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Ted Weschler Turned $70k into $264M in a Retirement Account
- immibis 2y agoIt's called gambling. Sometimes by doing this your money increases 1000000% but most of the time it decreases 100%.
- charlie0 2y agoIt can go beyond the 100% loss if you leverage.
- icedchai 2y agoGenerally, you can't get that leverage in a retirement account. They don't let you trade on margin there.
- willcipriano 2y agoOnly if you pay it back.
- datavirtue 2y agoGambling? The odds are always in favor of the gambling house. You can't do anything about their odds which ensure that you lose nearly 100% of the time. There is a lot that you can do in the market where the odds are technically in your favor AND you can adjust the number with your own behavior to manage risk, further bettering your odds. All of this is well known and provable. Spreading FUD about the market is a great way to keep people poor, indignant and suffering a lack of freedom.
- woooooo 2y agoIf you're making a play with a small chance of huge upside, but a big chance of losing, most people colloquially call that "gambling".
- superb_dev 2y agoThe stock market requires someone to fail for someone else to win, the moneys gotta come from somewhere. People who are poor, indignant, and suffering will just be more fodder for those who’ve already won.
- klamma 2y ago[dead]
- bsder 2y agoSomeone will win the lottery. It just won't ever be you.
- phendrenad2 2y agoHmm time to adjust the old IRA investments.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoI wish this would shut up the disciples from the church of Efficient Market, but I know that it won't.
- whywhywhydude 2y agoHow does this discount efficient market hypothesis? You can find plenty of examples of people buying 2$ lottery tickets and becoming millionaires.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoIf you believe the EMH you shouldn't compare stocks to lottery tickets. It sounds like you just don't want to look too closely. Let's try differently. What evidence would you require to conclude "EMH is false"? Edit: I have to make this edit because someone will point it out. YES I realize I didn't actually answer your question but the thing is this has been discussed ao thoroughly that I don't think i have anything new to add.
- echoangle 2y agoThe only thing I can think of that would disprove EMH would be an arbitrage opportunity that doesn’t go away by using it. If you can arbitrage continuously and without limit and the difference you’re arbitraging isn’t decreasing, that would contradict EMH. Since that’s pretty much the only claim of EMH, multiplying your money by taking high risks doesn’t really contradict it.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoIn HFT there are loads of arbitrage opportunities that don't go away by using it if you're the fastest. EMH disproven guys.
- echoangle 2y agoThey do go away, that’s why you have to be the fastest. They also are limited, you can’t arbitrage them with an arbitrary amount at once because this makes the difference disappear.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago> Weschler says that he used to buy beaten-down bonds of companies that were in less dire straits than they seemed to be Anyone knows how to see and buy publicly traded bonds?
- mikestew 2y agohttps://fixedincome.fidelity.com/ftgw/fi/FILanding?bar=p#tbindividual-bonds%7Ccorporate https://fixedincome.fidelity.com/ftgw/fi/FILanding?bar=p#tbi...
- silexia 2y agoI still don't get how he multiplied $70k to $264m... And this reporter seems to just take all of Weschler's claims at face value... BUT Warren Buffett is famous for great due diligence and high levels of ethics... So I guess it probably is legit?
- 486sx33 2y agoThe more I read about the stock market the more I start to think about the negatives of EFTs and index funds. They’re like taking an antidepressant, the lows aren’t as low but the highs aren’t nearly as high. The market was more volatile when more “retail” investors purchased individual stocks. Lots of people lose big, personally my biggest loss was $WISH wow I got hammered there. Had it been an index fund that incorporated WISH I would have been more protected… then again my direct purchase of NVDA more than paid that back Obviously 70k into 264M is insane and either is like one in a billion luck or the result of insider information
- kjellsbells 2y agoWeschler makes essentially the same point: if you dont have the time or desire to spend 24x7x365 thinking about money, index funds are for you. sed s/money/life problems/g. I think that people forget that these homely-sounding guys like Buffett and Weschler have serious, serious time and mental investments in thinking about money. Theyre not serious like you or I, maybe, who watch a few hours of Bloomberg each week. They eat, sleep, and dream about investing. Theyre basically money monks. Theyre also (and I think they would admit it too) lucky. You can make some of your own luck in investing, by studying businesses like these guys do, but you still need to be lucky. I observe that many of their investments eschew fashionable sectors like tech. I wonder if that is, again, making their own luck. I think Buffett would have choice words to say about investing in Nvidia for example.
