Warren Buffett echoed Charlie Munger’s criticism in his annual letter, that the stock market has become increasingly “casino-like.” Buffett believes too many investors act as speculators rather than long-term investors focused on company fundamentals. The ease of online trading apps has made buying and selling stocks more akin to gambling, in Buffett’s view. He warned young investors …
Financial Nihilism
Making sense of why everyone’s betting on everything
….
You know what parlays are kinda like? 0DTE options – options that expire the same day they are bought. Like parlays, 0DTE options offer higher probabilities of loss while offering potentially multiples of upside. Oh yeah, and either way the outcome occurs the same DAY you place the bet…err umm, same day you “make the investment”.
You know what 0DTE options popularity has been doing lately?
0DTE popularity has doubled since Covid. That’s a growth rate that looks familiar, right? Between 2016 and 2023, 0DTE trading increased from 5% of total SPX options volume to 43%.
The evidence for the rise of Financial Nihilism is all around us. Think about the cultural movement that was WallStreetBets, DeepFuckingValue, Gamestop, AMC, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Blockbuster. They cranked out a Seth Rogen movie in like EIGHTEEN MONTHS. That’s how top-of-mind Financial Nihilism is.
One more thing to add, and then I’ll bring this all back to crypto. Those individuals choosing to act out Financial Nihilism are doing so in direct response to, and in imitation of, the monetary and fiscal policies of the Fed and the US government. Those monetary and fiscal policies have been a major driver of wealth inequality both through generations and wealth percentiles. The US government has been egregiously irresponsible. Makes a poker player look like Dave Ramsey. I’ve talked about this for years here, but I’ll give you a couple reminders-
US been wilin’ with the dollar lately. Bitcoiners were on to this before anyone else. When the government is acting crazy, you might need to do something crazy in response – a 5-leg parlay, 0DTE TSLA calls, or long magic internet money – because the money printer has been, and will continue to, go brrrr. This causes asset price distortions of all sorts. This causes risk-taking distortions of all sorts. You’d be foolish to think otherwise.
Which brings us all the way back to crypto – the Roman Colosseum for asset price and risk-taking distortions. We will do some stuff that makes 0DTE Tesla calls look like gold sitting in Fort Knox. Our Memecoins do numbers that make the Memestocks look like the U.S. Dollar –
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www.marketsentiment.co/p/financial-nihilism
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