$250.00 to $40,000.00 in 6 weeks!

[brty]

There are some great investors and traders that have contributed to this thread.

I would suggest that most that posted knew exactly how this would end, we have seen it all before.

The first mistake is using a gambling outfit that offers to take the other side of your bet. We have read numerous stories of these "markets" going 'funny' when some-one starts to win regularly. Trembling Hand especially had experience of this trading for someone else a couple of years ago.

Secondly, pages of sound advice about if you were on to something, put most of your money aside and start again. If you really are on to something, then by repeating the process, you lose nothing, but gain credibility. If you were on to nothing but luck as it turned out, you would still have $50k in the bank to get on with your life.

Despite Toll having probably left the forum, I would just like to thank all the posters for contributing their knowledge that came to pass, hopefully this thread will help the next superstar trader that turns up and passes on his wisdom after 6 weeks.

Some how though, I doubt it, they all know better than the combined wisdom of probably hundreds of years worth of trading and investing knowledge from the participants of this thread.

 

[barney]

There are some great investors and traders that have contributed to this thread.

I would suggest that most that posted knew exactly how this would end, we have seen it all before.

The first mistake is using a gambling outfit that offers to take the other side of your bet. We have read numerous stories of these "markets" going 'funny' when some-one starts to win regularly. Trembling Hand especially had experience of this trading for someone else a couple of years ago.

Secondly, pages of sound advice about if you were on to something, put most of your money aside and start again. If you really are on to something, then by repeating the process, you lose nothing, but gain credibility. If you were on to nothing but luck as it turned out, you would still have $50k in the bank to get on with your life.

Despite Toll having probably left the forum, I would just like to thank all the posters for contributing their knowledge that came to pass, hopefully this thread will help the next superstar trader that turns up and passes on his wisdom after 6 weeks.

Some how though, I doubt it, they all know better than the combined wisdom of probably hundreds of years worth of trading and investing knowledge from the participants of this thread.

Quality post BRTY ... sorry "brty" lol ......

Anyway, I suspect, like a select few on this Forum, that I have seen the absolute highs and lows of trading ......

I won a reasonable amount early ..... I then lost a small fortune through being uninformed and stupid ....... I managed to trade that back to only losing 25% of that small fortune ...

I then lost half of that ... That last bit is my most annoying part for me personally

That is where I see Toll being at, and why I feel frustration when he was given good advice and disregarded it ... I see him through my own eyes, and right now he would be feeling pretty low ... and to be honest that worries me!

I was lucky enough to have a sound support network to forgive my indiscretions ... I hope he can come through the other side and live to fight another day .....

Now days I am reasonably aware of my weaknesses with my trading habits, but I have never found a way to beat them to this point ..... that is MY quest ... I hope Toll can accept he has trading (perhaps gambling) issues to deal with, and I hope he can work out a way to deal with them!! ..... Its a tough gig to make money consistently from the market ......

One should never disregard the aspect of luck involved in trading ...... Good luck can make you rich ... Bad luck can make you many things, many of those unpleasant .....

Apologies ... a bit of a Rant!!

 

[ROE]

Just come down to lack of experience just like teenagers.

they think they are invincible, young and fearless

they may strong, and fearless but that cant substitute for experience
and experience can only be acquired with time

How long till the next teenager come on the forum?

 

[DeepState]

Just come down to lack of experience just like teenagers.

they think they are invincible, young and fearless

they may strong, and fearless but that cant substitute for experience
and experience can only be acquired with time

How long till the next teenager come on the forum?

Hey ROE, $250 - $40k in six weeks is nothing mate. Check out my trade record. I did one trade today. I paid $10 bucks. I made $36 million. I am a gun. Everybody else is an idiot or too negative. I am going to double down.

 

[Faramir]

This is the coalface of trading, warts and all The greatest lessons are from watching real people make real trades .... even if those trades are based on good or bad trading logic!

