Spare a thought for Canadian carpenter and amateur day trader Christopher DeVocht. who is in the news after claiming he turned $88,000 Canadian dollars into $415 million between 2019 and 2022, only to then go bust and end up with nothing.
DeVocht, who made and lost his fortune by betting big on Tesla, is suing Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), saying it considered him a “sophisticated” investor but “failed to appreciate” his “limited” financial knowledge.
Unsurprisingly, DeVocht’s case has made waves on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, where he has been jokingly hailed both as a legend (“A true hero among men”, “he is our king”) and an idiot (“What advice is he looking for that a 5 year old can’t give”).
Limited knowledge or not, it’s natural to wonder how DeVocht wasn’t moved to at least take some of his winnings off the table – after all, withdrawing even $10 million or $20 million would have set him up for life, while still allowing him to gamble to his heart’s content. However, this may be missing the point. As one Redditor observed, “the mentality that got him from $88k to $415m is the same one that got him from $415m to zero. No one is making that much money that quickly from smart decisions.”
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