26 Karl Marx’s Stock Market Trades
Karl Marx, best known for his critiques of capitalism, once earned 400 pounds by trading on the London Stock Exchange.
27. In 2000, 15-year-old Jonathan Lebed, a New Jersey teen, manipulated stock prices by using multiple fictitious accounts to post on internet message boards. His strategy earned him up to $74,000 per day. The government pursued legal action, but ultimately allowed him to keep half a million dollars of his earnings.
28. After hitting a low point in 2009, Domino’s Pizza saw its stock surge by 233% within a year, all thanks to a bold decision to improve its pizza recipe.
29. In 2009, Steven Perkins, an investment broker at London-based PVM Oil Futures, in his drunken stupor, caused oil prices to spike to an eight-month high. Over 30 minutes, he spent $520 million of his employer’s money to trade 7 million barrels of oil-only to wake up with no memory of the incident. His firm ultimately suffered $10 million in losses.
30. The Dutch East India Company became the world’s first publicly traded company when it went public on a stock exchange. The massive capital raised allowed it to expand into a multinational conglomerate with over 70,000 employees. At its peak, it was worth 78 million Dutch guilders, the equivalent of $7.4 trillion today.
31 Air Conditioning Reduces Market Volatility
The introduction of air conditioning on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor in 1902 led to a measurable decrease in stock market volatility.
32. In 1987, hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones believed the stock market was overvalued and took an extremely risky short position. On October 19, 1987-now known as Black Monday-the market crashed hard. Jones walked away with a $100 million profit, while many investors lost everything. His trade became legendary on Wall Street.
33. The “Ting Hai Effect” is a stock market phenomenon in which the market experiences a sudden and unexplained drop whenever a film or television series starring Hong Kong actor Adam Cheng is released.
34. Lou Pai, a senior executive at Enron, cashed out more than $250 million worth of company stock in 2001 to settle his divorce after having an affair with a stripper. Shortly after, Enron’s stock collapsed, and the company filed for bankruptcy protection.
35. In 2002, Sega’s president donated his entire $695 million stake in the company to prevent it from going bankrupt due to the Dreamcast’s financial struggles. Shortly afterward, he passed away following a long battle with cancer.
36 Old GM Stock Becomes Worthless
In 2009, General Motors declared bankruptcy, took billions in government bailout money, and issued new stock for the “New GM.” However, shareholders of the now-worthless “Old GM” stock received no compensation.
37. The Norwegian Oil Fund (Norges Bank Investment Management) invests all state profits from oil and owns 1.5% of all publicly traded stocks worldwide. Its investments total $1.891 trillion USD as of February 2025.
38. In 2004, an activist from The Yes Men falsely claimed to represent Dow Chemical in a BBC interview, announcing a $12 billion settlement for victims of the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster, which killed 3,000 people. As a result, Dow’s stock plummeted, causing a $2 billion loss before the hoax was exposed.
39. The stock market crash was not the sole cause of the Great Depression. Instead, widespread panic led people to withdraw their money from banks, default on loans, and collapse the banking system. This, in turn, caused job losses and widespread financial ruin.
40. In the 1980s, two billionaire oil magnates attempted to corner the global silver market by buying up an estimated one-third of the world’s supply. Their scheme drove silver prices to unprecedented levels, forcing regulators to implement new stock market rules to stop them.
41 Isaac Newton’s South Sea Loss
In 1720, stock speculation drove the South Sea Company’s share price from £128 in January to £1,000 in August. When the bubble burst, investors faced financial ruin. One of them, Sir Isaac Newton, lost £20,000-equivalent to approximately £268 million today.
42. At the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, Volkswagen briefly became the most valuable company in the world for a single day, despite being on the verge of bankruptcy.
43. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, gambling on U.S. elections was widespread. In New York, the money wagered on elections often exceeded the total trading volume of stocks and bonds. Since modern polling did not exist, newspapers used betting odds to predict race outcomes.
44. The Bazacle Milling Company, founded in Toulouse, France, operated as a joint-stock company of watermills. Starting in the 14th century, its shares were freely traded, and dividends were paid in flour until 1840. The company was nationalized in 1946.
45. The Bombay Stock Exchange, the oldest stock market in Asia, began in the 1850s when five stockbrokers gathered under a banyan tree in front of Mumbai’s Town Hall to trade securities.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 1792 NYSE Founding Agreement
The New York Stock Exchange was established in 1792 when 24 brokers and lenders signed an agreement to trade securities exclusively among themselves, set trading fees, and avoid auctions outside of their group.
