A few weeks ago I posted this and tried to offer some helpful tips on how to trade in the stock market. In just a short time, I’ve now lost my entire investment capital. All of it. Gone.
How could this possibly happen, you say? I didn’t take my own advice, and paid dearly for it. Here is my story, hopefully it is a cautionary tale.
This “game” is gambling pure and simple. You’ll make some little gains here and there and start to believe you’re a hot shot. You will escalate to more risky things like near expiration call options. You will be punished for your arrogance. You will continue to buy while your stock is dropping trying to “cost average down”; all while ignoring strong signals telling you to get out of your position. Time decay + opposite movement + “all in” is a recipe for disaster. By the time you’ve finally convinced yourself this isn’t going to work, you’ve lost everything. You have no idea how easy it is to happen. Humans *never* want to admit they’re wrong…call it a foolish pride. Or just plain foolishness.
My best advice is to never get involved with it in the first place. It was my dream to play in this world. Now it’s going to take a long time to get out of the hole I’ve dug. Thankfully, it wasn’t my entire savings (I never let it get that far), but it was a sizable amount of my “surplus” that I simply can’t shrug it off and say “oh, it was just play money”. Let’s just say I will probably be deducting capital losses on my taxes for several years, it was that bad.
The sad thing is that I see all my mistakes, I KNOW I could make money, but I just don’t trust myself anymore. I could never lock in profits….ever. I would never get out. The greed was just too powerful. 100% gains weren’t enough. And because of that…I quit this game.
