Young trader dies by suicide after thinking he racked up big losses on Robinhood

[Bitcoinmoon12]

While some people get richer thanks to Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general, there are many unfortunate cases. In it, a 20-year-old young man named Alex Kearns committed suicide because he thought he suffered heavy losses when trading on Robinhood.
Less than 24 hours after Alex checked his account at the Robinhood trading application, he found himself at a loss of $ 730,165. Robinhood is a popular cryptocurrency and stock trading application. From 2016 to the present, Robinhood has owned from 1 million users to 10 million users, with loyal followers on social media.

But, Alex seems to have misunderstood Robinhood’s financial statements. On the little yellow note that Alex left on his bedroom door was an ominous message, saying to turn on the computer. Then a four-letter letter appeared on the screen: “If you’re reading this, then I am dead.”

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/azcoinnews/comments/hcebsa/a_20yearold_trader_who_lost_hundreds_of_thousands/

[microsurfer]

People should understand what they are doing with money. I dont think that there are any problems with site. Main problem here is this young trader

[Pamadar]

He's too young and very aggressive thats why he reacted that bad without clearing everything.

and He has huge capital to be 20 years old,losing 730 thousand dollars(as he assumed).
we have seen some like this when a young gambler from korea (if i am not mistaken) jump from his window after losing huge amount.

[romeojasmin13]

This is a tragic story. Of cause, $730k is a big sum, but in this case I may suppose the guy had a king of gambling addiction.

[cosmofly]

This is the result of a lot of money but inexperience. He was too young and too wild to use all his capital to trade margin. It is one of those types of transactions that makes many people insolvent without trading experience. So do not think you have a lot of money, it will easily make money in this trading margin.
Another great example is that we need to learn more to avoid this situation.

[Reid]

This could be the main reason for the suicide.

“How was a 20-year-old with no income able to get assigned almost a million dollars worth of leverage? There was no intention to be assigned this much and take this much risk, and I only thought that I was risking the money that I actually owed.”

A lot of people might be investing with him.
He didn't want to take the blame and so he did the bad thing of killing himself instead of looking for another way out.
There is always a solution for everything even if how deep the problem is.
He did a wrong step and know nothing about what he brought himself into.
Condolences for his family. This should be a lesson for all of us here.

[yhiaali3]

This is a really sad story and a tragic ending for this young man. The trader should expect loss before profit. He must also be interested in learning risk management before starting trading. I don’t know how this can be taught to young people, but there are a lot of important things that they should learn like not to start Using large capital at the beginning should be learned by a small amount. Also, the capital must be divided into two or three parts to avoid the big loss. Parents should also do their part to know what their children are doing and advise them.

[Tipstar]

People should understand what they are doing with money. I dont think that there are any problems with site. Main problem here is this young trader

Yes. People should know what they are doing with their money. The higher the promises of return, the higher is generally the risk.
And it's even frustrating to realize that people are putting killing themselves for something like money. If you have a life, you can pay off your debts someday and live an experienced and peaceful life in the long run.

[LogitechMouse]

I don't think that this is the only reason why he committed suicide. There must be a deeper reason why he'd done this.

For a 20 year old, that amount is really a huge one that I think he can't bear it and I think that there are some problems with him and that Robinhood is the catalyst to commit suicide. This is a terrible news for all of the traders here and even the investors who can't bear such huge losses. At his age, that amount is very huge already and having a loss of that amount is simply.... I don't know what to say about it if I'm on his situation at that time I saw it.

Anyway, this is another lesson for us.

[Oasisman]

Similar thread : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5256653.0
We should be more responsible of posting not to duplicate the content.

Anyway, this young guy might be suffering from extreme depression. This is gonna be the result of so much greed, competing to be one of the youngest millionaire/billionaire. Tbh, this is just a very shallow reason to commit suicide. Money can't buy a life.

