I've encountered this type of friend again, who believes ordinary people shouldn't engage in financial management and investment, and that entering the market should be about speculation, about finding ways to get rich quick. It might be because the principal isn't large enough; if making money is too slow, spending time on research isn't worth it.

My view is completely the opposite. I genuinely believe ordinary people should prioritize protecting their principal above all else. People with a large enough principal can afford to ignore a floating loss of 20 million, or even 200-300 million. An ordinary person who loses 200,000 investing in Meituan might end up having to join Meituan themselves.

If you decide the path of speculation is more suitable for you, the first thing to learn is controlling losses, not maximizing returns. Of course, this is also contrary to the pursuit of getting rich quick.

If you're truly single-mindedly focused on getting rich quick, I think the most suitable method for ordinary people is to directly and regularly invest a fixed amount in buying out-of-the-money options like lottery tickets. For example, doing it 54 times a year, $50 each time, costing 10,000-20,000 HKD per year. One 100x return aims to double your money, two such wins are a huge gain, and doing it 10 times over 3 years could buy a car or fund a nice family vacation. Controlling losses, only losing what you can afford to lose, is more important than anything. Of course, even this won't help you achieve class mobility.

If you want to achieve class mobility through the stock market, at least I've tried achieving ultra-high returns in my experimental portfolio. I know a hundredfold return isn't difficult, but I also know that another hundredfold after the first can destroy many people.

So, stop telling me that ordinary people are only suited for speculation, not for investment, value investing, or financial management—that's nonsense. Ordinary people should protect their principal. Only after protecting their principal, under the premise that losses are absolutely controllable, can we talk about other things. Your margin for error is smaller than others', so why must your ambition be bigger than others'? Is it because the cost of restarting this life is low?