Trading Software

You know those TV commercials that come on during the day that air on CNBC and a few other financial news network shows? They show screenshots filled with numbers and show, usually a semi elderly white man who used to be a cashier at Home Depot or who came from driving a UPS truck fiddling with his keyboard. And the numbers go from all red to green. Then the camera cuts to him on a boat with 3 hot babes who are most likely not neuro-surgeons.

The guy then scratches his bald head and says, "Without So and So Software Co, I never coulda been here!" Then you see on the very bottom of the screen a waiver in tiny font that says something like, "Actor portrayal only. Your results from trading complex derivatives and options usually understandable only by PhDs who were also trained by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and real hedge funds...may vary." Yeah, that's what it says. Look closely. Most trading software is sold to the gullible, the naive, the worst combos of human arrogance and ignorance.

The buyers are people randing from retired truck drivers to passed-over-for-promotion lawyers who quit The Firm and who are now desperately looking for a means to quickly upgrade their lives financially. The lawyers were smart at memorizing cases so they assumed they could play poker in 3-space against the world's finest PhDs who were trained to play options poker. So they pony up $1200 for the software, invest 50 grand of their savings...and wake up one day vastly poorer than when they started. Luckily, Starbucks is still hiring. Until they go robot. Even the robots know to now buy trading software. See: Index Funds; See: Retail Investor; See: Institutional Investor; See: Dumb Schmuck.