Have you tried to open an options trading account? There are usually multiple levels of authorization and LOTS of e-paperwork to fill out explaining your age, financial situation, and financial education.
Think Alex Kearns, the 20 year old RobinHood trader who was trading options, and said in his suicide note that he didn't know what he was doing, was fully vetted?
Options are unbelievably complex. 99.9% of traders don't even know what Black Scholes is and can't read financials. They're exotic instruments used as a hedging strategy against black swan events as part of a much larger portfolio, and the hedging strategy is designed to lose continuously for a decade if needed.
It's become a casino that lets kids make cheap short term bets against a stock making big moves, for a price far lower than the underlying asset.
But the trouble with options is this: With stock you're betting on one thing: Stock goes up. That's it. With options you have to predict direction, timing, magnitude, and a wrong bet is guaranteed to lose 100% of your investment immediately on expiry. No riding it out.
We've had a huge bull market. When the market turns, and it always does, and the suicides start, and the stories of ruined families emerge, then the post-mortem will begin and we'll all heal together and, in time, we'll forget about the victims, as we always do. But their lives will remain in ruin. And the predatory cycle will repeat. As it always has.
That said, when do 20 year olds have agency but should still be infantalized? I’m good with shades of gray, but the HNaleriat seems filled with absolutists.
Not to mention that in the current climate, limiting access to these markets would be interpreted as some conspiracy by the elite hedge funds or something. Look at how many call to remove qualifications to be come qualified investors.
Robin Hood grants access to option trading to just about anyone and if the client fails and rides himself into deep sh*t, they just throw up their hands and claim "personal accountability", in the end meaning that the social system in some way has to bail out the person so that Robin Hood doesn't suffer any significant losses.
That doesn't seem fair.