2013 Trading war stories

[Causalien]

Someone could have bought just a few 35 or 40 strike LEAPs over a year ago(which I know many people were dong with TSLA), then at the start of the short squeeze about a year ago converted them all to a lot of cheap 6-month out 75 call options and made a fortune just from those two option trades alone. I know someone who made about a 10,000% return on their 4k IRA acct from doing this trade-up, it's a gamble but can pay off. They also say they bought a bunch of Jan 2016 250 LEAPs for about $15 each in Nov.

Execution of two options trade with good timing is very rare. All these stories makes me want to find out what % of networth people put in TSLA. TMC is already a fulcrum of success stories that are very rare. Compared to the other community that I participate in (Mainly day traders), we are a cloud of positivity. I doubt the percentage of people who succeeded with the same trade is as high in the general population.

Myself I put 1/4 of my net worth in TSLA when I first invested in the IPO and promptly shut up about it because everyone I know was attacking TSLA. A friend of mine sold TSLA at $45 because he wants to buy it back at $30. Ever since then he holds a grudge against me because his wife keeps on reminding him about not listening to me.

I subsequently added more... but those are after the run up to 100, so puny compared to the initial investment. Back then, I believed in Elon and TSLA, but decades of careful money management tells me that 10% of net worth is crazy, let alone 25%.

Here's to the crazy ones.

*Edit: Since the mods eviscerated my posts I decided to add some credibility.

I had forgotten that I actually traded around my core positions and used puts to gain more shares. Here's a look at my 2011 trade history of when TSLA is around 20~30. So funny to see those options priced at $0.5

 

[TSLAopt]

Execution of two options trade with good timing is very rare. All these stories makes me want to find out what % of networth people put in TSLA. TMC is already a fulcrum of success stories that are very rare. Compared to the other community that I participate in (Mainly day traders), we are a cloud of positivity. I doubt the percentage of people who succeeded with the same trade is as high in the general population.

Myself I put 1/4 of my net worth in TSLA when I first invested in the IPO and promptly shut up about it because everyone I know was attacking TSLA. A friend of mine sold TSLA at $45 because he wants to buy it back at $30. Ever since then he holds a grudge against me because his wife keeps on reminding him about not listening to me.

I subsequently added more... but those are after the run up to 100, so puny compared to the initial investment. Back then, I believed in Elon and TSLA, but decades of careful money management tells me that 10% of net worth is crazy, let alone 25%.

Here's to the crazy ones.

Yes, I would say the people on these boards have better vision on thinking outside the box and seeing changes happening that the masses (and most fundamental analysts) don't see yet. Some may call us crazy but Mr. Market has made us all wealthier as a result and I believe will continue to do so.

 

[mershaw2001]

Execution of two options trade with good timing is very rare. All these stories makes me want to find out what % of networth people put in TSLA. TMC is already a fulcrum of success stories that are very rare. Compared to the other community that I participate in (Mainly day traders), we are a cloud of positivity. I doubt the percentage of people who succeeded with the same trade is as high in the general population.

Myself I put 1/4 of my net worth in TSLA when I first invested in the IPO and promptly shut up about it because everyone I know was attacking TSLA. A friend of mine sold TSLA at $45 because he wants to buy it back at $30. Ever since then he holds a grudge against me because his wife keeps on reminding him about not listening to me.

I subsequently added more... but those are after the run up to 100, so puny compared to the initial investment. Back then, I believed in Elon and TSLA, but decades of careful money management tells me that 10% of net worth is crazy, let alone 25%.

Here's to the crazy ones.

At 28 dollars, I had 110% of my net worth in tesla ($28,000), but managed to have another 150% invested in other stocks using margin. At the time that tesla was 28, I was cleaned out by another stock having their drug not pass FDA trials and falling from 9 to 5 dollars, and I got a margin equity call and had to close out my account. I sold down to 100 shares of tesla and couldn't trade. I returned to my grad school work, earned another $5000 and put it back into my account, opened it up again.... and was cleaned out by another drug doing the same thing. So I went back and earned another $5000, and put that back in, opened up, leveraged up on tesla and the same drug companies. Most importantly, however, I taught myself options, and used those to moderate risk in the other companies and open up a good number of risk reversals on tesla. Then poof! Tesla exploded, and I was suddenly free from the capital restraints that made me get equity calls every time a I a drug failure in another stock. I could now support myself through drug failures (I've had 3 more this past year).

