Please share some of your investment stories?

Hello,

So how did you get into the stock market, Some of your best plays, or worst day. Were you tricked? how much did you lose.
What did you learn from it.. Or how much did you win, please be specific.

I just like to get a grasp of people's experience and learn from them, instead of experiencing some of the horrors myself =). Thanks

oh yes, best answers goes to the best stories =)

I do not know about the best story, but I know i was lucky enough to learn invest in stock market the right way in early age by some guy.My friend's family had conveninece store business, first I did not paying attention to particular, but one thing is, he is about 50s, every other day, he came in and bought a lot of lottery tickets (150$/day). that's mean in a month, he spent like 2000 on it. Curious enough. I asked him, how the heck you live when you spend the money like that on the tickets. He said, what i am going to do with all the money. he look like just normal and drive a beat down car. he said son, I will never run out of money this life time. If you want to learn, he show me about 2hrs/week in couple week how to invest. Wow , it is open my eyes how thing in stock market tied together.

Yes you could learn invest by yourself. it is your money, you should know how to do with it. for starter check this site out.

http://www.pathtoinvesting.org/index_fla...
http://www.stockcharts.com
>...http://www.streettalklive.com>... university. a lot amount of information. It will serve you well
I accumulate in good amount in 401k at the young age.I could share with you. when consider invest in stock market. you should consider basic 3 things:

fundamental analysis==(economic data,finincial health, management, business model, competetion)>>what to buy

technical analysis==(chart+indicator)>> when to buy

Sentiment/schycho analysis==>>mood of investor, Contrarian point of view.
Market cycle===>> check out book Trader Almanac by jeff hirsch will give you inside stuff
When you combine 3 thing, It is one of the powerful knowledge goinh with you for the rest of your live

At the age of 32. my 401k is amassed 71,000.00 and 30000.00 in taxble account. by follow simple rule

here's one of my success stories. I bought RJR (ticker RAI) just for the dividend payout, a couple years ago, when it was $28.38. The dividends at that price were 13%. Pretty good, huh? So then, they get over all these legal battles, and their numbers look great and over the course of a couple years, that stock went to $128. And it just split yesterday. Eh?

UGH... All I have to say is stay away from Semiconductors and Indian internet companies!


Stick with the popular clothiers and get in on the ground floor. The stocks I bought for my kids are doing better than all of mine combined (even though it sometimes feels like I single handedly support p-sun all on my kids purchases alone) . So much for adult, intelligent choices huh?

I used to be a stock market groupie and I "Got into it" by sleeping with an instructor years ago who I met in bartending school. He taught me everything I know!

The one usefull man I figured would never hit me with "Those three little words." did exactly that, on water street one night in the rain... and I had to give him to boot!

After all, he was just for fun and learning, not love!

From January 2006 Indian Investors were very happy of the appreciation seen in the stock markets. But suddenly in the month of may 2006, may be from the second or third week of this month, a conspiracy was initiated by a syndicate comprising of more responsible people and respected people which finally made most of the retail investors lose all the money they earned in their life. No criticism ,no protest against the people responsible. The Indian investors are remaining as silent spectators. Anyone can play and bring down the market so heavily and this will not happen in anyother market.

I started with a couple bucks and turned it into a million. But it didn't go how you may think.

I have been active in the stocks, bonds, currencies, and real estate.

After I made my first 100,000 I lost most of it.

I never added it all up, but if I had to guess I probably "made" 100 million and lost 99 of them.

no stories. here's what you do:

1. invest and max out in 401k up to your employers contribution - because their contribution is free money.

2. max out on your roth IRA - i think its 4k or 5k this year.

3. rest of your money squirrel away into stocks. the stocks should represent how far away you are from retirement. the closer you get to retirement the lower the investment risk. avoid penny stocks avoid most stocks under $10. there are no secrets to stocks unless you are a market mover (deal in millions of shares). you pick one you like and hold on to it.

basically unless you start a business and do well in it the only other way to get rich in the US is stocks. good luck.

I got into the stock and commodity markets back in 1998 (first order was to buy oil at $12 a barrel!) after buying a couple of seminars from Ken Roberts (a little cheezy but excellent learning materials) My only complaint about the commodity seminar is he makes it sound too easy, and you REALLY can loose a lot more money than you put in. But after all I have read, which is a lot, I keep coming back to these stragities and they continue to work the best.
However, my biggest horror story.....I was daytrading the Dow futures contract in Aug 02? and was short 5 contracts. I was up about 3k when in 30minutes the Dow went from down 100pts to up 200pts...an unbelievable move, of which I haven't seen since! In that 30 minutes I went from being up 3k to being down 16k. I have never been sooooo sick in all my life!
Lessons learned;
1) Trust you instincts (I am a technical trader and just before it made the big move, I noticed a pennant fomation and it just broke to the upside-which when they break, they break big. I coulda/shoulda placed a market order immediately to liquidate-although I may still have lost big....you never know with market orders, especially when everyone places them at once)
2) Regardless of what you think the fundementals are telling you, if everyone is on the same side, it doesnt' take much for things to go the other way-contrairians win!
3) Even when you are watching things closely, you can still loose a lot of money in a very short time. Money management is everything!
4) Technicals rule!
5) Getting drunk doesn't make you feel any better....

I still trade the markets and do very well, but this experience is burned into my memory! Good luck with your endeavors!