Rookie Traders Are Calling It Quits, and Their Families Are Thrilled
Many who picked up investing during the pandemic are cooling on the hobby
4 min
Some novices who took up trading during the pandemic are abandoning the hobby. Their loved ones are breathing a sigh of relief.
Spouses, parents and other family members who were subjected to one too many play-by-plays of market movements say they are happy to have their loved ones back—and equally glad they no longer have to hear about buzzy stocks or cryptocurrencies.
The market swooned in 2022, taking the fun out of day trading for many newbies. The S&P 500, after surging during the pandemic, just wrapped up its worst year since 2008. Bitcoin lost about 65% of its value throughout the year.
Some amateur traders’ families now face the disappearance of the life-changing sums of money they held in their portfolios at the height of the run-up. The stakes are lower for those who put a modest amount into meme stocks or crypto for fun.
Alan Garcia started trading on Webull Financial LLC early in the pandemic, when his work as a musician dried up. Soon, Mr. Garcia was parked at his desk each day from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. to manage his portfolio of about $2,000. He bet heavily on companies like ElectraMeccanica Vehicles Corp., which makes an electric car seating a single person; ticker symbol, SOLO.
The obsession didn’t end when he sat down in the living room with his wife, Adriana Rodriguez, each evening. For about two years, he talked about investing. Mr. Garcia, a 34-year-old Houston resident, even started watching investing videos in bed at night.
“He was here,” Ms. Rodriguez said, “but he wasn’t here.”
In early 2022, Mr. Garcia lost everything in his portfolio on a bad options bet, leaving him in a foul mood. But the next morning, he felt relieved. After Ms. Rodriguez, a lawyer, left for the office, he worked on his music all day instead of checking the market. He hasn’t traded on the app since.
Ms. Rodriguez is thrilled. Mr. Garcia agrees it is for the best—mostly, anyway. “We’ve never been this good in our lives,” he said. “One day I’ll get that $2,000 back though.”
Trading exploded into the mainstream during the pandemic, when many Americans were stuck at home, flush with stimulus checks and eager to pass the time. New apps made it cheap and easy for newbies to trade from the comfort of their cellphone, and many found a sense of community on investing forums online. In 2021, rookie traders fuelled a run-up in meme stocks that put hedge funds on their heels.
Individual investors are broadly staying invested in stocks, unlike previous downturns when many dumped their holdings. But lots of one-time day traders are finding they are now content to buy and hold rather than try to time their investments. Average daily trading volume is down markedly at major brokerage firms that cater to retail customers.
Vince Major took a job in 2021 as head of marketing at a cryptocurrency wallet company, and soon he was subjecting his mother, Vikki Major, to his thoughts on various cryptocurrency projects and how the sector could revolutionise the financial system.
His mother found it unbearable. Mrs. Major, who is 66 and a juvenile probation officer in Phoenix, told her son to knock it off. That inspired him to give a presentation at an October industry conference titled “My Mother Hates Your Project (and Mine!).”
A duly chastened Mr. Major has cut back the crypto talk on morning FaceTime calls with his mother. After trying to speak about crypto in a more understandable way, he even convinced his mom to buy ether and leave it in a virtual wallet using his company’s app.
Mrs. Major’s ether is down about 40% since she bought it in summer 2021, and it is now worth about $14,000 total. Mr. Major, who is 36 and lives in Los Angeles, said the value of his crypto holdings is up overall because he started buying in 2015 when prices were much lower.
Mrs. Major figures her son knows what he is talking about—even if it was in an annoying way at first. “He’s very intelligent,” she said.
Marvin Lahoud went all in on investing when the pandemic hit, spending up to 10 hours a day trading. Mr. Lahoud, who works at a Boston construction-management company and moved to the U.S. from Lebanon in 2017, started wearing an earpiece to listen to CNBC while doing chores.
His wife, Suzie Lahoud, tried to embrace the investing subculture, too, though she thought his interest might peter out as it had for previous obsessions like photography and videogames. The couple sang their daughter a song about investing as a lullaby.
“It’s always nice to see him get excited about something,” said Ms. Lahoud, a doctoral student. “But there were times I would get a little frustrated just because it was taking up so much of his time and mental space.”
In February 2021, Ms. Lahoud told her husband she was pregnant with their second child. His Robinhood Markets Inc. portfolio had just reached nearly $1 million. He posted to Reddit a screenshot of his account and his family’s news. “I’m on track to retire early and spend time with my kids,” he said, earning 2,000 comments. He was rich—on paper at least.
By early 2022, Mr. Lahoud’s investments started dropping and he faced a massive tax bill from gains he had taken in 2021. Mr. Lahoud gave up trading.
Without investing to keep him occupied, Mr. Lahoud said he felt depressed for the first time in his life. He threw himself into a new endeavour: researching the year 536 AD, which a Harvard professor dubbed the worst in history. That year, a volcanic eruption plunged swaths of the world into darkness, causing widespread famine. Reading about it made him feel better.
“My troubles are so small,” Mr. Lahoud said, “and life is too short.”
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Ophora Tallawong has launched its final release of quality apartments priced under $700,000.
From bushland greens to valley reds, the country’s most awarded designers are proving that the best colour palette was never on a swatch card; it was outside the window all along.
The federal budget has rattled property investors. But the biggest mistake isn’t the tax changes, it’s the conclusion many are drawing from them.
2 min
The recent budget has forced a reckoning for property investors.
Negative gearing now restricted to new residential builds, the CGT discount gone and on paper, the numbers look different.
And many investors are responding by pivoting toward yield, prioritising cash flow over capital growth in a way that property strategists say misses the point entirely.
“The debate has shifted to yield versus growth as if they are opposing forces,” says Abdullah Nouh, founder of Melbourne-based buyers’ agency Mecca Property Group. “But that framing is itself the mistake.”
Nouh, who works with high-net-worth families and investors on long-term acquisition strategy, argues that capital growth remains the primary driver of genuine wealth creation and that the post-budget environment has made quality assets more important, not less.
The numbers make his case plainly. An additional $500 per week in rental income is welcome. A prestige asset appreciating by $1 million over a market cycle is transformative.
These are not equivalent outcomes, and portfolios built around yield at the expense of location and land value tend to generate income while wealth stands largely still.
The more nuanced shift Nouh is seeing among sophisticated investors is a move toward assets where both outcomes can be engineered simultaneously – established homes on substantial land in quality locations, where the existing dwelling can be repositioned, rental returns improved, and the underlying land value compounds independent of what sits on it.
For investors with existing equity, commercial property is also entering the conversation in a more serious way.
Prestige industrial assets, medical centres and long-leased essential retail offer income profiles that residential property in most capital city markets cannot currently match: longer lease terms, tenants covering outgoings, and greater predictability than the residential tenancy cycle.
“The investors who build lasting wealth are rarely the ones who chased yield or growth exclusively,” says Nouh.
“They are the ones who built a strategy they could sustain – one that generated enough income to hold quality assets through multiple cycles while those assets compounded in value.”
The budget has changed the settings. It has not changed the fundamentals.
From bushland greens to valley reds, the country’s most awarded designers are proving that the best colour palette was never on a swatch card; it was outside the window all along.
The pandemic-fuelled love affair with casual footwear is fading, with Bank of America warning the downturn shows no sign of easing.
