Thursday, November 22, 2007
blog
i always remind myself of the dangers of being lured by impractical stuffs like easy money and caution myself against succumbing to human instincts like mass panic/hysteria.
sometimes, said is really easier than done.
lured into the false promise of easy money gleaned from daytrading on the stock market, i was handed a timely reminder by the more experienced traders out there in the stock market.
"don't mess with us, kid. daytrading is not easy money," they seem to say.
the end result? what turned out to be a net, but unfortunately very small, profit was wiped clean and now i lost $6000 of my father's money. he wasn't livid, but rather disappointed.
and the guilt that arises from his lack of anger only serves to drill in the pain from this lesson. i had tried to decrease my parents' burden by turning to day trading to at least earn my pocket money until my enlistment.
instead, i saddled them with an extra burden. a moment of pure greed was enough to demolish the dam of caution. the end result could only be a mass flood.
on hindsight, it was just a temporary price fluctuation. had i held on more, my loss would have been about 10% of the present amount. but hindsight is always perfect. at the point in time, it did seem that the price would just go down even further and magnify the losses.
looking back, it was just a standard daytrading trick by those traders, short-selling. something remarkably simple yet effective here.
they must have been laughing their way to the bank. lesson learnt. as my father said, "daytrading and fund management is not as easy as they seem. there's a reason why fund managers are paid well."
lesson learnt.
but admittedly, the tuition fees were rather high.
shermon blogged @ 6:15 pm
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