Right now is the lightest i've been in a while in tesla, though I usually keep 60-100%, and i think that tomorrow i'll be buying more because i was expecting a drop today that didn't manifest.

- - - Updated - - -

One of the things that i see in regard to people who take the risky route: They tend to have the mentality to normally take the risky route. Take Jim Chanos for example. he called the 2008 crash or something, and is famous for that. However, he's been calling for a crash for a while and he's lost billions this year and the last because he takes a strategy that suits him and continually applies it. It just happens to work once. Bringing it back to tesla. You would need to have the guts to go into 60 strike calls when tesla is at 30. The same person who was holding 60 strike calls when tesla was 30 would have been holding 200 strike calls when we went through that abysmal last earnings/fire and he/she would be wiped out.
I think I'm trying to make the point that the most successful people have to be constantly changing their strategies, or at least applying more than one strategy.

 

[austinEV]

You would need to have the guts to go into 60 strike calls when tesla is at 30. The same person who was holding 60 strike calls when tesla was 30 would have been holding 200 strike calls when we went through that abysmal last earnings/fire and he/she would be wiped out.

Have you been looking over my shoulder? Maybe we should make a 2013 "war story" thread to exchange yarns.

 

[Causalien]

Have you been looking over my shoulder? Maybe we should make a 2013 "war story" thread to exchange yarns.

Some of our war stories are probably too good to be true. I still can't believe I did what I did. If someone tells me my own trade history, I would call them bullshit.

 

[InTheShadows]

Some of our war stories are probably too good to be true. I still can't believe I did what I did. If someone tells me my own trade history, I would call them bullshit.

I remember the first time I got a 10 bagger in 5 days. When I told my wife she asked if it was real. (I first did options in a paper money account and ended up with some 30-40 baggers). I'm just glad that those multi bagger trades happened before the q3 ER when I told her that a lot of the calls I bought went to 0. I always remind her what we originally put into the accounts, that we pulled more out of them than we originally invested, bought the best car in the world, and still have a size able account value to work with.

 

[austinEV]

It seems that many are eager to tell their stories. In the interest of keeping it out of other threads, as well as sharing for education, amusement and cautionary tales, share what you would here. If you would consider such things annoying bragging, then you have just one thread to conveniently avoid

I would suggest that the point isn't to reveal eye-popping numbers, but to summarize the good, the bad, the stupid. Like you started with X and went to 2.6X then down to .5X etc. Of course if you don't care or it's easier dollar amounts are fine.

So did you dogs make you money by getting you a better entry price? Did you accidentally buy puts instead of calls right before the GS "upgrade"? Did you make so much money that you gained an opinion on the capital gains tax? #humblebrag away, but please for the love of Pete no lies, glossing over the bad trades to try to suggest you are a wizard etc. If you are a wizard who only made good trades you better be ready with screen caps.

I will go after some other people do

 

[Yggdrasill]

I seriously considered buying Tesla stock in approximately 2009, but when I investigated the possibility, I discovered that wasn't possible. Instead I bought stock in a few other companies, where I made some money, but not very much. Then when I seriously started considering getting a Model S, which rekindled my interest in TSLA, in 2010-2011, my money was alreay invested, and I was unwilling to touch my existing positions. Then the price exploded, and I considered buying stock if it fell, but it never really did.

My biggest mistake regarding TSLA has been to not stick with it and throw my money at the stock. But I realized I might as well go for it last year - better to be late for the party than to never show up.

