When I was under 18, at a time when purchase orders were delivered directly to the investment brokerage's trading desk, I already frequented the "day traders" room.

I always asked myself: how to invest the little money I had and get the quickest return possible? Follow me in this article to find out if the experience gained over time has brought any wisdom that could be useful in this matter.

General considerations

First, what I write here is not an investment recommendation. Because what we are going to do here cannot be considered an investment, but rather speculation. Knowing how to distinguish investments from speculation is essential in our investing career.

Second, I'm assuming that R$100.00 is not all the capital you have available, so this amount can be risky and eventually lost in its entirety without any worries.

Third, don't think that if it works with R$100.00 it will work with R$100 thousand reais. It doesn't work like that, given technical elements such as liquidity , which translates into difficulties in finding a buyer for what we want to sell.

What are the investments with the biggest price fluctuation within a day?

Financial investments with greater daily volatility, and therefore that can bring greater gains/losses in a single day, generally include:

• Shares of small companies (Small Cap): Shares of companies with smaller market capitalization tend to have greater volatility due to lower liquidity and sensitivity to changes in the economic environment.
• Options: Options can have significant volatility due to their sensitivity to movements in the underlying market, especially out-of-the-money options with close expiries.
• Futures: Futures contracts are known for their volatility due to the leverage involved and the nature of futures markets, which are often affected by macroeconomic and geopolitical factors.
• Cryptocurrencies: Digital assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies are notorious for their substantial daily volatility. Factors such as speculation, adoption, regulation and unexpected events can cause large price swings in a short period of time.
• Stocks of biotechnology and emerging technology companies: Companies in these industries often have significant price movements due to news about product developments, regulatory approvals, competition and other industry-specific events.
• Leveraged and Inverse ETFs: These exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are designed to provide returns that are a multiple or the inverse of the daily return of a specific index. They generally have higher volatility than traditional ETFs due to leverage.

How much can I lose of my R$100 invested?

You could lose the entire amount and unfortunately, depending on the investment you speculate, your R$100 could even lose more than you invested. This occurs because some financial products work leveraged, that is, they use part of the investor's money and another part they borrow from the broker. If it goes right, the gains are amplified , but if it goes wrong you could walk away with your R$100.00 and still owe the house.

How much can I earn from my R$100?

Let's imagine that you chose to operate options, a choice that many make precisely because of the large fluctuation in prices of these financial products. Knowing this, let's say you purchased Isa CETEEP share options and paid R$0.07 cents per unit at the beginning of the trading session. During the course of the day, this option had a price variation and as a result you were able to sell at R$0.20 per option. With this, you would have transformed your R$100 into R$285, a gain of R$185. In options, intraday gains and losses of this magnitude are not that uncommon.

Image 1: Large price variation in some options.

My experience with investments of R$100.00 and quick returns.

When I was a teenager, I had the habit of, on Friday afternoons after work, visiting a brokerage house that had a magnificent room, full of enthusiastic people, all attentively watching a screen covered with numbers and graphs. That was the day traders' room. Even though I didn't completely understand what was going on there, the stories of success and fortune that circulated around the place fascinated me. Furthermore, the fact that there were free snacks and tea for the regulars led me to return every Friday in the late afternoon.

My experience at that time, limited to observing and experimenting on simulators, since I was not yet old enough to open an account, revealed to me that many of those present were more likely to lose than to win. Sometimes, I noticed my "trader" friends trying to solve serious financial problems, both business and family.

It was during this period that I made a decision: I wanted to work with investments, but without being tied to a trader's screen on a sunny Friday. . Only years later did I find the answer to that question. I discovered Value Investing and the investment philosophy that aligned with me , providing me with the freedom that investments should offer to a saver's efforts. Anyway, it was looking for exactly what you are looking for: How to invest R$100 and get a quick return that today I got here. Therefore, even if you are just starting out, always seek the truth, even if it often contradicts your ambition.