The Loss-Pron Thread

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Sanrith Descartes

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View attachment 400180
View attachment 400181

The holdings of an incompetent dipshit (Yes this is taxable account, I contribute my % and company match to some 401k I don't even look at.)

FYI, I've read a few books to the point I basically know what I SHOULD be doing. But implementation of knowledge is alot different than just learning. To build off this, I already know my sizing is fucking absurd. The Day Trade book said not to risk anything more than 2% per trade? You (Blazin) said you only risk 0.5% on riskier positions. I know every position I take I should have an exit strategy. I know every position I take I should have an idea of where / when / how to take profit. I know about the reversion to the mean. I know to not be a fucktard with options (I haven't touched them and already educated myself on them a fair bit.)

I mean this is basically the crux of my problem. I should've put 95% of my money into an index and used that 5% for speculative / play money. But I didn't. So now I'm in a rock and a hard place. Do I accept I fucked up potentially 5-10 years of gains? Or do I work hard to right the ship? I've picked the latter and while I had a good month in January this month has kicked my ass. And a lot if it is self sabotage. I was up $400 on that OSTK short. I was up another $400 on a U short that ended up going sour. I closed other positions way too fast that would've paid out more (HOOK & OCGN.)

And the only reason I short is because of how screwed I got going long. Admittedly I need to learn how to make money long. Closing losers and making money as a bull are my two highest priorities right now. I mean fuck, if I just bought TSLA at $700 yesterday I wouldn't be whining like a bitch. Oh well.
I spent a few minutes organizing this. I cant function on what platforms give us. I throw everything into Excel. The GLG has a delisting warning if you hadnt seen it. I am not going to prognosticate on most of this on where it will recover or not. I dont know anything about many of them and I'm not going to research it. The question you have to ask is are you better off taking a bath on the stuff that is speculative/meme/penny stocks and investing what is left of those positions into something that will make money. You could spend years with dead money hoping they recover or they could recover tomorrow. I dont know the answer to that.

I will say as I have said before, don't gamble or if you do allocate a very small percentage of your money and have a really solid foundation of why you are gambling. Not because of some discord pump and dump server chat. Research the companies you think might be worth a gamble and really understand them. I can tell you near everything there is to know about SPIR and they might still go to zero tomorrow. If they do, I didnt lose because of lack of knowledge. You work real hours to make the dollars you invest. You should be working hours figuring out where to put those dollars.

edit: I didnt highlight PARA but it is a real company with real earnings and dividends. RBLX has "potential" to turn it around or be acquired down the road.

Good Luck.

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Blazin

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View attachment 400180
View attachment 400181

The holdings of an incompetent dipshit (Yes this is taxable account, I contribute my % and company match to some 401k I don't even look at.)

FYI, I've read a few books to the point I basically know what I SHOULD be doing. But implementation of knowledge is alot different than just learning. To build off this, I already know my sizing is fucking absurd. The Day Trade book said not to risk anything more than 2% per trade? You (Blazin) said you only risk 0.5% on riskier positions. I know every position I take I should have an exit strategy. I know every position I take I should have an idea of where / when / how to take profit. I know about the reversion to the mean. I know to not be a fucktard with options (I haven't touched them and already educated myself on them a fair bit.)

I mean this is basically the crux of my problem. I should've put 95% of my money into an index and used that 5% for speculative / play money. But I didn't. So now I'm in a rock and a hard place. Do I accept I fucked up potentially 5-10 years of gains? Or do I work hard to right the ship? I've picked the latter and while I had a good month in January this month has kicked my ass. And a lot if it is self sabotage. I was up $400 on that OSTK short. I was up another $400 on a U short that ended up going sour. I closed other positions way too fast that would've paid out more (HOOK & OCGN.)

And the only reason I short is because of how screwed I got going long. Admittedly I need to learn how to make money long. Closing losers and making money as a bull are my two highest priorities right now. I mean fuck, if I just bought TSLA at $700 yesterday I wouldn't be whining like a bitch. Oh well.
Man I know lots of tickers but a good chunk of yours I have no idea what they are. It does sound like you understand the past mistakes but biggest issue I see is garbage names. As you noted nothing wrong with a MTTR here or there as a very small % but I think a good chunk of those names need to be tossed and replaced with some quality. Being taxable is a good thing you can at least right off the loss against your gains for the next couple years paying no tax on it. Plus you can use $3g a year write off against regular income.

I wouldn't go down with the ship, I'd consolidate it into some better names or good profitable companies that are growing or an index. Then follow a rule that never more than a position or two at a low basis of unprofitable high Price to Sales companies that you believe in not shit you read off a reddit site or stocktwits or something. With good names when you are down you just be patient with shit the longer you hold it more likely it just goes to zero. Sanrith has great names, CRM sub $230 is a good LT hold. COuld even take a stab at FB if you are comfortable with a little risk. But at your size portfolio I'd personally recommend sticking with an ETF and get some better diversification.
 