My trades so far:

BUY, 24 TSLA, 169.9 USD, 2013-10-30
BUY, 26 TSLA, 163.0 USD, 2013-10-31
BUY, 30 TSLA, 135.0 USD, 2013-11-08
SELL, 40 TSLA, 180.0 USD, 2014-01-23

The sale came as a result of wanting to have more money in my house-buying account. If that hadn't been a priority, I probably wouldn't have sold. My calculations show I'm roughly 3.5k USD in the plus on TSLA, which seems fair enough. That almost covers the tech-package. :tongue:

 

[Robert.Boston]

I initially invested 1,000 TSLA back in Nov. 2011, buying at $30.51. This was in my rollover IRA; not a big chunk of the total. I had reserved a Model S in early March 2010, and so I had been monitoring the progress closely. I don't normally invest in individual stocks, and this was the first time I'd ever put anything like real money into a single stock.

I was disappointed in early 2012 with the lack of progress and sold all but 200 of those shares at a modest profit (~$4/share). Fortunately, I bought 600 of those back on Feb 26, 2013 at about $34, which was incredibly good timing. I picked up another 200 share in mid-November, during the dip.

On Dec 31 I opened some LEAPs and shorter term calls; mostly longer-term ITM stuff, with low risk. These have produced solid returns.

So, on a cost-basis, I'm up about 4x in my various TSLA holdings. Obviously the stocks bought in the low $30s have done very well.

 

[Causalien]

Some details on the mental state for the masses as I usually leave this out of the TA. Charts and prices tends to seem calculating and cold, but underneath each trade, every trader has to manage their own emotions.

During the recent downturn, I was in a pretty bad situation with the shutdown of my corp and having to handle the closing. I wasn't mentally prepared for the volatility so I went a bit crazy with my investments. I pretty much traded without regards for retirement due to certain realization about my life and everything else.

Those were some of the most correct calls I've ever made on the stock market. You can say that I am "in tune" with the market when I am crazy. But did I make money?

Well One of those call was a stock buy because TSLA dipped 20% before earnings was released and I called bullshit and manipulation. Two of those calls were straddles as I predicted volatility but I do not know where it'd go. The last and final two were predictions of sentiment reversal after Elon revealed guarantees. It was also the fib 50% level. Lost money on the 20% trade, net neutral on the straddle due to TSLA options having too high of a volatility premium (A rookie mistake, but under the circumstances back then, I didn't bother doing the math because crazy).

The money shot was the two reversal plays one week apart. The first one I admitted I was wrong in timing, the second one I got exactly right. First was a stock buy, second was a call spread for the gap close. I kind of made the trade as a justification for TA. Thinking if this fails, then I will no longer be a TA trader. If it succeeds, I will believe it even more.

With the recent price action, my previous 20% dip buy is also now in the money. So fortune changes very fast in TSLA.

 

[tslas]

My foolish trading history..

I am currently in my early 30s.
I had never ever invested/traded in stocks before. My wife being finance/accounting major had always pushed/ nagged:redface: about investing.
After being enamored with Model S, I first bought 1500 TSLA stocks around 32.50 in December of 2012
Then it increased to around 40 and Then, I had to visit India for a month. Since, I wouldn't have reliable access to my portfolio, I put stop loss order at around 36 for my whole position being novice. And Unfortunately Broder story comes up and I loose my shares.
That was the only trade in my life.
After that, being foolish/novice :crying:, I waited for a right entry point/bottom to again invest and never got in..
Finally again on my wife's insistence, I again bought 1000 TSLA at around 135 in this January, And this time, I am going to keep them and not make foolish mistake like last time.

That's it.. My whole trading history..

 

[Norse]

I started with $1500 in January last year. I was initially going to buy a smart-tv, but the guy in the store told me to rather by an apple-tv box so I did. Then I put my money in TSLA instead. After reading some posts by Sal Demir on Seeking Alpha and on TMC I got very excited and told my family and friends to get in. My father was the only one that listened and he got in the day before Q2 ER. Since then I have also started trading options. I have had days where I have earned annual salaries and days where I have lost a half years wage. Anyways I have now earned both me and my father about $100 000 each, which is not bad when I had only $1500. And I have still my old tv

Best trade is obviously I when I got some JAN $160 calls three minutes before the press conference in Detroit. I got them for 0.06 and sold them the next day for $5. At one point they were 20000%, but I did not get that lucky. If the stock had tanked that day, I would probably been wiped out, since I was all in.

