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MaStA's Account Talk
- Thread starter MaStA
- Start date
MaStA
Member
So a week after I closed the above TZA position for a slight gain I went and bought a bunch of TZA and a little of UVXY. I made a huge mistake of not getting the hell out when the system I was following got out for a small loss and I have held it this entire time. My mind kept telling me that there will be a correction any day now, any day now, etc. and it took this long for what appears to be the first sign of a correction. I'm grateful for a small part of my losses to come back over the last two days and I hope more downside will come for my sake, but there is no way I'm going to get back all of what I lost unless things go back to the prices of six months ago...which won't happen. So I am moving my stop up each day and when it gets stopped out I will finally be able to stop looking at my ugly red numbers. I am throwing the towel in on ETFs because I completely mismanged my money in an ETF and I should have gotten out when the system I followed said to. Instead I let my emotions get involved in hopes to regain that little bit of losses and I ended up with massive losses. Because I held short positions it messed with my mind further to not want to invest my other money in my Roth and TSP because I wanted to be so bearish even though the market was so bullish. So not only did I lose money on my shorts, I also lost out on profits in my cash on hand in my other accounts. I did not lose a ton of money in what most people would view as a lot, but my percentage lost over the past six months is huge. I'm a cheap skate so it hurts to look at where my individual account currently stands. I look at this as a learning experience and that was what I set my individual account up for.
Rookies/Novices out there like myself, stay the heck away from leveraged ETFs and if you don't, follow a system to the T and don't let your mind play tricks on you. Also, leveraged ETFs are not meant to hold for long periods and this experience taught me this lesson. I wanted to post this to share my negative experience instead of simply coming on here to brag about how well TZA/UVXY have been doing over the past two days and to say that I owned some. What I have "gained" over the last two days is not even a dent into how much pain I have felt over the past six months holding them.
On the other hand, I seem to do well with picking regular stocks so I will be sticking with that from now on until I learn enough to make these large decisions again in the future. I haven't said much lately because of the mental pain I have been in looking at my individual account, but I plan to start posting my stock choices to see how they play out.
I stopped out of my KO position today for a small gain and I currently hold NEM. Looking to buy more in my Roth once this correction/pullback is over.
Last note - I felt stupid to even post this, but if I can help one person out there with a little bit of knowledge on leveraged ETFs that I simply did not understand before, then I feel that my post succeeded.
Rookies/Novices out there like myself, stay the heck away from leveraged ETFs and if you don't, follow a system to the T and don't let your mind play tricks on you. Also, leveraged ETFs are not meant to hold for long periods and this experience taught me this lesson. I wanted to post this to share my negative experience instead of simply coming on here to brag about how well TZA/UVXY have been doing over the past two days and to say that I owned some. What I have "gained" over the last two days is not even a dent into how much pain I have felt over the past six months holding them.
On the other hand, I seem to do well with picking regular stocks so I will be sticking with that from now on until I learn enough to make these large decisions again in the future. I haven't said much lately because of the mental pain I have been in looking at my individual account, but I plan to start posting my stock choices to see how they play out.
I stopped out of my KO position today for a small gain and I currently hold NEM. Looking to buy more in my Roth once this correction/pullback is over.
Last note - I felt stupid to even post this, but if I can help one person out there with a little bit of knowledge on leveraged ETFs that I simply did not understand before, then I feel that my post succeeded.
coolhand
Well-known member
MaStA,
Sorry to hear of your difficulties with leveraged instruments. I applaud your advice to those on the message board regarding how difficult and emotionally draining they can be for those who are not aware of what it takes to trade them successfully. That has been my experience too and is why I largely only trade solid companies. I am very happy to hear of your success in that venue. I own KO myself, but not NEM, although I do follow that stock. The message you project is very good advice for most folks and I want to acknowledge the guts it took to say it. Leveraged instruments are not for everyone.
