My two favorites: Bought 2000 shares V on IPO day for around 59.00, intending to hold the position long-term. Saw $7000-ish showing green a day or two later and sold the whole position. Less than 2 months later V hit 89.00. In May 2008, BRL stock tanked over some news and the reaction seemed overblown to me. I bought 60 October $45 calls, looking for the stock price to retrace at least halfway between its previous high and the capitulation low. As an "in case I die" item, I sent my husband an email letting him know about the 60 back month calls and in the email made a comment to effect that this one could possibly net us $120K before expiration. Three weeks later, price was pulling back from a nice bounce and I grabbed around $6500 in profits with the intention of putting on the trade again if price retested the pivot low and found support there. This did indeed occur while we were on vacation in late June and I'd forgotten all about it until I got back in town and saw BRL in pre-market gapped up $10 to $55 a share on a buyout. The day after that it gapped up another $10 to $65 when the buyout terms were finalized. If I'd held the original position or put on the trade again on the pullback to support what would the profit have been? Right around $120K.
Too many to list for me. Some of these plays are the exact ones I was looking at like C at $1. Here are my 2 biggest: 10/10/08 I'm long Massive size on XLF XLE ES TF. At the end of the day I'm looking at a sizable gain and decide to book, even though the trade was screaming hold over the weekend. Pull up a chart and see the move on 10/13. The low in early 03/09 I'm again massively long ES and short SKF in size. I cover for 30 points in SKF and avging 35 in ES. Unlike the above this was not a trade, I intended to get at least 200+ points in ES and 100+ in SKF. Easiest millions I never made.
Oh my gawd (and gawdess). Speaking of ES, I actually nailed the bottom at 666! But what does this idiot do in the days to come? That's right, I kept shorting the damn thing as if there would be no tomorrow. And what makes this sizzling story all the more personal is that I never once had a problem riding the market back in 2003 in the aftermath of "pop goes the tech bubble". As one of the posters above me succinctly stated, had I only taken that 9-month vacation.... Sven, pour me some toddy!
Ahh,Yes...........i remember bre-x well. I followed the whole deal back in the day. This 3 part documentary is a good watch. I myself was skeptical that the guy that pulled off such a scam did not have a good STOP LOSS plan to get out of Dodge when the gig was up. The ending of this MASTERMINDS also has doubts that the guy did not plan his "OUT". I say he is still alive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNvixeqlKdQ&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YNnjitbcaE&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2hTKWZZz74&feature=related
here's a few that nag at me occasionally: 1) Went short CROX and long SHOO (steve madden). My timing was pretty lucky and within a day or so the pair came in about $3. I was very happy to take my $$ and figured I'd get back in later. I never did get back in though, and didn't we all know that a picture of those ugly shoes would in the dictionary next to the word "fad" someday? 2) Similar story with SBUX. Walked into McDonalds one day a few years ago and saw a big sign at lunchtime that read "ICED COFFEE $1.79". I remember thinking that this was the beginning of the end for the Starbucks market dominance (at least all the easy $$). Never traded one share even though it looked like a no-brainer. 3) Had just read Trader Vic a few years ago, and was looking at stock charts looking for his 2B reversal pattern. I happened to pull up BSC, trading at about $160. All the brokers seemed to have topped, but even then, BSC seemed like the weakest. Thought hard about shorting, but eventually dismissed the idea. Even had I taken it, I probably would have made $10 and called it good. I think that would have bothered me even more than just missing the trade altogether. I think the missed trades that always bother me the most are where I have a fundamental idea that begins to take shape on the charts. Whenever I pass on those trades, it seems to bite me later.
My "woulda, coulda, shoulda" moment happened back when Aussie made a run to almost 1USD. I remember thinking there's absolutely no way the Aussie could be at parity with the USD. During that time everywhere you looked people were talking abou the dollar being finished. I was flipping through the channels and some TV host from G4TV made a reference to the week dollar and I thought to myself everyone but grandma was short the dollar. Needless to say started shorting the Aussie from 96 and was willing to hold until 1, I thought it would never reach that level. Of course it didn't, but i still damn nearly blew out because the more time passed the more I added to my position and got watched every single tick. Finally I was forced to liquidate, because I didn't have enough margin. In hindsight I should have stuck to my plan to short a few contracts and with a stop at 1. But instead greed and pie in the sky dreams got the best of me and as result took one of my worst hit's trading.I remember this weird hot intense feeling going over and the next thing i'm throwing the my Pepsi can across the room and slamming my keyboard followed by a punch to the wall. After my little tantrum, I noticed my clothes hamper was full, so I did my laundry and got some fast food and called it a day.
I got a couple nices ones... Opened a retail account in march 2008. 1. Had about 40k in my account, alot of oil / solar speculation back then. Bought PDO @ 5$ ... 6,000 shares, sold @ 5.50. ... a few weeks later PDO sky rocketed to 25+. 2. Bought CSIQ @ 17$ ... 3k shares leveraged.. sold @ 18$ .. before earnings , stock rocketed to mid 40 in like 1 month later. 3. August 2008, had no idea what is going on, bought Fannie Mae @ 14$... 3k shares... sold @ 6$ ... took @ 50% account hit. 4. Account wiped....bought WaMu on the day before close, when JPM announced its taking over everything BUT the stock.. I had 10k shares @ 2.45$ ..... got home in the evening stock was trading at .17 cents. Good game. 5. This is my favorite one... March 2009, bought triple BULL ETF FAS @ 2.36 on Friday, last day before market sky rocketed... I bought 5000 shares thinking " All or nothing " ... on monday stock was @ 3.35$ .. I sold for a 2.5k gain....ever since then you guys saw what happend..stock went to 9-11$ bux... I wish I got lucky on one of those....jeesh. I deserve it for all the stress and losses that occured to someone thats 23 years old...good thing im still young....sigh.
Options Dream: BIDU 460 Call goes from .40 to $12...anyone get in?...this happened today...wow...anyone get in on any portion of this?
I personally saw a friends account go from $500K to 2 million I could not fucking beleive it @#@#@$$@$$$$@ I mean i was like WTF He Had all option,s no equities no futures AApl Bidu Wynn Goog dndn ( still holding on ) GS just name it MA cme OIH All high Flyers Bought option for pennies and sold them for like $10 $15 But i guess you cant see a year like that again ( 2009 )