Sanrith Descartes
Veteran of a thousand threadban wars
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Some might recall this day in the investing thread. In the weeks before we "really" understood that the World was going to shut down the global economy over Coronachan, I chose to start dollar averaging down my XOM position instead of just riding out the paper loss or more correctly using a stop/loss. This is why it is so critical to learn from your mistakes. Anyway, By Black Monday I had tripled+ my XOM position and was in a God awful fucked position. So I finally got my head right and stopped buy and began selling covered calls to slowing begin making some money are my dead money shares. It was working the first couple of months and then on Month 3 of selling my calls I got distracted at work while setting the order and set a sell order not a sell call order. Click the mouse, and the shares were sold. About a 28% loss. The XOM fiasco is the worst trade I have made. Not the click mistake, but the actually constant chasing down the price in the face of overwhelming data telling me to cut bait. Absolutely shitty investing. Total cash loss was about 5k.
ps.. this was back when we still were paying commissions on trades too
My first ever options trade. I knew absolutely nothing about options and combined it with the beginnings of the Coronachan debacle. Again compounded by dollar cost averaging down. el-oh-el at the $320 strike BA call options. BA is still sitting around $200 two years later.
Morale of the story: Dollar cost averaging is ok... if you have a partial position and are looking to fill the position AND the fundamental reason you bought the stock hasnt changed and you are buying on a technical support level. Oh, and dont trade options until you know what the fuck you are doing.
ps.. this was back when we still were paying commissions on trades too
My first ever options trade. I knew absolutely nothing about options and combined it with the beginnings of the Coronachan debacle. Again compounded by dollar cost averaging down. el-oh-el at the $320 strike BA call options. BA is still sitting around $200 two years later.
Morale of the story: Dollar cost averaging is ok... if you have a partial position and are looking to fill the position AND the fundamental reason you bought the stock hasnt changed and you are buying on a technical support level. Oh, and dont trade options until you know what the fuck you are doing.
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