The rise of amateur day traders
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2021
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When shares in the apparently declining games company Gamestop soared almost 2000% in less than a month, the world’s attention was drawn to an army of amateur investors on new mobile trading platforms such as Robinhood. Investment author Ann Logue breaks down what makes these amateur traders different from regular day traders, and we’ll hear from one such amateur on the ups and downs of playing the market. Professional investor Bill Brewster speaks about what responsibilities the new investing apps have in making sure their users are informed both about the risks and how the apps actually work, and Barbara Roper of the Consumer Federation of America suggests where regulation can play a part. We’ll also hear from day trader and YouTuber HumbledTrader, who cautions people from getting into the game without doing their own research.
Producer: Marie Keyworth.
(Image credit: Getty Images.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. I'm Sasha Twining. Coming up, we attempt to go inside the mind of an amateur share trader, making deals with little or no market experience. |
| 0:13.7 | I'm hoping that I'm going to be able to get a good return. Those spikes are coming. The payday is coming, so I keep telling myself. But yeah, I mean, |
| 0:21.5 | I'm definitely done, just for my mental health. Over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, |
| 0:26.2 | a whole new generation of traders have started trying to make money for themselves on the |
| 0:30.4 | financial markets, using online trading platforms, phone-based apps, and by following trends |
| 0:36.7 | on chat forums. The price hike on shares in |
| 0:39.6 | the US company GameStop show the impact they can make. And while it's easier than ever to start, |
| 0:45.5 | what do the experts say? I had two people contact me saying that their teenage children wanted to |
| 0:53.0 | take up trading and what would I tell them? |
| 0:55.6 | And I was like, uh-oh. |
| 0:56.8 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:02.5 | For me, it started as, you know, just a cheeky punt. |
| 1:07.6 | It seemed like a socially distanced way of being an activist. That's Andy. He lives |
| 1:15.3 | in the UK. He's in his late 20s and he downloaded a trading app to his phone after following the |
| 1:21.6 | hype generated by the GameStop shares saga. He's never dealt in shares before and was inspired |
| 1:27.2 | to get involved after reading |
| 1:28.7 | an online chat forum. I asked him how he picked his trading platform app. For me, it was asking |
| 1:36.1 | around a few friends who were already trading. So I went for a cash app, Revolute, a cash trading |
| 1:42.6 | app. And they also offer stock trading on the side. |
| 1:47.0 | Have you done anything like this before? Have you ever done share trading before? Have you |
| 1:51.2 | ever looked at the stock market before? Not particularly. I remember being interested in the |
| 1:57.8 | Bitcoin craze a little while ago. But no, I've never once looked at |
... |
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