 

[gym7rjm]

I worked a job in 2011-2012 where I traveled continuously. I had zero expenses because everything was paid for so I was able to save a good amount of money that year. I divided that money between Amazon, Netflix, and Tesla. Before I invested in TSLA I read every single post of the original investing thread on this site. I was so excited about the company and it's future potential I bought 600 shares at $28 and then 250 more shares in the $40's. Right before the huge jump after Q1 2013 I started learning more about options. I think back on the amazing opportunities for calls at that point. I was wanting to be risky with my money, I just didn't know enough about options at that point. Maybe I could be retired on a beach somewhere like luvb2b?!

After Q1 and spending lots of time learning about options, I was up about 700% in my portfolio for 2013. I made the mistake of selling 250 shares after the big run up, it actually ended up not being a huge mistake because I ended up reinvesting that mostly into options which netted me much more. Another huge mistake I made was having Scottrade as my brokerage; they don't allow any sort of complex options strategies. Going into Q3 I was hoping to switch to a more options focused brokerage but it takes like 10 business days for an ACAT transfer and at the time I had too many open positions so I decided to wait till after Q3. The whole fire incidents and drop after Q3 cost me $100k. I was pretty beat up about that, especially since I was using a little bit of margin I had to liquidate everything but my core shares. Fortunately there are some really good lessons I learned from that.

Since Q3 I've migrated my account over to OptionsHouse and recovered all of my losses plus some. I don't think I'll ever sell my core shares, at least not until its over $1000

 

[clmason]

I followed Tesla and Elon closely since 2008. At the IPO my Broker advised to wait and see as post-ipo could see wild swings. I watched as TSLA held its ground around $20 for about a month. When it dipped to I bought my first position at $18 and added 3 more times prior to the Q1 2013 Bomb. Avg price of $23.75 on the 4 lots.

• Lot 1 @ $18 on 8/10
• Lot 2 @ $23 on 8/11
• Lot 3 @ $28 on 5/12
• Lot 4 @ $26 on 8/12

Sold Lot 1 @ $75 during the 2013Q1 short squeeze. Sentiment was “ short squeeze”, the price would correct.
Sold 1/2 of Lot 2 @ $89 also during the 2013Q1 reaction. The sentiment was still short “short squeeze”.
Recouped my cost basis and more. Remaining shares were “on the house”.

You guys convinced me to try Options. My first taste was on a Q2 Earning Play. My broker advised if I felt very strongly to Sell Puts and reuse the premiums to buy Calls. (Double edged sword strategy as I was to soon find out)
I Sold Leap Puts at $50-$65,used the premiums to buy near Term Calls on Q2 Earnings.
Q2 was great, morning after Earning they were worth $20K. Literally less than 10 minutes later they were worth $16.5K.
Sold and bought to close all of them.

• Lot 5 - used the $16.5K options win to buy 100 shares

Options are awesome, I can retire at 34! (Right?, very wrong!)

I swing for the fences on the same strategy of Selling Leap Puts to pay for Q3 Earnings Calls.

​

I think you know what happened next. Held the calls and they expired worthless.

​

This was a big trade by my standards – 20 contracts in total.​

My Lessons learned:

​

I don’t like losing sleep over investments

​

If I’m losing sleep I’m over extended, don't do this again!

​

Even the smartest guys can be wrong, some big wig mega poster wordsmiths here were calling $200+ on Q3 results

​

Too many strike prices make it hard to exit quickly, premiums can erode very quickly

My saving grace is that the Puts were Leaps and with the recovery they look fine. My “for the fences” trade will be a wash if they expire worthless on Jan ’14. Though there is still a chance I could be Put into a lot of shares.


