No such thing as a sure thing

In Wall Street (1987, directed by Oliver Stone), the young broker Bud Fox goes up to his older colleague Lou Mannheim, played by Hal Holbrook, and tells him he has a sure thing. Lou answers that there is no such thing except death and taxes, then adds: “Remember there are no shortcuts, son. Quick buck artists come and go with every bull market, but the steady players make it through the bear market.” Bud brushes the advice aside, and the rest of the film makes it fairly clear where his shortcuts lead.

These days the tip rarely comes from someone on a trading floor. It turns up from a colleague by the coffee machine, in a forum thread, or in an ad that appears in your feed on exactly the evening you were already restless about money. It usually sounds urgent. In its guidance on investment tips on social media, BaFin, Germany’s financial regulator, tells people not to let anyone put them under pressure, to gather information from several sources and to assess each tip until they fully understand the opportunities and risks. It is sober advice, and it lands remarkably close to Lou’s line.

Staying steady mostly means keeping an order that no tip gets to jump: first understand where you stand, including whether there is a cash buffer for the unexpected, then protect what would be hard to replace, above all your income, then build step by step and review things calmly from time to time. With that order in mind, the next breathless message becomes something you can hold up against your own plan at your own pace. The four steps are set out in My approach, and for the long haul the private retirement page gives a calm overview.

Merve is 34 and plans delivery routes for a haulage firm in Bremen. Over lunch, her colleague Timo slides his phone across the table. On the screen is a forum post full of exclamation marks about a fund that is apparently going through the roof, with an ad making the same promise right underneath. “I’ve been in for three weeks,” Timo says. “If you want in, now’s the time.”

Merve laughs it off, but the line sticks. That evening she sits on the sofa with her banking app open. The savings account that is meant to be her buffer still hasn’t recovered from the washing machine that gave up in the summer. And the question of how she would get by if she couldn’t work for a long stretch has been sitting on her list since spring. She looks the fund up anyway and reads three posts, every one of them thrilled and none explaining what happens when things go the other way.

To take her mind off it she opens her email and comes across the folder she set up in spring for stock-market newsletters. Fourteen unread messages are waiting there, each offering “a chance you can’t afford to miss”. Merve selects the lot, deletes them and clicks “unsubscribe” for every sender. She renames the empty folder “Buffer first, then cover”. Timo doesn’t hear back from her that night.