Stock/Option "trading", I mean, gambling

Hi Everyone,
I'm also doing stock trading (gambling) with my retirement money literally, I've never done drugs, but I would imagine the feeling and the urge is very similar to drug or alcohol addiction.
Cold turkey is the way to go!, maybe?, killing the urge is the most difficult, I don't know if it's possible to go it alone with no therapy!
Good luck to everyone!

I am also guilty of stock acquisition, but not into trading. I have an aggressive risk appetite so I have an aggressive investment called equity index fund that mirrors the fluctuations of the stock exchange. Also, I have a very conservative account known as short term fund that steadily increases over time with growth higher than CD or SA. It is very tempting to buy more stocks when your investments are performing well, but then I learned how to practice cost averaging as to not get affected too much by market fluctuations. I also diversified my investments by acquiring stocks under conservative type of investment.

Acquiring/trading stocks can be fun, but to be honest, I am not really that addicted to acquiring/trading stocks as much as I am to playing slots.

I can relate to this topic. I been trading "gambling" in the Forex market since 2008 overall i have always lost in the end because I trade only to get my fix or high.. I would use high leverage and big bets anytime during the day when i felt like trading... in the end i would lose it all, i am probably down 20-30k overall, but the money doesnt bother me its the addiction i want to stop.

I am getting the itch to jump back in the market again believing i can win, yet deep down i know the results already its a bad cycle and relapse will occur sooner or later.

While I still have stocks/investments, I just let them move with the market. I don't monitor them as often as before. Maybe once or twice a month. As I have said, I am not addicted to stock trading/gambling. It can be addicting tho especially for those who frequently monitor their stocks.

I think I may have a problem. I have a brokerage account which is suppose to be our family's "safe" account. Basically, it is our down payment for our future home. I've been trading this account for years and it has stayed relatively flat during those years (in a bull market, no less). I stopped trading about a year, but I have recently picked it up again, but this time with option trading.

I started to slowly lose money (from $30K to ~$25K), but then hit it big. My account nearly doubled to ~$50K. I bragged to my wife and sent her a $10K check to pay off our car. She was happy and told me to keep the account in cash (which was at $40K). Of course, I didn't. I thought, "well, geez, if I can continue to do well, I can soon pay off my student loans, make our home down payment bigger, and make our financial future more secure." Well, it didn't work out that well.

I am now down to $14K. I have no idea how to tell my wife that I lost a terrible amount of money. When she asks what the account balance is now, I tell her $37K. I'm lying to my wife and I feel terrible. I feel that if I tell her the truth, it may ruin our marriage. Trust is a very important tenant in any relationship, no more than in marriage. And I feel terrible everyday that I have betrayed her trust. But I still can't find the courage to tell her the truth.

I honestly feel more terrified at telling her the truth than about losing a significant amount of money. Yes, it absolutely sucks when I think about all of the things I could've done with this money. But the thought of my wife being pissed at me and feeling betrayed (by keeping a big secret from her) scares me even more. I think the reason why I continue to trade is to make it back up so I won't have to face the consequences. If I can bring the account balance back up to $40K, then all is well. I tell myself that if I can do this, I will no longer trade. Perhaps I am lying to myself, but this is honestly how I feel.

Not sure what to do at this point in my life. I have inadvertently put my marriage at risk just to make a quick buck and it kills me. The stress and the sick feeling I have in my stomach is too much to bear. Something has to give.

stg3_h wrote:Not sure what to do at this point in my life. I have inadvertently put my marriage at risk just to make a quick buck and it kills me. The stress and the sick feeling I have in my stomach is too much to bear. Something has to give.

You can get free help at Gambler's Anonymous. No need to suffer alone.

If you try to "get the money back," you risk losing more. You need to realize that you gambled because you enjoy the feeling of gambling. You find the highs of the quick money enjoyable. But that is dangerous, you are now finding out.

stg3_h wrote:Not sure what to do at this point in my life. I have inadvertently put my marriage at risk just to make a quick buck and it kills me. The stress and the sick feeling I have in my stomach is too much to bear. Something has to give.

Fist things first - go to GA or read the posts in this forum and find out if you are a gambler. If you are - this is your biggest problem at the moment and take it EXTREMELY seriously.
Don't use the rest of the money to try to fix this situation!