For those who say “if I had a nickel for every buyer less than $30” - here’s my proof, well fargo summary screenshot, with SCTY added for fun.



I'm still a very happy camper and love Tesla. Can’t wait for Gen 3 to materialize. I won't be retiring at 34 but with all the great contributors on this forum I am learning a lot and very grateful! Maybe retire from my day job by 40.

/humble-brag!

 

[Mario Kadastik]

I started investing more in the lines of Norse with only a couple of thousand $ to my account that I initially traded mostly AAPL as I knew it best. However some time around April 2012 I started to follow TSLA and decided to buy a couple hundred shares, but as I had just started to learn options decided to make the entry cheaper by selling puts. As I wanted to maximize the profit and assumed the stock wouldn't move much soon I sold 1-2 strikes OTM puts. At the time only monthly options were available and so I kept doing it while the stock was ~$28 region. Every single time the stock ended ~ATM or OTM and the puts expired worthless. By spring 2013 I had accumulated a profit of ca 1 pack of 100 shares worth without ever holding the stock. I had gotten into this ritual and wasn't really expecting the stock to end ITM, but was happy with the regular return it was giving me.

And then the stock took off. I kept selling puts only to cover them for peanuts a couple of days/week later. At around 50-60 range I started to buy calls making money constantly, but most of the times not believing this would continue so closing at 50-100% profits. Almost exclusively playing with 1 contract or max 2 contracts. I had worked my portfolio nicely into the plus before the fires and government shutdown so I started to build a position for Q3 ER. I sold some $190 puts and bought a number of $190-230 calls (Nov, Dec, Jan, Mar, various dates and strikes). I also took a few 2015 LEAPs. Then the **** hit the fan and I was juggling with the shorted $190 puts. Managed in the end to get out of them with little loss and averaged down the $190-230 calls to lower strikes and was briefly fully in green on 5th of November just before earnings (my birthday as well btw). I joked that I'll either be broke or rich after the ER as I had committed ca 60% of my portfolio to TSLA options of which majority were short term.

Then the Q3 happened. I exited a bunch of the positions with market sell order at open, but decided to see if it'll blow over (bad call). Ended up selling the rest of Nov, Dec calls at a big loss, closed also part of January and March calls, but kept one March $180 call. Overall I went from total portfolio value of $42k pre-fires to $18k at the bottom. That hurt bad and what hurt me most was the drop below $25k because you lose day trading rights and in fact the moment you drop they check the last 5 trading days for day trades and if it's >3 the account is locked for 6 months. Great success. So I wrote to my broker and they said the first time they can re-open by just a simple letter from me which I did. I had to be careful and not do > 3 day trades and as I had close to no free cash. So I transferred throughout the drop ca 5k$ to my account to get myself some leverage and played the recovery somewhat. I did average some LEAPs down to a $105 call for 2015 and I still kept the March $180. I also started to invest even more in solars. Overall throughout the recovery I got things mostly right. I actually managed to get above 25k$ nicely and once above 30k$ I started to play weeklies again and was extremely lucky joking with my friend on FB that karma probably had a big debt for me from the Q3 ER loss that I managed to get on multiple weeks and days the tops and bottoms for almost perfect entry/exit points (mostly within 2-5% of the options daily low/high) I even had some screen grabs to share with the friend as it became unbelievable. I had recovered to around $35k or so mostly thanks to CSIQ etc and partially TSLA recovery to $130-140 range.

Then came the Detroit event. I had a huge number of $150, $155 calls bought for it and I averaged down even on the morning of the event an hour or so before it started. Then TSLA spiked. And when the reversal started when it was clear there was no Model X I sold most of my calls for quick profit of 100+%, but kept a few. Those few ran extremely nicely from being bought for $2 to being worth $20 I've played the weekly swings and established positions for Q4 ER now and my portfolio is worth $55k today (with CSIQ, JASO being somewhat in red for the current positions I hold so TSLA has pulled me up). Most of my ER plays are already there with a bunch of Feb 21, Mar 7th, Mar 21st and a huge amount of LEAPs. Anything expiring before April I have hedged once we passed the ATH over various days. I still have only one March 7th $195 call that I bought for $6.8 that is unhedged and I plan to run it all the way to ER and hedge on the day of earnings. My TSLA delta is about 390 including the hedges. Majority of this comes from 2015/2016 LEAPs.

