Indulgence in food, drink, sex, and gambling: The same trap of desire as stock trading

Indulgence in food, drink, sex, and gambling is classified as sinful because it stems from uncontrolled primal desires, deviating from rational restraint, and follows the same logic of "pleasure addiction—loss of boundaries—retribution." This is fundamentally the same as the majority of retail investors' losses in stock trading, where desire dominates decision-making.

Overindulgence in food and drink is the unrestrained pursuit of appetite, from satiety to gluttony and extravagance, breaking the boundaries of health and frugality. Prostitution is the loss of control over lust, violating ethics and hiding risks, trading short-term pleasure for long-term reputation and health. Gambling is driven by the urge to gamble, indulging in the illusion of small bets for big wins, ignoring probability laws, and ultimately losing wealth and sanity. The commonality among these four is that desire overrides rationality, pursuing instant gratification while ignoring potential costs, and forming addictive dependencies that lead people to gradually abandon their principles and fall into a vicious cycle.

This logic of desire is vividly reflected in stock trading. The root cause of most retail investors' losses is their failure to restrain their desires. Stock trading should be a rational asset allocation activity, but it is often hijacked by human desires, turning into "financial gambling." First, greed dominates, such as chasing short-term windfalls, ignoring high valuations and heavily buying into rising stocks—like a glutton ignoring stomach discomfort, always wanting to earn more and faster, only to be harvested by market makers. Second, wishful thinking takes over, like gambling on stock movements based on rumors rather than fundamental analysis, and refusing to cut losses after losses, digging deeper into the hole. Third, addictive behavior emerges, akin to indulging in food, drink, sex, or gambling, with frequent trading for the thrill of action, ignoring transaction costs and market rules, and becoming more desperate to recover losses, trapped in a deadly cycle of "trading—losing—more frantic trading."

More critically, both share the commonality of "continuously lowering boundaries": from moderation to excess in food and drink, from entertainment to bankruptcy in gambling, and from rational investing to reckless leverage in stock trading. Every expansion of desire increases risk tenfold. Restraining desires and upholding rationality are the keys to breaking free: moderation in food and drink, abstinence from gambling, and in stock trading, abandoning greed, anger, and delusion, strictly adhering to trading discipline, respecting market rules, and not being enslaved by instant gratification—only then can one avoid becoming a slave to desire and minimize the backlash of consequences.