Getting rich quick is hard
Last month I posted a video about a kid who turned $400 into $190,000 in four hours. It's a remarkable story but it's also extremely rare.
The internet tends to amplify stories like that and it makes them seem accessible. On the one hand, seeing success is inspirational, on the other, it can lead to bad decisionmaking.
It reminds me of an interview that Jeff Bezos did, he was asked what the best advice that Warren Buffet ever gave to him.
"[I asked Buffett], your investment thesis is so simple... you're the second richest guy in the world and it's so simple. Why doesn't everyone just copy you?"
"Buffett responded 'because nobody wants to get rich slow'".
Trading in 2021 has made that more-true than ever. It's easy to see a stock price double in a day or options up 100x and imagine what it would be like if you'd piled in.
Get rich quick schemes will always be around and will always be popular. Social media is bringing more and more of them to the spotlight.
All the meme madness and crypto craziness masks that the S&P 500 was up another 0.8% this week and is up 12.6% year to date. There are an abundance of long-term trends in FX. Take any of those numbers and plug them into a compound interest calculator along with a bit of savings and prudence. There will be good and bad times but that will always be the magic formula.