Speculative trading boosted “meme stocks” and shares in many other risky companies during the COVID-19 lockdowns and helped retail investors profit tremendously before the market tanked.
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s lieutenant at Berkshire Hathaway and a veteran long-term investor, thinks this kind of speculative trading is akin to an addiction—one that it should be done away with.
“They [people] love gambling, and the trouble is, it’s like taking heroin,” Munger said in an interview with Berkshire Hathaway investment officer Todd Combs taped in April 2022 and published earlier this year. “A certain percentage of people when they start just overdo it. It’s that addictive. It’s absolutely crazy, it’s gone berserk. Civilization would have been a lot better without it.”
Munger said during the interview that the stock market attracts two types of traders: long-term investors and people wanting to “to do casino gambling.” The trouble comes when these two categories are allowed to trade together, according to the billionaire.
finance.yahoo.com/news/billionaire-investor-charlie-munger-says-210112904.html