His name is Joe Campbell, and he claims he went to bed Wednesday evening with some $37,000 in his trading account at E-Trade. One notable development on the pharma front later, and Campbell woke up to a debt of $106,445.56. Now, he may end up liquidating his 401(k). And his wife’s. Now he started a crowfunding campaign. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/he...hed-and-now-i-owe-e-trade-10644556-2015-11-19 Frankly, I have no sympathy, he played with fire—no, he played in a raging inferno—and he got burned. And now he wants our pity. He doesn't deserve a dime. Moreover, he seems to be stupid enough not even to try to put a stop loss order (though I doubt it'd have worked).
Why crowdfund: don't they own things ( properties, cars,etc) that can be sold? can't he and his wife get a job and pay all of this back?
This is the new paradigm. Society (and the gov't) are expected to forgive poor decisions. That student debt too much for ya... get it forgiven.
I'd say he merits some sympathy, if not your donations. This was a company that was in the final stages of liquidation at an estimated value well below $2 so it's not like shorting it at $2 was based on a faulty premise. All their promising drugs had failed, and the last one remaining was only in phase 1. Would you say that people shorting VW back when it went up 10x were "playing with fire"? Having a company rise by 10x on you overnight, especially a very troubled one, isn't exactly a common occurrence. Stop losses don't work in after hours anyway.
He shorted about 40 percent of his account on this. If it had gone to zero he would have thought himself to be a great investor. It didn't. He blew up and that's that. Investing isn't a game. He took the risk that the uncommon occurrence wouldn't happen and it did. He's not deserving of sympathy.
i believe that he deserves sympathy. As for being bailed out, why not? if it were goldman sachs, they would be immediately bailed by the US govt.
There are times when a big short/risk might be justified. But shorting a thinly traded stock, especially with 40% of your capital, which has been in a downtrend from $65 to $2, isn't one of those.
Every sociopath's opening narrative is a version of "I'm an angel/acceptable person and I need your sympathy". They do that in parking lots, bars, boardrooms, political venues, etc. it's always the same, it's always very early in the relationship. They troll for people that show empathy then they take them for everything they can get out of them. Here's the psychopath con artist rule: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and smells like shit, it's shit. Keep that in mind when people you barely know start their sad stories...