2013 Trading war stories

[marvinat0rz]

Here's mine: Gradually put approximately 30% of my net worth in Tesla towards the end of 2012 and beginning of 2013 (only 15% of my liquid assets due to some semi-large unsecured low-interest loans I hold), expecting to hold the shares for about a decade. Average buying price of $34.5/share.

Sold enough to cover my initial position on the way up at $153 per share and have basically sat on what's left of my position since. Sold another 10 shares at $153 on the way down to buy some frivolous stuff, but bought them back at $123 figuring that the drop was too good to ignore.

I'm a student and wasn't expecting Tesla to have its current market value for many years, so I'm still a bit blindsided. I bought as much as I dared to initially, and enough that the gains would be a life-changing amount if my long-term investment thesis came true. Will sell down some if we have significant additional appreciation in the near future for risk reduction. But this is a very good start towards my retirement savings I never expect to hit this well with the timing of a major investment ever again.

(It's kind of funny, I've made a couple of really lucky calls before - bought 3D printer stocks right before the craze started, and called Nintendo right before they launched the Wii, and also Apple right after the financial crisis, although for the latter two I didn't have a trading account yet so they should only be counted as paper trades. Also called the crash of Norwegian game developer Funcom one trading day before they tanked, although in this instance I didn't have the balls to make the trade. I know you can't really count trades that you didn't make towards your hit/miss ratio, but a guy could get cocky from less success than this).

 

[kcveins]

I went (almost) all-in with TSLA at an average of 28.19; investment went up 5X and then I had the bright idea of learning to play options, just in time for Q3 . Like a lot of others, lost a lot (in my case 2X), but then was smart enough (?) to learn from my mistakes. No longer playing short term options. Bought LEAPS for J15 at 180 and have been much happier. Hope to be able to go part time in the next year or two if/when TSLA hits 300.

 

[InTheShadows]

I went (almost) all-in with TSLA at an average of 28.19; investment went up 5X and then I had the bright idea of learning to play options, just in time for Q3 . Like a lot of others, lost a lot (in my case 2X), but then was smart enough (?) to learn from my mistakes. No longer playing short term options. Bought LEAPS for J15 at 180 and have been much happier. Hope to be able to go part time in the next year or two if/when TSLA hits 300.

I'm in a similar situation. Bought my first shares at 26 something then started playing options in August. I am way better off now that I have been playing options. I started an optionshouse account and put $5000 worth of seed money in it. Pulled half of it out in November to pay for part of our P85. It is our short term account and it's balance is now 2x our regular account that I use for common shares and leaps.

I only wish I learned about options when I almost bought apple stock in 96 at $11/share. That was part of my reason for going strong on tsla common in fall of 2012. I missed so much on apple which was a company I strongly believed in, I wasn't going to miss it again. Then because of TMC I learned about options. Our life will never be the same again. I now see weekly returns that equal one year salary from before I quit my job and started my own business. I'm already thinking we will have to install more solar this year to take another 30% tax credit.

 

[wayno]

I haven't posted much here, but I have been an avid follower of Tesla, TSLA, and TMC for several years now. In 2011, I switched jobs and rolled over my 15 years of 401k into a personal Ira and figured I would try my hand at the stock market. For 15 years my investment history was nothing but mutual fund selections in my 401k. Well after reading some books I went on a spending spree buying piles of different index funds and REITs and ETFs of all types. I also decided to gamble on two companies I believed in. I bought about $10k in stock and another $10k in options for both AAPL and TSLA around June 2012. Which worked out to about 20% of my retirement vehicle. Tesla didn't do much of anything, but I lost a lot on Apple and decided to double down on apple as it was dropping. It was a pretty sad day to see my apple investment go to near zero before I bailed. But luckily i didn't give up. Throughout winter/ spring of 2013 I was trading in and out of Tesla shares making $4 or $5 differences each time. It seemed like a very predictable roller coaster ride for a while.

But then around April. I had a feeling that I better not try to time the drops anymore as it was about to take off on an epic VW type squeeze. We'll I kept my shares and instead just bounced around in options for the next several months, mostly just rolling up and out, skimming off the top and reinvesting the remainder. I tried all different types of strategies, but at that time nothing could lose, so it was a great way to learn how options worked in real time. The amount of money i was making in my Ira was nothing short of life changing, and I still can't believe my luck. As all of my friends tell me at every opportunity that i need to get out and keep my money while it's good. But I can't help but think that we're still at the beginning of this ride long term. I am definitely a firm believer and TSLA bull.