47. The London Stock Exchange originated in the 17th century inside a coffee house in Change Alley, where traders gathered to buy and sell stocks.
48. When Stephen Hawking lectured in Japan once, organizers asked him to avoid mentioning the possible re-collapse of the universe, fearing that such a statement could negatively impact the stock market.
49. The New York Stock Exchange transitioned from floor trading-where brokers shouted and used hand signals-to an electronic system in 2007, 21 years after London had already made the switch.
50. President Grover Cleveland secretly underwent surgery to remove a tumor in his mouth aboard a yacht. He feared that news of his cancer diagnosis would cause turmoil in the stock market.
RE: Fact #24 (Steve Jobs’ Anonymous Apple Selloff) – Everyone’s saying Steve Jobs was a jerk. Sent from my iPhone
RE: Fact #3 (David Choe’s Facebook Fortune) – He was on the Howard Stern show, telling how he was getting a blowj*b in Vegas when he found out his stock had skyrocketed, making him $200 million richer.
Was he watching the news?
So, he claims he woke up to reporters outside, no idea why, and then his ex texts him, offering a million bucks for daily…favors…for life. When he asked why, she sent him the article about how much he’s now worth.
I’m saying Dave *really* loves to lie.
Like, last time he was on Joe Rogan, he spun this yarn about dyeing his hair blonde, going to the Congo looking like a blonde Asian, and how these tribespeople reacted. Then Joe asked Jaime to show the picture—it was just regular, dark-haired Dave. Why even lie about that? Gotta love the game, I guess.
Watching him and Bobby Lee together is hilarious, especially since it’s basically a contest to see who can be the biggest liar.
RE: Fact #6 (MicroStrategy Triggers Dot-Com Crash) – So, one of the MicroStrategy guys, right? He basically retired to become a super-traveler, like, seriously obsessed. He even took a tramp steamer to some crazy remote island! But, uh oh, most of his cash was in MicroStrategy stock, and when things crashed, he had to go back to work.
Being an evil billionaire isn’t the worst thing, I suppose.
RE: Fact #27 (Teen’s $74K/Day Stock Scam) – Teenage boys are a handful, that’s for sure. They’re still pretty straightforward in their dishonesty; it takes time to master the art of fake respect for people who aren’t worth it.
That article was great. It was written by the same Michael Lewis who wrote *Moneyball*, *Liar’s Poker*, *The Big Short*, and so on.
RE: Fact #39 (Great Depression’s Banking Collapse) – A big problem was banks loaning people money to buy more stocks. They got way too carried away, lending on stuff that was hard to sell fast. When the market tanked, the banks wanted their money back, but couldn’t sell the stuff they were holding as collateral. So, they went bust, just like their customers.
Now, the SEC has tough rules on what can be used as collateral for these loans.
RE: Fact #8 (UBS’s $100M Stock Order Mistake) – If a junior employee’s doing this ’cause their boss is on vacation and no one higher up is checking in, that’s the company’s fault, not the employee’s.
RE: Fact #19 (Gambling Monkeys and Stock Trading) – So, these monkeys learned about money, and guess what? They started using it for sex. One male monkey even paid a female monkey for it, all on his own. And get this—they totally get fairness. If you try to cheat them, they’ll be furious!
They really care about being fair. If two monkeys do the same job but one gets a worse prize, they both get upset. Sometimes the lucky monkey shares, sometimes they both refuse to work until the other gets a fair deal, and sometimes they just lose it completely! Toddlers do almost the same thing.
Bonobos, our closest relatives, have their own brothels – they trade sex for food, toys, and all sorts of things, without any human help. It’s also wild that they don’t just trade sex between males and females; it’s females with females, males with males, all over the place. Some seem picky, others don’t. We’re not as unique as we think.
That monkey was furious—he got way less snacks than the others, and looked ready to bomb a city!
RE: Fact #12 (Insider Trading in 2 Milliseconds) – No way, Virtu Financial thinks they can beat physics? Seriously?
Yeah.
Seriously, what a dope. They could just go to a different time zone and do the trade hours earlier.
