20-year-old trader dies by suicide after thinking he racked up $730,165 debt on trading app.

[Ripmany]

I seen this is all over newese he left a note but how did he kill him self. This guy have any other underline issue, obsivly you don't just turn on phone and see negative Ballance and have suicide equipment in you desk. Did he have a gun, pills, salt, rope, gas moter?

[oeb11]

Provide a verification reference article
.

[The_Waco_Kid]

Rookie trader kills himself after seeing a negative balance of more than $700,000 in his Robinhood account



https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fi...amp;yptr=yahoo


The stock market, particularly in its current state, is no place for amateurs.


Sullimar Capital analyst Bill Brewster delivered that message to followers in a heartbreaking Twitter TWTR, 0.04% thread in which he shared a family member’s tragic foray into trading.


Here’s the full story:




Alex Kearns, just 20 years old, left this note, which Forbes posted on Wednesday: “How was a 20 year old with no income able to get assigned almost a million dollars worth of leverage?”


Robinhood declined to share any details of the trading account and how such outsized losses piled up but did say that the company was aware of the situation.



“All of us at Robinhood are deeply saddened to hear this terrible news and we reached out to share our condolences with the family,” the spokesperson told MarketWatch on Sunday.




Here’s a screenshot of his account:


The balance displayed in red, as Forbes explained, may not have represented uncollateralized indebtedness at all, but rather a temporary balance until his option trades settled.



The death serves as a reminder that trading stocks can have devastating real-life consequences. This has perhaps never been more true than when it comes to using borrowed cash to leverage positions in a stock market where the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, 0.52% can be down almost 2,000 points one session, like last week, then rebound nearly 500 points the next.


Inexperienced traders have been cited as a driving factor in the big bounce of the market’s late-March lows and the recent volatility. Deutsche Bank analyst Parag Thatte suggests that Wall Street professionals are being forced to chase amateurs who continue to bid up equities.


Read:It’s like the Wild West with ‘get-rich-quick crowd’ vs. Wall Street pros, but it’s too easy to blame retail investors for ‘rampant speculation’


CNBC’s Jim Cramer last week also addressed the dangers of the current climate.


“It got too easy, and now we all have to suffer as the get-rich-quick crowd gets blown out,” he said on his “Mad Money” show, describing the current environment as one of “rampant speculation.”




https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeik.../#5a0d05fc1638




more details in the source article from Forbes.

[Ripmany]

But how did he kill him self??

[eccielover]

Originally Posted by Ripmany

But how did he kill him self??

Why in the world does the method matter? Is that a sick perversion of yours to want the details?

Poor kid killed himself over what could have been a timing or interface issue. Isn't that enough for you?

[oeb11]

Drank a bottle of essence of Liberalism!


Liberals will claim he followed Trump's bleach advice.

[Ripmany]

Originally Posted by eccielover

Why in the world does the method matter? Is that a sick perversion of yours to want the details?

Poor kid killed himself over what could have been a timing or interface issue. Isn't that enough for you?

20 with a gun how long did it take, you don't just see something on line and take a gun to you head. He was off to start with.

[Ripmany]

Originally Posted by oeb11

Drank a bottle of essence of Liberalism!


Liberals will claim he followed Trump's bleach advice.

Nothing wrong with that.

[Chung Tran]

I guess they are sorry...

https://fortune.com/2020/06/22/robin...n-alex-kearns/

my Broker's page shows similar crap like Robinhood.. "buying power", and other hard-to-discern shit. every time a trade goes through it looks wacky. sometimes shows a negative cash balance, even though the cash has never dropped under $40,000 this year.

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by Chung Tran

I guess they are sorry...

https://fortune.com/2020/06/22/robin...n-alex-kearns/

my Broker's page shows similar crap like Robinhood.. "buying power", and other hard-to-discern shit. every time a trade goes through it looks wacky. sometimes shows a negative cash balance, even though the cash has never dropped under $40,000 this year.

seems like this outfit has prior issues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinh...#Controversies


Controversies

Payment for order flow

Bloomberg News reported in October 2018 that Robinhood had received almost half of its revenue from payment for order flow.[49] The company later confirmed this on its corporate website when asked by CNBC.[50] The Wall Street Journal found that Robinhood "appears to be taking more cash for orders than rivals," by up to a 60-to-1 ratio, according to its regulatory filings.[51]



FINRA fined Robinhood $1.25M in December 2019 for failing to ensure that its customers received the best price for orders. All of Robinhood's trades between October 2016 and November 2017 were routed to companies that paid for order flow, and the company did not consider the price improvement which may have been obtained through other market makers.[52]


Security breach

In July 2019, Robinhood admitted to storing customer passwords in cleartext and in readable form across their internal systems, according to emails it sent to the affected customers. Robinhood declined to say how many customers were affected by the error and claims that it did not find any evidence of abuse.[53]


Infinite leverage

In November 2019, WallStreetBets subreddit shared a Robinhood money glitch that allowed Robinhood Gold users to borrow unlimited funds. The loophole was closed shortly thereafter and the accounts that exploited it were suspended, but not before some accounts recorded six figure losses by using what WallStreetBets users dubbed the "infinite money cheat code."[54][55][56]


Outages

On Monday, March 2, 2020, Robinhood suffered a systemwide, all-day outage during the largest daily point gain in the Dow Jones' history, preventing users from performing most actions on the platform, including opening and closing positions.[57] During this outage the S&P 500 climbed more than 4.6%.[58] Robinhood users postulated that the outage was the result of a coding error regarding leap year handling for Sunday, February 29, 2020. Robinhood denied these claims.[59] Robinhood said that they will offer compensation on a case by case basis.[60] Robinhood experienced another major systemwide outage on March 9th.[61] Robinhood is currently facing three lawsuits due to outages in March 2020.[62]

[Chung Tran]

damn, what a sleazy outfit.. SEC should shut 'em down.

[Ripmany]

Ok Findley found my answers he stands in front of a train. Find a negative Ballance, writes a note, then stand on track does it some notice these events.

[Why_Yes_I_Do]

Originally Posted by Ripmany

Ok Findley found my answers he stands in front of a train. Find a negative Ballance, writes a note, then stand on track does it some notice these events.

Must have been short on train fare.

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by Chung Tran

damn, what a sleazy outfit.. SEC should shut 'em down.

No.they won't be shutdown, there isn't a reason to. they already have been fined at least once as noted above. this isn't really fine-worthy. if it was every investment house that allows a standard brokerage account would be liable every time some dumbass investor loses his shirt.



brokerage houses do not have a fiduciary duty to standard investors. they make their picks and mange the assets directly so the individual investor is completely responsible for the management of the account.


now if you have a managed investment portfolio then the broker does have a fiduciary duty to manage the assets for the client and if they screw it up they can be held liable for it.



bottom line .. wonky app interfaces aside .. this kid was responsible for any and all trades he made and if he wasn't prepared to take the risk along with the reward he never should have gotten into the game.

[Ripmany]

Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

No.they
bottom line .. wonky app interfaces aside .. this kid was responsible for any and all trades he made and if he wasn't prepared to take the risk along with the reward he never should have gotten into the game.

1. He was Waco agree,
2. But he took a Iron condor or straddle or cover option. He never ask margin Even worse the SEC law clearly state margin could only be equal to total investable value, there for the only way some can be 700k in red is to have at least 800k in investment cash and bet on a stock that crashes fast such as buying bankrupt few days before it get delisted on margin. Very hard to get a negative Ballance trading stocks, toxic crude oil different. But he Waco, does not tell anyone, I pretty sure he would found a nother reason to kill him self soon enough.