Jim
MrJohnRoss
Well-known member
Bravo! Well said, MaStA. Been there, done that. The tuition for learning how to trade is very long, and very expensive. The most important thing to take from your experience is to learn from it, and to know what NOT to do in the future. If you didn't learn, it was a waste of money, but if you learned a valuable lesson, it was worth every penny.
Birchtree
Well-known member
If you don't know who you are, this is an expensive place to find out. The market will humble you in an instant but pain is often followed with reward. A great deal of perserverance is required along with discipline and courage - but there is a rainbow for those who are steady.
I was wondering where you've been...You did, in fact, make a successful trade, contrary to your assertions. When looking at the long term, you may have lost some in recent months, but you'll profit handsomely in the years to come from the knowledge you've gained from this trade. Best of luck to you in the future.
Boghie
Well-known member
MaStA,
I had a similar experience in the mid-to-late 90's with a commodities/ForEx/Index trading system. I was lucky in that I got out with profits because the markets at the time had a long term consistency that kept my system in them. I was also lucky in that I really did not have much say in it except for permitting or not permitting trades in the various types of markets (commodity, Forex, equity). That is, I could tell them not to trade ForEx or whatever.
Anyway, toward the end of the 90's a number of the 'markets' got real choppy rather than smooth. By this I mean that instead of a commodity declining in price for weeks it would start bouncing. That killed us (I was invested with two others). The large fees and the locking in of smallish losses accumulated over a period of two or three months (if I remember) to cut my total gains in half. It was very frustrating. You could watch as a trading system that ran extremely well for two years got hammered in a few months by the chop.
And, hear this, the taxes suck in every way. At tax time you end up with hundreds or thousands of transactions - all short term gains and losses. A true and ungodly mess. And, you get your end-of-year data late in the tax season (I used to get my trash in March). So, lets say you gotta pay $10K in taxes on the gains made. Where do you get that? Yup, by selling out some of the 'fund'. What does that do? Yup, it reduces the opportunity for growth in the following year. So that sucked. And even more sucky was paying an accountant to churn through that crap and hope they were correct. Living in dread of a midnight knock by the IRS kinda really sucked.
But, in the end I would not pass up that learning experience. I learned to see patterns in charts without knowing what I was doing (still don't, so if I start yammering about technicals please tune me out). I leaned patience. I learned the value of systematic investing. I learned taxes. I learned about noise. I learned about risk. I learned a lot about my biases. And, I learned a lot about hunches and stuff. Did I learn enough to just sit the market last year - nope. But my brain synapses revealed some of the lessons I learned in time to just sit from late September onward. Sitting around is often a great thing to do in market trading - especially equities.
MaStA
Member
Well PSX beat earnings...but like most of the market it is down. I guess that wasn't a great move, but I will see how it plays out.
On another note, I tried my amazing line drawing skills to see how they turn out. At least I won't lose any money by watching how it plays out lol.
I used tradingview.com to draw this and I just came across this website last night. It has a very nice interface if you wish to put your artist skills to work.
On another note, I tried my amazing line drawing skills to see how they turn out. At least I won't lose any money by watching how it plays out lol.
I used tradingview.com to draw this and I just came across this website last night. It has a very nice interface if you wish to put your artist skills to work.
Attachments
MaStA
Member
I'm looking forward to what the announcement looks like this afternoon and what that does to the market. Also, curious if the direction the market goes after the announcement will continue or if it will be a short-lived pop/drop.
PSX must have been sleeping this morning as it is finally making a move in the right direction. Let's hope it continues...
PSX must have been sleeping this morning as it is finally making a move in the right direction. Let's hope it continues...
Birchtree
Well-known member
I'd just ignore the possibility and keep an eye on the Transports. The Transports are off -7 points with the Dow off -131 points - sending the message that the economy is improving and the Transprts are leading the way. Follow the trains and truckers - they are very busy. We could easily be back to new all time highs in February.
MaStA
Member
Could is the key word here...
