John,
We are both probably sitting at the computer on line to this site right now. A very long time ago when gamblimg was introduced to the voters int Atlantic City, New Jersey and the voters approved, Resorts International was the talk of the town.
Everybody wanted to have a piece of Resorts International.The stock went from $9 to over $200 per share and it was like the California gold rush.
When Bally began to build a grand Casino, I started to play Options and in just a couple of weeks I think if I recall correctly I made about $30,000.00. Hell I figure If I could do it once lets go for it again and maybe I could turn this into a half million or better. I decided to ride the whole thirty grand out of greed on another series of contracts, The order was executed on a Friday afternoon. Little did I know that over the weekend we got hit with an OIL embargo and the financial markets panicked big time on Monday morning. The diaster grew worse each day for quite some time as speculators now felt that Atlantic City would not be able to build its Casinoes for an indefinite period. I tried to weather the storm figuring that the traders would come to their senses and the rally would resume in time for me to make a killing with my options. It did not happen and in fact I was forced to take a massive loss of about $25,000.00. Now I was determined that I would try to recover this loss by playing another kind of game, I short sold several thousand shares of Caesar's World figuring that if this gloom and doom was going to continue I might as well profit from it by the market going down. I thought that just to be a little safe I will put a ten point cover on the underlying stock. Would you believe that the stock went up ten points and grabbed my cover and then the next day the stock fell ten points and continued down for some time. Now I suffered another massive loss because I was indeed struck by a gambling fever. A few more trades like this and I could have lost my entire lifes savings. My point here John, that if options and games work for others, than more power to them, I just think you can get caught in miscalculated maneuvers no matter how careful you are to consider your game plan. Unforseen things happen .I now feel that buy and hold strategies best work for me. I do not believe that I would be in the position I am in today if it were not for the rude awakening I got, and for the support I also received from friends and prayer. It took a very long time but I am pleased and comfortable today.
Good luck and thank you for your reply,
Frank |