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Blazin

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PARA entry was a little high but from a valuation perspective it's not bad if he reinvest divy for a while waiting for the markets to get a hard on for content stocks again which they will at some point.

RBLX is just so overpriced, I'd run away but I admittedly don't really follow it closely.


GLG looks like the real disaster of the bunch, just way oversized to the portfolio
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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PARA entry was a little high but from a valuation perspective it's not bad if he reinvest divy for a while waiting for the markets to get a hard on for content stocks again which they will at some point.

RBLX is just so overpriced, I'd run away but I admittedly don't really follow it closely.


GLG looks like the real disaster of the bunch, just way oversized to the portfolio
Also carrying that short position has unlimited risk potential.
 

Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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PARA entry was a little high but from a valuation perspective it's not bad if he reinvest divy for a while waiting for the markets to get a hard on for content stocks again which they will at some point.

RBLX is just so overpriced, I'd run away but I admittedly don't really follow it closely.


GLG looks like the real disaster of the bunch, just way oversized to the portfolio

Yep, garbage names aside, properly sizing will save you if even you pick a bad ticker. It only takes one bad loss to wipe out a year of gains. Here's an old saying I saw posted before. Nobody retires on a 100% gainer, but plenty go bankrupt on a -90% loss.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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I mean, all your advice is appreciated and heard. The problem is it's kind of too little too late. My friend told me "He thought I'd be good" at stocks. Well I was a fucking unmitigated disaster. If even one person reads this and decides "Whoa, maybe I shouldn't even get into the market." then that's good enough for me. I'd still have my 40k warchest instead of pure anger, fury, and a shit dick 14k.

Thanks guys.
It is so very easy to fuck shit up early on in your investing life. I remember about 30 years ago putting my entire 401k in "international funds" because they had the highest returns the previous year and never looking at it again for like 5 years. It was fucking ugly. All you can do is learn and move forward. All I can offer is to take advice from people who have zero incentive to give it. They may not be right, but at least they aren't financially motivated to give you shitty advice.
 
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karma

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I started trading early Feb 2020, and oftentimes I wonder 10+ years in the future how I am going to look at these last 2 years. A TON of money to be made, but with some of the stuff going on, a ton to be lost too. I've been lucky so far, I have a very conservative financial mentality so while I havent made a ton, I have lost even less. 2020 was a great year for a learning year, 2021 was decent (23-27% returns on 2 different accounts) but I'll admit, I have been paralyzed this year. The more I learn (thanks again guys!) the more afraid I get lol.
 

Sanrith Descartes

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I started trading early Feb 2020, and oftentimes I wonder 10+ years in the future how I am going to look at these last 2 years. A TON of money to be made, but with some of the stuff going on, a ton to be lost too. I've been lucky so far, I have a very conservative financial mentality so while I havent made a ton, I have lost even less. 2020 was a great year for a learning year, 2021 was decent (23-27% returns on 2 different accounts) but I'll admit, I have been paralyzed this year. The more I learn (thanks again guys!) the more afraid I get lol.
Everyone has their own risk profile. I discuss it with people with whom I am discussing investments. Stay inside your specific parameters. I am actually quite risk averse. Investing is really something where you shoot for your specific goals and don't measure yourself against the Joneses. That shit can fuck you up in a NY minute. Even today, my benchmark is the historic S&P returns. Its one reason I like to flip low beta industrial stocks as hedges.
 
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Fogel

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I mean, all your advice is appreciated and heard. The problem is it's kind of too little too late. My friend told me "He thought I'd be good" at stocks. Well I was a fucking unmitigated disaster. If even one person reads this and decides "Whoa, maybe I shouldn't even get into the market." then that's good enough for me. I'd still have my 40k warchest instead of pure anger, fury, and a shit dick 14k.

Thanks guys.

Its better to learn now and blow up a 40k account than try later when you're older and saved more and blow up a 500k account
 
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Tmac

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I mean, all your advice is appreciated and heard. The problem is it's kind of too little too late. My friend told me "He thought I'd be good" at stocks. Well I was a fucking unmitigated disaster. If even one person reads this and decides "Whoa, maybe I shouldn't even get into the market." then that's good enough for me. I'd still have my 40k warchest instead of pure anger, fury, and a shit dick 14k.

Thanks guys.

I'm sorry you haven't done well. I'm personally down 25% across the board.

It's not over though. The road is long. Instead of picking names, why not pick indexes? This strategy completely removes your weakness of picking bad names.
 

Fogel

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Since you seem to be your own worse enemy in your own words, you need to find an investment strategy that will protect you from yourself. One thing a few of us do is sell puts, its safer in some ways than buying the equity out right, and with the way contracts expire, there's little way to hold/sell at the wrong times. Just wait till the contract expires and collect your premium. The gains might not be as flashy, but you have to think about doing this for decades. Do you really want to worry about buying/selling stocks daily for 20+ years or just do monthly puts?
 
