The Los Angeles Times published a fascinating (if a bit under-sourced) piece this week about how Baby Boomers who are worried about the lack of money in their 401(k)s and IRAs are day-trading within their retirement accounts. The article as a whole is terrifying. Here are some particularly scary quotes:
- “[S]ome aggressive investors have begun day trading their nest eggs — all in a bid to make up for lost time.”
- “As many as 40% of people trading options at the Motley Fool do so in retirement accounts, said Jeff Fischer, an options advisor at the investment website.”
- “Americans are a collective $6.6 trillion short of the amount they need to retire comfortably, according to a 2010 analysis by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.”
Read it and weep.
Above the Market 
Best line in the article hands down: “When I told my wife about it she was really nervous … until I educated her on what it all entails and how poorly [the 401(k)] was performing before that,” Hansman said. “She’s still not 100% behind it but she said, ‘Just don’t lose everything. If you do I’ll divorce you.'”
Would be interesting to see how many parents are doing the same market-gaming with their kids’ college funds.
Indeed. Actually, the article contains a number of lines worth noting.
My favorite quote is from the Gawker link: “‘Day trading’ is kind of like real professional stock trading, but done by people with no idea what they’re doing who are motivated by pure adrenaline-driven desperation.” God, they’d be better off investing in a Ponzi scheme and hoping they can time an exit before the inevitable bust.
Exactly so.
Why users still make use of to read news papers when in this technological world
all is existing on net?