MY Greatest Failure was….
One of my greatest failures in my life was losing all my money,
assets in stock market during 2000-2002. I had lost everything I had
from my 23 years of hard working, investments, assets, etc. I ended
up with nothing (zero).
Since mid. Nineties, (1994-2002), I got involved in stock
transactions. During those times, especially end of 1998-2000, many
stocks were going up 20-30% every day/every week. Many start-up
companies were coming to the market every day/month. There were
shortages of employees, many engineers get paid very high and were
offered a lot of sign up bonuses, stock options and benefits, etc.
For a couple of years almost all stocks were doing great, Some
stocks were going up $20-$30 or 20% everyday (e.g., QualCom, Yahoo,
etc). Some of the Telecomm stocks then were at their high (e.g.,
NT: Northern Telecom at $140 per share, MCI at $58, ALU: Alcatel USA
$84, etc…). Anyhow, the market was doing great and profitable.
Suddenly, all stocks were going south every day. I was buying
more and more using Margin (Buying with credits) because I couldn’t
believe these stocks go that much low. But after a while they sold,
because of Margin,
my stocks at very low prices when they desired and I lost all big
time.
The stocks I mentioned above are currently either out
(don’t exist any more such as MCI $0 or NT after 10 to 1 Reverse
split in around 2002, it is now almost $0) or are very low such as Alcatel-Lucent about $1.90. With these devaluation, you can imagine
how a person loses his/her life!
Looking backward, I found out whatever I bought a stock it went
down and whenever I sold a stock it went up. My choice of stocks and
timing for purchasing and selling was wrong all the times. It
couldn’t be coincidence.
What Did I Learn?
My review of my investments and loses showed that simply I was
wrong and unlucky all the time in stock transactions. So I believe I
can be a good investment advisor now utilizing my bad experiences as
follow:
I buy some stocks, randomly or by study. Since I am wrong in
selecting stocks and timing of purchase, I tell my clients not to
buy those stocks and if they already have those stocks in their
portfolio they should sell them at once.
After a while, I start selling my stocks, since I have been wrong
in timing when to sell, I advice my clients to immediately buy those
stocks. You see, by advising my clients do opposite of what I am
doing, they become successful. Good strategy? Right?