[acroman08]

a similar thread has been posted about this story yesterday 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies By Suicide After Seeing A $730,000 Negative. I suggest locking the thread. also if any of you interested in reading the article here's the link to Forbes where the article is originally posted https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/06/17/20-year-old-robinhood-customer-dies-by-suicide-after-seeing-a-730000-negative-balance/#4be317761638

[buwaytress]

I really wish I didn't have to read stories like this, but I also hope this serves as a reminder to people that there are risks with trading that are very poorly understood by most people. Companies promise the world, and owners and developers insist it's a skill-based activity but really, it encourages risky behaviour and in most aspects because of the lack of education and awareness, is treated like gambling by most traders.

Nothing wrong with gambling, but you have to understand what you're getting into -- and most people don't.

[KrisAlex18]

That is a really sad story, this should be a lesson for every trader out there, you should know the risk when you do trading, you should also accept the fact that you may lose your money when you do it so you won't end up like the man in the story. I think there are also other reasons why he did the suicide, losing a big money is not enough to kill your self, there are so many ways for you to earn again that kind of money, your life is much important than your money. Trading is somehow related to gambling which may cause you so bad, there are so many lives that get broken because of gambling as well as the trading.

People should understand what they are doing with money. I dont think that there are any problems with site. Main problem here is this young trader

Being a beginner in trading is really hard, you will face so many struggles and you may also lose your money, if you know that you are losing much of your money then you should think that its time to stop.

[mustach3]

Every inexperienced trader should know that if you don't have enough experience about the market, you can't swim in the wavy sea

[Yamifoud]

I feel embarrassed and disappointed during the time I lose in trading but it never brings me into a point thinking about suicide. I don't how this young boy thinks about it. And I don't want to read any news similar to this scenario.

That is how important that every time we make a deal for a certain thing we should have to know what it is and what should we get later. The risk that it involves in trading ain't that something enough to think about negative and committing suicide for our life isn't worthy of that. We valued our life more than anything, more than about losing, and more than about money. I believe we all gone sooner but not in that way.  

[Coin_trader]

But, Alex seems to have misunderstood Robinhood’s financial statements.

I'm actually confused about this statement written on the article. I read the whole content and I can't the reason why he misunderstood the financial statement of Robin Hood? There is no statement there that he didn't loss the money so he really did loss it all. Enlighten me if I'm missing something.

The guy is leveraging too much and didn't do a proper risk management. Considering the funds he hold. That 730k will not burn if he set stop loss to minimize the risk. IMHO, x5 is the maximum leverage for a safe trading more than that is a pure gambling. Anyway condolence to his family.

[DabsPoorVersion]

That's terrible,

He's too young and what disappointed me as he took his own life so easily just because he had big losses in trading. He should have think deeply about how his family and friends would think about what he did, in this kind of situation, he should have realized that taking his own life will not bring his losses back. He just wasted his life.

[kryptqnick]

It's very sad that this person died... Of course, losing a lot of money must be tough, but from any situation there's a way out, and it's important not to think that money is everything. He was very young and, I guess, impulsive. Maybe young people should not have such huge amounts of money at their disposal... I'm older than him, and not only I've never had anything remotely close to this amount of money, I don't even know anyone who does! Then again, after reading the article it seems that the story is not that simple, and he somehow lost way more money than he owned, I think. I've never used Robinhood, so I don't understand how this works... Something's not right about this story or the way it's told.
Edit: acroman08 shared a link to Forbes, and the explanation there is quite good. Now I understand at least some things. One of them is that such dangerous form of trading should either be completely illegal or have huge warnings everywhere so that only people who know the risks join.

[sukbir]

I think trading is not for everyone, you need to have knowledge and experience about the market. I have seen many new trader loosing their money. Good lesson for new trader.

[Krislaw]

This is very terrible and sad at same time. For him to have this kind of amount at his age he must be very lucky. His cousin or whoever it is that posted the article sure must have told him the risks about this space. Alex shouldn't have been so quick to act on committing suicide. It's now two loses, his investment and his life.