Series

Healthy Investing in the Age of Crypto, Meme Stocks, and Financial Crises

Healthy Investing in the Age of Crypto, Meme Stocks, and Financial Crises is intended to start a conversation about healthy investing given some of the major financial events of the last two decades. The Big Short tells the story of the 2007-2009 Great Recession in the US caused by the subprime mortgage crisis. Many across the country lost their houses and considerable value in their investments while a select few became rich because they anticipated the crisis and bet against the mortgage-backed securities. Dumb Money portrays the GameStop short squeeze in early 2021, where an online following of the GME stock pitted retail investors against investment firms. The stock value skyrocketed which left firms with huge losses and some casual investors with immense wealth amongst a flurry of media attention and pressure on investment platforms to regulate against this sort of volatility. Finally, This is Not Financial Advice is a documentary that follows a number of people who invested in the cryptocurrency Dogecoin. While originally a joke, this digital currency attained considerable value with social media presence including Elon Musk.

It’s easy to follow these stories and hope to be able to make millions of dollars in the span of months but it’s not realistic for most of us. More importantly, leveraging such a large percentage of one’s financial means in one investment is very risky and often will end up with someone losing a life-changing amount of money. We want to help people who are looking to start investing to be able to develop healthy investing habits that will serve them in attaining their financial goals by providing the space for education, discussion and questions, and then the opportunity to speak with a financial counselor for free to help the community attain those goals. This partnership is supported through IU Cinema’s Creative Collaborations program.

Curated by the Office of Financial Wellness and Education, with support from IU Cinema.