RE: Fact #2 (Samsung’s $100B Fat-Finger Error) – So, for anyone wondering about the court stuff, Twitter says they got canned but still kept most of their cash and are now banned. That’s all I could dig up. My take? 16 sold *all* their stock. 21 tried to sell some or all before anyone noticed – that was just 37 minutes before trading stopped, and all 21 were hauled into court. Ouch. And poor guy who noticed at minute 36 – missed the boat and *still* got in trouble! Six people got nothing at all. Brutal.
So, “blacklisted”—does that mean they can’t trade stocks anymore? Or is there something else going on I’m missing?
Because if that’s all it is, then, like, whatever. I’m loaded. It doesn’t bother me.
From what I’ve picked up reading Korean comics and novels, especially those isekai and time-loop ones, Samsung’s a huge deal. Getting blacklisted there? Forget getting a job anywhere respectable. But honestly, if I were them, I’d just head to Dubai or someplace like that.
Being blacklisted by Samsung in Korea is a way bigger deal than getting the boot from Apple or Microsoft in the US. Samsung’s huge – it’s *the* biggest company in South Korea, touching everything from phones to food to hospitals. It’s hard to find a part of life they *aren’t* involved in.
Basically, your career in South Korea is toast if you’re blacklisted by them. Maybe a few tiny shops might hire you, but if Samsung pushes back, you’ll probably be out of a job.
With $9 million, though, moving to another country and starting a business – maybe real estate or investing – is the smart move.
RE: Fact #21 (Buffett’s Revenge Berkshire Buyout) –
Wouldn’t it be amazing to have so much money you could essentially destroy an industrial giant just by buying up its stock?
I’d prefer a Gundam, but hey, different people like different things.
A billionaire and a street dealer? Their life stories aren’t that different, believe it or not. They both got ripped off for a small amount of something valuable.
They were both jerks, but the rich jerk won. So, what’s the plan? Worship the ground he walks on, I guess!
Wouldn’t it be awesome to have so much money you could seriously mess with huge corporations?
He wasn’t wealthy then, just clever and reliable. People trusted him with seven million dollars, and that’s how he got rich.
RE: Fact #1 (2010 Flash Crash Manipulation) –
RE: Fact #12 (Insider Trading in 2 Milliseconds) –
Oops, forgot about the speed of light! Busted.
Lots of insider traders probably waited just 10 milliseconds and got away with it, right? It’s easy to picture this happening all the time: big players with the inside scoop trading against everyday folks who think they’re big shots with their $100-200k. Makes you wonder where your retirement money’s actually going, huh?
Insider trading’s a joke, really. There are tons of ways to get away with it, but the SEC is weak and underfunded. Almost nobody gets seriously punished. If it’s so bad, and so easy to profit from, you’d expect a whole lot more people to be doing serious time or paying huge fines. But they don’t. It feels more like a game than real law enforcement.
FINRA’s really been cracking down on insider trading lately.
RE: Fact #16 (1836 Telegraph Hacking for Stocks) – I just learned that they had an optical telegraph way back in 1836!
The Count of Monte Cristo mentions an old-fashioned telegraph system. Someone bribed a guy working the system to mess with the stock market.
Read that book—it’s amazing!
RE: Fact #23 (NYSE Owned by Its Own Stock) – It came about because New York was trying to make its own.
RE: Fact #15 (Government Seizes Amazon Investor’s Stock) – My job is handling lost money for my company. Companies have to give unclaimed cash to the state, but the state doesn’t get to keep it – you can claim it back! Plus, companies have to send out notices by mail before handing over the money.
RE: Fact #22 (Nike Logo Designer’s Stock Millions) – Nike stock: 32,000 shares at $121.55 each came to $3,889,600.
If she’d sold at the November 2021 high of $173.12, she would’ve made $5,539,840.
Back in 1981, 500 shares at 7 cents apiece would have been worth around $35.
Those shares were worth about $72.50 each in ’83 when she got them.
RE: Fact #17 (Somali Pirates’ Stock Exchange) – Wow some of those quotes:
I’d pay to see those divorce papers – who even handles that stuff anyway? “Look, if you’re keeping the RPG, he gets to keep the AKs. We already talked about this; we’ll split the knives after the guns!”
I didn’t believe you, but that’s really from the article.
Hey, someone’s gotta find those RPGs!
Libertarianism: It didn’t quite work out as planned.
RE: Fact #11 (Buffett’s Hedge Fund Bet) – Surprise! Those hedge funds are still investing in the S&P 500, but they’re keeping the extra profits for themselves and saying they only made 22%.
