Armando Vidal thought he’d won just $200 on a scratch-off ticket until the store manager asked him, “What are you going to do with a million dollars?”
Vidal, who’d been homeless since 2008, bought a $5 Triple Red 777 ticket at Sandy’s Deli & Liquor in San Luis Obispo expecting nothing special, according to a press release from the California Lottery. When Wilson Samaan, the store manager, scanned the ticket and casually dropped the million-dollar question, Vidal’s world flipped upside down.
Sometimes the biggest wins come when you’re not even looking for them, a lesson that applies as much to lottery tickets as it does to the stock market.
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Vidal became homeless after an injury cost him his job in 2008. For years, he was a regular at Sandy’s, perhaps buying tickets and hoping for small wins to get by. That $5 scratch-off was supposed to be pocket change, maybe enough for a meal or two. Instead, it became his ticket out of homelessness.
Three months later, Vidal had his plan figured out: secure permanent housing, get a real bed and a couple of dogs, and invest the rest so his money kept growing.
Vidal’s story isn’t just heartwarming, it could stand as a metaphor for how retail traders often stumble into life-changing gains without realizing it.
Retail investing has exploded, with nearly 40% of 25-year-olds now holding investment accounts compared to just 6% in 2015. These aren’t Wall Street pros, they’re regular people making small bets that sometimes pay off big.
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The problem? Many retail investors are like Vidal thinking he won $200. They hit a winner but don’t recognize the full scale of what they’ve got.
Retail traders often leave money on the table because they don’t stick around for the full ride. They’ll sell a stock after a 20% gain, not realizing it was heading for 200%.
It’s the investment equivalent of thinking your lottery ticket won $200 when it actually hit the jackpot.
Take the “post-earnings drift” phenomenon. Stocks with positive earnings surprises can keep climbing for weeks, but many retail investors buy late or sell early, missing the real move.
The Nasdaq has been climbing, yet plenty of small investors captured only a fraction of those gains because they jumped in late or bailed too early.
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