Would love to hear others war stories in dealing with and learning to trade on the stock market. Could be good entertainment. I’ve only been doing this for about 9 months and in that time I went from 40% up to 15% down. Bound and determined to put some kind of rhyme or reason to it. God knows I’ve learned a lot and made plenty of mistakes but now I’m starting to see why it takes so long for people to get good at it. Today The Market reminded me who’s in control at this point in my journey. In fact this entire week or so was filled with reverse miracles. (When things that should be impossible happen for a negative effect). I was 5% up two weeks ago! I'm a swing trader. Days to weeks at most. Here’s my list of outrageous things for just the last two weeks: 1.) Had The Market touch my over-generous stop loss, kick me out, and go directly up immediately afterwards. Didn’t even go below it. Only to it in order to kick me out. These ones piss me off more than anything. The lesson: No matter how right you do every thing, sometimes you are just not gonna win. 2.) Held one for weeks as it continued down because news was coming. Had a generous stop loss that The Market touched and continued past another 10%. Made for a pretty fat loss but at least it kept going which means I got a loss but it could have been worse right? Two hours later the news hit and it jumped 25%. Have to admit, this actually is THE maddest I’ve ever been in dealing with the stock market. The lesson: Still bought too high. Had I bought lower my stop loss could have been lower and maybe I would not have been stopped out right before it hit. 3.) Held one for a swing. Was in at a great position. Got it crossed in my brain with another one that I had and accidentally sold it. The next day it ran and two weeks later got bought out. Then the next day the one that I intended to sell took a shit with a big fat loss attached to it. That’s how I realized I sold the wrong one. The lesson: Pay attention dumbass.
It's funny how it's 50/50 win or lose but losing seems to be what most do in the stock market. Every single person who trades has this happen. Happened to me countless times so far in 2024. Every single day actually. Can write books on this
You guys are REALLY raining on the parade! God knows there are plenty of guys (dare I say millions?) who have figured something out. Only reason I put up with this nonsense is nothing I ever became good at came easy so even though the shenanigans are crazy I figure I eventually will get a grip on it. Are we all just gluttons for punishment?
Investor here...Mostly do covered calls. I though I was doing a covered call on QQQ...It was a put. I found the problem a few weeks later. I closed my position and made about $300. The next was before "after market trading"...I had a very long option expire at the exact price of the option. Would they buy it or not?? I had to wait till Saturday (the next day), to find out. This was back when I would be charged about $30. per trade...So it mattered. They walked away from the trade!! The last one is being filled as we speak...A bird in the hand (should have went for two in the bush)!! Google dropped below $93. about 15 months ago. I picked up 100 shares at $92.70...Then did a leap for the Jan 24 $93.00. I got $16.90...$1,690. for the option. Add the $30. for a gain and I am sitting pretty with about a 20% gain (when you add about 4% interest in the option money). But if I just held on a year...
Lose 100M walk away with 30M Some operations manager or something fired after 6 months walks away with 20M