Yeah, that’s how it works. The problem isn’t that the funds are making bad investments – finding good and bad ones is equally hard, it’s the same job – it’s that the managers are lining their own pockets.
Don’t fund managers think they’re too clever for the market, and end up making dumb moves at the wrong time?
RE: Fact #8 (UBS’s $100M Stock Order Mistake) – Back in 2015, a Deutsche Bank newbie messed up a trade. Their boss was on holiday, and they got gross and net all mixed up. Whoops! That sent a US hedge fund $6 billion – way, way more than it should have been.
Wouldn’t you just love to *be* that junior employee before the boss found out while on vacation?
Edit: On second thought, I wouldn’t want to be the one explaining the difference between net and gross to my boss…especially since he already knows I don’t get it.
RE: Fact #50 (Cleveland’s Secret Cancer Surgery) – I’m curious how the stock market would’ve done if he’d died from that surgery he had on a boat—you know, the one where he slipped because of the waves?
Yachts can be huge, and lots of ships are basically floating hospitals. Even non-medical ships, like aircraft carriers, often have doctors and clinics onboard since their crews are at sea for so long. Plenty of war casualties were treated on hospital ships in the past, and it still happens today.
Cruise ships can actually handle a lot of medical issues.
RE: Fact #28 (Domino’s Pizza Stock Surge) – Is a pizzeria’s success *really* all about the pizza recipe? That’s wild.
The marketing probably did more for that pizza than the pizza itself did.
I really like the new pizza recipe; it’s the best one from that big chain, easily.
It’s not the only way, right? Look at Little Caesars—they killed it by going super cheap and fast, even though everyone knows their pizza isn’t great. But hey, who cares when it’s five bucks and ready instantly?
RE: Fact #24 (Steve Jobs’ Anonymous Apple Selloff) – It’s like how Palpatine became Emperor.
Life’s mirroring art.
RE: Fact #30 (Dutch East India Company IPO) – The company ran its own courts and even had the power to execute workers who broke the rules. Think about your workplace having *that* kind of authority.
Back in the day, the Dutch and British East India Companies were the biggest, baddest corporations ever – they even had royal navies doing their dirty work! Crazy to think corporate power’s been going downhill ever since.
RE: Fact #40 (Billionaires’ Failed Silver Market Takeover) – So, they got nailed for fraud, went bankrupt, got a huge bailout, and ended up super rich before they kicked the bucket.
So, why did the US Treasury give them a handout? The article’s mum on that.
Earlier, with that Bache thing, US banks bailed them out, even though they hadn’t fessed up about their 6.5% stake in Bache. Pretty cheeky, huh?
The Hunt brothers bet big on silver futures through several brokers, including Bache Halsey Stuart Shields (later Prudential-Bache and Prudential Securities). When silver prices tanked, they got hit with a $100 million margin call. They couldn’t pay, and with a potential $1.7 billion loss looming, panic spread through the markets. Officials worried that if the Hunts went under, some big Wall Street firms and banks would go down with them.
To avoid a disaster, US banks gave the brothers a $1.1 billion lifeline to pay Bache, saving them from collapse. The SEC then looked into things, as the Hunts hadn’t revealed their 6.5% Bache stake.
RE: Fact #22 (Nike Logo Designer’s Stock Millions) – Imagine getting rich just from drawing a curvy checkmark.
I got a month’s salary for fixing one line of code—the perfect line, in the perfect way. It solved a problem they couldn’t even figure out, passed all the tests, went live, fixed everything, and didn’t break anything else. Took me years to learn how to do that, though. That’s what they were *really* paying for.
So, I used to fix electronics, and there’s this great story: This super expensive machine goes kaput, right? The owner calls a tech, who takes a look, tightens one tiny screw, and boom – it’s fixed! The bill? Ten grand! The owner’s like, “Ten thousand bucks?! For one screw?!” And the tech says, “Nah, it’s a buck for the screw. The rest is for knowing *which* screw to tighten.”
RE: Fact #50 (Cleveland’s Secret Cancer Surgery) – I just learned that Grover Cleveland had a look-alike named Glover Cleveland.
RE: Fact #8 (UBS’s $100M Stock Order Mistake) – I accidentally ordered 1500 hammers instead of one! Luckily, we got a refund, but not before the warehouse called to ask about the massive hammer delivery. My math skills aren’t great, but I sure do love hammers.
Back in the Navy, I ordered 20 feet of that gauge line tubing, but I forgot to say I needed it in one piece. So I got twenty one-foot lengths instead.
