The dumbest thought ever to cross my mind happened at the beginning of my trading career and it went something like this. "wow optionpro, you have made all this money not knowing what you are doing !! just imagine...imagine all the millions you are going to make when you actually know what you are doing ! this trading stuff is a piece of cake !!" By far the dumbest idea I have ever had ....
It must have been the early 80's and I'm getting my hair cut in a Barber shop in North Georgia. A man walks in with a strange looking baby doll wrapped in a blanket in a basket. He knows the Barber and tells him for 500 dollars startup capital he would sell him a 25% stake in his company. He said he needed the money to make more of his dolls. The Barber politely declined, so the guy asked me if I was interested. I smarted off that his weird looking dolls would never sell. He went on his way. To make a sad story short, that man I later found out was Xavier Roberts, creator of The Cabbage Patch kids That 25 % stake would have been worth at least 10 million.
never had a dumb moment yet in trading although I am extremely risk adverse. most I lost in trading is $3k which was last year shorting AMTD during a downtrend knife action and kept shorting like 10,000 shares and lost 30 cents. Although I did enter a short order instead of a long today, but covered it for no lost today. Although other dumb moments I've spent over $30k a week ($120k a month) in advertising on other businesses which brought no results until I canceled the contract by paying an extra $20k for nothing to avoid litigation. This was when money was plush, and we were spending it like its 1999 baby Cristal, Parties, Money, internet craze, Girls, PARTY LIKE ITS 1999 baby Love it. Never regret a moment just like Mike805.
If all of us could only be lucky enough to make 30 years of mistakes and end up where you are. You won't get much pity around here.
Anybody remember Zeos computer?? It was the early ninties i believe. Zeos was a very hot item and trading at around 2$. I convinced several people to buy shares but i did not. Really strange...i could easily have got hold of some shs. In a short time....maybe a couple of months, im not sure now, it moved up to over 20$. I wont forget...really stupid. Ive done several order entry screw ups since i began trading stocks last May that really ate into my small profits. We learn...or... we dont survive....we lose!! good trading to all .......... rj
In 2001, after the company indicated that they might bankrupt, I still bought the stock with all the money in the account. one day later, it bankrupted.
Back in 2001, as a newly minted CTA, I made my first trade in the Schindler Trading Program. It was an exciting day for me and I wanted very badly to make my first couple of investors some money and to start what I hoped would be a profitable track record. My systematic strategy had me go long the e-mini Nasdaq futures. It was the afternoon of September 10th. Aaron Schindler Schindler Trading
Heres a trading story. It was 1996 and I decided to buy a little company that just did their IPO 1 month prior...it was called puma technology. I bought 100 shares (i was really poor back then) for 16 3/4. The stock slowly went down over the next year or 2. I finally said "ack this stock is never going to go anywhere but down and i sold it for 8 1/2. Checked it about 6 months or a year later and it was trading between 3 and 5 dollars a share. I had some money and i thought "hmm seems like a bargin maybe i should pick up 300 shares when it hits 3 dollars. A few days later the stock was at 8. A few days after that it was at 16...then 30. I said well I missed that boat...but I didnt know how bad....next time i checked it a few days later....60 dollars...a few more days 140 dollars. It topped out at 200 dollars then split and just fell from there. It eventually went to pink sheets and i think out of business though, so i dont kick myself too bad