If you’re a Reddit user, WallStreetBets is arguably the best subreddit for turning a bad day into a good one. It’s filled with posts of people sharing their violent losses from YOLO ing their life savings in futures & options trading. Looking at the losses, one cannot help but feel good about one’s own life choices.
The forum is sprawling with “traders” losing their money on 0DTE options or on random day trades. But there arises a time when an Intelligent Investor loses money in such a spectacular fashion that the entire Subreddit celebrates that loss, and the Investor is forever etched in the Hall of Fame in the subreddit.
These trades are totally bizarre or done with absolutely zero due diligence (often both), and they deserve case studies on their own.
So, to commemorate these legendary trades and traders, let us look at some of the craziest lore from the depths of the legendary subreddit of all time – r/wallstreetbets.
Live by the Gourd, Die by the Gourd
One fine day, while sipping on his morning coffee, a person by the user name of u/TheEmporerOfJenks decided to invest his entire life savings of $17,000 into Ornamental Gourds.
Inspired by Vincent Kosuga, a man who manipulated the Onion futures market in the 1950’s, u/TheEmporerOfJenks decided to do something similar and capitalise on a lucrative and emerging market. You guessed it right. The lucrative and emerging market he had in mind was Ornamental Gourds.
In his research, he discovered that the yield of gourds in 2020 would be far lower than in the past due to deteriorating soil conditions in Central Mexico and warmer temperatures around springtime that year. He thought that the Gourds would appreciate in value due to low supply and high demand.
To his luck, the coronavirus kicked in, and the demand for gourds fell sharply. To make matters worse, a massive shipment from Argentina, scheduled for March of the following year, arrived in December, causing demand to drop further. To top it off, the size of the gourds was massive, causing the price per pound to crash. All the combined factors kicked in at the wrong time, causing u/TheEmporerOfJenks to lose his life savings of $17,000 in the Gourds Future Market.
Oh! You thought that the story was over? Nope. For some reason unknown to humanity, u/TheEmporerOfJenks decided not to close his futures contract and take physical delivery of roughly 115,000 lbs of Gourds. What did he decide to do with the Gourds? Only the lord above knows. While going through his Reddit account, it was clear that he was looking for market potential for selling Gourds in the Great Plains region in the USA. Did he sell all the Gourds? Probably not. Did he learn his lesson? Absolutely not.
After his adventure in the Gourds’ future market, u/TheEmporerOfJenks decided to trade in the “Precious Metals” market. He learned that the price of some metal called Rhodium was skyrocketing and decided to invest in it. When he received the physical delivery of the metal and boasted about it on Reddit, users were quick to point out that it was just a rusty chunk of metal and not real Rhodium.
Does the story end? Nope again. u/TheEmporerOfJenks is still active on Reddit and experiments with random commodities with the sole purpose of losing his money.
The Olympics Bronze Medal Scandal
Before we get into the story, I feel like this story doesn’t get as much attention and love as the other wild stories on the subreddit. This story holds a special place in my heart, considering the absolute stupidity of the rationale behind the trade.
The story begins in 2024, when u/Glittering-Acadia774 was browsing social media and discovered that the bronze medals awarded at the Olympics were of poor quality. Little did they know that the gold and silver medals were, in fact, not gold or silver. Anyways, u/Glittering-Acadia774 saw the story and thinking it was sensational, decided to short the copper market. Yes, copper. Not Bronze. Because apparently the bronze medal was around 80% copper.
The reasoning in their own words –
“My reasoning for this is because as this news becomes more and more mainstream, more athletes will win bronze medals and complain about how low quality the material of bronze is (bronze is about 80% copper and 12.5% tin), which will cause bronze shareholders and copper/tin mining companies to lose revenue and decrease the demand for bronze, thus lowering the cost of it and sending my shorts to the moon .I’m a strong believer in using the current news/hype thats happening in our world right now to make my investment decisions, and I think this move will play out nicely. ”
Thinking the sensational story would break the copper market, u/Glittering-Acadia774 shorted copper with $7,000 from their savings. Well, one can guess what happened next. Copper went through the roof, destroying the portfolio of u/Glittering-Acadia774.
One Google search on the applications of copper would have saved the u/Glittering-Acadia774’s portfolio. But when it comes to WallStreetBets, Due Diligence is not mandatory. In fact, it is not recommended. One should purely trade on vibes and lose as much money as possible to make the community as happy as possible.
Down the Rabbit Hole
On the 27th of February 2021, a user named u/TridentFH01 received a tip from one of his buddies about an emerging market that would skyrocket in the near future. u/TridentFH01 had 2 options facing him at that moment. Take the money he had saved up and use it as a down payment to buy a brand-new house and settle down with his wife, or invest it in the trade his buddy suggested.
Being the dedicated Wall Street Bets investor he is, he stuck true to his roots. He decided to bet everything he had saved on one trade.
Now this seems similar to the regular stories on the forum. Save up money for a home, take that money and lose it on a trade, the wife divorces, kids don’t call anymore, etc. You know the drill.