Having learned from the Q3 debacle I now hold ~25% of my portfolio in cash that I can use on absurd dips to make short term plays or add to my long term position. Also I'm not going to go to ER with a huge amount of unhedged calls, instead I've made them to $195..$220, $200..$225 risk free spreads as well as taking profit from a number of Feb $200 calls that ran up from $4 to $13..15 range If TSLA reports a beat from the market opinion I will gain with my LEAPs, if the market is an idiot I won't lose much as the short term plays are hedged and if TSLA indeed tanks I have cash to add to my LEAPs to average them down

It was an expensive lesson in Q3, but I think I've learned it

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

I opened a Scottrade acct just to buy Some TSLA but ended up loosing money in other junk stocks that I didn't really know enough about. (ener1. Abat. bcon. A123, ..=ouch.bad idea) only lost a couple $K but that is all I really put in..
Then I bought some TSLA between $24.90 and 27 in 2011-12 while selling some between $30 and 38 on bounces
I tried to keep a small sell order on the upper limit of where I think the stock may hit but don't really expect unless some 'story' comes out, same thing for a buy order below where daily #'s should be.
this seemed to work pretty well and only a couple of times I bought or sold stock when I didn't want to, this was on the crazy run ups and then I usually just bought more. The 'unknowns' at this time seemed pretty well known, just not by all, like many had seen the factory being set up and it was badass! and cheap. Car design is pretty damn good too.

So, I have currently pulled out $12,700 more than I put in to TSLA and still have 379 shares (my minimum I plan on keeping long is 369)

some of the TSLA I sold for $160-170 before the dip to $120 ...and switched it to SCTY@ $30-35 :biggrin:

total cash currently 'put in' Brokerage $26k
2013 - Stock account went from $30k (Jan '13) to $155K today (more than my yearly income by >25% :smile

no options, yet but I plan to learn about them someday

38yrs - married w/dogs & chickens

 

[Johan]

First off: Love this thread - TSLA: the gift that keeps on giving.

I have learned so much from smart people on this forum.

After reserving the car and learning all about it in 2010-2011 I started lurking here and learned about the business side of TSLA and understood the tremendous upside. Only problem is I had no experience what-so-ever with stock or investments in general. Now I'm only 34 years old, got two kids in the last 3 years, have a decent paying job, bought at house 4 years ago. I had understood as much as the fact that for the time being it's very cheap to borrow money (mortgage interest rate around 3%) so haven't seen any reason to down-pay any more than necessary on my loan. This means I had some money saved up, which was planned on going towards a Model S.

I opened a brokerage account with my bank and started buying TSLA in the high 20's. Tried some trading, making a few % gains here and there, then the stock went below 30 again and I started averaging down (good call) and at one point at the end of 2012 I had almost 2500 TSLA stock with an average price of $27 (I think) which was the equivalent of almost $80k which for me is a lot of money. At this time my "portfolio" was 99% TSLA and 1% A123 (we all know how that went...). At this point I had barely told my wife I had invested a lot in stocks/TSLA and certainly not the ammount! I got cold feet and sold all of the stock in the low 30's, thinking I was way in over my head. In Jan-Feb of 2013 I had no investment, but again I came to my senses and committed $50k (an amount I was comfortable with possible loosing) to TSLA that I bought over a few days (as the price kept rising). Average became $37 for some 1300 stock. This position I swore I would not sell for many years and I have kept true to that promise to my self, not even flinching as we were in the $120's after having been at $194 just a couple of weeks before. Wise words on this forum made me think "If I didn't sell at 190 why sell at 120?" and "Nothing has changed except for public perception and it's temporary". In the mean time I got my car in September last year and driving it made me that much more comfortable about Tesla's head-start, quality and extremely bright future.

