Geez, I thought I owned most of the Centennial Stock when it tanked!
Nice to meet some of my actual comrades.
My biggest blunders have been falling in love with a company's story and riding the thing down into the dirt. Geoworks (GWRX) is an example: licenses up the wazoo with Nokia, Brother, et al. Products actually out in the marketplace. Bought it at 12 and let it go all the way to 6, justifying my holding with Peter Lynch's advice that "I need to be prepared for even the best companies to lose 50% of their value at some point." GWRX closed at 4 today.
My last blunder was holding Smart Modular (SMOD) overnight last month. I bought it close to the close, had a small gain in it, and actually sent the sell order into Datek (Whom I no longer use.) The order never filled. I wasn't too worried ... until I checked and discovered that earnings were due after the bell. In that instant I knew I was toast. Opened down 8 the next morning. For the life of me, I cannot understand why ANY company in their right mind would report earnings just before a Memorial Day Holiday Weekend.
On a brighter note: not all my blunders are losers! Several months ago, I was daytrading Market Guide when the AOL news first broke. I bought and sold a half dozen times during the day, keeping track as I went. As the bell approached, my mental calculations showed that I was flat MARG. But when I checked with Datek, my portfolio showed me holding 1000 shares trading at $8. Yikes. Again, a sell order doesn't execute and I'm stuck overnight. I was so blown away when MARG opened up at $16 the next morning that I couldn't get it together to ride it up to ... $29! That one still lives in memory. Apparently, when I thought I was selling half of a 1000 share position during the day, I inadvertently entered a buy order for 500, making me plus 1500 shares. Then when I sold the "last" 500, which should have left me flat, I was still long 1000!
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy! :-)
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