Same. Personal experience shows me this is the case. During the dotcom boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s I told my friend this directly: “If you keep doing this, you will piss away all your money. You will go bankrupt and lose everything.” I did not mince words. I put it that bluntly.

A few months later, he was way overextended on margin as the NASDAQ crashed 60%. His broker did the expected margin call and in addition to losing his principal, he owed Datek tens of thousands that he did not have. He squandered everything he had and more chasing a few lousy bucks. He couldn’t even make rent. If he’d listened to me he would’ve been up well more than a hundred thousand dollars (around $200K in 2024 greenbacks).

Listening to my advice was the easy and obvious thing to do as it was clear the market was unsustainable and that being so far out on margin was dangerous. But it didn’t matter.