So why is this story being covered if it seems like just another WSB story?
Well, the reason is simple. u/TridentFH01 did not just lose his money on a regular trade. He lost it in one of the most bizarre trades of all time. He lost his money betting on Bunny Rabbits.
The friend who called u/TridentFH01 was no ordinary friend with no ordinary job. The friend worked in the bunny breeding business. Apparently, the bunny breeding business was booming due to the pandemic, and Europeans in particular were buying pets in unprecedented numbers. And one particular animal topped the list. Bunny Rabbits.
Arming himself with this valuable information, u/TridentFH01 did the right thing. He invested $50,000 that he had set aside to buy a home into Egyptian Bunny Rabbit futures.
He planned his trade so that his future contract would end right around Easter, when bunny rabbits would be in high demand. The shipment would arrive from Egypt and land in France. Everything was going well. He was making profits in this trade, well, until he didn’t.
To OP’s luck, right during the shipment of the bunnies from Egypt, a big ship had blocked the Suez Canal and stopped the whole passage. No ships were able to pass the canal at that time.
All the bunnies were loaded onto the ship, but unfortunately, due to the Suez Canal incident, the shipment was delayed. Since Egypt shipped out every last bunny, there was no extra food left in Egypt. The bunnies were unfortunately stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and they were dead by the time they reached France. The OP would have had no other choice but to pick up the dead bunnies and throw them into the sewers of France. So yeah, one can safely assume that the trade went down the drain.
The Legend of u/1RONYMAN
No Wall Street Bets story is complete without discussing the legend of u/1RONYMAN. What he did was simple. Yet the consequences were so severe that a brokerage company had to change their rules. So, for that reason alone, this story belongs not just here but should be written in every article concerning WSB.
u/1RONYMAN did not go out of his way to bet on Bunnies, gourds, or any other random commodity. He did something very simple. He used a strategy called Box Spreads. The idea is that he would trade in UVXI. He made one trade in which, if UVXI went up, he would make some money, and if UVXI went down, he would lose some.
And in the other pair of trades, he would make money if UVXI went down and lose if UVXI went up. So, by theory, he would make a profit from the trade. Since these trades were options, they were naturally leveraged.
He also used a loophole in Robinhood’s app. In general, once the options are closed, traders have to pay a commission to their Brokers, and since box spreads are not highly profitable after commissions, traders generally avoid this strategy.
But in this case, Robinhood had a zero-commission policy, meaning the trader could pocket the entire profits.
So where did the problem arise? These options were American-style trades. Meaning, other traders can force the trades to close rather than hold them to Expiry.
Had 1RONYMAN held his options until expiry (2 years in this case), he would have made a sure-shot profit of around $37,000. But this works only in European-style trades where brokers can’t force the traders to close their positions.
But unfortunately, in this case, when UVXI moved in one direction, a pair of his trades made a loss. To cover this loss, the brokerage forced 1RONYMAN to sell his other trade at a very poor price. Since 1RONYMAN was highly leveraged, Robinhood had to quickly close the trade and close down his account. 1RONYMAN incurred a $57,000 loss on this trade, which he did not have.
But what made this trade legendary was that Robinhood had to ban Box Spreads after this trade. They were so afraid that traders would exploit their zero-commission policy on box spreads that they had to remove the strategy from their app. For this, u/1RONYMAN is forever considered a legend in the forum.
Control the Narrative…GUH
u/ControlTheNarrative is forever the undisputed king of WallStreetBets on Reddit. Again, what he did was something very simple. He got leveraged beyond what was safe and lost it all on a single trade. But the reaction to him losing all his money is what made him the King of the subreddit.
If you are a student with student loans, you have a few options:
1. Repay the loan
2. Invest some money in safe index funds
3. Get leveraged and YOLO life savings in a single trade. And lose it all.
If you chose the first two options, it’s the reason why you are probably unemployed. Or worse, employed at a job you hate. Now, u/ControlTheNarrative was different; he chose the 3rd option. You see, he wanted to well.. Control The Narrative, if that wasn’t already clear.
Anyways. One fine day, in pursuit of controlling the narrative, u/ControlTheNarrative discovered something called margin, which increases one’s buying power. Basically, it gives one leverage to play.
Somehow, u/ControlTheNarrative managed to get 25x leverage at the time of the fateful trade. He had $ 2,000 in deposits and, with this leverage, increased his buying power to $50,000.
With the unlimited power of leverage at his disposal, u/ControlTheNarrative decided to buy put options of Apple, expiring in 2 days, right around their earnings.
To his luck or lack thereof, Apple beat the expected earnings, and u/ControlTheNarrative’s put options went down the crapper to say the least.
For some unknown reason, u/ControlTheNarrative decided to record and publish a video of himself looking at his losses. You can visibly see his soul leave when the market opens, and the profits vanish into thin air. This video is forever GOATED and will live on in the subreddit forever. For the endless memes u/ControlTheNarrative has provided to the community, he is the undisputed GOAT of WallStreetBets, even though he is banned forever from WallStreetBets.