Overall, from my initial $20k investment in stock and options I have kept a spreadsheet of every tesla trade I went in and out of over the past 2 years, and the results are up about $300k in my Ira. 15% of my moves have been in trading straight stock and about 75% in just buying calls of various prices, 3-6 months out and getting rid of them with about 1-2 months left. Another 5% has been shorter term calls both buying and selling covered calls. And the last 5% most recently has been establishing bull call spreads. That combined with my involvement in the solar sector over the past 6 months (thanks again TMC) and diversified all of my profits all around has increased my Ira from a balance of about $200k last January to over $600k to date!

At age 40, this has been life changing and has decreased my estimated working career length drastically by my calculations, and I couldn't be more excited by it.

Thanks again
Wayne

 

[kenliles]

Thanks Wayne and others. What I really like about these stories is the huge variation of ways to invest that fit the different lifestyles and objectives. Especially like those big loss comeback stories as I can relate to those. What a great thread

 

[gene]

Having never been successful with my dabling in small amounts of stock over the years, these investor's threads really helped me out. Much thanks to Norse, Sleepy, DaveT, Julian Cox, and a bunch more more of our members.

I started at $30 with only 300 shares in January, added more at $76 and kept adding through November until I had invested exactly $100,000, with 1,200 shares. I've just been holding the entire time. So with $100,000 invested, I have a value in my TSLA of $240,000.

I also have about $30k in SCTY, JASO, RSOL, and SPWR. I've done only so-so in these stocks as I didn't start until June or so. In January 2013 I had a bunch of SCTY that I bought at $11 and sold at $18 thinking I was so smart!

I am self employed and put away about $50K into my sep ira. Beginning this year my sep goes into an eTrade account so I can play around with that money, free of tax.

 

[austinEV]

I am just starting to review my very long brokerage tax docs, and I have made zillions of trades in the last year. I plan to really see how many were profitable. i suspect I lost money on most of my decisions. but the good ones were plenty good.

I was surprised that I had bought my initial shares in 2012. But I have no never-sell core position. I have bought and sold my shares dozens of times, but never was without them for more than a few days. So, excluding trading fees I essentially have had a 50k early stake in the 30's.

I decided that I really wanted a model S. I was really looking at a 40kWh base model, as the most expensive car I had ever bought was 21k and I was always a "buy used" kind of cheapskate. So to justify the monstrous $50k price tag, I needed to be convinced that the company would stick around and that the quality would be good, and the claims they were making were accurate. Once I had decided that was true, then the next logical conclusion was that the 50k was better put in the stock than the car. I told myself that once the stock doubled to $100k I would buy the car with the profits.

However, I didn't have 50k outside of retirement accounts, at least not 50k I should gamble on a speculative stock. We had $40k left over from selling our house but we absolutely needed that to pay bills on the house we were going to build.

So I bought 50k of stock in an IRA and the "double and get a car" idea became kind of a theoretical exercise. I found TMC In early 2013 and became increasingly convinced that the stock was undervalued. My investment was up considerably and once I had "house money" I started getting bolder and tried a few calls. They kept going higher and I got bolder and bolder, even getting the $40k untouchable house fund in the game, a really terrible idea for sure!

Going into the Q1 earnings call, I had made the decision that I was ok with having enormous exposure to TSLA in shares and calls. I had foolishly signed up for the lent shares program at schwab, trying to earn a silly 4% on my lent shares though (I know, I was a traitor to the cause but hold on). They transferred my shares into a new account where I could do nothing with those shares, except sell (thus opting out of the lent shares program with the same click). A few days before the earnings release there was some red candle day and I panicked and sold the shares. I instantly regretted it and tried to buy them back but could not! I would have to wait for the funds to settle back into the original account in 3 biz days. I tried to call Schwab and just rebuy them in that account to "undo" it but no dice. My wife overheard the call and said "you sold the stock??". I grumbled and said I would "fix it". So I went and deployed the last of my cash into an equivalent number of very short term calls so that any increase over the next 3 days I would capture in the calls, and then I could rebuy the shares right before earnings and sell the calls. net-net all the same. The stock went up, I got the cash back and by then the emergency calls were up so high I held them and rebought the shares anyway. Then the earnings call happened and I had a REALLY UNWISE amount of my net worth tied up in TSLA calls:

(This is the sum of my balances of my 3 accounts I trade TSLA in. It includes other investments, all of which was essentially neutral).

