THIS IS PART OF MY MILLION DOLLAR EDUCATION. IF you add up all money I lost, stressed over, or could have made… yes millions that I don’t have. Is this you?
It all started with young Jimmy Blevins, a man of grand ambition and very little patience. Jimmy, like many before him, had heard that the stock market was where fortunes were made, and he had no intention of being left behind. Armed with a smartphone, an internet connection, and the confidence of a man who once won twenty dollars in a bar bet, he set off on his journey to become a legend of Wall Street—without ever setting foot on it.
Chapter 1: The Mega Cap Mirage
At first, Jimmy did what every trader does when they have more enthusiasm than experience—he bought the big names. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon. These were the giants, the untouchables. And sure enough, his account balance began to rise.
“This is easy!” he declared to no one in particular.
The sun was shining, his portfolio was green, and Jimmy Blevins thought himself a financial genius. But like every overconfident fool in the history of speculation, he soon grew bored.
Chapter 2: The Penny Stock Plunge
One fateful evening, he stumbled across a forum where people were discussing stocks he had never heard of—companies with names like BioTech Something and Lithium Who-Knows-What.
“Forget Apple,” Jimmy thought. “Why double my money when I can triple it overnight?”
So he dove headfirst into penny stocks. He bought into a pharmaceutical company that promised to cure baldness and another that was revolutionizing the way people grew lettuce indoors. His account exploded.
“I’m a genius,” he said, again to no one in particular.
Then, just as quickly, the crash came. The baldness cure turned out to be hair dye, and the lettuce farm went bankrupt when someone discovered lettuce still grows fine outside. The bottom fell out, and Jimmy sat staring at his phone, trying to figure out where his money had gone.
Chapter 3: The Great Futures Fiasco
After licking his wounds, Jimmy decided he needed to get serious. He wasn’t going to be a mere stock trader—no, that was for amateurs. He was going to trade futures. Oil, wheat, even orange juice. This was the real deal, the domain of professionals.
And so, he found himself awake at odd hours, watching charts that looked like the heartbeat of a dying man. He bought crude oil contracts, not fully understanding that if they went against him, he’d owe more than just his account balance.
One particularly grim morning, he woke up to find that oil prices had moved in the wrong direction. His account wasn’t just empty—it was negative.
“Wait, I owe money?” he whispered, feeling his teeth loosen in real time.
Chapter 4: The Softs and the Madness
At this point, Jimmy was desperate. He was certain there was one secret, some hidden market where the real money was being made. And that’s when he found them—the softs.
Cotton, cocoa, coffee—commodities that had been traded since the dawn of time. He read about a trader who made millions cornering the orange juice market.
“If he can do it, so can I,” Jimmy thought.
What he didn’t consider was that orange juice futures were about as stable as a three-legged chair in a hurricane. Prices were controlled by frost, hurricanes, and whatever mood the weather gods happened to be in that day. One minute he was up, the next, he was financially underwater. And the worst part? He hadn’t even gotten any orange juice out of it.
By the time he escaped the softs market, he had ulcers, unpaid margin calls, and a strange distrust of oranges. His teeth were metaphorically gone.
Chapter 5: The Return to Sanity
Broken, humbled, and wiser, Jimmy did what every trader eventually does: he went back to Mega Caps.
He bought Apple again. Microsoft. A little bit of Tesla, for the thrill. Maybe some options on the side, just to keep things interesting.
And you know what? It worked. He wasn’t getting rich overnight, but he also wasn’t waking up in cold sweats wondering if coffee futures were going to bankrupt him.
“So this is how you invest,” he murmured, sipping a coffee he had not invested in. “Slow and steady. Who knew?”
And so, Jimmy Blevins, once a wild trader of penny stocks, futures, and softs, had become what he once feared most: a reasonable investor.
The moral? If you must gamble, do it in Vegas. At least they give you free drinks while you lose your money.
EXTRA CREDIT
A Lesson in Commodities: The Orange Juice Debacle
When I was young, the guy I worked for was a very savvy investor. He literally had $15 million in the market and even employed someone just to help him track transactions.
If it could be bought and sold, he was in it—stocks, bonds, commodities, you name it.
One day, all hell broke loose. A contract worth $250,000 on orange juice expired, and suddenly, he was about to take physical delivery of enough OJ to supply an entire city. The problem? He had no way to store it, no buyers lined up, and dumping it was going to be costly.
I never found out exactly how much he lost, but let’s just say he was not a happy camper. For weeks, he walked around like a man who had just realized his life savings were sitting in a warehouse full of perishable citrus.
That day, I learned a valuable lesson: never trade commodities unless you’re prepared to wake up one morning with a truckload of orange juice and nowhere to put it. And if you do, at least make sure you have a really big fridge.
Additional Note: Mr Lee Ruwitch was not a dumb person; He had businesses that generate plenty of money, had his stock investments and tons of real estate. Probably around $40 million in 1986. So one he lost $250k it was not really a big deal. But it goes to prove that anyone that sticks their head out will get something chop off by the invisible hand.
