1998 thur 1999: How I Lost $200,000
February 23, 2007, By Selena Maranjian (Longtime TMF contributor owns shares of Time Warner, Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon.com, and the Dodge & Cox Stock Fund. Time Warner and Amazon.com are Motley Fool Stock Advisor picks. Berkshire Hathaway and Pfizer are Inside Value choices. The Motley Fool is Fools writing for Fools.)
fool.com
Starts off:
...."When you lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, primarily due to your own stupidity, there isn't much solace. Believe me on this -- because I'm someone who lost that much (and more -- but I don't want to make this any more painful).
Still, I think I'll feel better about it if I can prevent a few people from making some of the same mistakes I did.
So let me back up a bit. The year was 1999, and along with Prince, I was doing a lot of partying (in my head) every time I looked at my portfolio. And that was often every few hours! When your portfolio skyrockets over a very short period, it does things to you. You get a little giddy. You keep checking your portfolio's value -- partly to reassure yourself that your good fortune is real, and partly to see by how many more thousands of dollars your wealth has grown while you were in an hour-long meeting.
What I did
In mid-1998, I'd bought roughly"... |
