payments for 20+ years.

~~~
leetcrew
> If you knew it was impossible for someone to declare bankruptcy, why
> wouldn't you loan as much as possible to them? This is exactly how we got
> into a student loan crisis. If debtors could declare bankruptcy, then
> lenders would be much more judicious with their money. But as it stands,
> there's no real risk to giving an 18 year old hundreds of thousands of
> dollars in loans because it's practically a guarantee of 7% interest
> payments for 20+ years.

so first of all, the reason there's no risk in student loans is because the
servicer doesn't actually lend their own money; they just manage the loan for
the government.

second, bankruptcy isn't the only risk you take when you make a loan. there's
always a chance that the person simply won't make enough money in their
natural life to pay back the principle. $100k, you will probably get back in
interest over many years. but if you loan $1mm, you might never recover the
principal.

------
_bxg1
Robinhood has had a lot of screwups lately. At what point are they legally
liable? Are they not held to a higher standard of accountability than normal
tech companies due to being a financial institution?

~~~
theincredulousk
They have several extra responsibilities: ensuring your trades are handled
fairly, the price information you're provided is reasonably accurate, and
reasonably ensuring that you are generally capable of understanding what
you're doing and the risks involved.

Ensuring you don't lose money, or overreact to numbers on a screen, are not
among them.

I feel terrible for the kid. Even though he should have been well aware of
what to expect in this situation, it seems like common sense that RH (or any
trading software) should have some UI indication when the balance shown is a
partially settled trade. It is an accounting reality - yes for a bit his
account is really -$700k - but even if you know that, opening the screen and
seeing it without some caveat is like a prank. Got you! You're actually not
bankrupt. Seems unnecessary.

~~~
_bxg1
> ensuring that you are generally capable of understanding what you're doing
> and the risks involved

It seems to me that they blatantly failed at this responsibility in this case

~~~
theincredulousk
He had to answer a small questionnaire/set of affirmative responses to be able
to trade these option strategies. If he lied on them that is not their
responsibility anymore (unfortunately).

------
flazzarino
I remember the gate-keeping options questionnaire (SEC mandated?) from RH,
comparing to E-Trade:

* RH feels like accepting a TOS or a EULA; * E-Trade makes it that you are reporting net-worth and are willing to risk it.

Can RH be held liable for misrepresenting the regulations? This might have
been settled without any loss of life.

~~~
drtillberg
The explanation in the article is reassuring and all that, but even still RH
was allowing $700k+ margin on a $16k account. Maybe they feel the risk is low
for covered-options writing-- and justifiably.

However, last I checked (some time ago) a purely cash account would have
required literally $700k+ to execute this trade. Because, you know, stuff
happens.

------
oarabbus_
Very tragic, but at the age of 20, it's not like you have much capital as it
is - one would declare bankruptcy and continue onwards. It's not like
Robinhood was going to send the mafia after his family if he didn't come up
with the money.

------
floatingatoll
US casinos post signs warning about gambling addiction and and post phone
numbers for 24/7 help lines. Does this ethical obligation exist for trading
apps as well?

~~~
tathougies
> All investments involve risks, including the possible loss of capital.

From the robinhood website.

------
twostorytower
_Kearns may not have realized that his negative cash balance displaying on his
Robinhood homescreen was only temporary and would be corrected once the
underlying stock was credited to his account. Indeed it’s not uncommon for
cash and buying power to display negative after the first half of options are
processed but before the second options are exercised—even if the portfolio
remains positive.

“Tragically, I don’t even think he made that big of a mistake. This is an
interface issue, they have slick interfaces."_

I think this is the saddest part. This definitely is entirely Robinhood's
fault. Saying so is basically saying a casino is at fault for somebody
committing suicide because of a gambling loss. But a better UX could have
helped in this case.

~~~
bllguo
Yeah as uncomfortable as it is to say, you have to put some blame on the 20yo
with no income who decided to play with financial instruments beyond his
knowledge..

There's a broader tension here with the _perils_ of democratization and
freedom that I think is a common thread shooting through many of the issues
the Western world is grappling with in the information age

I'm personally of the belief that Robinhood absolutely deserves fault for
allowing normal Joes to trade options at all, but many would argue allowing
people that capability is a net good

~~~
twostorytower
That's totally fair. Robinhood definitely needs to put better rails and better
UX to protect against these cases. But I think there's a lot more to the
situation though. It's really horrible that his first instinct was to jump to
suicide, rather than talk to somebody. His parents. Robinhood support. Any
additional step could to led to him understanding that his position was not as
bad as he thought it was. I just wish he felt he could have talked to somebody
instead of feeling like there was no way out. The whole thing breaks my heart.

