What is a “Stonk”?

Lindsay Leeds
2 min readDec 9, 2021

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Internet meme explained

Ever bought a stock thinking you bought a diamond in the rough, but instead it turned out to be a bag of canine excrement?

I think of it as a cross between stock and stink. A stinky stock, thus a stonk.

To me the worst stonk is when I get a story wrong. In 2021 for me it was GBOX, Greenbox POS. That the company name had POS in the name should have been my sign! The business model seemed exciting. A blockchain based payment solution that allowed merchants to get their funds faster.

That it had POS in the name should have been my sign!

It all start going downhill went I discovered the Chairman and founder had gone bankrupt from a previous business failure. It was alleged he used partnership funds for personal gain, embezzling funds from a joint venture. Then there was the COO who came over from the legalized marijuana business, complete with a classless picture of her on the company website. There were family members of executives working for the company, and eventually a buyout of an employee owned business venture with company funds. And it seemed like a number of company customers sold marijuana or adult content.

All this drama about turned my stomach. A dream shattered. This was no diamond in the rough, but instead a bag of doggie poo.

We’ve all been there. Bought the dream and got the nightmare instead. Sometimes a stonk is as simple as buying too early or too high. Those are forgivable. But when you get the story wrong — that is what hits you in the gut. It makes you want to vomit in disgust that you were uninformed and just plain wrong.

When you own a “stonk” because you got the story wrong, sell immediately and save yourself more pain, because more pain is on the way!

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Lindsay Leeds

I am an IT guy by trade, with interests in investing and personal finance.