GM. This is Dumb Money, the only financial newsletter with a 100% loss rate.
Today's damage total: $381,000 in combined losses across Reddit, crypto Twitter, and a federal indictment that nobody on Telegram saw coming.
One of them involves an 80% win rate. One involves a 29% drawdown. One involves the DOJ.
Here's what we've got today:
🏆 An 80% win rate and a $268K loss. On the same account.
📉 AI stock on margin. Down 29% in three weeks. Averaged down twice.
⚡ A memecoin whose founder just got indicted. Holder is still bullish.
📊 The data on today's carnage. It is worse than you think.
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| TODAY'S DAMAGE REPORT 📊 | |||||
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LOSS OF THE DAY 🏆
Every day we crown one person who made the worst financial decision on the internet.
Today's winner had an 80% win rate across 8,000 trades. And he still lost everything.
Here's the setup. A guy on r/wallstreetbets ran 0DTE options for two years straight. Won most of the time. Recovered from two separate drawdowns earlier this year.
Then came last Friday.
He loaded up on META calls. Zero days to expiration. The position was enormous relative to the account.
One problem: Meta didn't cooperate. The trade went against him. He panic-sold everything.
Then he took whatever was left and funneled it into TQQQ. Final damage: $268,411.
His own data told the story. The average winner was tiny. The average loser was massive. He knew the math. He ran 8,000 trades and the math said stop.
He didn't stop. His wife is pregnant. He convinced himself he had no choice but to keep playing.
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TOTAL RETURN -$268,411.00 ▼ 0DTE - CLOSED FRIDAY 1H 4H 1D 1W ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Lost $268K in 0DTE options. I will never recover from this financially." 80% win rate across 8,000 trades. Recovered from two drawdowns this year. Got back to breakeven. Then loaded everything into META calls on Friday. Panic-sold. Put the rest in TQQQ. Gone. My wife is pregnant. I kept telling myself I had no choice but to keep playing. Top comment: "The scary part isn't losing $268K. It's convincing yourself a baby means you have to gamble harder."
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| Quick math on 0DTE for non-options people: A 0DTE option expires the same day you buy it. If the stock doesn't move your direction fast enough, the option goes to zero at 4pm. There is no tomorrow. Your entire position lives or dies in one session. An 80% win rate sounds great until you realize the 20% can erase everything the 80% built. |
Your win rate is not your edge. Your position sizing is your edge. One of those things existed. The other didn't.
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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 AI Infrastructure True Believer
NBIS was the hottest AI data center stock on Reddit three weeks ago. GPU buildouts. Hyperscaler contracts. The whole thesis.
u/gpu_dreams_2026 went all in. $156,800 on 2x margin. The conviction was absolute.
One problem: NBIS dropped 29% in October. From $232 to $165. No single catalyst. No earnings miss. Just a slow, grinding decline.
He averaged down twice. Both times, the stock kept falling.
The margin call came on a Tuesday. $78,400 gone in three weeks.
He posted the screenshot with the caption: "the thesis hasn't changed." The thesis never changes. The account balance does. That's the whole problem.
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TOTAL RETURN -$78,400.00 ▼ $156,800.00 (-50.00%) 1M 1D 1W 1M 3M ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"The thesis hasn't changed. NBIS is still the play." Went 2x margin on NBIS at $232. Averaged down at $210. Averaged down again at $190. Just got the margin call at $165. Down $78K. Top comment: "The thesis hasn't changed but your net worth has."
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Casualty #2: The Memecoin With a Federal Indictment
This one has a twist. The rug pull came with a DOJ press release.
u/kishu_believer_og bought $34,200 of $KISHU after seeing it hit a $1.6 billion market cap. The whitepaper said it was community-driven. No team allocation. Volunteers only.
One problem: the founder allegedly controlled 6% of the supply through four hidden wallets. And sold $9 million worth while telling everyone he was holding.
The DOJ charged him on October 7th. Wire fraud.
Our guy is still holding. Down 94%. He posted: "the charges are bullish because it means the government recognizes crypto as legitimate."
That is not how indictments work.
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TOTAL VALUE -$34,200.00 ▼ $34,200.00 (-94.12%) All Time 1D 1W 1M 3M ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Quick note on rug pulls for non-crypto people: A rug pull is when a token creator sells their holdings or drains liquidity while telling buyers to hold. The phrase comes from "pulling the rug out." In this case, the DOJ alleges the founder hid 6% of the supply across four wallets and sold $9 million while claiming he owned just 1.7%. |
When the whitepaper says "community-driven" and the indictment says "four secret wallets," one of those documents is lying. The DOJ usually picks the right one.
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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 conviction and portfolio destruction remains undefeated.
We've been tracking it for six months. Every time someone posts "the thesis hasn't changed" after a 30%+ drawdown, the average subsequent return is negative 61%. More reliable than any moving average on the market.
See you tomorrow. The numbers will be different. The behavior won't be.