------
abellerose
I'm unsure what to really make of this tragic incident. Does the social
factors in the US make bankruptcy an extreme embarrassment? Should someone not
even at the legal drinking age be able of gambling to such a debt. One thing
I'm certain is the US needs better social programs for young adults. Everyday
I think the current generation of young adults are being robbed by the ones in
power because nothing has positively changed in the past decades. We instead
have increase in rent, homes, cost of food, requirement of university becoming
the norm with insane tuition costs and while wages have typically stayed
motionless.

~~~
rossdavidh
Probably there was something else going on. The current U.S. President has
used bankruptcy for some of his companies, and this came up during the
Republican primary season in 2016 when he and Carly Fiorina, one of the other
Republican candidates, were both called failed businesspeople because they had
both used bankruptcy.

So I wouldn't say that the U.S. culture is particularly one of bankruptcy
being an extreme embarrassment; we elected a President who has used
bankruptcy. Now granted, occasionally HE says something that is an extreme
embarrassment, but that's a whole different issue.

I do wonder how suicide rates have been trending during the pandemic lockdown
with social isolation and such. No idea if it was a factor here, but I wonder.

------
boto3
This is sad. If the report is correct, Robinhood might be negligent here. I
don't know if there's security law required, but Schwab has 4 levels of option
tradings [0], and you'd need to apply and get approved. I've investing/trading
for more than 10 years now, but they've only given level 0, and rejected my
level 1 application. It seems this guy's trade is at level 2.

[0]
[https://help.streetsmart.schwab.com/pro/4.36/Content/Option_...](https://help.streetsmart.schwab.com/pro/4.36/Content/Option_Approval_Levels.htm)

------
dcftoapv
I love options trading, but I used to work for an options exchange. I don't
write uncovered positions because I can't afford the tail risk.

/r/wsb, on the other hand, loves tail risk, long or short. That subreddit
needs to be shutdown by the SEC. It's serving as an investment advisor for a
significant number of young people, whether it masquerades as satire or not.

~~~
leetcrew
> /r/wsb, on the other hand, loves tail risk, long or short. That subreddit
> needs to be shutdown by the SEC. It's serving as an investment advisor for a
> significant number of young people, whether it masquerades as satire or not.

I think this would set a bad precedent. the "advice" on wsb is mostly
terrible, but if a bunch of trolls posting loss porn can be construed as an
"investment advisor", I'd hate to see what other sorts of irresponsible speech
can be shut down. if I give you shitty legal advice, I might be "acting as a
lawyer" in some sense, but I'm not actually a lawyer and I shouldn't be
subject to the same liability as a real lawyer.

~~~
dcftoapv
It is illegal to provide investment advice and sell investment products
without license for a reason. This young man is exactly that reason. People
are stupid and they trust other stupid people.

~~~
leetcrew
AFAIK, it is only illegal for a layperson to give investment advice without a
license if they are doing it for compensation or if they mislead the recipient
into believing you are a professional advisor. my guess is most people on wsb
do not meet this criteria.

~~~
dcftoapv
Maybe, but the spirit of the law was intended to prevent incidents exactly
like this

~~~
leetcrew
you're only liable for the advice if you meet the criteria for an investment
advisor under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, which involves actually
getting paid somehow for the service. [0] I'm not an expert on the topic, but
I can't see how you could possibly construe this as being intended to regulate
informal discussions among laypeople. if so, why would they write the whole
law around the responsibilities of investment advisors and specific criteria
for being one?

similar liability exists for other people who give advice in a professional
capacity (eg, lawyers, doctors, engineers), but I can't think of any situation
where a layperson would be held responsible for bad advice.

[0]
[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/investadvact.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/investadvact.asp)

------
hcarvalhoalves
Tragic, and worse due to the misunderstanding.

Related: [https://www.amazon.com/Set-Phasers-Stun-Design-
Technology/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Set-Phasers-Stun-Design-
Technology/dp/0963617885)

------
m3kw9
If he sold it the next trading day he would have 1-2 thousand of losses. The
amount that was Negative is the temporary Balance when the stock was sold
because of the put contract he sold, so he was obligated to buy it at that
strike price.

------
jsnider3
What a senseless waste of life.

------
mmhsieh
to avoid things like this, robinhood might be better off if it literally
operated as a bucket shop. you take bets on stocks but don't actually buy or
sell them.

~~~
gruez
Isn't that illegal? Or at least, makes them subject to a bunch of gambling
regulations they wouldn't otherwise be subject to?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket_shop_(stock_market)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket_shop_\(stock_market\))

~~~
mmhsieh
if you are a broker-dealer caught bucketing orders, you are absolutely
violating the law. though i have no idea how to even categorize robinhood.

------
alexandercrohde
This is cherry-picked, emotional, and an anecdote.

How about some happy stories of all the 20-year-olds who became millionaires
from unregulated bitcoin trading to show the other side of the coin?

I guess I have a rather libertarian view on this, that it's worse to outlaw
the knife than for a fraction of knife users to accidentally cut themselves.
That said, I'm entirely in support of more educational resources on the topic,
but don't hold anybody accountable for that.

~~~
warent
Do you really think that organizations which are equipped to provide
educational resources on the topic (e.g. Robinhood) are going to do so out of
the goodness of their hearts? No, someone must be held accountable for it to
happen, and I wouldn't hold my breath delegating this responsibility to the
public sector.

Unregulated bitcoin trading is completely different from this situation. We're
not talking about hucksters and gambling. Tons of kids look up to legitimate,
wealthy people who say "investing is the best thing for your future" and the
only way the young folk know how to do this is to get on Robinhood because of
its marketing/branding/ease-of-use. How many more kids are going to try to
take well-meaning advice recklessly due to lack of experience / unfinished
brain development, and find themselves in a void of inescapable depression
leading to suicide because nobody is being held accountable?

~~~
cheald
> Tons of kids look up to legitimate, wealthy people who say "investing is the
> best thing for your future"

This is fair, but if you continue to listen to those same people, you'll hear
them say "put your money in VTSAX and forget about it for 30 years", not "go
trade options".

------
isoskeles
> _The note found on his computer by his parents on June 12, 2020, asked a
> simple question. “How was a 20 year old with no income able to get assigned
> almost a million dollars worth of leverage?”_

Sounds like this guy wanted to kill himself regardless of any debts.

