He should have been concentrating on the student he was tutoring in physics — a job he did during his free time while enrolled in a post-baccalaureate pre-med program — but Omar’s eyes kept darting back to the Robinhood app open on his phone.
Omar had invested $6,000 in Beyond Meat options; in the days before that tutoring session he’d seen the value of that investment rocket up to almost $15,000. What he was witnessing now, though, felt like torture.
Down $2,000.
Down $3,000.
By lunchtime, the stock options Omar had bought were down around $7,000 from their peak.
“It was diamond hands,” said Omar, using the site’s term for holding an option even after incurring extreme losses or gains. “It was like, all or nothing.”
Within two days Omar had lost not only…
