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Hey guys, so articles like this are no better than long winded hackernews comments. Which we all debate the semantics of and unceremoniously decide are wrong. S

Hey guys, so articles like this are no better than long winded hackernews comments. Which we all debate the semantics of and unceremoniously decide are wrong. So lets treat this article that way: You absolutely could make money in the stock market instead and it has happened before buy trading the indices. The "problems" with individual companies don't exist when trading indices like the SPX or VIX. This has already happened before, Associated Press' hacked twitter account sent out something alarming sending the indices in a brief frenzy. Like long enough for trading to react before correcting.

meowface 6y ago
Sure, that is true, if you make a bunch of extra assumptions (resides in an applicable country; has a lot of fiat capital already; has a history of trading; has all the necessary financial knowledge and capabilities), and if you don't factor in the probabilities of getting caught. On paper, the stock strategy could make more money. In practice, I think it's extremely unlikely it would be the optimal strategy here, or even a decent strategy. The maximum potential reward would be higher, but the expected value would be lower. (Perhaps it'd be negative, even, depending on the probability assigned to imprisonment and asset seizure.) I think the attackers chose pretty much the best possible strategy if their sole goal was maximizing profit and minimizing risk of getting caught. Someone else suggested maybe setting up a fake call for charity donations, which might have worked even better, but overall I think they picked the smartest plan.