GM. This is Dumb Money — rounding up the internet's biggest Ls so you don't make them yourself.
You'll read this, nod along, and average down on something by Friday. We've seen the data.
Today's issue features a man who bought a blue-chip sportswear stock seven times on the way down. He started at $75. It's now at $38. The checkmark on his portfolio chart points in exactly one direction.
Here's what we've got today:
🏆 Seven bites at the dip. Seven wrong. -$47,452 and counting.: $47,452
📉 A forex trader bet on the dollar after a hot jobs report. Japan disagreed.: $23,400
⚡ 47 memecoin launches in 90 days. Net result: -$34,100.: $34,100
🤣 Dumb memes from the trenches.
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| TODAY'S DAMAGE REPORT 📊 | |||||||||
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Musk says UBI is coming. I say it's already here.
In his most recent interview with The Economist, Elon Musk said that because of AI "money will be irrelevant by the year 2036."
I can see that happening too.
AI is already displacing millions of jobs.
One report says 40% of all jobs could be automated within the next decade.
When that happens, the government will have no choice but to pay people some sort of Universal Basic Income.
But this could take 20 years to materialize
So while Musk tweets and Congress holds hearings, what are you supposed to do? Wait?
I don't think so.
But you don't have to. Universal Income already exists.
It's not funded by robots or AI. It's funded by America's oil and gas infrastructure, and it pays 10% a year, 42 times a year, to everyone who holds units.
It's called the Patriot Income Plan, or P.I.P. for short.
And this year it's expected to pay a record $53 billion in distributions.
Think of it as your own personal sovereign wealth fund, backed by the biggest energy producer on planet earth.
P.S. Since 2020, the average partnership in P.I.P. has produced 20% avg. annual gains. That's in addition to the 10% yield. One investor already collects $4,800 a month. Another hasn't worked in years. Show me something better. I'll wait. [Enroll in P.I.P. →]
LOSS OF THE DAY 🏆
Every day we crown one person who made the worst financial decision on the internet.
Today's winner thought he found a generational buying opportunity. He just found it fourteen months too early.
Here's the setup. A guy on r/wallstreetbets saw Apex Athletic trading at $75 in July 2025. Down 58% from its $180 all-time high. A blue chip. One of the biggest sportswear companies on earth.
His thesis was four words: "It's Apex. It's temporary."
He bought 600 shares. Then it dropped to $64. He bought 500 more.
It dropped to $55. He bought again. And again at $48. At $43. At $41. At $39.
Seven purchases over fourteen months. 2,800 shares. Total cost basis: $155,000.
He averaged down seven times. Apex went down eight.
$APEX hit $38.07 on September 1st. A 12-year low. Down 78% from its peak. The company has lost $200 billion in market cap since November 2021.
His position is now worth $107,548. Unrealized loss: −$47,452. That's 30.6% of everything he put in.
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TOTAL RETURN -$47,452.00 ▼ $155,000.00 (-30.61%) All Time 1D 1W 1M 3M ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Source: u/swoosh_investor's brokerage, probably |
"7th buy at $39 was supposed to be the bottom. Nike is at $38 now." Started buying NKE at $75 because "it's Nike." Kept buying every time it dropped 15%+. My thesis each time was identical: "this is Nike, this is temporary." 14 months later I'm down $47K and the stock just hit a level it hasn't seen since I was in college. Top comment: "Your cost basis is older than some of your losses."
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| What makes this a textbook value trap: Nike's revenue was flat in fiscal 2026. The company abandoned wholesale for a direct-to-consumer strategy that hasn't worked. The stock isn't cheap because Wall Street is wrong. It's cheap because the business is struggling. Averaging down only works when the thesis is right. |
The swoosh on his chart is pointing in the exact right direction. Just not the one he wanted.
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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 NFP Whipsaw Guy
There's a moment right after a jobs report where every forex trader thinks they know what happens next.
u/macro_sensei_99 was one of them. Friday, September 4th. Nonfarm payrolls: 162,000 jobs. Economists expected 53,000. Three times the consensus.
His trade: long USD/JPY at 156.80. Thesis: hot data, rate hike odds climbing, dollar goes up.
He used 50x leverage on his entire $23,400 account.
The trade was right for about twelve minutes. Then Japan's finance ministry picked up the phone.
USD/JPY spiked to 157.50 on the print. Then it reversed. Hard. The pair dropped over 200 pips to 155.50 on suspected intervention.
His account was liquidated before the hourly candle closed. Loss: $23,400. As in, all of it.
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ACCOUNT BALANCE -$23,400.00 ▼ LIQUIDATED — 12 MIN HELD 5M 15M 1H 4H ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Source: u/macro_sensei_99's last screenshot before the zero balance |
"Beat consensus by 3x and still got liquidated. Explain this." Went long dollar-yen at 156.80 with 50x after NFP crushed estimates. Trade went green, looked away for five minutes, came back to a liquidation notice and a zero balance. Japan doesn't announce when they intervene. They just end your account.
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| Quick math on 50x forex leverage: You deposit $23,400 and control $1.17 million in currency. A 1% move against you wipes you out completely. USD/JPY moved 1.3% against him. That was more than enough. |
He said in the comments he's switching to crypto because "at least that market doesn't have central banks." Brother, we have some news.
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Casualty #2: The Pump.fun Portfolio
This one isn't a single bad trade. It's 47 of them.
u/pump_fun_enjoyer ape'd into 47 different Solana memecoin launches on pump.fun over 90 days. Every day, a new token. Sometimes two.
His system: sort by newest, buy whatever had the best ticker, sell when it doubled.
One problem: almost nothing doubled.
Of the 47 tokens, 31 went to zero. Thirteen lost 80% or more. Three had tiny gains totaling $4,100.
Total spent: $38,200. Total recovered: $4,100. Net loss: −$34,100.
For context: only 25 wallets out of 300,000 made more than $10,000 trading pump.fun memecoins over 90 days. He was not one of the 25.
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His post title: "maybe the 48th one will work." It will not.
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DUMB MEMES 🤣
Every newsletter needs a meme section. Ours just hits different when you're averaging down for the seventh time on a stock your dad called "a sure thing."
u/checkmark_investor's 14-month strategy, visualized | |
pump.fun in one equation |
If you laughed, you're still solvent. If you didn't, check your pump.fun wallet.
See you tomorrow. Same losses. Different people. Exact same mistakes.
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