Confession time...
It's either write this post or perch myself on the window ledge. (Ground floor. Not much good there.) This is the only audience to whom I can bare my tortured soul.
Some years ago, I bought a bunch of TSLA at $200. (I'm not savvy enough to trade options. I'm more comfortable buying and holding long-term when I believe in the strength and vision of a company.)
Through it all I held fast and didn't sell. When TSLA went down to $150 and cries of 'bankrupt' were coming from every talking head on Wall Street, I just smiled and sat tight. I watched the reversal and held on, all smiles, until the pandemic hit. Until it was apparent that the pandemic was going to have a significant impact on the world and the Tesla factory closed.
At that point, I made the dumbest financial mistake of my life to date: I sold all my TSLA at around $750. Not because of any reduction in faith. I was trying to be clever. "There's going to be a dip back to $500-ish range due to the results of the plant closing and the general economic impact," my idiotic brain told myself. "I'll buy back in at that point and have even more shares."
And the downturn never happened.
My wife steadfastly shared my long-term faith in Tesla (which is still unwavering) but she, too, believed that the world's most volatile stock would dip and give us a chance to get back in. So we waited for a dip. And opportunity after opportunity passed us by as we waited for a dip that never happened.
So here we sit. Still sitting on cash that while missing every opportunity to reinvest in TSLA.
I'm absolutely tortured at the horrible decision I made by trying to be clever. My wife is far more zen about it. We locked in profit and she does a better job of focusing on that.
And, though it all, I can't stop beating myself up for exiting at $750. I'm so anguished over this that I can't let it go. I told my wife "I want to punch myself in the face until I'm unconscious, wake up, and do it again."
This is the only place who would possibly understand my pain. All of my friends and family would hear this and say "Oh, you didn't make enough on your TSLA stock and you're sad now. Boo hoo. Piss off."
So now we're faced with a decision: I want to just get back in now at market price and forget about the mistakes of the past and she wants to wait for a dip that may never happen before getting back in.
My belief is that long-term we're looking at $2500 - $3500 in the next three to five years and just jumping back in now is the best thing to do. Trying to be clever is what got us into this mess in the first place and I don't want to make that mistake again. My wife still believes that the world's most volatile stock won't disappoint and we'll see a dip again. Certainly not down to where we exited, but possibly nearer to $1000 or a tad lower.
That's my pain and our current struggle.
Thanks for listening.
