Singapore Student Loses $700k in 3 Months
Written By TarikIf you think losing 4% of your portfolio is bad, try swallowing $700,000 in losses in only 3 months.
Sometimes Success Comes Too Quickly
The February 27th global market sell off caused his drastic Singapore stock market losses. When the engineering student turned $100k into $110k within days, his greed for money grew and grew. Ironically, most of his gains were made in virtual stock market accounts. Virtual stock accounts are beneficial when used for educational purposes, but once you equate fantasy to reality, things get messy.
Prime Suspect: Straits Times Index (^STI)
The upward trend of the Straits Time Index was extremely deceiving, and if you bought into the index based on the charts, you were in for a big surprise. As the hackneyed adage goes, “what goes up must come down.”
The volatile nature of indices such as Straits Times Index is one reason why I’m investing in T-bills, high yielding savings accounts, and Prosper at the moment (aside from my Roth IRA 2006 contributions).
Which alternative investments are you pursuing during these current stock market conditions?
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Post/Read Comments
March 17th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Well I read the local papers about this as well. It seems like besides Luck was not by him, he was getting a little too confident with his trading ’system’ to seriously consider times of uncertainty.
March 17th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Right on. Plus he began trading in the markets at a high, so he was buying high and selling high. No wonder he lost most of his investment.
March 17th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Losing $700,000 in 3 months makes for a bad streak no matter how you look at it…
March 20th, 2007 at 1:28 am
That has to hurt the back pocket :S
October 31st, 2007 at 1:58 am
[…] Signapore student who lost $300k in 3 months was an options gambler. He sold puts and bought volatile stocks, but the puts really hurt […]
September 20th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Federal student loans….
Companies that consolidate federal student loans. Federal student loans. Federal government stafford student loans….