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karma

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The ironic thing about it is, I am also very risk adverse (took me awhile to figure this out, at first I just didn't know what I didn't know, so wasn't scared.). Now having admitted to being risk adverse, I have made most of my money wallowing in the cesspool of penny stocks. Not on my own merit, I made a few friends in one of those discords during a free trial, one of them was pretty good at DDing pennys, and we made a good chunk of money during that time. However, it left me with bags I refused to cut (a result of one of the strategies we were using).

Now in the last few months, I see something dip and I am gunshy cause I have seen how far some of these can dump lol.

Also, keep in mind, this is in reference to my trading account (the account I use and look at daily, that SOMEDAY maybe I will be a competent daytrader with???) My investment account is a different story. 90% ETFs, 5% dip buy in real names 5% junk I can gamble with in the penny markets if I find something I wanna play)
 

Jysin

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I've said here many times. No shame in using paper trades to figure some strategy out if you are going to actively trade. This profession has quite possibly the steepest learning curves and the risk is taking yourself out of the game entirely. Think or Swim (and others) have a fantastic platform for allowing you to sim trade equities as well as options.

Go learn with monopoly money vs placing your own capital at risk. Even then, the psychology and emotion of real trading cannot be replicated in a sim. Tackle one obstacle at a time. Work on some kind of trade plan first and get that nailed down. Then comes the psychological side of things. There's nothing worse than jumping in with both feet and fighting the emotions and having no clear cut game plan either.
 
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Fogel

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I watched InTheMoney channel for options and took notes. I have a fairly decent understanding of them. But given I did so poor with equities, I keep telling myself not to touch them until I show some progress. Perhaps it is time to learn covered calls, and to learn selling puts. I know from re-reading the Investing Thread this is how Blazin makes his living!

I know you're worried but in my own experience I've had better success selling puts than I have trying to buy/sell equities as well. If you do get assigned, you either dump the equity or switch to selling covered calls on it.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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While I agree with Fogel Fogel , my gut tells you me you lack some of the most basic fundamentals of investing and for that reason I would avoid options while you increase your understanding of the basic financial instruments.

I dont know your background, but if you aren't skilled at reading a company's financials, that is probably step 1. In fact, all of my reccs are going to be "go read/youtube and learn some stuff".

Once you have the ability to decipher an income statement/balance sheet/cash flows then you have a tool to "understand" what you are considering buying. These basic understandings will lead you to start doing valid comparisons. Yes company A has 2x the sales of Company B, BUT it spends 5x the expenses to achieve those extra sales.

After you have gotten the above down, the start with a very limited amount of companies to look at. Either limit it to a sector or two, of the S&P 100, Nasdaq 100 etc. You can't examine all 5000+ US companies. So you have a small (relatively) number of companies and the ability to read their financials and compare one to the other.

I can't stress this next part enough. This shit takes insane amounts of time. Seriously. If your life can't afford you the hours a day it takes to really dig into and understand the companies you want to buy then you are better off going 100% indexing. I don't say this to be a dick, I say it as a fact. Investing beyong indexes is a lifestyle. If you aren't putting time in, you are guessing.

I know Blazin Blazin , myself and some others have posted our entire portfolios here. Maybe start by research those companies and ask lots of "why" questions. You could probably do a lot worse than by starting out researching the companies we own.

Tldr: knowledge is key. Start there.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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Moglyzoke Moogleman Moglyzoke Moogleman here is an example of how I was analyzing potential targets pre-market during those 6 months after Corona Black Monday. I was not kidding about the hours each morning I was putting in. God those limit down days were a fucking ride.

Fucking INTC. Piece of shit. Trading at $62 like a year and a half ago. Garbage squared, right Big Phoenix Big Phoenix ?

Bonus points to anyone who recognizes VTIQ without looking it up. I'm looking at you Fogel Fogel . Those VTIQ $30 strike calls were straight money.

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karma

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Fucking INTC. Piece of shit. Trading at $62 like a year and a half ago.
INTC was one of my first "big" losses. I played that quite a bit on the way up from the covid crash, and one night after a big earnings dip, I grabbed a few shares, inside of an hour I sold it for a 10% profit. It was awesome. Happened again later, and I went bigger (still not what most of you real players play with) emboldened by my previous experience. It didnt recover, and the next morning dipped more. I cut my losses, feeling sad and resentful INTC had betray me.

Need to work on getting my emotions under control.
 

Sanrith Descartes

Veteran of a thousand threadban wars
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INTC was one of my first "big" losses. I played that quite a bit on the way up from the covid crash, and one night after a big earnings dip, I grabbed a few shares, inside of an hour I sold it for a 10% profit. It was awesome. Happened again later, and I went bigger (still not what most of you real players play with) emboldened by my previous experience. It didnt recover, and the next morning dipped more. I cut my losses, feeling sad and resentful INTC had betray me.

Need to work on getting my emotions under control.
INTC crashing after earnings is like the sun rising in the East or setting in the West. Inevitable.

Avengers Endgame GIF
 
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