MY Greatest Failure was….

One of my greatest failures in my life was losing all my money, assets in stock market during 2000-2002. I had lost everything I had from my 23 years of hard working, investments, assets, etc. I ended up with nothing (zero).

Since mid. Nineties, (1994-2002), I got involved in stock transactions.  During those times, especially end of 1998-2000, many stocks were going up 20-30% every day/every week. Many start-up companies were coming to the market every day/month. There were shortages of employees, many engineers get paid very high and were offered a lot of sign up bonuses, stock options and benefits, etc.

For a couple of years almost all stocks were doing great, Some stocks were going up $20-$30 or 20% everyday (e.g., QualCom, Yahoo, etc).  Some of the Telecomm stocks then were at their high (e.g., NT: Northern Telecom at $140 per share, MCI at $58, ALU: Alcatel USA $84, etc…). Anyhow, the market was doing great and profitable.

 Suddenly, all stocks were going south every day. I was buying more and more using Margin (Buying with credits) because I couldn’t believe these stocks go that much low. But after a while they sold, because of Margin, my stocks at very low prices when they desired and I lost all big time.

The stocks I mentioned above are currently either out (don’t exist any more such as MCI $0 or NT after 10 to 1 Reverse split in around 2002, it is now almost $0) or are very low such as Alcatel-Lucent about $1.90. With these devaluation, you can imagine how a person loses his/her life!

Looking backward, I found out whatever I bought a stock it went down and whenever I sold a stock it went up. My choice of stocks and timing for purchasing and selling was wrong all the times. It couldn’t be coincidence.

What Did I Learn?

My review of my investments and loses showed that simply I was wrong and unlucky all the time in stock transactions. So I believe I can be a good investment advisor now utilizing my bad experiences as follow:

I buy some stocks, randomly or by study. Since I am wrong in selecting stocks and timing of purchase, I tell my clients not to buy those stocks and if they already have those stocks in their portfolio they should sell them at once.

After a while, I start selling my stocks, since I have been wrong in timing when to sell, I advice my clients to immediately buy those stocks. You see, by advising my clients do opposite of what I am doing, they become successful. Good strategy? Right?