The idea to create this thread crossed my mind last week as I reminiscence but was rekindled this week by djxput's post on the thread - My Options Play! Please kindly share your trading experience; your best and worst trades ever. How it happened, moment of joy, sadness, regrets, and lessons learnt! I will share mine...
Sounds great! I got another one for you guys. I was trying to trade options and work full time at the same time. And the only time I could really look at stocks was lunch time and on my 1 day off (or of course nights). I saw this really good play I wanted in on. Dont remember the exact stock but it was a .com'er from my charts I predicted it would go down to a certain spot. I really wanted in the trade and I couldnt see what it would open at. So before it opened I put a market buy order of some puts and went to work. Well when I got to look at the chart at lunch; guess what the stock did. It sure did hit my target but it hit it with a gap at the open and I bought puts at the low; and I bet you cant guess what it did all day while I was at work... It closed that gap; that was the quickest 5k I ever lost. I didnt even get to enjoy seeing the money go tick by tick So moral of the story is; no matter how confident you are on your approach. The market always has some way to show you who is the boss. But technically speaking; putting a market order in on .com stocks pre-open is Very risky. -I probably rank this as one of my worst trades; even thou my approach wasnt that bad it was my trading ie order that was the downfall.
My worst trade was puts on RIMM just before earnings in Dec 2003. Options at the time for RIMM were very cheap because RIMM had been trading in a range for awhile. I think RIMM had about a 50% gain the next day. My best trade was Calls on GOOG just before earnings Oct 2004. Haven't traded GOOG since though.
In the late 90's i was long 4000 shares of Paine webber at $45. There was a rumor of a takeover that day. At 10 minutes to the close i was up $4 on the position and planned to take it overnight for the possiblity of the takeover. 2 minutes before the close Bob Pisani comes out on CNBC and says that the rumor is false. I immediately send a market order sell for my entire position. Gapped down $3 and sold out at $46 for a $1 gain. 5 minutes later after the close, Paine webber announces a takeover at $67 per share. I lost out on making 80k on that trade because of Bob Pisani. I was new in the business back then and it would of been a major score for me. I still have not forgiven him and i continue to tell the story to this day. Needless to say i have gotten over it. lol
This week, there is a chance I will be making my best trade so far. I will post as soon as I get filled tomorrow. (con el perdon del espiritu del mercado) Cheers !
The "Italian Stallion" Bob Pisani strikes again!!!! Sorry to hear about your missed opportunity. That worthless hack Pisani has NEVER said anything trade worthy in all his years on CNBC. P.S.-My friends on the floor said that nobody down there likes him.
It's funny Pisani would come up because for some reason I can't stand the guy either. The way he cheerleads the market on every up day gets real old when I'm short...
Great story Truff. I allowed CNBC to mess me up also. Only in my case they were right and I tried to fade them. In Nov/00 I had bought some GTW calls as the stock traded off hard from it's early Sept swing highs. GTW was weak to everything else and I thought after a 75% break it could bounce. Finally after nibbling for a couple of days, the stock was off sharply one morning and CNBC reported that GTW was rumoured to be issuing a warning after the close. I figured if CNBC had that story it was old and that being long into the news was the proper play. After all, how much more could it break? I LOADED up that day and the stock rallied hard into the close so I figured this was home-run city, I had about 20k in premium. Low and behold they DID warn and the stock was off close to 50% post market and to this day has never seen those prices I was long at again.