Head's up. There is one swear word in this show. My parents used to say it around me,

but if you're a parent and you don't like swears, now you know.

This is Planet Money from NPR.

Alexis Harris has one of those jobs you can't really ask a lot about.

I am a IT type for the Department of Defense.

Oh no kidding. Okay, that's a cool job. So like, are you not allowed to tell us like what

you do or? That is exactly what it means.

But there are some ways in which her job is like anyone else's job.

She gets a little bored at work, she has some downtime, and she goes on to the internet

for her hobby, which happens to be trading stocks on an app called Robinhood.

So I like most traders, probably check my Robinhood, almost every five minutes to see what's

going on.

I'm not even going to allow to you. So, her purse went down all the way to 80 cents.

80 cents for her purse. The stock price of this iconic American rental car company was

nose diving. And Alexis pounced.

Her purse was only going to buy like a hundred dollars worth. And I'm like, I'm not going

to see as much of her, but it's her and my investment if I only put in a hundred dollars.

She thinks if I'm going to do this, let's not buy a hundred dollars worth.

Let's buy two thousand dollars worth.

So the hurts was a gamble. Yes, I will admit that. I'm not a machine tool, but I will

admit it.

It was a gamble because what Alexis knew with the entire world knew at this point was

...