Dear Carrie: My boyfriend is on his phone all the time trading stocks. Sometimes, he makes a lot of money quickly, and other times, he gets upset because he loses. Overall, though, he says it’s fun and that I should invest, too (right now, all of my money is in savings). To me, it all feels like gambling and scares me. Am I missing something?—A Reader
Dear Reader: I can’t say for sure what your boyfriend is doing, but I think you’re onto something important, with the recent GameStop episode being the latest and most extreme example of stock speculating gone awry. Online tools have made it very easy to trade stocks with a simple click, often at no cost. Although this is convenient, it also allows people to buy and sell stocks without carefully thinking through their decisions. And therein lies the potential problem—and the distinction I make between sound investing and wild speculating (or as you say, “gambling”).
