Anyone else hear the craziest things while at work?
In early 2009, a colleague of mine called geographyteacher, told me he'd "figured out the stock market." He has spent the last 7 years trying to time the market and feels he has done quite well for himself. He does not know how to compare an annual return to a holding period return to a risk-adjusted return or how to benchmark his progress. He just knows that "this guy in Omaha" was very successful at it.
Over the years of doing this, and telling everyone how good he is at it, he has asked me several questions that reveal his lack of knowledge. For example, he didn't know what an SDRSP was and last week he asked me how to get all of his money out of his RRSP without paying any tax. (Not a first time homebuyer or a student.) The frustrating part is that when I answer these questions and he learns something new, he still never questions whether he is, in fact, an expert or if maybe, just maybe, there's other stuff he doesn't know too.
So now he tells me that he has started taking money from other people and trading for them. Since he’s not an investment bank, people are just giving him money which he deposits into his own brokerage accounts to trade with. I don’t think he realizes he will have to declare the investment income himself. (Alternatively, this might be why he asked me how to get money out of an RRSP, but if that’s true, he’s used up his contribution room for other people.)
I’ve decided I’m not going to say anything to him but I would intervene if I found out he was giving advice (or taking money from) any of our mutual colleagues.