Monday, January 31, 2005
Stockcoach the bagholder
What a lousy day! Well, here’s my sorry tale: I had a limit order to buy 2000 shares of COLL at $5.75 per share. Bargain price I thought for a profitable company with over $200 million in sales and a market cap of about $30 million. I had the limit order in place for about 2 weeks, hoping someone would bail out, allowing me to pick up some shares on the cheap. Oh, I got my shares all right. You see, at about 2:00 pm the company announced that it was delaying its annual report and may restate its earnings. Well, you can imagine what happened.
Would you like paper or plastic Mr. Stockcoach?
Neither thanks. Within minutes, my limit order was filled at $5.75. Needless to say, the stock got hammered. It finished the day at $4.85 (and down more in after-hours). And now I’m looking at a $2000 paper loss. Who do I blame? Well, I suppose I was partly at fault for having the limit order just sitting there in the first place. And it was certainly my fault for placing such a large order (last time I do that, lesson learned!). But realistically, trying to buy small cap stocks without a limit order is even more stupid. Anyway, what the heck was the company doing announcing this at 2:00 in the afternoon??? Stuff like that should be announced when the market is closed. I blame myself to some extent, but I blame the company even more.
What to do now? Not sure. The news actually wasn’t that bad. Yeah, I know restatements can be ugly. But I have seen my fair share of restatements, and I suspect this one won’t be that bad (if it happens at all). Under $5, this company is a good hold for the long term. And I suspect I may end up holding it for sometime cause I’m not prepared to realize my loss just yet. Heck, if it goes to $4 I may buy some more (though probably not considering how peeved I am at the company right now).
Anyhow, I’m glad January is over. I ended the month down 0.2 percent, compared to the S&P and Nasdaq, which dropped 2.5 percent and 5.2 percent, respectively. Though I still outperformed the major indices, the margin of outperformance slipped considerably over the past 5 trading days. I’ve updated the charts on the right, and included a little table in the first chart showing the percentage gain in my portfolio in each year starting from 2001.
Let’s hope February is a more profitable month than January!
Would you like paper or plastic Mr. Stockcoach?
Neither thanks. Within minutes, my limit order was filled at $5.75. Needless to say, the stock got hammered. It finished the day at $4.85 (and down more in after-hours). And now I’m looking at a $2000 paper loss. Who do I blame? Well, I suppose I was partly at fault for having the limit order just sitting there in the first place. And it was certainly my fault for placing such a large order (last time I do that, lesson learned!). But realistically, trying to buy small cap stocks without a limit order is even more stupid. Anyway, what the heck was the company doing announcing this at 2:00 in the afternoon??? Stuff like that should be announced when the market is closed. I blame myself to some extent, but I blame the company even more.
What to do now? Not sure. The news actually wasn’t that bad. Yeah, I know restatements can be ugly. But I have seen my fair share of restatements, and I suspect this one won’t be that bad (if it happens at all). Under $5, this company is a good hold for the long term. And I suspect I may end up holding it for sometime cause I’m not prepared to realize my loss just yet. Heck, if it goes to $4 I may buy some more (though probably not considering how peeved I am at the company right now).
Anyhow, I’m glad January is over. I ended the month down 0.2 percent, compared to the S&P and Nasdaq, which dropped 2.5 percent and 5.2 percent, respectively. Though I still outperformed the major indices, the margin of outperformance slipped considerably over the past 5 trading days. I’ve updated the charts on the right, and included a little table in the first chart showing the percentage gain in my portfolio in each year starting from 2001.
Let’s hope February is a more profitable month than January!
# posted by Stockcoach @ 7:27 PM 
Comments:
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Yeah, I sort of committed a dumb mistake myself. I logged onto my E*Trade and saw that ASIA was up. Without thinking, I simply SOLD right away at $5.10.
That was kind of really dumb... It went as high as $5.29 and I freaking sold at $5.10 without thinking at all. In fact, earnings are coming out and it might go up even more (or drop).. but I should definitely have simply waited another day or so and see the results.
Lack of sleep from watching 7 episodes of Desperate Housewives continously at night.
FRO is actually moving up a bit today. It has moved away from the negative territory and in positive. Think I should put stop-loss on it and wait it out another few weeks or months? Problem with stop-loss is that stock might drop continously for days and suddenly move back up. Like what this stock has done. So.. ergh.. cant decide.
Still regret my recent sale of 200 shares of COP based on fear at $88. It was my only positive stock last week and I sold it because I was freaked out by how everything was going down in my portfolio. Now it's at $92.79 and going up.
I bought another 200 shares of Pfizer at $24.10. It seems like a decent price. I am losing money on my earlier purchases at $26 range but I guess I have high hopes for Pfizer.
Hmmm.. I wonder how tomorrow is going to be like. So far, positive days are immediately followed by negative days. So I was thinking if I should short tomorrow. Be interesting to see Google earnings.
My portfolio follows the market pretty much exactly. If it is down, all my stocks are down. If it is up, pretty much all my stocks are up.
Scott
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That was kind of really dumb... It went as high as $5.29 and I freaking sold at $5.10 without thinking at all. In fact, earnings are coming out and it might go up even more (or drop).. but I should definitely have simply waited another day or so and see the results.
Lack of sleep from watching 7 episodes of Desperate Housewives continously at night.
FRO is actually moving up a bit today. It has moved away from the negative territory and in positive. Think I should put stop-loss on it and wait it out another few weeks or months? Problem with stop-loss is that stock might drop continously for days and suddenly move back up. Like what this stock has done. So.. ergh.. cant decide.
Still regret my recent sale of 200 shares of COP based on fear at $88. It was my only positive stock last week and I sold it because I was freaked out by how everything was going down in my portfolio. Now it's at $92.79 and going up.
I bought another 200 shares of Pfizer at $24.10. It seems like a decent price. I am losing money on my earlier purchases at $26 range but I guess I have high hopes for Pfizer.
Hmmm.. I wonder how tomorrow is going to be like. So far, positive days are immediately followed by negative days. So I was thinking if I should short tomorrow. Be interesting to see Google earnings.
My portfolio follows the market pretty much exactly. If it is down, all my stocks are down. If it is up, pretty much all my stocks are up.
Scott
# posted by 
: 8:12 PM, January 31, 2005
: 8:12 PM, January 31, 2005 << Home
