Teen Commits Suicide After Losing $730k In The Stock Market

20 year old, Alex Kearns, committed suicide after losing $730,000 in the stock market. Alex’s cousin, Bill Brewster, took to Twitter to explain the full story of how his cousin tragically ended his life.

• When Alex was getting started, he believed he had “No Margin” selected on his account. A Margin account allows an investor to borrow against the value of the assets in the account to purchase new positions or sell short. So if you believe a stock is overvalued, you can short it meaning you believe it will go down. When the price of the stock goes down, you make money. When the stock price rises, you suffer losses.
• The markets are no joke right now. It’s not the time to be taking shots in the dark as we’re going through volatile periods in the market. Everything is stabilizing back to normalcy and it’s easy to get swayed in by inflated stock prices.
• It’s extremely surprising how an amateur investor with no income get access to a $1 million dollars worth of leverage.
• The balance in red as Forbes explained may have not represented uncollateralized indebtedness but rather a temporary balance until his option trades settled.
• Trading stocks can have devastating consequences, especially when traded with borrowed cash. The Dow Jones Industrial average can be down almost 2000 points and rebounded 500 points the next.