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That was what I thought, that unless these people are buying and selling within a few minutes a lot of them are going to lose everything.

Not everything. Just everything they chose to invest. The hedge funds can lose everything. Everything they “invested” plus the loans they had to gather to short it. From what I understand, if you buy the “normal” way with $1000, your max loss is $1000. You start betting on losers by shorting (which the average Joe can’t do) or playing commodities, your $1000 can lose you $1,000,000.

My dad did commodities for a while and said it was too scary because you were risking more than what you put in.

So a bunch of folks can get together and kick $50 into a stock, willing to lose $50, and drive a hedge fund into oblivion.

At least that’s how I understand it.