BC Business
Remind you of anyone?
You first noticed it when your carpenter friend said something about Dollarama’s market cap. And then again when your post-punk-loving barber started fiddling on Wealthsimple mid-cut.
Of course, it became impossible to ignore when a group of Redditors “held the line” against the Wall Street brokers on companies with decrepit business models like GameStop Corp.
As a millennial, I find the facts hard to debate: a lot of people I know are getting into stocks. And sure, that’s just one of the things that apparently happens when you get older, like back pain and watching golf (shudder). But the rate of change has been jarring, to say the least.
Here are the folks my friends and acquaintances have turned into, more or less overnight.
Years of trying to goad others into bad fantasy sports trades has lent this person the dogged determination and incessant greasiness that are essential to playing the stock market.
They’re still completely and totally infatuated with getting in on the next unknown prospect, but instead of that being Nikita Kucherov or James Robinson, it’s a Manitoba biotech company that’s very close to having a new COVID test approved by Health Canada.
The Obsessive finds it tough (or meaningless) to talk about anything else and is now a self-proclaimed master of financial analysis after watching four YouTube videos.
This friend has likely spent some time in the U.S.—either way, they’ve posted more than one Bernie meme on Instagram in the past year—and is hopelessly defiant against the Wall Street fat cats.
“Hold the line!” is the new “Occupy!” for them, as they rage against the system and champion universal basic income the same way they talk about coconut water—as if it’s absolutely essential.
They also don’t know the names of any provincial cabinet ministers.
This friend has always been very good with money. They have a ton of it, too, and they’re not going to part with that hard-earned cash easily.
That’s why they now have thousands tied up in Air Canada, waiting patiently until the pandemic subsides and it soars upward again (yes, they’ve made that joke more than a few times).
At least until they make a down payment on an apartment and are forced to sell most of their stock at a minuscule profit. A penny saved, right?
The only time this person has ever taken a vested interest in the House of Commons has been in the past few months, as the federal government keeps delaying a bill that would legalize single-event sports betting.
If the law passes, the Bro argues, Canadian gambling outfits will scramble to capitalize on it, opening up sports betting to the public in new ways.
In any case, it’s been objectively hilarious watching them wax poetic about C-SPAN and their newfound respect for Charlie Angus.
Just on the outside of the circle, the Passive One throws a few bucks at stocks that their friends have said will blow up massively. But they always get in a tad late and pay more than their pals did.
Plus, those $10 charges per transaction from the bank are getting a little hefty, given that they’re not dropping hundreds on high-volume stocks like Apple.
In the words of fake Mark Zuckerberg, “You’re gonna get left behind.” Hey, least you won’t have to watch golf.