When stock prices decline and you loose money, someone else doesn’t automatically make money. It’s pure wealth destruction in the stock market.
On the other hand, in the futures market it is a zero sum game (exclu.fees+taxes). Your loss would be my gain exactly.
Retail investors don’t stand a chance against institutional “smart” money. If you think you’re smarter than the 1000s of pension funds, hedge funds, and other institutional fund managers, the joke’s on you. The small investor almost always gets screwed in the stock market in the short term, and every time in the futures market. It’s a rigged game, just like a casino. The only way to beat the odds is to stop playing, buy-pray-hold long term, or become an “insider.”
[quote=“Charlie Phillips”]Why don’t you pull half your money out tomorrow and take the loss on it as a lesson. If you really have faith in the company, you will still have 25% of your wealth invested. With the other 75% you can invest a little wiser like Tomthorne said - no more than 5% in one basket.
In the current environment, the drops in share values are not necessarily due to individual company performance. It’s a good buying environment though. Just don’t spend all your money at once and don’t spend it all on one thing.[/quote]
Taking fees into account, would you stick to the 5% rule when dealing with small sums? Unless you’re regular investing small sums over a very long term, you’d be motivated to invest in riskier stocks to realize a profit, no?
[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“Charlie Phillips”]Why don’t you pull half your money out tomorrow and take the loss on it as a lesson. If you really have faith in the company, you will still have 25% of your wealth invested. With the other 75% you can invest a little wiser like Tomthorne said - no more than 5% in one basket.
In the current environment, the drops in share values are not necessarily due to individual company performance. It’s a good buying environment though. Just don’t spend all your money at once and don’t spend it all on one thing.[/quote]
Taking fees into account, would you stick to the 5% rule when dealing with small sums? Unless you’re regular investing small sums over a very long term, you’d be motivated to invest in riskier stocks to realize a profit, no?[/quote]
Fees? What is a 1% to 2% fee over the medium to long term? We are all aiming to make more than bank interest rates which are next to zilch.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]Really? I think they are two different spaces. I don’t see Microsoft doing big sales in smartphone anytime soon. The main problem for HTC is the iPhone, Samsung phones and now cheap Chinese , Taiwanese and Korean androids. It’s getting more crowded and margins are dropping, it seems to happen this way for all electronic segments.
The whole market is still growing but the competition is growing faster.[/quote]
Well, I was tired and made a cognitive leap. WP8 will tie into W8 and businesses and lots of people who don’t want too many systems, want integration with their computer, may adopt it. Have you see RIM lately? Geronimo.
I agree that margins are falling and there are too many [good/sufficient] competitors. Stock markets project earnings into the future, so there’s lower and lower expectations. Also, catching a falling knife is difficult so you must have sufficient trading margin to play this strategy. It’s an ego thing, you want to look/feel smart picking the bottom, and don’t want to admit you’re wrong by closing a loser. I’d advise cutting it today and not holding on in hope. However, if you can tolerate losing a paper 40-100k, maybe it’ll bounce back in time.
[quote=“SillyWilly”]The only way to beat the odds is to stop playing, buy-pray-hold long term, or become an “insider.”
Good luck with your trade.[/quote]
There is one more way. Back in the days when I had time to track the market, I did make money. Nowadays market is on the downturn, nothing about it interests me anymore :p. Too lazy to care… so the (substantial) loss.
So Monday it went from 414 to 386 or so. Then Tuesday it bounced back up to 401…which was nice. And then just before close on Tuesday someone buy a couple million usd worth of HTC…so that makes me hopeful. And then this morning it drops to 378. Sigh. My wife said she wanted to sell yesterday because in Taiwan when a stock drops a lot…the next day it always will bounce back…but the decent will continue. She was right in this case it seems.
What I don’t understand is that people are selling 2000 shares each day more so than the people buying…so if you have 1000 shares bought and 3000 sold…who are the extra 2000 going to?
Why oh why did you buy HTC?..its just gone through the floor in the first hour’s trading today.[/quote]
Well we didn’t know it would do that at the time. And the new HTC is the flagship of all androids. And when we bought it the next day it climbed 20 points/thousand nt. And HTC bounces between 400 and 1000 points every year. So we thought we were getting in at the lowest time.
