Hi Dan,
It is difficult for me to discern the tone of your message. I am therefore taking your question in a good natured spirit, as I did not intend to start acrimonious debate with my rear mirror post. If I am right, I do not have to and if I am wrong, I can not afford to.
To answer your question as a question, I have been a SI documented tech bull up until November/December 1999, especially in Softbank (entry price Yen 8k, average exit price Yen 130,000k, pre-split), CHL, MSFT, INTC, CSCO, Furukawa Electric (entry Yen 1.86k, exit Yen 3.25k), Sony, etc etc. I sold out of most meaningful positions in January, capitualted the rest along the way. Having exited the techs, I established SI documented positions in Philip Morris long at $19.5/shr, short the Call/Put strike price 20 at combined premium of $8/shr, and did same with Conseco (CNC) at $5/shr, with combined premium on short Call/Put at $3/shr. Now I am staring at 100% gain on MO position, and 150% gain on CNC position. I discussed all of my trades on the Softbank thread as it was my largest position (besides cash) and the bunch of us discussed all stocks and even music preference on that thread, with no contentious tone ever.
I do make mistakes, but always the sort that I can laugh off and recover quickly from given my risk averse judgement on upside vs. downside and general preference for high cash allocation. A recent mistake is not having sold all of my Softbank at the peak price of Yen 200k/shr (pre-split), but this is some what balanced of by having traded out of the last of my Furukawa Electric at the peak.
I am not a long term investor, and given my lack of tax friction, I trade on multiple exchanges and in multiple instruments in a style not foreign to disciples of swingtrade.
I tend not to put myself into situations where I must be right. I do not terribly mind situations where I can afford to be wrong. The nature of the game, and that is all it is, is to be more right than wrong, still standing at the end of any melee. Carnage and melee ... I often make comparison between the market to a game of Unreal Tournament. The screaming has started, but not all players have been gibed yet.
Right now my 70 year old mom is buying her old favorites on the dips (LU, ARBA, YHOO, etc), my wife is establishing positions on her new favorites (Petro China, Sinopec, Phoenix TV, etc), and for each dollar of shares they buy, I sell a dollar of mine. I hope they are right, but it does not matter if they end up being wrong. |