I kind of took June off, thinking the stock was wildly overvalued and expecting a post-squeeze correction that never came. Then I capitulated and got back in the game. I was very lucky in that my $40k untouchable house fund I had turned into $250k and then cashed out right before the bad news, because we needed the money for stuff and the risk I was taking never made sense. I stubbornly hung on for the f*res and Q3 announcement but I am nicely back. Next week this will have a dramatic change... If I don't post it you will know why.

I didn't tell the wife about any of this until June! I didn't want to worry her, or have to explain if I promptly lost a bunch. I eventually had to because I needed to have an explanation for being so stressed out, otherwise it just seemed like I was being strange for no good reason.

Oh, and I got a P85 in September The irony was that I never would have spent that on a car unless I had made many multiples of what it cost, still a cheapskate at heart.

 

[hockeythug]

Pretty small time compared to some of you guys but my main transaction in 2013 was using some of my gains in the middle last year to pay for a watch I always wanted. Have been buying some more on the dips here and there but I'm in it for the long haul. Appreciate reading all the great analysis on here.

 

[sleepyhead]

I have a ton of trading stories, way too many to mention.

Going into the NAIAS I had bought some weekly $155's for $2.4, then doubled down at $1.4, and then again at $0.80, and once more at $0.40. Then on the day of Tesla's presentation I bought 16 more contracts at $0.12 to get my total up to 60 contracts. Overall, my cost basis was just above $3000.

When Jerome announced the 6900 number, I saw the stock jump to $149 and then it started retracing, so I quickly sold a bunch over $1 and then held on as TSLA fell back to $143, because I knew that the market was not pricing in the 6900 correctly; at that point the options went back down to $0.40. I then started selling the rest later in the day around $1, $2, $3, $4, and sold of the rest just under $5.

I probably cashed them out for just under $10k, when I could of simply held them all till expiry (or even the next day) and cashed out at $100k. The biggest mistake I made was when TSLA fell back to $143, I should have been buying calls like crazy but it went by so fast and I was so focused on cashing out at the right time, that I forgot to buy more.

Even though I tripled my money on that one, I am really upset with the way I traded. I should have held on, but panic sold because just before Jerome started speaking my options were worth $700 and I was happy with a 10-bagger from there.

On the flip side, when TSLA crashed in November to $120 and lower, I loaded up on call options and LEAPS: mostly J16, and Jun14 with a couple of J15's. I still hold the all time low buy price for:

J16 $210 at $18.70
Jun14 $155 at $9.60

The following calls I bought at virtually the bottom, but just not quite at all time low prices:

Jun14 - $160, $185
J16 - $230, $245, $250, $260

Then for good measure I also bought a bunch of other options very close to the bottom as well:

Jun14 $170
J15 $165, $175
J16 $220, $240

Overall, I put about half of my money into those options above. They have worked out very well, but in hindsight we all should have been buying the March $200 calls for $1 back then.

 

[TSLAopt]

I'll come clean since everyone else is. I just pulled up my statement for the past 365 days in my IRA acct. One year ago on Feb 15th 2013 it was worth $3551.00 with just a few 40 TSLA Jan 2014 LEAPs at the time. Several lucky option trades/plays and 365 days later (Feb 14th 2014) it is now worth $396,756 and no contributions into it. I was ready to write that IRA acct off.
Most of that gain came when I converted the LEAPs into Sept 75 Calls in May.
Thank you TSLA!

My other taxable acct didn't do quite as well as I didn't want to subject myself to short term capital gains.

 

[austinEV]

I'll come clean since everyone else is. I just pulled up my statement for the past 365 days in my IRA acct. One year ago on Feb 15th 2013 it was worth $3551.00 with just a few 40 TSLA Jan 2014 LEAPs at the time. Several lucky option trades/plays and 365 days later (Feb 14th 2014) it is now worth $396,756 and no contributions into it. I was ready to write that IRA acct off.
Most of that gain came when I converted the LEAPs into Sept 75 Calls in May.
Thank you TSLA!

My other taxable acct didn't do quite as well as I didn't want to subject myself to short term capital gains.

Wow

 

[DaveT]

Thank you TSLA!

Congrats, TSLAopt. 100x in one year in a tax-deferred account.

 

[sleepyhead]

Congrats TSLAopt!

In a Roth IRA I had $150 in 2009, and with no contributions I grew it to over $21,000 last year. And this was with stock only and no options at all.

Then a few months ago I applied for options trading in it, and all it did was increase volatility. But somehow recovered back to $21k at this point.

