I'd have to disagree with you. Earnings = Volatility and as traders we love volatilty. The lesson here is quite obvious - don't risk 20% of your account on one trade.
Um... you were "forced" to add to your position? You mean if you didn't put in bids no one else would? How can you be forced to buy in order to sell? Wouldn't you have been better off just taking a 10% loss? If youre buying because no one else is and you're long... that's typically the absolute worst. Livermore made that mistake too many times.
My book goes into all the details, but I didn't add to the position all in one day, it was very gradual. when the time came, it was a question of adding 3% more of fund assets on the chance they'd stay in business and I could sell my shares and possibly even recoup my losses. The risk I took paid off as the company announced less than a month later that they'd been chosen to handle all of Six Flags' online ticketing. They've even managed to turn profitable and slash their debt. But the stock continued its freefall over the next 1.5 years as I sold off my unrestricted shares with the daily volume being 5k or so Lesson: You can be 100% right about a company's future and their technology, but if the stock is illiquid and you're trying to lessen your risk by selling off shares, the stock price will get wrecked. Only play liquid names!
Sykes: Must you HIJACK every thread here? You are like a fucking broken record, we already heard this on 5 other threads.
Dude, I'm just sharing my blunders right alongside everyone else to help others learn from them, relax.
during the dotcom bubble used to daytrade through a.b. watley (remember them?) in my incredible genius i ended up short VRSN one day in 2000 when the fed announced a decision that sent the stock up +14 in a matter of about 30 minutes. closed the position to stop the damage, lost $45,000 + - , would have been worse if i didn't close.
After reading other's posts, I don't feel quite as bad. I've made my share of dumb mistakes: pulling stops hoping for a rally to exit on break even, jumping into trades just to be in a trade w/ no clear strategy, etc. I've had losses that to *me* were significant but after seeing the size of other's losses, I don't think anyone would even care to hear me complain. I guess overall account size has something to do with it too. Not as likely to loose $45k if your account isn't that big to start with I guess.
any time you buy or short into earnings you are playing with fire. a good trader never does that. also,i see alot of guys say the same thing"I had to leave my computer for a few minutes and when i returned my account was down twenty percent". that sounds like these traders are trying to convince themselves it really was'nt their fault,it was just a freak occurrence and if it was'nt for some strange set of circumstances that had them leave the computer,the losses never would have happened. thats bs. i've done it and had the same excuse. NEVER let your loss get big. just sell and take a small loss and jump back in if it does what you think. remember,stocks do not follow a script. they should always move in your direction but not always within ypur specific time frame. that said,you will be wrong at times and have got to learn to move on. don't think it has to work just because you think it will. my biggest losses were holding overnight,onto earnings and buying an opening gap up and watching it fall and doubling down. justb plain stupidity. when a stock starts to drop,the market is actually screaming to you that the trade is'nt working but why don't we listen?
Dude, just put him in your ignore list and hope that people stop quoting him. Soon enough he'll pretty much disappear. Poof! "Those that can, do. Those that can't, become teaches and write books."