In my opinion, that’s not investing, but speculation. Playing roulette isn’t investing either, even if you play it with the aim of profit. If you don’t familiarize yourself with the instrument you’re buying at all, the purchase decision is just as valid as placing a bet on the red sector in roulette; you either win or lose. However, buying a financial instrument usually has a longer duration and its price can fluctuate.
Of course, it can happen like in roulette, where you lose everything you put in. @bar1’s example above: by getting into these SPACs early when the initial hype starts to build (or buying on a good dip), what is the probability that you lose more than the difference between the purchase price and ~$10? 
It’s certainly not safe, and you could get burned badly, but I wouldn’t compare it to roulette.
If one wants to be really cynical, the entire stock market fits that description. You never know if a virus will come and bankrupt the whole world. Or if you’ve put all your savings into Sampo and the stock drops from 42 euros to 22 euros.
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Looks like the Robinhood gang isn’t scared of small dips in the market (this is already +1000% in a month), or could there actually be something big coming with tomorrow’s earnings release? Too bad I didn’t buy a small pile yesterday when I saw it hovering around $1.6, gathering momentum.
Now people clearly started to get nervous when the stock started to seesaw constantly between 2.95 - 3.15 USD. It always rises to 3.15 USD and then drops to 2.95. And then rises again 
So people are clearly selling their purchases at a nice percentage.
I myself am waiting for tomorrow’s news at least. It could very well rise up to 5 USD if there’s some explosive stuff.
It’s pretty wild, high volumes. I managed to grab IZEA for 1.82 USD yesterday, and it goes on sale tomorrow. We’ll see if I can react, I don’t dare to hold these for long.
You should put INUVO INC. on your watch list. At least Zacks.com and other places have been talking about it being a potential rising “star,” we’ll see if it becomes the next rocket. Yesterday, it was around +50%, today it’s in the red again. I’m trying these with a small amount and we’ll see what happens.
Luckily I dumped these casino stocks yesterday, Plug and Nikola. I didn’t even put money into Genius to try my luck
I’ve had that one at 3 dollars since yesterday. It’s the product of a SPAC merger a couple of months ago, which then dropped significantly and bottomed out around 1.5 dollars. That one actually seemed like a fairly reasonable company with a working product and has already risen with even smaller volume.
That’s probably the same thing as with Hunter Group, for example, meaning there are 3 official employees.
So, that subsidiary Computex alone has about 200 people.
Edit: here’s more info and links: https://www.reddit.com/r/SPACs/comments/gz1bl9/avct_avctw_is_under_the_radar/
Edit2: There was already an answer below, so those 3 only include the bigwigs from SPAC
SPAC whose merger with https://computex.net went through in April. It’s been fun to trade this for two days now; today, a more modest 20% was enough, and I exited because VIX started to rocket, and you never know what might happen during the day.
I also put a couple of euros into Inuvo, and the day ended with +1% at least 
But the real deal is more the IntentKey contract, after which the stock could rise to 1.2 - 1.5 USD, which would give me an +84% profit
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Amen. It bothers the old fossils when others make in 2 years what they make in 20. Then you hear these “it’s gambling” or “badly invested.” It would bother me too to faff around with some funds, or invest in stocks with average annual returns of less than 10%, or at least in that case, a minimal part of one’s time should be spent on it.
Having a background as a professional poker player, it’s always amused me how a large part of people seem so shocked if an investment involves risk. The most important thing is to make decisions with a positive expected value and not risk too much at once. When there are enough repetitions and one is right often enough, money is made in the long run, regardless of how individual situations (or investments) fluctuate. I find poker and investing (or as I call it, “playing the stock market”) very similar in this sense. Fundamentally, nothing else matters but making money, and one doesn’t have to follow some “old school” rules. No risk, no gain. And when one recognizes the risks and accepts that loss is also possible, there shouldn’t be any problem with a risky investment either. People are different, and some, for some reason, settle for a bit more mediocre in everything. I don’t get anything out of a gray life or a steadily low portfolio return curve.
P.S. Good thread. 
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It’s puzzling why people seek quick profits from investments.
It’s considerably easier to seek quick profits in sports betting.
On the other hand, this requires considerable expertise in the subject.
What a silly post. Nobody is annoyed even if you make a hundred billion a day.
Here, we’re trying to advise beginners so that their investing hobby doesn’t end with the first crash when they lose everything.
Good traders can make huge returns regardless of the market, but there are only a few good traders. Many imagine themselves to be good after 2-3 initial successes, but in the long run, they lose.
I belong to the category of risk investors; no funds, large stock allocation, quick to leverage, I use leveraged products. But once the pot is big enough, 90% of it goes into boring dividend payers.
You’ll understand all this once you’ve invested for a while.
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These speculative stocks are interesting in that, based on what’s written, no one seems to be losing money on them. All the posts follow the template of “I bought at this price and sold with an 80% profit.”
One thing that puzzles me is whether small investors are being taken for a ride. Take Hertz stock, for example. Its normal daily trading volume before COVID and everything going to hell was about 2 million shares. At the beginning of the hype phase, the stock was pumped up over 200% in two days with daily volumes of 400 million and 130 million, after which it drifted down by -40% for several days with a more modest volume of around 40 million. After that, trading volumes exploded again. And there’s no point talking about a 20-year investment horizon with this. Pump & dump?
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In that bolded part, you accurately defined “investing” in hype stocks as a game. I personally see investing as buying a business and its future. Yes, I sometimes play with stocks myself, but I don’t even try to lie to myself that it’s investing then.
In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong or condemnable about playing with stocks and derivatives and making money that way; I just don’t think it’s investing.
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Bloomberg reports on Hertz’s plans. The idea, as I understand it, is to offer Robinhood users hundreds of millions of shares wrapped in bankruptcy papers. Apparently, to prevent it from being a pure fraud, the instructions remind that these papers may not be worth a penny. And the lawyers, of course, have requested an urgent hearing on the matter, because Hertz knows that this bubble will burst.
I haven’t followed exactly how deep Hertz is in bankruptcy (is the game completely lost yet?), but apparently they are at least already auctioning off their cars and trying to pay their creditors to the best of their ability. Would these quick profits from stock sales go to the creditors or to enrich the management’s exit?
Hertz Proposes $1 Billion Stock Sale to Capitalize on Odd Rally
Hertz said it would warn any potential buyers “the common stock could ultimately be worthless.”
Lawyers asked for an emergency ruling “given the volatile state of trading in Hertz’s stock.”
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This would turn into a scam if the goal is anything other than trying to pay off debts with this money enough to keep the place afloat without wiping out the current shareholders’ ownership. It’s then a completely different matter whether it’s worth getting into such a desperate move on these terms. An interesting bet, in any case. In the same way it’s interesting to watch a slow-motion film of a car crash… 
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FMCI merger → Tattooed Chef
Growth potential could be found, as it’s sold at Walmart, Costco, and Sam’s
What do you think about this?