Its Time to cut our losses and.....

Ive had a few trades that have been dogging me and its time to let them go. 2 for IMMU and 1 for GDP. The below are our outs:

Well there you have it, we are out with our 3 option picks, each with basically 100% losses. I wonder what thats going to do to my record. Ever get a zero on a test and try to average that into your grade point average? Its like mixing in an atomic bomb in your pile of fireworks. So what went wrong? I know right off the bat what I did wrong with GDP: I simply looked at its technical s and not the underlying market forces: Oil was crashing, pure and simple. It was going to keep going down as a result, it wasn't bouncable and I did not look at that. What went wrong with IMMU?  It got hit by a downgrade by Jeffries. I broke my own rules with it.

My rules:
Never touch a stock that just got a downgrade. If you are in the middle of a bounce with it and it gets a downgrade, get rid of it immediatly.
Never touch a stock that just reported earnings. It tends to go in the same direction 2 days after earnings and stays there for a while after its earnings show.

So: I apologize and the machine keeps running on. What I like to do when something goes wrong is examine it like investigators after a plane accident. Put it all back together, see what went wrong and make sure it doesnt happen again by changing things in advance. So from this point on, I will always be aware of the underlying foundation of a stock, and I will never again mess around with downgrades. Or play with a stock right after its earnings.
I by the way am holding onto that other GDP call for Sept. Maybe oil will come back in the next month, who knows, the option is almost worthless now anyway, erosion cant hurt us anymore.

So the machine rolls on. I like to be as transparent as possible and let you know what went wrong, how and why after something does go wrong.
I wonder what my record is? Im going to have to compile everything and see whats what. One good thing, with that 100% gain from yesterdays QQQ put, at least I cancelled out one of the above big losses. So that just leaves me with two fails.
Again, this is why you want your money in 15 piles. Preferrably 20 piles. I am not perfect. Even though I do kick ass in the long term. It reminds me of that Matthew McConaughey movie "Two For the Money" he did with Al Pacino in 2005ish. He was running a string of good sports pics and pushing them on guys who worked in restaurants, etc. Then there was the big loss. I remember one scene where this guy who worked in the service industry was calling him up on a payphone crying with his new ferrari next to him. He told Matthew that his last pick destroyed him and now he has nothing. "Oh, now you got nothing snazzy to say? Huh? Now no more fast talking bullshit?" Matthew just sat on the phone stunned. It turns out that this guy was taking 100% of his money ON EACH PICK MCCONAUGHEY gave him.
I don't care how good any source of info you receive is. Nothing is 100%, and if you operate this way in the stock market, in a casino, or in any proposition in business, there is a 100% chance you will lose part or all of your money.
So if you follow me, I am going to have some crazy big winners. I will also have some crazy big losses. I do not operate in the uptight buttoned down world of safety. I think safety sucks. Its boring, predictable and while it eliminates the lowest lows, it ALSO ELIMINATES THE HIGHEST HIGHS. Like that high when you put 1,000 dollars into Starbucks put options 2 days before it reports earnings and sure enough, earnings are crap and suddenly you have 5,000. Or 100,000 to 500,000. Suddenly you are going on vacation or buying a nice new Range Rover. I have a friend that took 5,000 dollars and traded his way up to $115,000 by trading loose and from the hip and it took him about 8 months to accomplish that, with big wins and big losses. So one day I mentioned that he should cash out, take the money and lock it in and build that house addition that he wanted. He did just that. What if he had played it safe? He would have had to take out a second mortgage and pay if off over 10-20 years with interest to a bank. I like the way he did it better. I choose not to live in the shadows because one day I will be lying in a box, and what did I accomplish? How to be safe and work in a cubicle and keep my head down? Thats not what I want to see when Im lying in my deathbed and reviewing my life.
The one thing that almost everyone lying on their deathbed says is "I wish I took more chances. I wish I took the time to reconnect with my friends/ took a chance to try to make up with people I hurt. I wish I didnt work so hard. And for what? Here I am. I wish I asked that girl out. I wish I Lived life more instead of sitting in a cubicle for 50 hours a week.
Thats some useful advice. Really think hard about that. Pretend you are 90 and dying in bed. What do you wish you did?
Now back to the present. Now DO those things, because you just got a second chance, you are no longer 90 laying in bed.

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