Please bear with me. I need to vent. I’m hoping I’m not the only one this seems to happen to. I’ve only been doing this for 3 months. I’ll be retiring in a few years and I’m trying to find something to make money once I retire so I am testing out trading stocks. My personality does not allow me to invest over years time. I don’t have that kind of patience. I want to get a return of some kind every few days. So day-trading I guess. And don’t get me wrong, maybe I shouldn’t be complaining. I’ve done 37 trades so far with 33 “winners” and 4 “losers”. With every trade I do, I try to find a lesson. However, those 4 losses are a full third of all of those wins combined! 2 of them in particular. They were whoppers and this last one I’m trying to find SOMETHING as a lesson other than just remarkable crap luck! I seem to have made miraculous things happen but not good things! In fact just two of the losses are worth 25% of everything I gained. It’s HOW they happened that pisses me off.
What’s the lesson from this? Here’s what happened:
ABC stock (made up) has been like clockwork. Has a very specific pattern 2-3 days up, then 2-3 days down. Buy it at the low, ride it up, sell it at the high. Easy right?
I recently bought 500 shares it at the recent low at $7.16. A little higher than normal for me. I prefer below $7 on this stock but it’s reliable so what the heck. BUT…then it magically went out of its norm. The company is pretty solid. No news of any kind. No indications at all that it shouldn’t start that upward swing…but it kept dropping….and dropping…and dropping. For 10 freaking days! It hasn’t done this in the last year. It’s a miracle! So eventually I’m thinking I need to eat the loss but man would I be pissed if I bailed and then it flipped. I even extended my stoploss because I was confident it would turn around but it just kept dropping….and dropping. Finally after it showed no sign of reversing day after day I had to throw in the towel and at 11% down I bailed. Now here’s the part that passes me off: As soon as I bailed…it stopped dropping! Like at that moment! Then…you guessed it…the next day came and the entire 10 day losing streak was erased in 5 hours. It’s like the only reason that miracle drop happened was to make me lose money and once I did, the stock world was happy and it completely bounced back with the largest 1 day gain in its last years history. Another miracle!
I swear all indications were just to make me lose money. There was no sign of anything else as to why it would drop so far out of its normal pattern. The other loss (my biggest) did the same thing. I stayed in it longer than I should have to make sure I gave it every opportunity to show me that a turnaround is coming. I bailed, it stopped dropping at that moment, and took off the next day although this one took longer to recover than my first example.
So…WTF? Really? I wait extra long before bailing…and then it stops dropping and follows up with a miracle recovery after I’m out?
My thought when I bailed was that clearly something was happening here that I can’t see and I can’t just let it continue to bleed.
My new saying since being in stocks: “Oh that burns my a$$”.
So if anyone else is new to the game and this stuff is happening to you…just know you are not alone.
What’s the lesson from this? Here’s what happened:
ABC stock (made up) has been like clockwork. Has a very specific pattern 2-3 days up, then 2-3 days down. Buy it at the low, ride it up, sell it at the high. Easy right?
I recently bought 500 shares it at the recent low at $7.16. A little higher than normal for me. I prefer below $7 on this stock but it’s reliable so what the heck. BUT…then it magically went out of its norm. The company is pretty solid. No news of any kind. No indications at all that it shouldn’t start that upward swing…but it kept dropping….and dropping…and dropping. For 10 freaking days! It hasn’t done this in the last year. It’s a miracle! So eventually I’m thinking I need to eat the loss but man would I be pissed if I bailed and then it flipped. I even extended my stoploss because I was confident it would turn around but it just kept dropping….and dropping. Finally after it showed no sign of reversing day after day I had to throw in the towel and at 11% down I bailed. Now here’s the part that passes me off: As soon as I bailed…it stopped dropping! Like at that moment! Then…you guessed it…the next day came and the entire 10 day losing streak was erased in 5 hours. It’s like the only reason that miracle drop happened was to make me lose money and once I did, the stock world was happy and it completely bounced back with the largest 1 day gain in its last years history. Another miracle!
I swear all indications were just to make me lose money. There was no sign of anything else as to why it would drop so far out of its normal pattern. The other loss (my biggest) did the same thing. I stayed in it longer than I should have to make sure I gave it every opportunity to show me that a turnaround is coming. I bailed, it stopped dropping at that moment, and took off the next day although this one took longer to recover than my first example.
So…WTF? Really? I wait extra long before bailing…and then it stops dropping and follows up with a miracle recovery after I’m out?
My thought when I bailed was that clearly something was happening here that I can’t see and I can’t just let it continue to bleed.
My new saying since being in stocks: “Oh that burns my a$$”.
So if anyone else is new to the game and this stuff is happening to you…just know you are not alone.
