20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies By Suicide After Seeing A $730,000 Negative

[MCobian]

This is the consequence if trading does not have enough knowledge, and should be accompanied by experienced people. This tragedy
becomes lesson for all of us, that before entering into the world of trading must master the knowledge of trading first. So psychologically
more ready to accept losses. And always use capital according to our abilities, then avoid using it the leverage feature if you don't master it.

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[dragon695]

This is the consequence if trading does not have enough knowledge, and should be accompanied by experienced people. This tragedy
becomes lesson for all of us, that before entering into the world of trading must master the knowledge of trading first. So psychologically
more ready to accept losses. And always use capital according to our abilities, then avoid using it the leverage feature if you don't master it.

Can't be more agree! Please, people! When you invest your money, your time, your works into something, please learn about it first! Do not invest in something that you don't even know a little bit about! There's no easy money in this cryptocurrency market (well it was, back in 2017 when any single coin can gain its value dramatically) but it's not the way it was anymore. Equipping yourself with fundamental knowledge, skills, information about this market helps you a lot in achieving your goals! Don't hesitate to learn!

[Wind_FURY]

Can Robinhood though has some liability here? It seems that the victim saw negative balance but the article it is just temporary but this could have triggered everything. If Robinhood display it real-time, this could have been avoided?

YES! I believe it should be on Robinhood. They took the risk of giving an unemployed 20 year old "almost a million dollars" in leverage, that could not pay the negative $730,000.

[bitgolden]

I agree that trading without knowledge or doing mistakes or whatever is probably a cause for having a 730k debt.
However, is there zero blame on robinhood? This app allowed a 20 year old kid with zero income to somehow rack up 730k debt, don't you think he should have been banned or not even allowed to do something like this?

If I was an exchange I wouldn't allow anyone to make a debt more than the amount they have on their accounts, you either trade with the money you deposited or you don't trade at all.

Making a debt on investment is the most stupid thing there is, at the very best case for them the deposit could be made with credit card and that is the max allowed should be, we all know credit cards have realistic limits so the dude would probably have like 20k debt which is nowhere near and could be paid even with a mcdonalds job.

[Aveatrex]

its surprising that with a young age he already have/handle that kind of amount  .  he is too young to act imature and not accepting looses  but with that amount he have

Non-sense.. It's not a question of age here. Look at Nick D'aloisio, he became an entrepreneur when he was 15 years old.. his net worth is more than 30 million $.

Even if it were possible he was really down $730K (and I don't see how it was possible based on the amounts he was trading) that debt would probably not be collectable. He could have at least declared bankruptcy and got a clean start.

I don't understand how people jump to these sorts of conclusions. It's just tragic, no other word for it really.

It was probably fear and all the emotions coming out of the shock of seeing that huge amount of money in red that led him to take such an unrational decision.. I guess if there was someone with him at the time that reasoned him he wouldn't have done it.

[rhomelmabini]

Yeah, seen this one on my suggested notifications about news and this was really a tragic loss of a young man. He should have ask the support of Robinhood onhe know what really happen, he did act recklessly.

Well, it happened already and hopes this was really an eye opener to everyone that trading involves all your senses.

[robelneo]

I think this is a case of jumping in a wrong conclusion, it could also happen to me or anyone if there is no warning of the real case, the brokerage company should clarify or with an attached note that it's temporary balance until the stocks underlying his assigned options actually settled into his account as they say in their statement, this is very saddening seeing he has a future in stock trading, the blame is on the trading firm and they need to take action that it will not happen again.

[Blue_oxen]

its surprising that with a young age he already have/handle that kind of amount  .  he is too young to act imature and not accepting looses  but with that amount he have , its really hard to accept things but that only at first  .  if you chill out and walk , you can clear you mind to start thinking if what you can do recover those looses again   .  if we have problem no matter what is it , financial or anything we must talk that out to our parents or to the people around us so that they can gave us advice and they can watch us  .

However, a negative 730 grants are just too big to handle. He's too young to work and live under such a very big pressure like that. I'm older than him but I can't even stand if I owed someone a thousand dollars or so. Living under debt is never an easy thing to do! What happened, happened. I hope people will considering carefully before investing to avoid this kind of sad news!

[shadowdio]

Damn, I cannot imagine how he will pay his debt almost a million dollars. I don't know what to do if I was him, but hey suicide is not an option maybe going to jail at least. Well this is warning for youngster traders that how risky in trading, acquired knowledge first.

[gentlemand]

YES! I believe it should be on Robinhood. They took the risk of giving an unemployed 20 year old "almost a million dollars" in leverage, that could not pay the negative $730,000.

This was a UI problem and the way Robinhood feeds info to customers. The negative balance was there while his trade was active. Once it closes it would've gone away.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/19/business/robinhood-suicide-alex-kearns/index.html

It's a failure on their part not to explain sophisticated instruments better to their customers. All he had to do was ask but it should've been made a whole lot clearer what was an obligation and what wasn't.

[Aderwolf]

If you can imagine to kyc after seeing something on monitor, you should throw this monitor away 

[iv4n]

YES! I believe it should be on Robinhood. They took the risk of giving an unemployed 20 year old "almost a million dollars" in leverage, that could not pay the negative $730,000.

This was a UI problem and the way Robinhood feeds info to customers. The negative balance was there while his trade was active. Once it closes it would've gone away.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/19/business/robinhood-suicide-alex-kearns/index.html

It's a failure on their part not to explain sophisticated instruments better to their customers. All he had to do was ask but it should've been made a whole lot clearer what was an obligation and what wasn't.