That’s a very poor article you linked to, Windows phones make up no more than 2% of the market, windows based tablets…don’t even exist yet! HTC had an android tablet, but no tablet really sells like the iPad. Even when MS launch tablets, there will be so many vendors the margin will be very poor.
There are some claims that HTC is suffering compared to iPhone or Samsung Galaxy III, but if you look at the latest HTC devices they could be considered the best in class.
It’s impossible to predict what will happen accurately, we can just make our best guess. All stock markets have dropped over the last month.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]That’s a very poor article you linked to, Windows phones make up no more than 2% of the market, windows based tablets…don’t even exist yet! HTC had an android tablet, but no tablet really sells like the iPad. Even when MS launch tablets, there will be so many vendors the margin will be very poor.
There are some claims that HTC is suffering compared to iPhone or Samsung Galaxy III, but if you look at the latest HTC devices they could be considered the best in class.
It’s impossible to predict what will happen accurately, we can just make our best guess. All stock markets have dropped over the last month.[/quote]
I respectively disagree. Veracity or not, it shows sentiment and is obviously in the minds of investors-who in a very real sense have used this sentiment to influence 2498. And I predicted this.
He bought right before Computex, very unwise considering the massive amount of rumours and news coming out. Many people will seek W8 and WP8 combo.
As I said in the last post:
-stock markets are forward looking, it doesn’t matter the current situation, investors are pricing in expectations 12-18 months out (hence, you have to be naive to believe you can time buy and hold perfectly)
-If he can stand the heat up to a paper loss of 80-120k then in the short-medium term he might get his money back. Who knows, next week or next month?
Mordeth, we told you to sell. You were given another shot at it. Why post here if you don’t listen?
Make a clever animated video of the ground falling away under your financial bike. Or build a plywood ramp/course of the stock price chart over the next month, ride it, and film that. You’ve said you make good money on YouTube… use this to make it back there too. Why not? The misery’s got to be for something.
Mordeth, we told you to sell. You were given another shot at it. Why post here if you don’t listen?[/quote]
Actually the majority of posters said to wait it out. One particular said he was confident that HTC would get back up to 500-700, but probably never again the 1000s. So the MAJORITY of advice I got from here was to wait. And that’s actually why I didn’t sell yesterday when it bounced back up to 406 (I bought it at 414).
Mordeth, we told you to sell. You were given another shot at it. Why post here if you don’t listen?[/quote]
Actually the majority of posters said to wait it out. One particular said he was confident that HTC would get back up to 500-700, but probably never again the 1000s. So the MAJORITY of advice I got from here was to wait. And that’s actually why I didn’t sell yesterday when it bounced back up to 406 (I bought it at 414).[/quote]
Look, I wish you well and all. Losing money sucks. Hope it recovers to 4 quickly.
Still, it’s up to you to parse info. If a majority of posters told you to stick your willy in a blender, would you do it? Let’s try: I suggest you stick your willy in a blender. Filming it is, of course, optional.
Are Taiwan stocks in general not like sticking said part into a blender?
I mean it’s a trading not a trending market, and if you buy atn the wrong time, you will never get your money back?
Note that the Taiex topped out on 1990 at 12,000, a level not ever to be reached again.
Given the generally depressed markets, I would hold onto it for another couple of months, however I think that Samsung will have HTC’s lunch in the upper end of the market, while the Chinese will eat their lunch at the lower end. HTC will end up like Nokia, just 15 times faster.
[quote=“Mr He”]Are Taiwan stocks in general not like sticking said part into a blender? So is that a vote for Moreth using the blender? 2-0
Note that the Taiex topped out on 1990 at 12,000, a level not ever to be reached again.
[/quote]
I will remember these words when you are much older and greyer than now.
Something I have learned (painfully) is to put in a tight stop upon buying. Not too tight that a little market fluctuation will stop you out, but close enough that is bad news hits you won’t lose out too much and get put into a situation of whether you should hold the bag, or eat the loss. It’s not fool proof, but it helps. I am currently taking a spanking on HAL for not doing this (which I should have and knew that I should have, but didn’t).