Thank you Barney for your advice and for keeping me interested in this post. As brty said, whether or not it was valuable to Tollbridge OR should I say whether or not he did listen to anyone's advice.: there were many others who did listen to the combined wisdom of all.

So please do not feel despondent with your efforts, especially if it was thrown back in your face. So many others who did not contributed have surely gained so much from this post. I feel safe that if I ever get an ego, hopefully all of you will put me in my place.

If I had another $50,000????? Tollbridge, you are much younger than me. You will get another opportunity. I am running out of time, very little capital. I have spent less than 35% of what I do have. The reasons include only spendng on what I know or what I have studied/research. Waiting for dips (I missed two dips last fortnight bt I am teaching myself not to be disappointed in myself.) or a correction that maybe miles away. I can not risk going out on an all out rampage.

Tollbridge (if you are still reading this), not sure what is your health problem but my simple understanding is no health = no trading. Researching, studying, etc still requires energy. Even dealing with your emotions requires energy. I know there are many who might be full time traders because they quit their old jobs due to health. Do whatever you can for your health. Then you will have the time and energy to do the rest.

Thank you to everyone else for your contributions. Sometimes funny, sometimes angry and frustrated. Sometimes profound. As ususal, always helpful and wise.

 

[barney]

Thank you Barney for your advice and for keeping me interested in this post. As brty said, whether or not it was valuable to Tollbridge OR should I say whether or not he did listen to anyone's advice.: there were many others who did listen to the combined wisdom of all.

My pleasure "Son of Ondoher" ..... If I've said something that has helped, I'm glad. Its a pity Toll missed such a great opportunity ..... Not respecting Risk will eventually bring even the best Trader down.

Cheers.

 

[ParleVouFrancois]

Fascinating thread....

I think Tollbridge has had a charmed run. It's also possible he has some particular skill as well. After all card counters in casinos are banned because they have developed a way to turn the odds in their favour when clearly the house doesn't want to see that.

I can also relate to his story. Early in my investing days I did very well. I managed to pick a few bolters and looked at some quite handsome numbers on my accounts and thought how clever I was with my investing strategy....

Now ? Just not so clever. My "winners" have died and most of the plays I have made subsequently have failed. In retrospect I should most certainly have cashed in my chips somewhere near the top, paid tax on my "winnings" and gone back to making an honest living.

I can also remember the story of young guy in Adelaide who is very interested in the market, borrowed money from his mum and proceeded to make quite a decent killing over a couple of years. He seemed to be a thoughtful and clever investor/trader. (He has been on ASF as well.)

I believe he took a chunk out of his monies as cash and then went back into the market. I suspect a few of those shares have been beaten around the ears since. I did follow his website and trades and he was sincere and honest in his approach. He should be finishing his uni degree by now.

So good luck Tollbridge. I hope you can manage to hold onto your "winnings ". If in fact you have manged to turn a zero sum game (less transaction fees) into a consistently winning story it is revolutionary. But naturally the proof is in the pudding.

Are you talking about PVF? If so then unfortunately he went heavily into AJQO (~$100k) and that position is now worth zero. Which is a great shame as he had some pretty good insights on various stocks, well before the general mass got onto the story. He's always had this style in his investing... which is probably ok with FPO equities. The biggest problem was of course the choice of option as the instrument. They expire before there is a chance to prove he's right. And to me that's essentially the same for binaries - a "time boundary" that erodes one's edge considerably.

The lesson, as always, is that it's easy to come into a good/great run - during which time it's difficult to distinguish between skill andr luck. It's much harder to keep the winnings unless you manage your risks.

Hey guys, I'm still around, I tend to lurk more and post less these days. Usually I hangout on the other forum because more posts happen, I do like coming back to this one as I believe it has higher quality.

