Thursday, October 15, 2009

Redemption

Six Google Eves ago, I committed the most colossal blunder of my short trading life.

In those days, Google was despised by investors because it wasn't Apple. The received wisdom was that Google's market was saturated and would soon disappear. Everybody shorted GOOG. I don't short stocks. I just sold every share I owned. Then they came out with killer earnings and the stock went up 80 points in ten minutes. I watched in horror. But that wasn't my most colossal blunder. My most colossal blunder came when I sucked in my gut and bought my shares back for 80 points more than I sold them. That was the big blunder.

If I had just bid good-bye to Google at that point, if I had not bought those shares back, up 80, I could have purchased them back later for a song. But no - Cramer said that sometimes you have to suck in your gut and pay up. So I did. How was I supposed to know that that wasn't one of those times?

But that's all behind me now. This Google Eve, for the first time since then, I'm completely in the black with GOOG, including the shares I paid up 80 for. All is forgiven.

No comments: