GM. This is Dumb Money, the support group your portfolio didn't know it needed.
Friday was earnings season at its finest. Three people watched their thesis play out exactly as predicted. The stock moved. Just not in the direction they needed.
$213,000 in combined losses across options desks, DeFi vaults, and one very optimistic eVTOL bet.
Here's what we've got today:
🏆 IBM call buyer loads up before earnings. Beats every metric. Stock drops 4%.
🔒 DeFi depositor trusts a governance vote. The vote drains his vault.
✈️ JOBY margin buyer believes in flying taxis. Barclays does not.
📊 The data on today's carnage. It is worse than you think.
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| TODAY'S DAMAGE REPORT 📊 | |||||
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If you still haven't downloaded my free "Safe Trade Options Formula" guide...
...please take a few seconds and download it right now before your new temporary download link expires.
I eventually plan to charge money for this training, so do yourself a favor and download it now...
That way, no matter what it costs in the future, you'll have a free copy on your computer.
Make sense?
LOSS OF THE DAY 🏆
Every day we crown one person who made the worst financial decision on the internet.
Today's winner didn't make a bad bet. He made a correct bet that still lost money. That's a special kind of pain.
Here's the setup. IBM reported Q3 earnings on October 21. Revenue: $17.1 billion. EPS: $2.95. Both beat estimates.
u/blue_chip_believer had been watching IBM for months. Software revenue growing. AI monetization expanding. Red Hat up 11%.
He loaded 150 call contracts. IBM $250 strike. Weekly expiration. Total cost: $127,350.
His thesis was clean. Earnings beat means stock goes up.
One problem: consulting revenue came in flat. Zero growth. Analysts didn't like that.
The stock dropped 4% after hours. His calls went from $8.49 to $0.05.
He turned a correct earnings call into a $126,600 loss in four minutes.
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TOTAL RETURN -$126,600.00 ▼ $127,350.00 (-99.41%) All Time 1H 4H 1D 1W ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"IBM beat on everything. My calls are worth five cents." Loaded 150 weekly $250 calls at $8.49 because every metric was pointing up. Revenue beat. EPS beat. Guidance raised. Consulting was flat and that was apparently the only number that mattered. Top comment: "Congrats, you were right and still lost six figures."
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| Why an earnings beat can still kill your calls: Options are priced for an expected move. IBM's implied move was 6% in either direction. The stock only dropped 4%, but it dropped. If you bought calls, every cent of that move worked against you. Being right about the company and wrong about the stock is the most expensive lesson in options trading. |
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Do you remember the subprime crisis of 2008?
Wall Street built a gigantic "pyramid of risk" on subprime loans in the housing market.
And then it all came tumbling down, along with almost the entire financial system.
Dr. Martin Weiss says a new $3 trillion "subprime" crisis is underway.
And it's already starting to spin out of control.
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 Governance Voter
There's a rule in DeFi that nobody follows. If you can't read the smart contract, don't deposit your money in it.
u/stacks_whale_26 deposited $47,300 worth of stSTX into Arkadiko, a lending protocol on the Stacks blockchain.
Arkadiko lets users collateralize assets and mint a stablecoin called USDA. It had been running for two years. The docs looked professional.
Here's the thing. On October 22, someone submitted a malicious governance proposal. The community voted it through. The contract drained the vaults.
Two million stSTX and 1.65 sBTC. Gone. TVL dropped 90% in one transaction.
His $47,300 vault was emptied to $312. USDA lost its dollar peg immediately.
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VAULT BALANCE -$47,300.00 ▼ DRAINED - GOV EXPLOIT 1D 1W 1M 3M ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"14 people voted on a governance proposal and it drained my entire vault" Had $47,300 in stSTX collateral on Arkadiko. A malicious proposal passed through governance and the contract emptied every vault. My balance went from five figures to $312. Top comment: "That's not decentralized finance. That's a group chat with your money in it."
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| Quick explainer on governance attacks: In many DeFi protocols, token holders vote on proposals that change how the protocol works. If an attacker accumulates enough voting power, they can pass a proposal that redirects funds to their own wallet. It's democracy, except the electorate is 14 people and the ballot says "give me your money." |
Casualty #2: The Flying Taxi Futurist
u/evtol_or_nothing watched a YouTube documentary about Joby Aviation. Flying taxis. The future of urban transport. FAA certification on the horizon.
He bought 10,000 shares of JOBY at $7.76 on 2x margin. Total position: $77,600. His capital: $38,800.
Then Barclays published a note. Downgrade to Underweight. Price target: $4. Manufacturing capacity concerns.
JOBY dropped 21% over three weeks. On 2x margin, that's a margin call.
His equity went from $38,800 to $0. Forced liquidation. His $38,800 became someone else's.
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TOTAL RETURN -$38,800.00 ▼ MARGIN CALL - FORCED LIQ 1D 1W 1M 3M ALL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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He is now making the same argument about a different eVTOL company. The thesis hasn't changed. Just the ticker and the account balance.
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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 gap between "being right" and "making money" has never been wider.
Earnings beats don't guarantee green. Governance votes don't guarantee safety. And YouTube documentaries don't guarantee due diligence. This week proved it three times over.
See you tomorrow. The numbers will be different. The behavior won't be.