I've completed my undergraduate degree in economics and doing a masters in applied finance which will be done by the end of the year, all funded by the sharemarket (e.g. I was cashing out along the way). The $130,000 or so I put into AJQO's have blown up (should have bought the heads!), I'm still reasonably certain that the thesis was correct (gas prices on the east coast go up, making more marginal frontier exploration/development economical = AJQ zoom) just VERY incorrect on the timing of everything, definitely needed more than the ~20 months I thought it was possible to get things rolling in, management doing absolutely no drilling/exploration for the entire 2014 year didn't help.

The way I looked at it was, if this thing kicks off I've potentially got a retirement $ amount going, but if it doesn't, at least I've got enough out of the market to fund the rest of my studies (the masters in applied finance, was considering doing it in accounting, but definitely settled and very happy to be doing applied finance). Having no wife/kids/house/mortgage also factored heavily into my thinking.

There's a saying out there, if you're young, you're probably too cocky, and I definitely was.

I still post on the blog but less frequently, I don't find the experience as enjoyable/educating as before. With that remaining money (which I coincidentally made with trading the $130,000 in and out of a few companies) I have got it back up to a decent grubstake. Started out 2014 with $30,000 or so in the bank and as of today it is worth over $70,000 plus expenses paid during the year, with some money set aside to tide me over through the summer until I get a job next year (no required withdrawals from the portfolio!). Learning all about portfolio theory and frothing over the Markowitz theorem et al to reduce risk and maintain returns, if only I did an undergraduate in finance I probably wouldn't have chucked a bunch on AJQO.

Still learning and permanently humbled by how incorrect I was on AJQO.

 

[Crom]

Hi,

I have been off ASF for a little while and unaware of this thread. For what it's worth I just read it from start to finish (delaying writing rehab reports for clients I guess). But what a fascinating read. And the type of reactions. And of course sadly, thoughts on why Toll needed to air all this with start up fibs to give himself credibility.

I wish him all the best and yes, the share MKt should never come down to gambling. My closest friend fell foul of this mentality.

Anyway, hard not to read 8 pages of commentary and ignore such a cry for acknowledgement, and then a final cry of self acknowledging failure.

Crom

 

[skc]

I still post on the blog but less frequently, I don't find the experience as enjoyable/educating as before. With that remaining money (which I coincidentally made with trading the $130,000 in and out of a few companies) I have got it back up to a decent grubstake. Started out 2014 with $30,000 or so in the bank and as of today it is worth over $70,000 plus expenses paid during the year, with some money set aside to tide me over through the summer until I get a job next year (no required withdrawals from the portfolio!). Learning all about portfolio theory and frothing over the Markowitz theorem et al to reduce risk and maintain returns, if only I did an undergraduate in finance I probably wouldn't have chucked a bunch on AJQO.

PVF, thanks for the update. Great to hear you are doing well. As I said, I think you have shown some unique insights into a lot of stocks, and you have been identifying those with some regularity. For someone else without any talent, they might luck into some potential opportunity and choose to bet big in fear that there won't be another opportunity down the track. But for someone like you with ability and talent (and at such a young age), you don't actually need to bet big. There will be so many opportunities in the years ahead... you just need to bet enough each time, and trust your skill to find you the next winning stock. Yes it might not offer you the chance to retire in one fell swoop, but it's much better R:R and prevents some freak event to de-rail your destined path.

P.S. I think your thesis on AJQ is pretty solid. I have a small "interest-keeping" position and just waiting to see how things unfold.

 

[So_Cynical]

Hey guys, I'm still around,

Still learning and permanently humbled by how incorrect I was on AJQO.

Thanks for the update PVF, i had a 100% loser early on, its a big important lesson to understand ones limitations and fallibility.

AJQ - when i read your original thoughts/blog i had a bit of a look and concurred with your thoughts, watchlisted it and waited for some half decent drill results...still waiting.

 

[ParleVouFrancois]

Cheers for the thoughts SKC and Cynical.

I think we will be waiting a long time for AJQ's drill results, the wet season is coming up soon enough for the company...