Ah, the lure of remote money. It jumps out at you like a Springer Spaniel on meth during your daily morning scroll, doesn’t it? That influencer who’s always sat by a pool on his laptop. The Rolex on his wrist fashioned merely for the purposes of telling him when it’s time to order another drink. Fucking ideal. Fuck the office. I’m in!
The stock market seems like a good place to start. Far enough away from the lure of the slot machines, yet close enough to the crypto craze to reel in the naive, the money hungry, disillusioned desk jockeys.
An introductory course for 500 quid. Not bad. Not expensive enough to make me think twice. A few weeks to learn the basics of day trading before I realised I could’ve YouTubed the shit out of 100% of the content- for free.
See, this is the thing. If you work hard, you’re an honest man, a good dad and husband and so on, it’s not unreasonable to aim for the same kind of passive returns the 20-year-olds are bragging about on Instagram. “If he can do it, I can definitely do it,” I thought. A few hundred quid wasted on a course wouldn’t deter me. It was an investment for my financial future.
Armed with a graphics notebook full of more squiggly lines than Biden’s bedside monitor, I was ready to make some serious cash…
Two grand seems like a good starting point. Not enough for the misses to notice but just enough to make me feel like a home hot shot in the making. And when a broker tells you it’s not enough, split the difference and send across another grand in the hope he’ll call you before all his other millionaire traders with daily tips. You’re paying for his lunch at the Langham, after all.
So yeah, I did what the lovely broker bloke told me to do. “The responsible thing” for my wife and almost born baby. I chucked 50% more than first intended at the kitty. It was our secret. What was his name again?
Anyway, so far so good. My very first trade earned me a thousand quid. All those hours on the laptop were paying off. Soon I’d be fighting Branson over private air space. Finally, the maths teacher who refused to give me an A, ever, could go kiss my alge-graphic arse.
Ready to risk my piggy bank once again, I went for Gold, backing the steadiest horse in the race. “Blinding, you’re in for a double whammy,” I thought. Nothing could go wrong. That is, until Trump decided to inhale the odour from a Chink’s flask and went and caught COVID. Drink with mate became fight with phone became pre-menstrual road rage that almost ended in a pile-up bigger than a hooker’s dirty laundry basket.
I was losing my shit. I closed the trade over 2 grand down. Damage limitation seemed like the only option. Did my horse pull itself back into the race? Of course it fuckin’ did. I only had to wait a few hours and I’d have been out of the red. Fuck my life. Fuck you Trump. I have to take the wife out for dinner tonight…
When plan A fails, there’s always a new and more effective way to execute a strategy and get it right with plan B.
Introducing the stop loss. The fail safe way to stop losers losing more. And let’s face it, I was a loser. Not according to my best mate the broker though. “You’re doing great,” he said, “Keep at it, invest more to win more.” Bird on left shoulder: “Think of the kid you’ve got on the way. Bird on right shoulder: “Think of the kid you’ve got on the way and all the money you can make for him.”
Right birdie won. I shot to the bank like Blue Tac on a bullet and stuck the knife right into my finances. A 20 grand loan later and I was really in business. I bought a second computer screen, sent Mr Broker the cash and set about making a professional trading space. Two advice calls later and I’d opened four new trades.
“I’ve made 5 grand this week,” I told the misses as I closed my positions. I felt like I’d won the fucking lottery. Invincible, unbeatable, damn right profitable. 5 grand closer to the jet-set lifestyle. The wife was happy, the thought of the office was paling into insignificance. On my days off I almost forgot I had a “job”.
But then, fuck my life again. The following week I fell back into the red. The 5 grand dissipated back into my screen as my mate the broker called, reeling me into yet another lucid trap. “Please don’t tell me you’re gambling again,” was all I seemed to hear at home. Stocks became my secret. I needed an excuse to push the betting buttons. I spent half my life hiding round the side of the house “hanging washing out” and with each peg, my 20 grand fell by a few hundred.
It’s been 8 months since the investment of my life. The 20 grand I loaned to become a professional trader is now sitting at 20 quid. What’ve I learned? Never, ever, trustatrader.com