RE: Fact #36 (Old GM Stock Becomes Worthless) – Bankruptcy’s like this: creditors get paid first, and shareholders might get a little something, but usually they lose everything.
That’s how a proper bankruptcy works, unlike those where bondholders get wiped out and the president’s buddies in the unions get all the cash.
RE: Fact #30 (Dutch East India Company IPO) – The VOC, that’s the Dutch East India Company, was seriously messed up. They committed tons of massacres against native people, used slaves, and even killed their own people for being gay. Pure evil.
RE: Fact #10 (Cisco’s Dot-Com Bubble Collapse) – Cisco used to completely dominate networking hardware. They’re doing alright now, but they let others catch up because their prices were too high and they weren’t innovating enough.
RE: Fact #15 (Government Seizes Amazon Investor’s Stock) – So, the state kept Walter’s account info, and he could’ve asked for it back. Usually, they sell off these accounts and use the money. If he’d asked sooner, he would’ve gotten what his Amazon stock was worth at the time – about $8,000. He didn’t get any extra for the time it was held.
Seriously, ignoring your investments for years? That’s just plain dumb. The guy was a total idiot.
RE: Fact #48 (Hawking’s Universe Warning Censored) – A really worried guy runs up to the speaker after his talk about space. “How long ’til the sun eats the Earth?” he asks. The scientist says, “Five billion years.” The guy breathes a sigh of relief. “Phew! I thought you said five million!”
RE: Fact #35 (Sega President’s $695M Donation) – Dreamcast. So underrated.
RE: Fact #23 (NYSE Owned by Its Own Stock) – It’s as if God made the world and still hangs around.
Just a regular guy.
Some random person on the bus
RE: Fact #12 (Insider Trading in 2 Milliseconds) – The FactRepublic finance pros are all over this.
I think you’re being sarcastic, but honestly, there are probably a lot of finance pros on factrepublic. So…
RE: Fact #26 (Karl Marx’s Stock Market Trades) – Back in 1864, £400 would be like having £65,000 now.
RE: Fact #23 (NYSE Owned by Its Own Stock) – Intercontinental is way more intense than John Wick.
Pretty cool: The Continental Hotel in the movie is just a block from the International Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.
RE: Fact #20 (Delaware’s Corporate Tax Haven) – Delaware corporate law is really detailed and predictable, more so than just “friendly.” Businesses that set up shop there want judges and legal precedents that give them clear results, not ones that favor either side.
It boils down to this: judges’ experience and past rulings.
RE: Fact #10 (Cisco’s Dot-Com Bubble Collapse) – Cisco’s still doing great, making tons of money – their sales almost tripled from 2000 to 2022, going from $19 billion to $52 billion. The catch? The price was way too high; a crazy 234 times earnings. If you’d bought at the top, you’d be waiting 20 years to get your money back.
“HODL,” haha. Cisco’s a really solid company.
Yeah, Cisco used to be super stable. But, like IBM, it’s kind of on the decline now. Remember how it was “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”? Well, that became “nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco,” and that’s not true anymore, either.
RE: Fact #6 (MicroStrategy Triggers Dot-Com Crash) – Some folks out there say that Michael Saylor, who settled with the SEC for fraud, now runs a totally legit company with a money printing machine: endless dilution to buy Bitcoin.
Anyone who believes in MSTR is asking for it.
RE: Fact #34 (Enron Executive’s Stripper Divorce Stock) – So, the main point is, it’s usually a good idea to get together with a stripper.
I’m so tired, I misread it as him having an affair with a stripper to settle his divorce. It sounded like some crazy condition of the divorce, that he had to sleep with someone else to get it finalized.
Picture this: you’re a divorce lawyer who got that into the settlement. You’d be swamped – the busiest lawyer for miles around!
RE: Fact #13 (Greenspan’s Briefcase Market Theory) – The size of your briefcase actually makes a difference. Go figure – Wall Street’s way of predicting the future depends on fancy briefcases!
Small things can give a lot away. Back in the Soviet Union, they had this kind of intelligence, nicknamed “Piz-int,” which wasn’t entirely a joke. Their spies figured something big was happening if the State Department suddenly ordered tons of pizzas—meant people were burning the midnight oil.
RE: Fact #32 (Black Monday’s $100M Short Bet) – What’d he short? He doesn’t even say.
He probably tanked the whole market by shorting the Dow, I reckon. Could be off base, though.
