Who is this man you might ask? And furthermore, why am I writing about this man?
The answer to the later question is that this man is an example of why you should be trading CFDs. In the early 1930s, while the rest of the world population were living out of cardboard boxes and throwing themselves out of windows; this man had sold all his stocks prior to the 29' crash, and was busy shorting stock contracts and making oodles of cash during the plunge. Growing up as the son of a small business owner in Massachusetts, this man would become at age 25, the youngest President of a Bank in the US. After continuing in his bank career for a few years, he then launched out on his own, buying and selling companies from a small room at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Becoming one of the wealthiest people in the US at the time, he sold all his (long) stock positions prior to the crash, and profitability traded the market as it went down. His greatest accomplishment though, was that he was the patriarch of one of the 20th centuries most influential families i.e. the Kennedy's. This man is Joseph Kennedy.
There will be many readers who will now be asking; but I can't be Joseph Kennedy? The truth though, is that Joseph was originally just a normal guy, from a family like you or me. But because of what he did; by merging himself into high society, by working smartly and making money, and by pioneering a political dynasty, he single handedly made his family name one which we all know. How did he do this? He did it by acting smart. He did it by thinking outside the box. But most of all, he did it by using creative financial techniques. In fact, because of his wealth, he twice made the US President. In 1930 he helped to finance Franklin Roosevelt's campaign and get him over the line. And in 1960 he of course helped to finance the campaign of his own son, JFK.
While Joe Kennedy didn't make all of his money from picking the financial crash and short selling stocks during the plunge, he did make an enormous portion of it this way. He was involved in many different ventures; like Real Estate, Film, Liquor and Stock Trading. There is a big argument to be made that the entirety of his fortune was made by impeccable market timing. The cash he made with Real Estate, Film and Liquor; was all made during the Roaring 20s. This was a period when people spent freely, and the US was a place of rampant consumerism. While it is true that many goods (and investments) were purchased on credit, at the time any worry about that was not a concern to the ordinary person. To Joe Kennedy though, that was a concern, and that concern enabled him to get out at exactly the right time.
The way that he shorted the market was that he borrowed money against his broker. In effect, his broker took the other side of the trade, entering into a contract which said that the broker would pay him if the stock moved down. After making many millions of dollars, Joe was set for life, and furthermore, he was set to lead his family to the top of American politics. Joe Kennedy was someone who achieved everything he wanted in life, and the bottom line is that he enabled himself to do so by being creative.
The best thing about CFDs or Contracts-for-difference is that they enable anybody to utilize creative financial instruments. These instruments mean that people can always be the masters of their own destiny. As long as people are willing to put in the work, just as Joe Kennedy did in the small room of the Waldorf-Astoria, they can create great future's for themselves and their families. The modern day equivalent of Joe Kennedy is depicted in the movie 'The Big Short'. In 2005, while Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan was assuring all American people about the strength of housing, a few outsiders saw that a crash was coming. The first of them to spot the trouble, a 29-year old bloke in California with one-eye called Michael Burry, saw that the number of defaults on Mortgages around the country was increasing rapidly. And soon enough, once the defaults reached beyond a certain point, the housing market would crumble. Working with various Investment Banks, he created an innovative financial instrument that would capitalize when the housing bubble burst. And sure enough when it burst, he made a tone of money.
The Burry example, perhaps more than Kennedy, demonstrates that products like CFDs give all of us the opportunity to create great future's for ourselves. So my offer to you is only to give yourself the opportunity of a promising future, nothing more, nothing less.