My Worst Pick Ever

[burglar]

We've all had one.

Great writeups in great Magazines.
Share price in a strong upward trend.
Shareholder Purchase Plans with attractive premiums.
Great Plans for the future.

Then comes a long slow downtrend.
The entity fails to show real progress.
Shareholders lose faith and bail.

Then one day, the kiss-of-death, ...
Consolidation 1 for every 20 held

 

[Agentm]

my view is simple

they have your capital, its your investment in them

the management is responsible to report to you, if a company fails to achieve its goals, then remove your capital.

whom the management is, and what their reputation is, means a lot for my investing, and it equates to how much capital i would be prepared to place into their organisation.. the business model needs to be sound. and thats where you, as an investor, or via a broker, you need to be vigilant

if it goes 1 for 20 before you can act, then thats a pity, but imho you must have had more than just the writing on the wall, sounds like it was a message as large as a skywriter could achieve.. fail fail fail

if you hold it in the bottom draw, leave it for a decade, who knows, it may become more valuable..

learn and try not to repeat i guess..

 

[ParleVouFrancois]

Valad Property group? LOLOL Nah but seriously at least name what company it is, thought I was going to find out that much at least .

 

[burglar]

"My Worst Pick Ever"
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21130

Want to share your worst nightmare?

Julia,

Thankyou for your response.

I'm not a beginner and I actually believe that I'm good at trading.
You ran to cash (any port in a storm) A wise choice.
I put out a sea anchor and hoped for the best, but sustained a little damage.

My Good picks to Bad picks Ratio stood at 26:03 before the GFC
My Good picks to Bad picks Ratio stands at 26:12 after the GFC

One of my worst and earliest picks was MGK which gapped down.
...
...
Tell you what ... I'll see what's already here on ASF on SAMAG, PAL Pima, MIL Magnesium International, MGK Magnesium International et al
... or I'll start a thread.

One of my worst and earliest picks was MGK and I've started my first thread !

 

[tech/a]

Not all of us!

Had strings of smaller losses.
Find that preferable to big hits.
You tend to live to fight another day.

 

[pixel]

We've all had one.

Great writeups in great Magazines.
Share price in a strong upward trend.
Shareholder Purchase Plans with attractive premiums.
Great Plans for the future.

Then comes a long slow downtrend.
The entity fails to show real progress.
Shareholders lose faith and bail.

Then one day, the kiss-of-death, ...
Consolidation 1 for every 20 held

I reckon CVI fits all of the above.
Although I'm "only" $3K out of pocket, I'd rather not say what I'd like to do to Mr Smythe and even more so to the persuasive eggspurt that talked me into it.

Yes, I know - it's my own fault and responsibility and I've been kicking myself more than anybody else

 

[burglar]

Thanks pixel

Now, I have a dilemma. Do I look up CVI or continue my tale?

Ooh no. It's two hours since the open and I haven't checked my Portfolio yet.

I'll be back!

 

[burglar]

The beginning of the suck in ... the so called Fixed Price Contract

The pea goes under this shell, watch the shell, watch the shell!

http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistic...play=text&issuerId=4952&announcementId=533878

Document date: Thu 05 Dec 2002
MIL & Theiss to build Magnesium Smelter for $751.5million
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
ENGINEERING PROCUREMENT AND CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT FINALISED

Magnesium International Limited (MIL) and Thiess Ltd (Thiess) are
pleased to announce that they have agreed on a final price for the
Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) of the SAMAG
magnesium smelter to be built at Pt Pirie in South Australia. The
price agreed is $751.5 million using a 30 June 2002 cost base."

 

[burglar]

I found no ASF thread for PAL_Pima, the original listed entity

ASF threads for MIL_Magnesium International & MGK_Magnesium International respectively below:

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=929&highlight=mil

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/search.php?searchid=2896713

And yes, Agentm, I take your point. The name changes alone are skywriting
"Fail, fail, fail !"

 

[burglar]

Not all of us!

Had strings of smaller losses.
Find that preferable to big hits.
You tend to live to fight another day.

Lucky duck!

 

[tech/a]

Lucky duck!

No luck involved.

Thats what Stop losses are for.
But you Fundies dont use stop losses.
Well Ive not met one who knows how to place one and why
he'd actually place one on a stock he sees as Undervalued and
even better the more it drops.