It's crazy that someone is trading on this exchange and doesn't know about this. I can't understand how this guy didn't do something first, like ask support, call them, I don't know... Why would he raise his hand on himself before even trying to sort things out?
It's to late for this guy, but this can be a strong message for newbies to not rush anywhere, to sit and think before they actually do something. To do some research before they join the circus, to know what they can expect, and to learn how to deal with all the problems on the way.
This definitely a sad story, I hope some people will learn something from this, especially young people.

[electronicash]

Can Robinhood though has some liability here? It seems that the victim saw negative balance but the article it is just temporary but this could have triggered everything. If Robinhood display it real-time, this could have been avoided?

YES! I believe it should be on Robinhood. They took the risk of giving an unemployed 20 year old "almost a million dollars" in leverage, that could not pay the negative $730,000.

damn the kid just decide to kill himself while not really a real negative balance?   not familiar with robinhood but if they can be sued for this tragic death, it would help the future platforms to also follow a standard.

the kid started trading at this early years of his life, he could be learning a lot and will likely be a pro before 25. but that wouldn't happen now because of the gui that robinhood provided.

[South Park]

I think this is a case of jumping in a wrong conclusion, it could also happen to me or anyone if there is no warning of the real case, the brokerage company should clarify or with an attached note that it's temporary balance until the stocks underlying his assigned options actually settled into his account as they say in their statement, this is very saddening seeing he has a future in stock trading, the blame is on the trading firm and they need to take action that it will not happen again.

The thing is that this is extremely common, it is impossible to stop inaccuracies like this to happen from time to time, I think we have all suffered a time in which one of the services we were paying showed an amount that was unreasonable and instead of taking such an extreme measure we just grabbed the phone and talked to the customer service to get a clarification, this was mostly an interface issue and a lack of understanding of trading in general which unfortunately had such a sad ending, if anything this should be a lesson to not trade if you do not know what you are doing.

[gentlemand]

It's crazy that someone is trading on this exchange and doesn't know about this. I can't understand how this guy didn't do something first, like ask support, call them, I don't know... Why would he raise his hand on himself before even trying to sort things out?

Perhaps he was inclined towards extremely volatile emotions anyway. Perhaps this situation was the first to put himself in a position where they could harm him. Something like this certainly would if you didn't take the time to breathe and think.

It wasn't a rational act to get started trading knowing nothing. It got less rational from then on.

[gentlemand]

Article in the Sunday Times about this today -

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/the-trading-apps-accused-of-turning-stocks-into-a-game-kpz68kp0h

http://archive.is/Uw72b

It reemphasises that the $730,000 was a temporary figure and he was actually in the black throughout.

[rexxarofmoknathal]

20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies By Suicide After Seeing A $730,000 Negative Balance

I hate to bring this sad news, but I thought that everyone could learn a thing or so, specially those young traders out there who are vulnerable. Its really really sad to hear this kind of news, specially a very young kid at 20 years who ended his life.

The note found on his computer by his parents on June 12, 2020, asked a simple question. “How was a 20 year old with no income able to get assigned almost a million dollars worth of leverage?” The tragic message was written by Alexander E. Kearns, a 20-year-old student at the University of Nebraska, home from college and living with his parents in Naperville, Illinois. Earlier that day, Kearns took his own life.

In fact, a screenshot from Kearns’ mobile phone reveals that while his account had a negative $730,165 cash balance displayed in red, it may not have represented uncollateralized indebtedness at all, but rather his temporary balance until the stocks underlying his assigned options actually settled into his account.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/06/17/20-year-old-robinhood-customer-commits-suicide-after-seeing-a-730000-negative-balance/#5421ac305928

This is a prime example of not weighing out the risks. Leverage in trading works in both ways, so if you're prepared to go all in without even being bothered about the consequences well I'd say that's complete foolishness. No amount of money is worth a life. So this is a very bad tragedy others should learn from

[gentlemand]

This is a prime example of not weighing out the risks. Leverage in trading works in both ways, so if you're prepared to go all in without even being bothered about the consequences well I'd say that's complete foolishness. No amount of money is worth a life.

There was no risk at the moment he killed himself. He was fine and his balance was positive. It was a misunderstanding on his part and a failure of the site to make things clear enough.

[pixie85]

This is a prime example of not weighing out the risks. Leverage in trading works in both ways, so if you're prepared to go all in without even being bothered about the consequences well I'd say that's complete foolishness. No amount of money is worth a life.

There was no risk at the moment he killed himself. He was fine and his balance was positive. It was a misunderstanding on his part and a failure of the site to make things clear enough.

Reminds me of that movie where the main character thinks the situation is so desperate it's better if he kills his family and commits suicide but when he kills them and is about to end his own life he is rescued.

Usually it's all in our heads and if we were able to leave our bodies and see that whole situation from a different perspective we wouldn't feel like it's the end of the world.

A really unfortunate coincidence for that poor guy.

[tbterryboy]

Honestly, we need to teach children at a very young age about economics. I understand that studying mathematics, history, geography, science and all other stuff at school is very very important but we should add economics at a very young age as well.

You know what my school had? Economics "branch", we had these branches like first aid branch, history branch basically extra curriculum stuff that each student would pick, it wasn't a class but it was a extra stuff that you did time to time outside of school class hours.

Well, I was in the economics branch and I could say that from age 7 I have learned the importance of saving whatever you can, even if it is 1 dollar, always try to buy everything as cheap as you can, and that helped me out a lot in life. If we could have simple economics class from very early age to end of high school, everyone would be smarter with their money.