- klamma 2y ago[dead]
- 486sx33 2y agoFurther - just remember Jeffrey Epstein got all his wealth investing for rich people… how? We still don’t know those details
- gamblor956 2y agoStep 1: have $70k several decades ago, when it would have been the equivalent of about $250k today taking into account inflation. Taking into account the time value of money, that $250k would be worth several million in current purchasing power. (For comparison, most Hollywood stars made about this much back then and lived like kings; nice houses could be purchased for <$100k that today would cost >$10 million.) Step 2: Be an investment banker and have access to lots of capital that lets you make repeated risky bets. Step 3: Benefit from bailouts when many of those risky bets fail. So, his story is not in any way replicable by normal people and isn't even replicable by most of his peers or new entrants into his own industry today.
- banku_brougham 2y agoDont you see? Just 10 dollars invested in 1933 could have become 80 bazillions.
- samus 2y agoTrue, he is a billionaire because he started early and . Most of us start late and don't have so much capital, so naturally we will never be billionaires, but investing regularly is still the way to make the most out of our money. Investing in shares truly carries a lot of risk if the stocks are not researched properly. In this age it is even harder since there is now a lot more dangerously inaccurate information to sift through. Thus TA recommends index funds. The S&P 500 compounds a lot over 30 years. Don't invest money you can't afford to lose.
- exabrial 2y agoEveryone is moaning about people not paying taxes. I pay a metric shit ton of taxes to fund the exotic lifestyles of federally elected officials and to fund wars overseas. And before you go “oh who is paying for the fire department” that is less than .02% of my taxes, a reasonable amount. I applaud people that found a way around the utter bullshit. I’m working for free, under threat of arrest, for 3-4 months every year. Unbelievable.
- dxs 2y agoPrinciples: 1) Asset allocation: Basically, how much you want in stocks, how much in bonds. Those are the two major asset classes. Go way heavier on stocks early in life and maybe trend toward 50-50 later in life when you have less time to ride out dips. 2) Diversification: What specific entities you invest in. Suggestion: Total US stock market index, total world non-US stock market index, total US bond market index. This way you don't have to pick winners. You just buy everything. Let the bad stuff drop off along the way, and let the good stuff do its thing. 3) Rebalancing: Like once a year, or every time your chosen asset allocation gets at least 5% off. Whatever feels good, but keep your asset allocation under your own conscious control. As a note, Ric Edelman, when he had a radio show, went over the IRA to Roth conversion. Several times. According to him, it's a wash. Pay tax before you invest or when you withdraw, but either way the net effect is almost identical. I like silexia's comment. There is a lot of information not included in the story, and, if you think about it, this whole story is one data point. One guy did some things/had some things happen at a particular time in history. Don't expect to cut and paste into your own life and get rich by next week. Important points: 1) Start as early as you can. 2) Be religious about regular investing without fail. 3) Never break into the piggy bank to buy a house or a fancy car, or for any other reason short of a dire medical emergency. 4) Take advantage of every break you can find, and any employer matches. 5) Wait. There is a huge amount of information at Bogleheads Investing Advice and Info ( https://www.bogleheads.org/ https://www.bogleheads.org/ )
- BizarroLand 2y agoAlso, get as many 20,000/1 profit ratio private insider secret deals as you possibly can under your belt and let other people work their lives away to enrich you.
- toast0 2y ago> As a note, Ric Edelman, when he had a radio show, went over the IRA to Roth conversion. Several times. According to him, it's a wash. Pay tax before you invest or when you withdraw, but either way the net effect is almost identical. It depends on where the tax rates are when you deposit and when you withdrawal. Some of that is politics, and some of that is where you fit in the tax brackets. There's some amount of unknown and unknowable there, but if you're early in your career and not making a lot of money, Roth contributions might make a lot of sense --- might as well pay taxes upfront while they're low. Once you start making more money, traditional contributions start making more sense, as you're likely to have lower income as a retiree than while employed. If you have some years later in life where you aren't earning much (by choice or not), roth conversions can make sense then, although that gets real complex if the reported income will interfere with benefit programs you would otherwise qualify for.
- banku_brougham 2y agoIf all americans would simply follow the principles laid out in this article we could all become staggeringly rich.
- frogperson 2y agoIf you like stories like this about outsized successes of investors, checkout the Market Wizards books. They are a series of interviews with successful and often famous investors.