GM. This is Dumb Money, rounding up the internet's biggest Ls so you don't make them yourself.
Today's theme: conviction without research. Three traders walked into earnings season, a leveraged BTC trade, and a DeFi module. None of them walked out with their money.
$169K in combined losses. Three accounts. Zero due diligence.
Here's what we've got today:
🏆 500 NKE calls before earnings. The turnaround thesis that turned around and left.
📉 75x long BTC at the exact top. Liquidated in 22 minutes.
⚡ A DeFi module with an access-control flaw. $31,200 in weETH, gone in one transaction.
🍪 The best cope from today's comment sections.
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| TODAY'S DAMAGE REPORT 📊 | |||||
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Your next trade needs this checklist
Before you place another trade...
...make sure you use this 5-part formula that makes every trade a SAFE trade:
Why are we giving this away?
Because we think you'll love it so much that you'll come back to us down the road for more advanced training.
Make sense?
Good Trading,
Bill Poulos
p.s. Take 5 seconds and get your free copy of the "Safe Trade Options Formula" right now before you close this email.
LOSS OF THE DAY 🏆
Every day we crown one person who made the worst financial decision on the internet.
Today's winner bet on a Nike turnaround. One problem: Nike wasn't turning around.
Here's the setup. u/swoosh_or_nothing loaded up on 500 NKE $36 weekly calls. Earnings were dropping after the bell on October 1.
His thesis: three paragraphs on r/options. He cited "channel checks" from walking through a mall and seeing people wearing Nikes. That was the entire due diligence.
$1.85 a share across 500 contracts. $92,500 total. All of it riding on one earnings report.
Nike reported fiscal Q1. Revenue missed estimates. The company announced layoffs under a restructuring plan called Pace. Full-year revenue guidance: down in the high single digits.
The stock dropped 3.6%.
His 500 calls went from $1.85 to $0.04. $90,500 gone in one after-hours session.
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DAY P&L -$90,500.00 ▼ 500 NKE $36C EXP 10/3 (-97.8%) 1H 4H 1D 1W ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Nike earnings play gone wrong. 500 calls. Down 97.8%." I walked through three malls last week. Nike stores were packed. People were buying. That was my DD. Apparently the market wanted more than mall observations. Top comment: "My man did a site visit and still lost $90k."
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| Quick explainer on weekly options: Weekly calls expire within days. If the earnings move goes against you, there is no recovery window. The stock doesn't need to drop 97% for you to lose 97%. It just needs to move in the wrong direction before Friday. |
BHe's still posting. Latest take: "The layoffs are actually bullish. Cutting costs means more profit."
Brother. You don't have any contracts left to benefit from that thesis.
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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 Uptober Truther
There are two kinds of BTC traders. The ones who set stop-losses. And the ones who post liquidation receipts on crypto Twitter.
u/uptober_is_real saw Bitcoin rally to $87,000 on October 2. The weak jobs report cooled rate-hike expectations. BTC was pumping. The memes were aligned.
He went 75x long. $47,000 in margin.
For context: at 75x leverage, a 1.33% price drop wipes the entire position.
Bitcoin rejected at $87K and dropped to $85,840. A 1.3% move.
He was liquidated in 22 minutes. $47,000, gone. Part of the $806 million in crypto futures liquidated that day.
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POSITION VALUE -$47,000.00 ▼ LIQUIDATED - 22 MIN HELD 15M 1H 4H 1D ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Uptober lasted 22 minutes for me." Went 75x long at $87K. The chart looked perfect. The memes were aligned. The leverage was not. Top comment: "The U in Uptober stands for Underwater."
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| Here's what 75x leverage actually means: A 1.33% price drop wipes your entire position. Bitcoin moves 1.33% on an average Tuesday. You are not trading at that point. You are placing a bet that BTC will not have a normal hour. |
Casualty #2: The Audit Reader
This one's for the DeFi crowd.
u/module_trusting deposited 11.4 weETH into a Safe wallet running FlashLoopAdapter. A third-party module built to manage leveraged Aave v3 positions.
He checked the audit. Four pages. No red flags, he said.
One problem: the module had an access-control flaw. On October 1, an attacker forged Safe authentication and drained the collateral.
Total exploit: $305,000 across two wallets. His share: $31,200 in weETH. One transaction.
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WALLET BALANCE -$31,200.00 ▼ DRAINED - 1 TRANSACTION 1H 4H 1D 1W ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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He posted: "I read the audit. There was an audit." There was. It was four pages. The flaw wasn't in any of them.
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BITE-SIZED COPIUM FOR THE ROAD 🍪
The best part of any loss thread isn't the screenshot. It's the comments section.
Here are today's greatest hits.
| • | "Mall foot traffic is valid due diligence." It's also how you pick a Cinnabon, not how you pick an options trade. - u/theta_gang_refugee |
| • | "75x is fine if the trade is right." It's also fine if you enjoy watching five figures vanish in 22 minutes. - u/leverage_was_a_mistake |
| • | "I read the audit." Four pages. The access-control flaw was on none of them. - u/defi_diligence_dropout |
| • | "Uptober is real, you just have to zoom out." He can't zoom out. His position was liquidated. There is nothing left to zoom. - u/its_always_uptober |
Translation: the conviction supply remains at all-time highs. The due diligence supply is on backorder.
See you tomorrow. New losses, fresh copium, same dosage.
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