The observe discovered on his pc by his dad and mom on June 12, 2020, requested a easy query. “How was a 20 12 months outdated with no revenue in a position to get assigned virtually one million {dollars} price of leverage?” The tragic message was written by Alexander E. Kearns, a 20-year-old scholar on the College of Nebraska, residence from school and residing along with his dad and mom in Naperville, Illinois. Earlier that day, Kearns took his personal life. Forbes stories:
Like so many others, Kearns took up inventory investing in the course of the pandemic, signing up with Millennial-focused brokerage agency Robinhood, which affords commission-free buying and selling, a enjoyable and easy-to-use cell app and even awards new clients free shares of inventory. Through the first quarter of 2020, Robinhood added a report 3 million new accounts to its platform. Because the Covid-19 inventory market swung wildly, Kearns had begun experimenting, buying and selling choices. His last observe, full of anger towards Robinhood, says that he had “no clue” what he was doing.
The truth is, a screenshot from Kearns’ cell phone reveals that whereas his account had a detrimental $730,165 money stability displayed in crimson, it might not have represented uncollateralized indebtedness in any respect, however moderately his non permanent stability till the shares underlying his assigned choices really settled into his account.
Kearns apparently fell into despair late Thursday night time after his Robinhood account, which appeared to have $16,000 in it but additionally confirmed a money stability of detrimental $730,165. In his last observe, seen by Forbes, Kearns insisted that he by no means approved margin buying and selling and was shocked to seek out his small account might rack up such an obvious loss.