 

[DaveT]

In a Roth IRA I had $150 in 2009, and with no contributions I grew it to over $21,000 last year. And this was with stock only and no options at all.

Sleepy, got to grow that to $1m then you can write a book called, "How I turned $150 into $1 million."

 

[sleepyhead]

Sleepy, got to grow that to $1m then you can write a book called, "How I turned $150 into $1 million."

Well, I did start with $4900 but it imploded into $150 at the height of the financial crisis. At that time I had all of the cash in SIRI. They were about to go bankrupt and I would have lost the entire account hadn't it been for Liberty Media bailing them out. I had 3,000 shares of SIRI and it went down to $0.05 on its way to zero on Feb. 17 , 2009, when its debt was coming due and would have put them into liquidation. Had I held on to those shares to date, I would only have 50% of my current balance. Therefore, I have made some good trades after liquidating SIRI around $2 (at $3.56 today).

 

[austinEV]

Oh my biggest regret story. September-ish I decided the price action had stabilized and was technically set for a move up or down. I picked up some calls. Normally I do deep in the money options but for some reason that day I bought at the money calls and I had casually bought six figures worth. I was losing time value every day and I started to question my non existent thesis for those calls so I sold them. The next day the stick went up like 5%. Had I been lazier it would have been up 250k.

 

[sleepyhead]

Oh my biggest regret story. September-ish I decided the price action had stabilized and was technically set for a move up or down. I picked up some calls. Normally I do deep in the money options but for some reason that day I bought at the money calls and I had casually bought six figures worth. I was losing time value every day and I started to question my non existent thesis for those calls so I sold them. The next day the stick went up like 5%. Had I been lazier it would have been up 250k.

Thanks for the story, it makes me feel better about my mistakes.

The thing that bothers me most about the Detroit Auto Show was that after TSLA popped to $149 it pulled back to $143, and I was communicating with a member here via PM and even wrote (when the stock was back in the mid $140's before it ultimately closed above $160) that "the market is not pricing in this news properly." So, I knew that it was going to go up a lot, and just stood there when I should have been liquidating all non-TSLA positions asap in order to load up on weekly TSLA options.

What's frustrating is that this was the easiest 30 bagger opportunity (in less than 24h) that I will ever see in my lifetime. But instead of loading up, I was trying to come up with exit options for all of the calls that I already had.

Note to self: When you know that there is a 90% probability that a stock is about to go a lot higher in a very short period of time, buy as many calls as you can get your hands on.

 

[AlMc]

Thanks for the story, it makes me feel better about my mistakes.

The thing that bothers me most about the Detroit Auto Show was that after TSLA popped to $149 it pulled back to $143, and I was communicating with a member here via PM and even wrote (when the stock was back in the mid $140's before it ultimately closed above $160) that "the market is not pricing in this news properly." So, I knew that it was going to go up a lot, and just stood there when I should have been liquidating all non-TSLA positions asap in order to load up on weekly TSLA options.

What's frustrating is that this was the easiest 30 bagger opportunity (in less than 24h) that I will ever see in my lifetime. But instead of loading up, I was trying to come up with exit options for all of the calls that I already had.

Note to self: When you know that there is a 90% probability that a stock is about to go a lot higher in a very short period of time, buy as many calls as you can get your hands on.

I hope it was not me that cost you! I remember we were both shocked that the short term call prices were going down quickly and we were both buying (along with The Shadows) like crazy. I am just recently into options and know the potential risks. I have lost some. won some. Luckily on that day I did hold for a 968% gain in a day. Took a screen shot of my account to send to my brother who is a much more sophisticated investor than I. Sibling rivalry, alive and well, decades later.

 

[EnergyMax]

Yeah. I bought some options a week before the Detroit auto show, and similarly screwed up big potentials gains by exiting before noon. A learning experience.

 

[DaveT]

Note to self: When you know that there is a 90% probability that a stock is about to go a lot higher in a very short period of time, buy as many calls as you can get your hands on.

+1. I had bought some calls for Detroit and then cashed out too early after the pre-announcement even after telling my wife that this was going to move a lot higher. When I look at what happened at Detroit, I actually regret buying before the announcement. It was too risky of a binary move IMO. I should have waited until after hearing the announcement and then made my play. I've been following John Carter (simpleroptions.com) a bit and this guy schooled all of us in his TSLA pre-annoucement trade at Detroit. He got in after the announcement and knew when to exit.
How to Trade Earnings Pre Announcments
Tesla Million Dollar Trade