So, you can’t directly short an index, but you can get the same effect using puts on an index, shorting ETFs, or puts on ETFs.
The Dow? That’s just 30 stocks, not the whole market. The S&P 500 or Russell 3000 give you a much better picture.
I’m pretty sure ETFs weren’t around in the 80s, but I could be wrong.
Wealthy folks have way more options. Like, in *The Big Short*, they invented a whole new kind of security! Maybe he did something similar, a private deal.
Personally, I’d go with a put option on something like the S&P.
RE: Fact #34 (Enron Executive’s Stripper Divorce Stock) – People always mess this up when they share it.
Lou Pai didn’t have much cash, so the judge made him sell his stocks to pay for his divorce.
Since the share sale was court-ordered—not because he was using inside information—he wasn’t guilty of insider trading like the others.
That’s exactly what this fact says. To pay off his divorce.
Wow, his divorce made him a rich guy!
He was loaded; the divorce actually kept him from losing it all.
Wall Street wives are keeping a secret loophole from their husbands.
Anchor baby? Green card marriage? So last century. The hot new thing is liquidation marriage. Marry someone so you can unload assets without getting nailed for insider trading. Sucks that you lose half, but hey, at least you’re not doing time.
RE: Fact #38 (Fake Dow Chemical Settlement Hoax) – Nope, the Dow didn’t lose any money. That video’s wrong; it actually lost 3% of its value — meaning shareholders lost 3% of their investment.
RE: Fact #18 (Jesse Livermore’s Market Crash Fortune) – Livermore was down six million bucks on his short positions, then the ’29 crash hit and boom – he’s up a hundred million! That’s 1929 money, folks! He even shorted the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake! Burry’s got nothing on him.
He even bet against the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake! How’d he pull that off?
RE: Fact #5 (Microsoft’s ‘Fully Vested’ Culture) – I remember reading in a book, I think it was *Microserfs*, about five coworkers sharing a house back in the mid-90s.
RE: Fact #1 (2010 Flash Crash Manipulation) – He’s totally innocent. What a guy!
He flooded the system with fake orders to manipulate prices – totally illegal! Seriously, I don’t feel bad for any high-frequency traders who lost money. The whole thing should just be outlawed.
RE: Fact #25 (Wall Street’s Charging Bull Origins) – Does the artist who made the Fearless Girl statue get the bull’s symbolism? Or the funny part about a girl stopping a bull market, when the whole point is to help women in the workforce?
RE: Fact #31 (Air Conditioning Reduces Market Volatility) – Tiny temperature changes in cities can mess with people’s heads. Think shady spots with grass and trees compared to areas with lots of weeds, less shade, and tons of concrete. Where people live also matters – money, jobs, healthcare, and education all play a role, but temperature itself affects mental health. Basically, those super-hot city areas aren’t good for people.
A study tracked temperatures over three years using satellite images. They found really hot and really cold spots in the city, and then checked in on 800 people’s health. Turns out, the river and green spaces kept things cooler and people healthier. Folks in hotter areas were way more stressed, anxious, and depressed. So, not everyone in the city has it the same, and city planners need to look out for those in the hotter spots.
RE: Fact #17 (Somali Pirates’ Stock Exchange) – Wow, that’s seriously impressive piracy.
Isn’t that just old-school piracy? Folks have been investing in ships’ profits for ages.
RE: Fact #49 (NYSE’s Switch to Electronic Trading) – London went electronic a year before the ’87 crash. New York did the same a year before the ’08 crash.
RE: Fact #43 (Election Betting Before Polling) – A website’s been following this for a while. The point is, actually having something at stake makes people bet on who they *think* will win, not just who they *want* to win. People often act differently than they think they will.
RE: Fact #34 (Enron Executive’s Stripper Divorce Stock) – He got lucky meeting that stripper.
I just met her, your honor!
Great job!
RE: Fact #6 (MicroStrategy Triggers Dot-Com Crash) – MicroStrategy’s still around. They had a smart system for using data to understand sales and customers, and it was profitable—just not as profitable as they first claimed.
They’ve got 2% of all the Bitcoin.
It took them till 2024 to get back to their 2000 stock price.
RE: Fact #20 (Delaware’s Corporate Tax Haven) – Delaware’s got more companies than people! Think over two million businesses, but only a little over a million people actually live there.
I heard that one building has like, over 400 companies registered there.
