How To Make And Lose $35,000

Step 1: Start with $175,000

I recommend you work a fast food job for 4 years, then get hit by a car at work, then borrow $5,000 from your mom to start a taxi career, then go back to school for computer science, then get a job writing computer code, then get promoted 3 times, then win a $127,000 insurance settlement for that car accident, then quit and explore Central and South America for a year, then come back and work at Target, then quit and move to Seattle to work for Amazon.

Invest the money you have after all that.

Oh, and pay your mom back for that $5,000 investment in your taxi career.

Step 2: Sell all your stocks

Actually wait until your indexed funds and various stocks lose $10,000 in value because maybe this coronavirus is going to be a real thing. Then sell the lot - your indexed funds, your various stocks. Keep your bonds. You're panicking right now but bonds are safe. In fact buy more bonds.

Step 3: Sell all your bonds

Turns out nothing is safe. Sell the bonds at a loss. Can you cash out your IRA or your 401k? Probably not. Damn. Move everything else into cash. Breathe.

Step 4: Fly to Mexico

Seattle looks like the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. Super boring, nothing to do. Head for Puerto Vallarta. Eat some tacos.

Step 5: Misclick and panic-sell

Get up super early to start your stock trading career. Try to enter a huge short position at a bad price, but accidentally create a "buy" order instead. Realize your mistake and panic-sell all your shares at an instant $5,000 loss. Then get your short position at an even worse price. Great start to your career as a stock trader.

Step 6: Short Ticketmaster

Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha, says that when others are fearful, be aggressive. So let's get creative and bet $100,000 on a short position against Live Nation Entertainment (LYV), the company that owns Ticketmaster.

The downside here is that you could lose your remaining $165k and be back to your fast food era account balance. That won't happen though. The pandemic hits LYV hard and you bank an easy $15,000. Slick.

Step 7: Day trade everything

Short Applebees. Short Ford. Short Starbucks. Short oil. Buy Philip Morris. Short US Bank. Short Live Nation again. This is quite profitable. Bank another $20,000. You're awesome at day trading.

Every time the DOW drops 1,000 points (which happens several times) the talking heads say it's a great time to buy stocks cheap. That's the dumbest thing you've ever heard. Short everything!

Step 8: Flee Mexico

Try to scalp tickets to the Chivas game in Guadalajara only to find that they're playing the game without fans. The pandemic has arrived in Mexico. So has the woman you were seeing in Seattle.

Fly back to Seattle with your lady friend. The internet was spotty in Mexico anyway, which made remote work difficult. But you will miss the tacos.

Step 9: Stick to your guns

Continue shorting everything even when the market rallies, lose $15,000 in a day. Then get drunk and place a hefty short on Marriot to hold overnight. The next morning when you're all hungover, cover the position at a huge loss. Mix in a few bad day trades and give back the rest of your profits in the blink of an eye. Back to $165,000.

Step 10: Eat pizza

Take a day off work and trading. Curl up on the couch. Order a pizza. Watch Community on Netflix. It's as good as everyone says. And it's lighthearted.

You just made $35,000 over the course of a month and then gave it all back in 2 days. Oof. Pizza is the best medicine.

Step 11: Buy pizza

Keep day trading, but begin entering long-term positions. Maybe the talking heads were onto something with this "buy low, sell high" idea. Picks some stocks you like and begin accumulating shares on days when the market is down.

Domino's looks enticing. Have your Chinese girlfriend call some stores in Shanghai to see if they're open and how long delivery times are. Seems like business as usual there. DPZ is a good place to start.

Step 12: Stop drinking when you lose money

This is a lesson learned from that disastrous Marriot trade. No drinking on days you lose money. This eliminates the bad drunk decisions. Also it provides incentive to not lose money, so that you can get drunk.

Buy a bottle of Siete Leguas tequila. It's delicious. This is what you learned in Mexico. And bars are selling bottles to-go now.

Step 13: Buy a pullup bar

Your new schedule has you up at 6am PST trading stocks for a couple hours. Then work your crappy Amazon job remotely until 4pm. Go for a bike ride. Eat dinner. Watch Netflix. Be in bed reading a book by 10pm.

Your apartment is basically a jail cell. Prisoners do push-ups, and you should too. Also buy a pullup bar. Mix in some pullups while you're at it.

Oh, and end things with your girlfriend. You didn't see a future there anyway.

Step 14: Stop day trading

You suck at day trading anyway.

Instead pick 8 stocks you like and gradually move all your cash into those positions. Mix in some stocks that are safe during a pandemic with some high upside stocks that could bounce coming out of the pandemic.

Your first 6 picks are DPZ, BABA, BHVN, PENN, STZ, and MS. These are solid stocks. You begin seeing some returns. +$10,000 after three weeks.

Step 15: Mess with your portfolio

Add DIS and SQ to fill out your elite 8. Then swap MS for PING. Swap STZ for WPRT. Swap BABA for DKNG. Swap WPRT for STZ again. There are reasons for doing this, but they're too boring for a blog.

Step 16: Make a bunch of money

There's no point in making $35k and then losing $35k if you're not going to make it all back again. So might as well.

Watch BHVN and PENN skyrocket. Feel smart. Sell some shares.

Step 16: Get drunk

You're up $40,000 now, so it's okay to get drunk. It's encouraged. Don't let that fancy tequila go to waste. Play Lady Gaga songs. Dance alone in your apartment. Drunk text old friends. It's fun.

Step 17: Write a blog

Once you're drunk enough, write a blog about it. Congratulations. You made it!

Extra Credit: Quit your job that you hate

...but save that for your next blog.