Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Buy Worldcom Stock????????

Getting what again.... drunk ???


That's it.... let's get some *****es and some alcohol...

Call me dirty minded... but I couldn't pass that one up.

Good topic here though.. I'm learning allot!!

Ok, I'll throw in some other advice, since I just got one of my brokerage statements today that just blew me away.

I bought stock in a company (OMDA) a few years ago, when it was $1.06. It was a bargain OTC stock, and I bought 500 shares. Watched up go up to $3 and get stuck there for a few months. Never cashed out, as they had all kinds of plans that "should" have taken this stock through the roof. One day, it jumped to $6 for no reason. I should have sold it there, and taken my $2500 profit. I got greedy and said I'd sell at $10. Then $7. But as quickly as it jumped to $6, it went right back down to the $3 range.

Then it just plummetted when they didn't meet some SEC deadlines. Figured they'd fix this, and took this opportunity to buy ALOT more shares when it fell to $0.33.

Now the stock has been in the toilet ever since. You think the WCOM corruption is bad, this is 1000x worse. It recently traded at $0.01. Didn't think it could get worse, wrote it off for the tax loss and moved on. Got my statement today, and the company did a 1000/1 reverse split! My one account had 1000 shares, and it now has 1 share! Worth $0.012.

This isn't an isolated incident, but probably the worst one I've seen. I got in for an IPO a few years ago, got 100 shares of a company (SNOW) for $11. Spiked to $20 on the opening day, but we were warned that if we tried to flip the stock, I'd be banned from future IPOs for 60 days. So I held. It went back to $10 by the end of the following day. And it started a slow descent into almost nothing. However, this company didn't want to die, so they kept issueing reverse splits. I started losing count. I now own 5 shares of the company, and it's worth $8.

So let's do the math.
OMDA: $2000 -> $0.012
SNOW: $1100 -> $8
WCOM: $1975 -> $7
VUSA: $8000 -> $0.01

And there's alot more uglyness in my portfolio. (Cisco, Microsoft, Applied Materials, Amazon, Broadvision, GlaxoSmithKline, Motorola, etc) It's been a crazy few years. Had I never gotten into the market, I could have paid cash for my home. Instead, I have a 20 year mortgage and a pitiful portfolio.

It starts small, but consumes you like a gambling addiction, because essentially that's what it is. Especially when you start making money. (I made over $3K in my first few weeks of trading and thought I was invincible - Made a ton trading PCLN (Priceline.com), and eventually sold it at $92/sh. Funny how it's a $3 stock now) Expensive life lesson learned.

Its is all a gamble, its a way for the rich to get richer or break the poor. People trade the "penny" stocks all day long, but you have to buy some serious volume to make it worth it. I would not consider $100 a large amount of money and I would end up spending it on beer and women (not strippers :p ) anyway, but if it did pay off, you'd have a lot more drinking money

Greed does it the best of you in the market, instead of selling, your always optimistic IT WILL go higher. Same happened to me with HD, could have doubled my investment of $6k, ended up breaking even. Its now at $29 as of 7-12

[img]http://data.moneycentral.msn.com/scripts/chrtsrv.dll?Symbol=HD&Cached=1&E1=0[/img]

You and me both.....

If I hadn't got into the market, I'd have the money for a house with a small mortgage, now I'm still renting.

At least I still have a job.

Boxster Guy et. all: I would look at Iknown's amazon link on the first page of this thread. Read the excerpts from the book about Investor Psychology. From what you've written I wouldn't be calling anyone an amateur in a derragatory way, you fit the bill from that book to a T. :p I thought you were a IT tech worker not a "professional" trader.
I personally don't "trade" securities and if you look at the advice I've given here you would see I don't encourage it either. I have a B.S. in finance, I'm studying for an MBA and I work for a securities self-regulatory organization. You amateur! :p

That is a myth unsuccsesful traders use to convince themselves that they didn't **** it up for themselves and it shifts blame from you (who is responsible for your own money) to an unidentifiable third party. The market is extremely competitive, that is why I said before I wouldn't try to compete with professional traders, you're out-gunned. Eat it like a man, get over it, learn your lesson, don't make the same mistake twice. Don't want to flame, just rather have you recognize it was more likely your lack of experience than try and convince yourself it was someone else's fault. Hey at least you broke even so I wouldn't be too upset. You could have gotten screwed like Boxster Guy! j/k :p

I feel like I ought to give you some backround. I work as programmer in a technology company in finance industry. The thing is, the company is also a hedge fund. So I get to sit on the trading floor We developed a trading app which is used by the fund and as an almost PhD in physics I also work on some models/optimizers etc... I see the industry, or at least a good slice of it w/ my own eyes every day.

I am not trading w/ my money. In part because I don't have it but also because let me tell you it's a very tough job which is next to impossible to do part time.

Some general observations ( some of which you will also find in the book I mentioned before):

• your purpose in life is to feed your broker. your objectives are: his mortgage, his new car and his new boat. if that's not you think it is you have to be very careful as to how you plan your trading. rmember: your broker gets payed no matter if you win or loose.
• as a private investor you can't establish a short position so your only option is bullish market. institutional investors can bet on the market going low: right now it's not your time.
• the market is roughly divided into two parts: winners - (about 10% of the traders) and loosers. but consider this: an institutional trader trades w/ *some* money. you are trading w/ yours. hedge fund gets some percentage of the money under managment up front so it does not matter if they loose or win. sure, in the long run a loosing portfolio manager won't have a job, but in the long run we are all dead anyway
• a pro trader makes money today and looses it tomorrow. if he's going 50/50 that's bareable, if he's winning *get this* 1% more often than he's loosing he's good. 10% -- he's starting his own fund. 30% -- he's an insider and he'll be facing charges if he doesn't retire soon.

the bottom line is: if you think that the market is just a gambling you are much better off driving to a casino. they only have the Zero so you'll loose much less.
read the books, do your research, stay away from the crowd, never argue w/ the market cause you can't win. do some reading in the risk managment and after all this you still feel like investing for the fun of it... well... it's your money :p

I have no reason to be mad like I stated later in the post:

Greed does it the best of you in the market, instead of selling, your always optimistic IT WILL go higher.

Its is my own fault for not selling when ahead (Read: Greed) but had it been a scandle, then I might have been mad. Its still a gamble, but the trend in the market is that it will always grow in the long term, you just have to be able to gut out some of the bumps.