Since then, I have made 500+ trades; some great, some horrible, some
good, some bad, some lucky, some stupid, some well planned, some
impatiently. I can say that I have used just about every idea to trade
stocks both long and short: fundamentals, sentiment, technicals, news,
earnings, cycles. You name it, I either tried it, or know about it.
I bought Dell Computer in late December of 1992 near $50 and watched
it lose half it's value before selling at $25. I used that money to buy
Microchip in May 1993 and sold out a few months later after tripling my
money.
I bought American Waste Services at $3.00 on the 3rd or 4th of August
1994 and sold the next day at $5.00. I bought FORE Sytems at $31+ based
on a stochastic crossover signal in the oversold region and sold out
later that day for a $6.00 loss. The next day, the stock promptly ran
back up and then some.
More than doubled my money invested in Employee Solutions from
December 1995 to the spring of 1996. Then preceded to lose a ton of
money in the same stock late in May of that same year because the stock
was dropping and we were going on vacation (yes, the stock came back up
after I sold).
Played Cirrus Logic like a well tuned instrument both long and short.
More than doubled the investment in that stock during the summer of
1995. Started selling Cirrus Logic short in October of that same year
starting in the $50s. Sold short at $42ish, a couple of days later the
stock dropped more than $10; I thought that the stock must have done a
4:3 split that I wasn't aware of.
Fiddled around with Iomega while it was still IOMG. Bought 500 shares
one day, sold out 30 minutes later for $500 profit. Two days later I was
buying IOMG at $26+ and flipping the stock for quarter point profits.
Decided to get fancy and hold out for more profit. Ended up losing
$4.00/share because I was greedy and didn't understand the broker's
order execution system.
Yes, I have had my share of good and bad trades.