ARGH! Aie-eeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK, I present to you my Royal Screwup Of The Day: General Motors. As some of you know, there’s nothing quite so painful about being correct on a trade and yet losing money on it. This is one of those times for me.
I have been bearish on General Motors for a variety of reasons. They came out with their earnings this morning. The Street loved what they heard. They bid the stock up massively (relatively speaking; we’re talking about General Motors, after all).
So I quickly fell victim to emotions for a number of reasons, pre-market:
+ Stocks were zooming higher, egged on by AAPL and FB;
+ In spite of the US and USSR (or, sorry, the Russian Federation) being on the verge of a proxy war, gold was down HARD, and stocks were giggling like schoolgirls;
+ I had both a short on GM as well as puts, both of which were getting killed
So what did I do? Pretty much the worst thing possible. I covered my GM short almost the moment the market opened, and at almost the highest price of the day. I elected to place this trade for the worst reason in the world: because the loss hurt, and I wanted to stop the pain. This. Reasoning. Sucks. And it almost always is the wrong thing to do. Here’s the chart, as of now:
As for the options, I waited a little while on those, and I felt pleased to take a less-awful loss than I saw earlier. But………..well………..you can see what they’ve done vis a vis my exit price.
So I am not a happy camper, particularly with myself!