Now about the marriage. As you said, the trust is very important and the best thing to do is tell her the truth (you got greedy and made a big mistake). You started with 30K anyway and now you are 14K+10K in a car which makes it 24K. So you lost only 6K. Trust me, if I were married, I would agree to divorce if this would bring my gambling losses to 6K instead of 30K where I actually am.

Only and only if you think you will lose your wife try telling you parents what happened, tell them your marriage is on the line and borrow 10K. With this money you should be ~25K which means you lost ~15K from the 40K (or with the car you are +5 from the the starting 30K). I hope it will be acceptable for your wife. Tell her the truth except for the amount of the loss, and promise you will never do it again - and you BETTER DON'T!!!

If you have gambling problem eventually you will have to tell her about it. She is your wife and she has to know. First put yourself on the right track - stop trading, start GA or take other measures - and than make her an important ally in this battle.

Good luck

Twenty years ago I sold a profitable business and thought I could live on investment trading profits. I've lost money most years. Investments in real estate helped keep things going financially.

Over the years, like everyone, I studied and practiced many approaches to investing/trading. Invested uncounted hours. Experienced deep disappointment. 2013 was the worst feeling, when simple index was +32%. For the past 3 months I've day traded futures in my retirement account. Not profitable. Still have that nagging demon: "if i can just be more disciplined and get it right..."

Turns out I'm not the only one with a problem. While I was busy speculating, my wife hid about $50k in credit card debt. When I found out, i borrowed from retirement account to pay.

I'd like to do productive things with the rest of my life, be paid reasonably for helping people in some way, but I don't know how or what to do.

I received some stock grants from my company that opened a trading acct automatically for me. At first i dabbled lightly but then started going much heavier. Changed the acct to margin then all hell broke loose. I lost way more than i am comfortable with while it was in the end just what i was given in company stock i cant believe how much i wasted. Today another big loss on the wrong side of a trade. I closed my margin acct in hopes it will change my ways but the regret i feel on what i wasted is undeniable. I never thought this could happen i am so frugal in other areas of my life but i really let it get away from me making some really poor decisions.

stg3_h wrote:I think I may have a problem. I have a brokerage account which is suppose to be our family's "safe" account. Basically, it is our down payment for our future home. I've been trading this account for years and it has stayed relatively flat during those years (in a bull market, no less). I stopped trading about a year, but I have recently picked it up again, but this time with option trading.

Hi, I have a trading problem too and my original post is the first post on page 6 of the forum/thread. I am in a kind of rough spot as I just lost another 6k in the market trading options even though I said I would stop. I am determined to stop now which is the same thing I said last time. Having just lost a ton of money and having an, "epiphany", I have some advice for you. Show your wife your post on this board and tell her what happened. You don't want to lose the rest of your money. Apologize and tell her it will never happen again and that it has been eating away at you for a while, which is impacting/stressing the relationship by itself im sure. Tell her you can't stand not being completely honest and that you learned a valuable lesson about the stock market/finances and honesty. As you can see from this thread, you are not alone and she will see that too. The stock market is like a casino in disguise. You feel like your an investor, but really your just a gambler; I know from experience. We all want to make it big like Warren Buffet and Carl Icahn, but the truth is, Warren Buffet buys entire company's, he gets involved, he buys them at a discount. He is not a typical trader like you and I. He buys and holds for years if he does buy stock. He buys duracell, he buys geico, he buys fruit of the loom. Carl Icahn is an activist investor who gets on boards and fixes inneficiencies and unlocks shareholder value. Sometimes he buys and holds for years. In the end, as long as you can live a comfortable life you will learn that your time, anxiety, and exhaustive effort trading was never worth it. It doesn't compare to the relationships you could've had and the relationships that you will lose. The time you could spend focusing on things that actually impact the world and make a difference. You will never unloock your true potential trading. You will just become a miserable sheep who loses his wife and goes bankrupt because of a $100,000 margin call. I am 28 years old now and have probably lost close to 20k in my life trading the market; over 10k of it was this year. I plan to stop trading forever, if I do anything moving forward it will be investing in mutual funds or in index funds (S&P, NASDAQ, DOW) in my 401k or IRA and hold for YEARS. I have more debt then I would like to have because of my addiction and my obsession with making it big through options trading. If I could just hit that one big trade! But I know I won't. Even if I do, In the end, the house always wins.