GM. This is Dumb Money , the only financial newsletter with a 100% loss rate.
Treasury yields hit 19-year highs this week. The Trump-Xi summit produced a modest two-month trade truce that left markets cold. And Bitcoin options worth $14.39 billion expired on Friday.
Naturally, three people saw all of this happening and decided it was the perfect time to make leveraged bets.
Here's what we've got today:
🏆 40x leverage on SOL. Liquidated in 23 minutes. $143,500 gone.
📉 Peloton calls after a treadmill launch. The turnaround that isn't. $41,400.
⚡ China ETF calls ahead of Trump-Xi summit. Summit underwhelmed. $34,800.
📊 The data on today's carnage. It is worse than you think.
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Gold just dropped 25%. Goldman says buy.
Every major bank still has gold targets 25-44% higher. One stock could turn this dip into a fortune.
Gold just hit a 6-month low. Down 25% from its January all-time high.
The headlines are calling it a crash.
But every major institutional forecast still points higher.
Goldman: $5,400. JPMorgan: $6,000. UBS: $5,500.
Not one has been withdrawn.
The pullback was caused by an oil-driven inflation shock and a hot jobs report. Neither is structural.
The vaults are still draining. Central banks are still accumulating. The paper gold system is still broken.
This isn't the end. It's the entry.
Dylan Jovine found one stock with 88 million ounces of gold in the ground — trading at a fraction of its resource value.
LOSS OF THE DAY 🏆
Every day we crown one person who made the worst financial decision on the internet.
Today's winner did it in 23 minutes. That's less time than a pizza delivery.
Here's the setup. A trader on crypto Twitter found an influencer's thread. The influencer had 47,000 followers, a cartoon ape PFP, and a thesis that read: "SOL to $200 by October."
That was the entire analysis. No chart. No on-chain data. Just vibes and a mass-produced ape avatar.
He deposited $143,500 in USDC on Hyperliquid and opened a 40x long position on SOL at $146.20.
On September 25, two things happened simultaneously. Treasury yields surged past 5% - their highest in 19 years. And $14.39 billion worth of Bitcoin options expired, triggering a volatility wave across crypto.
SOL dropped from $146.20 to $141.80. A 3% move. On 40x leverage, that's a 120% loss.
Liquidated at $142.40. Twenty-three minutes after opening the position. $143,500, gone.
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POSITION VALUE -$143,500.00 ▼ LIQUIDATED — 23 MIN HELD 15M 1H 4H 1D ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"$143K in 23 minutes. New personal record." Followed a CT influencer's thread into a 40x long SOL position on Hyperliquid. Thesis was literally a tweet that said "SOL to $200 by October." The influencer disclosed no position and has not posted since. Top comment: "23 minutes is technically still a holding period. You can put that on your resume."
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| Quick math on 40x leverage: At 40x, your position is 40 times your deposit. A 2.5% move against you wipes out 100% of your margin. That means SOL only needed to drop $3.66 from his entry for him to lose everything. It dropped $3.80. |
The influencer's thread is still up. The ape PFP has not changed. His thesis was someone else's tweet. His risk management was hoping it would go up.
That's not a trade. That's a donation with extra steps.
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TODAY'S CASUALTIES 💀
Not everybody can be Loss of the Day. But these two gave it a real shot.
Let's run through the tape.
Casualty #1: The Peloton Comeback Kid
Peloton launched a new $2,195 folding treadmill on September 22. The stock was at $5.02. Buy ratings outnumbered sells.
Our guy saw the product launch and thought: this changes everything.
He bought 600 PTON October $7 call contracts at $0.69 each. That's $41,400 in premium on a stock that would need a 40% rally just to reach his strike.
One problem: a treadmill doesn't fix a business model. Deutsche Bank cut its price target to $7.50. Another firm reaffirmed its sell rating at $4.50.
PTON fell to $4.79 in the following sessions. His calls went from $0.69 to $0.03.
That's a 95.7% loss. $41,400 down to $1,800.
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TOTAL RETURN -$39,600.00 ▼ $41,400.00 (-95.65%) Since Open 1D 1W 1M 3M ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"the treadmill folds and so did my portfolio" Bought 600 PTON $7 October calls the day Peloton announced its new folding treadmill. I thought a new product meant turnaround. Stock went from $5.02 to $4.79 and my calls are now worth less than the treadmill's shipping fee. Top comment: "The treadmill folds. The company folds. Your calls fold. At least there's a theme."
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| What buying call options means: A call option gives you the right to buy a stock at a set price by a set date. If the stock stays below that price, the option expires worthless. He paid $41,400 for the right to buy PTON at $7. The stock is now $4.79. That right is worth almost nothing. |
He's now making TikToks about the treadmill from his apartment. The treadmill he cannot afford.
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Casualty #2: The Summit Diplomat
Here's the thing about geopolitical event bets. They are binary. Either the summit produces a deal, or it doesn't.
This trader bought 400 FXI October $37 calls at $0.87 each. That's $34,800 in premium. His thesis: Trump and Xi announce tariff concessions, Chinese stocks rally, he retires early.
The summit happened on September 25. Both sides agreed to a two-month trade truce extension and increased market access for U.S. farmers.
Translation: not the sweeping tariff rollback he needed for his calls to print.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.7% to its lowest level in two months. His calls went from $0.87 to $0.11.
Loss: $30,400. An 87.4% haircut in one session.
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DAY P&L -$30,400.00 ▼ $34,800.00 (-87.36%) 1 Day 1H 4H 1D 1W ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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He posted: "summit was supposed to be the catalyst." One problem: a two-month truce extension isn't the grand bargain his calls needed.
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TODAY BY THE NUMBERS 📊
We track the data because the data is funnier than anything we could make up.
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The correlation between follower count and investment thesis quality remains inversely proportional.
We track this weekly. The influencer with the highest follower count in any given loss story has, without exception, produced the worst-performing thesis. More followers, worse outcomes. Every single time.
See you tomorrow. The numbers will be different. The behavior won't be.
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