Investment loss, market and interest-rate moves, currency and inflation, falling income, unemployment and dismissal, rising debt, damaged credit, failure of a bank, insurer or landlord, falling property prices, tax, pension and insurance risk.
European regulators found 74-89% of retail CFD accounts losing money; India found over 91% of derivatives traders losing. What the regulatory records and trade-level research show about how leverage, expiry and spreads take money from retail traders – including the study arguing the losses are overstated.
Only 42.6% of 25,967 US stocks beat Treasury bills over their lifetime, and the most common outcome was a total loss. What the research on individual investors, day traders and active funds shows about how money is actually lost in the stock market.
While you are saving, only the average return matters. The moment you start withdrawing, the order matters enormously – and a bad first decade does permanent damage. Where the 4% rule came from, what Morningstar puts the number at now, and why planning to average life expectancy is a coin flip.
Most homeowners policies exclude flood entirely — and 29% of US flood claims came from outside the designated high-risk zones, where nobody is told they need it. The gaps that show up at claim time, and the two-hour job that fixes most of them.