 

[awg]

Its pretty frustrating to hold a speccie/value stock with great prospects for a while,

it drifts lower, you lose patience, sell, and shift capital elswhere

It ascent starts very soon after, and the stock doubles in less than a year

That has happened to me a few times

It hurts even more when the the upsurge is from a big announcement just after you sold.

MSB, LNG, FMG, BEPPA

 

[skyQuake]

No luck involved.

Thats what Stop losses are for.
But you Fundies dont use stop losses.
Well Ive not met one who knows how to place one and why
he'd actually place one on a stock he sees as Undervalued and
even better the more it drops.

Liquidity issue too, you cant place a stop thats triggers a sell for 10% of the market cap

 

[burglar]

AWG, thank you and all others, for your contributions

AWG, as you point out, "the ascent starts very soon after"!

So what kept me interested in these losers?!
Little gems like this!


http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistic...play=text&issuerId=4952&announcementId=562436

"Negotiates Magnesium Venture with CSIRO

Document date: Tue 22 Apr 2003

MAGNESIUM INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2003-04-22 ASX-SIGNAL-G

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
MAGNESIUM INTERNATIONAL LIMITED NEGOTIATES MAGNESIUM VENTURE WITH
CSIRO

CSIRO and Magnesium International Limited ("MIL") announced today
that they have signed a conditional Term Sheet to enter into a
venture to manufacture magnesium sheet metal using CSIRO Twin Roll
Casting Technology."

Ooh, and don't forget the occasional speeding ticket!

 

[Tysonboss1]

It hurts even more when the the upsurge is from a big announcement just after you sold.

MSB, LNG, FMG, BEPPA

Beppa was actually one of my big wins out of the GFC. I think I had bought in at an average of around 7c and sold at 39c. I had a real decent % of my portfolio in them as well.

However my biggest loss ever was agri energy. I shake my head in disbelief at my stupidity with this one. I lost $10,000 which over all is peanuts but I learned some valuable lessons.

 

[burglar]

No luck involved.

Thats what Stop losses are for.
But you Fundies dont use stop losses.
Well Ive not met one who knows how to place one and why
he'd actually place one on a stock he sees as Undervalued and
even better the more it drops.

I learnt my lesson good!
I can take a tenth of a cent, if there's a profit in it.
Sometimes I can trade intraday (as a wise person here once said, the moment you buy them they're yours to hold or sell)
I can even stop loss, but do it manually!

Cheers

 

[awg]

Beppa was actually one of my big wins out of the GFC. I think I had bought in at an average of around 7c and sold at 39c. I had a real decent % of my portfolio in them as well.

I actually took a falling sell to lock in profit on BEPPA

Only thing is, I left several years wages on the table when they got bought out.

(Management made a hash of disclosure imo)

In terms of "lost opportunity cost" this was by far my "worst" decision


Also bought stocks at absolute highs plenty of times,
things can go pear shaped with this method.

The art of the best exit seems to elude me the most though

 

[burglar]

Beppa was actually one of my big wins out of the GFC. I think I had bought in at an average of around 7c and sold at 39c. I had a real decent % of my portfolio in them as well.

However my biggest loss ever was agri energy. I shake my head in disbelief at my stupidity with this one. I lost $10,000 which over all is peanuts but I learned some valuable lessons.

A pessimist would say I lost $8.2k
An optimist would say I retained $862
I played that money hard and fast.
No stops, no losses. Reckless!
Pity I didn't monitor how much I multiplied it.
With compounding, maybe 6 fold.

BEPPA Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.
might try ASX

 

[Gringotts Bank]

Too embarrassed to say my biggest loss. Was an absolute whopper.

On a related note - lol - a quite reliable contrarian sentiment indicator is Hotcopper. Some examples are:
1. when posters start threads such as "predict today's closing price" "what will it open at tomorrow?"
2. share price stalls and posters start rationalising by repeating how good the fundamentals are. "10 reasons why I am holding" - type of post. The words are positive, the sentiment is desperate.
3. Someone posts a negative comment and gets hammered by the others and moderated for down-ramping by a moderator who holds the same stock.

 

[Logique]

Worst pick ever? More than I care to remember.

Ventracor VCR, ION ION (remember that), Babcock and Brown BNB, ABC Learning ABC.

Erongo Energy ERN (Uranium. Athough this has picked up in the last few months, along with PDN).

Oh the pain..the pain, as Dr Zacchary might say. Hard knocks along the way to trading mediocrity.