Re: TG Fantasy Stock Market League

**Nikolas** · 06-18-2008, 04:07 PM

Bought the wrong symbol on an AAPL (Apple) short put option. Went to sell, didn't input a stop on the order, order went through at ~20% below market value. Lost ~$4.5k in two minutes. Whoops.

Account at ~$88,900 after selling accidental option.

Edit: Just bought the wrong one again. I think that there may be an error in their software. Not sure what the dealio is.

Account at ~$87,000 after selling accidental option.

I finally purchased what I originally wanted: 25 .APPVO - October put for AAPL-$175. This is a huge ($39,000) bet that Apple will drop over the summer. Since options are extremely volatile, I'm hoping to make up for the $6k loss I suffered by fat fingering two trades in a row.

Ouch.

.APVVO AAPL OCT 175 Put 25 15.7 $39,250.00
GE GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPAN 300 28.3 $8,490.00
HMC HONDA MOTOR CO LTD 125 34.72 $4,340.00
SDS ULTRASHORT S&P 500 1049 61.62 $64,639.38

Total Cash ($30,043.88)
Account Value: $86,675.50

Edit:

I should add that I don't like to bet against companies that make high quality products, as Apple does. This is an out of character move for me, but we'll see.

**USN_Squid** · 06-18-2008, 04:19 PM

Pretty good day today.

**bkelly** · 06-20-2008, 03:41 PM

June 20th and my Citibank option expires today. A couple of months back I paid $100 to sell 500 shares of Citibank at $17.50 per share.

As of this moment, Citibank is trading at $19.31.

Looks like it got two-thirds of the way to my prediction, which isn't enough. I'm out $100. Rats.

For all you market bulls out there, it looks like the ride may get very rough soon. I think people are starting to see that a lot of companies won't be solvent with bad consumer confidence and $135 oil. I'm currently positioned for the market to be fairly neutral for the duration of the summer. I wonder if it will hold.

bkelly
Account standing as of 5/20/08 2:35 ET - Down 9.04%

**Hambergler** · 06-20-2008, 11:08 PM

What lessons have been learned for all this. Everyone is down except for one. It's hard for me to believe that it was just coincidence that the majority here could not time the market. In order for the market to survive there needs to be a continuous influx of new money (losers) so more experienced traders can take their money. What are you going to change in your approach in order to become takers instead of getting took.

**Nikolas** · 06-21-2008, 04:58 AM

I promise not to fat finger any more trades.

**Sabre_Tooth_Tigger** · 06-21-2008, 02:50 PM

Somehow I think a monkey with a dartboard is needed

**CingularDuality** · 06-21-2008, 02:56 PM

Well, if I had been in on this with you guys, I would've invested in SSGRX.

**Nikolas** · 06-21-2008, 04:01 PM

Startup an account now!

**Sabre_Tooth_Tigger** · 06-21-2008, 07:10 PM

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

Well, if I had been in on this with you guys, I would've invested in SSGRX.

Problem is everyone fools themselves with hindsight.
You cant tell till you actually have to make some hard choices, even if successful you might get greedy and lose it all

**leejo** · 06-21-2008, 07:23 PM

I agree. Hindsight is, damn how does that saying go? Hindsight is gooder.

The great challenge with investing is that one is never able to make decisions with adequate information. You must accept risk.

What are the lessons learned? Well first of all we're still in the early stages of a marathon, not witnessing the end of a sprint. Last month, bkelly's short positions look bad. So bad he and Tybalt, who is also basically short on the market, backed out of their positions. Had they stuck with their positions, they'd have a lot more money in their accounts today than they do. Last month my financials and homebuilders were doing great. Now they look like donkey boners.

Who is to say that next month we'll be back where we started?

Second of all, the overarching lesson is that when the market goes up, lots of stocks go up. When it goes down, lots of stocks go down. So if you're going long, it's great if you're working with a market that is generally rising. Same if you're shorting this or that.

This market has been sideways since early this year, and has been sliding gently downward for the last month. In otherwords, it's a challenging environment in which to return a quick profit either way. If you have a truly sophisticated knowledge of how to use options to control your risk, you can make a lot of money in this environment. I don't have that knoweldge and I doubt many in this forum do either.

However, I am highly confident that cheap banking stocks I buy today will be worth a lot in 5-10 years as the economic cycle repeats itself. Which is to say that if you're investing in the stock market for cash flow or short-term gain, you had better be an ace. If you are making longer-term investments, then you have to be patient.

**Nikolas** · 06-21-2008, 08:25 PM

Originally Posted by leejo

What are the lessons learned? Well first of all we're still in the early stages of a marathon, not witnessing the end of a sprint. Last month, bkelly's short positions look bad. So bad he and Tybalt, who is also basically short on the market, backed out of their positions. Had they stuck with their positions, they'd have a lot more money in their accounts today than they do

Shush, you!

Yes, I lost a pantload by unwinding my first Ford shorts early. Blargh.

**CingularDuality** · 06-22-2008, 04:06 PM

LOL, I was joking. I just went to Morningstar and looked for the fund with the highest return year-to-date and posted it...

I'm barely even able to budget funding my TSP (401k), I certainly am not interested in gambling with stocks.

Ask me what the lesson is to be learned from all of you losing money, and I'll tell you that you should learn that it's easy to get burned in the short term, and easy to get burned without diversification. This just reinforces my opinion that mutual funds are the way to go. Unless you know more than those fund managers (and none of us here do), you're just gambling otherwise...

**Nikolas** · 06-22-2008, 04:08 PM

No, they're just gambling too.

**CingularDuality** · 06-22-2008, 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by xTYBALTx

No, they're just gambling too.

*Ignoring that you linked to an unregulated hedge fund that attempted to manipulate the market criminally, while I'm talking about strictly regulated mutual funds.*

To be sure. But mutual fund managers gamble with a strategy that tends to beat the average of individual stocks. One person here has done that, and I'd be willing to bet that will change soon if you guys keep playing.

**Nikolas** · 06-22-2008, 09:40 PM

Year to date, none amongst Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, nor Berkshire Hathaway has outperformed the S&P500. Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns have nearly collapsed, off 57% and 89%, respectively.

Of course, none of these are mutual funds: Whether mutual funds outperform indexes, especially after their commissions are taken into account, is a hotly debated topic.

Finally, regarding the performance of those partaking in this competition: Since April 21st, the date that I signed up for the TG Stock Trading League, the S&P500 and DJIA are both down 5.2% and 7.28%, respectively. My portfolio is down 8.1%. Approximately 6.5 of those 8.1 points came from fat-fingering two trades. So I may be performing worse than the market, but not by much.

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