How To Blame Other People For Your Poor Stock Selections

The other day, my wife said that I was really good at blaming other people for my problems.

“Maybe I’m crazy, but everyone has the one thing they’re good at and your one thing is blaming other people for your problems,” she said.

She may have a point. When my wife forgets to put the car keys back in the spot where we always put the car keys, I blame her. The reason I never played in the NBA is 100% my dad’s fault for not being taller and for not sending me to Catholic School with a great coaching staff because I was Jewish. The reason my toes have fungus among us is my brother’s fault because growing up he would wear my socks, get them all sweaty and disgusting, and then put them back in my drawer as if they’d never been worn. We didn’t have video surveillance back then but I know he did it.

I think my wife is onto something here. If I really am good at blaming other people, why not embrace it? Here are the reasons why a number of my losing stocks are losers thus far. What? It’s certainly not my fault.

PENN (-19%) I blame Barstool Sports’ David Portnoy for this. PENN owns 36% of Barstool and Portnoy is an idiot. He once claimed he’s a better trader than Warren Buffet. How’s that working out? I have no idea how assholes like that become millionaires but I’m absolutely willing to blame him for this 19% loss.

PINS (-42%) This is all Paypal CEO Dan Schulman’s fault. Someone spread the rumor that Paypal was gonna buy Pinterest and I totally fell for it. Two days later that rumor was quashed and now Pinterest is back to being your grandma’s visual scrapbook with poor monetization.

HOOD (-49%) I blame everyone under 25 for this one. I have a separate account for gambling and for years I’ve always kept a few thousand on hand to be able to cover my losses without my wife finding out. After 20 years of always keeping this cash cushion intact, I finally decided it was silly to keep so much in cash when the market was rising so steadily. This coincided with the Robinhood IPO. I wanted to see how Robinhood worked anyway so I opened a Robinhood account and bought shares of Robinhood at the IPO. I figured eventually, one of the bigger players (Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab) would buy Robinhood and get a huge influx of young investors. I still think it’s possible down the road but right now it’s not working out so well.

FUBO (-38%) I blame DirecTV for this. I keep getting emails, phone calls and mailers from DirecTV telling me they want me back. At some point, I may have to sign up with them again so they’ll stop sending me stuff. Plus, they’re likely taking away customers from FUBO. FUBO is a relatively new streaming service that focuses on sports and includes a gambling component? Like Robinhood, I’m sure one of the bigger players is going to buy them at some point. I just hope I can hang on.

ABNB (-12%) I blame Republicans for this one. If everyone would agree to get vaccinated, hospitalizations would be down and travel and Airbnb stays would be up.

Unbeknownst to me, August 13th is National Blame Someone Else Day. How cool is that? Next year, I’m definitely going to march in the parade.