Came across this short video today and thought it was quite good. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcxd7GpCjVI[/youtube] Anyone want to share some personal pump and dump stories? There is no shame in it if you got burnt. Just purely in learning from each others experiences.
Having been burned big time in the 90's with money I couldn't afford to lose (all miners or explorers) I'm still to this day embarrassed I sold PSC to buy PIO. Haven't lost yet, but feel my money could have been better spent. Didn't buy anywhere near the top, but @ today's quote I may as well have. Bad dreams.
Don't worry @scrooged .... you're not alone there. Doubled my money on PSC and put profits into PIO ...... PSC continued to rise another 50-60% while PIO is down nearly 50% .... DOH!!!
I have never bought shares. I once really, really, REALLY wanted to buy some when an Australian miner was first floated. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. All the indicators were good, opportunities huge, based on lots of research. Unfortunately, I wasn't lucky. But then I was. Turned out to be a turkey. My skills have not improved since then, and I don't consider myself to be 'lucky' in the lottery sense, so I stay away.
My story comes from the height of the dot com boom. I was running an IT business at the time and got cold called by some broker who was offering to get me into a company called Net Commerce. At that time internet commerce was the next big boom idea, people were barely aware of what an "online shopping cart" was. I was familiar with the basics of share investing but I was still in my 20s. When I showed interest they wanted to put me down for a $50K investment. Yikes! I went in for $6K which was a large chunk of my savings at the time. At something like $3 a share they pretty much started tanking straight away. I was too busy with my business to do due diligence or follow it closely, but sure enough they went to zero at some point (I don't even remember if it was before or during the dot com bust) It was an expensive lesson for me, and one I'll never forget. Having since watched movies like Wolf of Wall Street (absolutely compulsory viewing for anyone investing in stocks) I can see a lot of things I did wrong and was pretty much scammed from day 1. But in the grand scheme of things I put it down to being an expensive (though worthwhile) learning experience. I have never been caught buying into (and then holding onto) share market next-biggest-thing hype since.
Almost every cryptocurrency since Bitcoin (and then, a huge chunk of bitcoin as well) has been, almost by definition a pump and dump. All in all, learned a lot. Recommendation: Stay away.
You did it the right way round at least. Good work. As of today, I need an 152% increase to break even on that trade. (my stop loss working a treat ) Possibly foolishly, I think I'll get it back. Buggedout, hype is the money spinner, ya just don't want to be left holding the can.
On the other hand...... A guy I worked with back in the UK (1990s) bought into a very young tech company that needed funds to develop its next product. He was a lowly-paid, mid-30s technician. The product was a success; the company value went stratospheric; he sold out when his investment was worth $WTF? He and his wife retired at (let's say) 37yo, bought a fat-arsed trawler which they had gutted and turned into a super yacht (on the inside - outside still looked like shit), then buggered off to the Mediterranean. We kept in touch for a couple of years and, last time I heard from him (2005), they were berthed in some working port in southern France, pissing about and having a ball. They even sprouted a couple of gorgeous kids while lapping the Med. Bastards.
KBL Bought a tiny parcel on 6/09 just the day before TH. Yes it was a spec punt. Today ann was placing the company in liquidation. Interesting point was that day (06/09) was the last day/chancec for 'those who know inside info' to exit. Just wonder why this was allowed to trade on the exchange. 300m+ shares were traded on that day. Not sulking on this but clearly a lesson learnt as we go along
