Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Ctrl-Alt-Del

Sheesh. OK, I screwed that up. Where do I start?

So back in January, I sold 68 shares of BGU at 27.78, so I took a loss of almost $2 per share. Ok, that was terrible and whatnot, but I'd survive, right? I figure I better get crackin and buy back into the market, so I bought 110 shares of FAS at $15.01. Well, my BGU sale hadn't completed (funds weren't available) and I was going to get hit with a free ride IF I sold before my account got the funds from the BGU sale, so I didn't set a stop limit on the FAS order, and I waited for the BGU to clear...

FAIL!
I bought FAS at $15 on a Friday morning and by the end of the day on Monday, it was at... wait for it... $7.63. And like that, I let a trade turn into a bad investment. I held it the whole time, thinking, it has to go back to $15. Wrong.

Today is April 29 and I've decided that I am not going to accomplish anything holding this bag o crap. So, I'm going to sell it and get back to trading.

I did cheat a little on 1/22 and put up $600 I had laying around so I could buy and sell some FAZ and SKF and make a little chump change. That worked.

1/22 - Bought 3 SKF @ 170.14
1/22 - Bought 3 FAZ at $65.53
2/19 - Sold 3 SKF @ 183.55
2/20 - Sold 3 FAZ @ 81.76

The silver lining behind this dark cloud: I made 5% on the SKF and 10% on the SKF! Remember, the goal was to learn how to make successful trades and make them. This is cheap education.

I als got a whopping $1.72 dividend on 3/31 for the FAS shares. The tax on that is probably $3.00.

Also, I learned something extremely simple and reinforced what I already knew. The simple thing I learned (thanks to LongIsland) was a way to keep from triggering a free ride. PUT MONEY IN YOUR ACCOUNT! Duh. If you get out of a trade, but are waiting for it to clear, just put in the dollar amount and bingo-bango you're ready to trade. No free ride. No risk to your additional funds (because the money is coming). I reinforced the importance of setting stops. Hell I'm just a wannabe padowan and I've given that advice more than I can recall. Do as I say, not as I did.

So, the net of it is, I'm about to realize a huge loss in FAS, because I need to get on with the trading.... of course, while typing this, the market closed, so I'll be selling tomorrow in pre-market (assuming it's not at $5 or something horrendous.) I'm going to sell, re-capitalize, and get back in the game.

What's the o/u on how long it will take me to get my money back? How long is the off-season?

1 comment: