'This Is Not Financial Advice': The movie charting the highs and lows of online investing

Imagine scraping together all the cash you can get your hands on - your savings, money from things you can sell, credit card cash advances, loans from banks or friends - and betting the whole lot on a single investment. And then imagine sitting in your stark one-room apartment and watching a computer screen as those few thousand dollars turn into millions.

That's the gripping story at the centre of a documentary, 'This Is Not Financial Advice,' in which four very different investors try to make sense of—and money out of—the flourishing world of online markets. In the film, Glauber Contessoto, aka Pro, aka The Dogecoin Millionaire, watches his investment soar and then crash as he urges his online followers to keep faith in the cryptocurrency he has staked his fortune on.

"For many reasons that we'll get into, Glauber holds on to this investment, rides it up to 2 million, then 2 million to 3 million, still refusing to sell," movie director Chris Temple tells the Forum's Radio Davos podcast.

"And the next thing you know, the market begins to turn around. That happens in all markets, but especially in a very volatile market like the cryptocurrency market, these can rise and fall in a single day.

"He loses $1 million in an hour on a Dogecoin price fluctuation."

Temple has made his movie available for schools around the US to use to teach financial literacy, engaging students with four very human stories about people's different approaches to money.

"I spent the last three years interviewing financial experts, academics, psychologists, wealth advisors, to synthesise all of this information into what we hope is a very engaging film. And the way we did it was instead of having talking heads explain stuff to you through the whole film, we focus on four individuals and their relationships to money.

"So they all come from different walks of life, have different risk profiles, as we all do. And I hope each viewer can connect to different parts of each one of their stories."

As we learn in the podcast, cryptocurrency is the most common investment for young adults in the US although evidence suggests many people might not be aware of the risks of these assets that can fluctuate wildly.

Research by the World Economic Forum's Centre for Financial and Monetary Services shows that more people feel they understand the risks of crypto better than the risks of bonds - loans to a company or government that guarantee to pay a certain return.

"Our hypothesis is this familiarity point [from] people hearing about crypto," Meagan Andrews, the Forum's Lead, Capital Market Initiatives, tells Radio Davos.

"The role of social media, it plays a big role there too, help makes people feel like they understand a product more. I think this familiarity with that with the asset plays a big role."

Both Andrews and Temple are enthusiastic about the benefits of individual investing, often through the use of brokerage apps or other mobile and desktop accessible platforms, as a way to democratise financial markets and help people manage their money. However, they want people to be aware of the pitfalls.

"In the US here, 90% of stocks are owned by 10% of Americans. It's a fundamental problem," Temple says.

"And we need to welcome in more and more people from diverse audiences to gain access to financial markets and hopefully provide them a ladder, not just a trampoline, which is how people are looking at some of these crypto investments."

Listen to the podcast on any app, via this link https://pod.link/1504682164.

Apps, bots and 'finfluencers': how to navigate the changing world of investing

Financial inclusion - how increased access to banking is lifting people out of poverty

YouTube: - https://www.youtube.com/@wef/podcasts

Radio Davos - subscribe: https://pod.link/1504682164

Meet the Leader - subscribe: https://pod.link/1534915560

Agenda Dialogues - subscribe: https://pod.link/1574956552

Join the World Economic Forum Podcast Club: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wefpodcastclub