After the post-Q1 pop I got excited about options, opened and overseas account with OptionsXpress and committed $10k to options. Funny thing is my first options trade was I bought a couple of puts after a litte run-up to the $50's, expecting a pull-back, but the stock kept on going up the next day so I quickly closed it (for a small loss). I'm proud of this. Came to my senses (again) and started buying calls for the Q2 report. I was all over the place with regards to strikes, shooting from the hip so to speak. These calls were worth $70k+ just before the report, took some profit but let most of it ride. Just after the report at one point the portfolio showed a value of in excess of $150k but I was inexperienced enough to not quite understand how the IV would implode as the stock price started leveling out. Managed to liquidate the calls for well over $100k at that point. I withdrew about $70k and kept $30-40k in the account. Again loaded up on short-term, OTM options before Q3 and got burnt her. Lost about $25 but haven't shed a tear (I know what I'm doing now).

Also from this forum I have learnt a lot about solar and have bought stock in JKS and CSIQ and LEAPs in CSIQ, JASO, SPWR which are all looking very good. My solar stock holdings are part of my retirement plan. I'm hoping to hold a lot of TSLA too in 10 years time and realistically expect my shares to appreciate many times over again.

 

[Gtoffo]

My first trade ever was in Apple stock. I asked my dad to invest my life savings in the company I loved (I was 16 or 17). Apple had just split 2 for 1 and was worth around 50$. I remember being pissed that my dad had taken so long to get the transaction through because I had lost a few % points and I was worried I had "already missed the train" :-D

Never sold. Still hold the shares to this day.

I discovered Tesla around the end of 2011. A short while after that I asked my dad to buy 2000$ in stock (I still did not have a trading account). TSLA was around 34$. The stock slumped for a while....I had bought at a pretty high price but did not care. I believed in Tesla. When it reached 40$ I was writing to my dad every day telling him "see! i was right! we made more than 10%!" then one day around april the stock tumbled back down to 34$. I doubled down with 2000$ more.

By the time we had reached 80$ I had increased my portfolio by opening a small side account on Interactive Brokers to play around with options and more advanced trading strategies (I tried asking my regular bank if I could buy a call option and they looked at me as if I was completely insane, the clerk looked at me with a smile and told me those kind of things weren't for "kids like me" :-D ).

TSLA was the perfect training ground.....I was making stupid rookie mistakes like everyone else, but the stock was just chugging up and, despite my best efforts, nothing I did ever made me loose any money. I started trading straight away in TSLA and SCTY....the "Elon ETF," and of course Apple, my first "love". Just stocks at the beginning.. then calls.....then spreads....then all of it....
At one point I was making making in a day more than everything I had started with. I got into CSIQ after reading about the company on the forums (love you guys).

Then the fire came. I was trading on full margin...I saw the fire video 20 minutes before the rest of the market (those were the glory days of TMC!) and underestimated it: I looked at PUT options but I was all in already....didn't want to sell my precious positions and those PUTS seemed so expensive... the stock went down, recovered, went down again (second fire) and continued the crazy roller coaster. I was receiving a new margin call every half an hour. I sold most of it, rebought at a lower level, got back to more than what I had before, the lost it all again, and continued a few times going way up, and way down again.

When we touched the bottom (circa 110) I was alive. I had been saved by margin calls and SCTY from the worst of it...but most of My Q3 plays were worthless. I started buying calls for the first half of 2014....and so far....things are looking pretty good.............

Counting the totality of my investments I'm nearing the 100k mark (starting from christmas money from my grandparents), but it took me almost 10 years of following the companies I love obsessionally. More than the financial gain: I made new friends, learned A LOT, and lived through moments of intense emotions. The reward was in the journey.

 

[kenliles]

Agree with Johan , this thread is great and thank to austinEV for the idea and moderator (I think it was Robert) for creating it. Great job
These stories are fantastic, and an incredibly informative learning source.

 

[772]

I like reading these stories, too. Hopefully someday I will write about my own experiences.