You only need a street address; most are PO boxes, and some even have a central office that handles mail and messages.
RE: Fact #7 (Tweeter Stock Mistaken for Twitter) – That person’s been on an emotional rollercoaster. Wow.
The stock market’s a pain. “Value” can be totally accidental, and your company can get messed with by people who couldn’t care less about what it actually does.
Haha, companies decide to go public, but tons of hugely successful ones stay private.
RE: Fact #8 (UBS’s $100M Stock Order Mistake) – I was chatting with a buddy who works at a big NYC firm about our jobs. I told him how my boss flipped out over ten bucks missing from the till, and he said he’d once put a decimal point in the wrong place and lost half a million dollars—nobody even noticed!
My coworker’s wife had a funny story about starting at her new job. She hunted for this missing $25 for ages, then her boss walked in and said they just round up to the nearest $10,000 anyway!
Eventually, hunting for that stuff costs more than it’s worth. It’s usually better to just cut your losses and walk away.
For some people, a whole year’s pay is just pocket change for others.
Hey Mike, with all due respect, your money’s peanuts.
RE: Fact #13 (Greenspan’s Briefcase Market Theory) – His autobiography says he’d pack his lunch in his briefcase to make it seem bigger—to fool people, you know.
Edna, I need three steak sandwiches today. Just to throw those bankers off the scent.
He learned to keep his financial talk down and to himself when he’s out and about. My economics teacher told a story about how his teacher once joked with a friend at lunch, and the market dipped so much he figured it was probably his doing. Money’s weird, huh?
RE: Fact #41 (Isaac Newton’s South Sea Loss) – Want to learn about the South Sea Bubble? Check out Extra Credits’ cool videos on it.
RE: Fact #17 (Somali Pirates’ Stock Exchange) – Guess who’s the capitalist now? Me!
RE: Fact #5 (Microsoft’s ‘Fully Vested’ Culture) – That’s old news. Full-time employees know their job security depends on their next performance review.
Makes sense? If you’re all in, it’s time to find a new job with better vesting options.
It depends. If you join at the right time, you could be looking at millions, maybe even tens of millions, in stock. Plus, your current job already pays better than 80% of other jobs out there. Chasing startup money is risky – most of them flop – and it’s a ton of work. Sticking with your comfy, high-paying corporate gig isn’t a bad idea at all.
RE: Fact #2 (Samsung’s $100B Fat-Finger Error) – Seventeen years back, I sold my NYC apartment—a steal I’d gotten in the early 90s. I was expecting a wire transfer, the biggest amount I’d ever seen—around $1.4 million. So, naturally, I was a nervous wreck, checking my bank account online every hour, waiting for the money. Then, just after midnight, it showed up—but way more than I expected: $72 million! I knew it was a mistake, the bank would fix it—which they did the next morning—but let me tell you, my brain went completely bonkers for a while.
RE: Fact #10 (Cisco’s Dot-Com Bubble Collapse) – That was intense. I had a summer job at the old EDS place, working with some folks from Cisco. They practically lost everything – went from rich to broke, fast. Some even had to sell their homes. Brutal.
RE: Fact #33 (Ting Hai Effect Stock Drops) – Could this be a case of fake connections creating their own reality?
The stock market’s a funny thing; if folks think something’s gonna happen, it usually does.
The reason is simple: it’s all about trends. See a stock price drop? Everyone starts selling, pushing the price down further. It’s a snowball effect – before you know it, the stock’s worthless.
It’s hard to predict the future, but usually, similar things happen with similar stocks.
RE: Fact #42 (Volkswagen’s Brief Market Domination) – So, when a company’s tanking and the price is gonna drop, people bet against it by borrowing shares, selling them right away, and hoping to buy them back cheaper later to return them. They make money on the difference. Volkswagen was in deep trouble, and lots of folks bet against it, but the price went *up*, not down! This forced those who bet against it to buy back the shares to cover their bets, pushing the price even higher. Crazy, right? For a day, Volkswagen was the most valuable company on the planet because of this “short squeeze” situation.
RE: Fact #3 (David Choe’s Facebook Fortune) – Back in 2005, it was already huge. Everyone with a .edu email was all over myspace, buzzing about it.
I used to be the one saying, “We have MySpace, why bother with Facebook?” Now, twenty years later, I’m that guy again.
That’s how I felt about Uber at first. Getting in a car with a stranger? Instead of a taxi? No way, it’d never work.