A short story, good for a lazy day: It's been 15 years since I heavily traded stocks-- Or traded stocks at all for that matter. I quit after letting too many prize catches get away. The worst was a sub penny stock, a Gay/Lesbian TV network that was trading @ .0001 - .0002. I picked up 5 million shares and waited patiently. I sat on the damn thing for 9 months.
Now it was nearing the end of my trading career. I was looking through my portfolio, if you could call it that. It seemed like everything I bought went down, and everything I passed on went up. Some of my holdings I'd held so long, if sold, would not have even covered the broker fees they'd tanked so much. So it was with a deep sigh of despair when I decided I was just tired of looking at that particular stock symbol, there, in my portfolio, as it seemed to remind me every day of what a mistake I'd made. So I dumped it. Took a 50% loss.
One week later; BAM! the thing explodes -- up 500%. A couple days later BAM! up another 1000%. Within 2 weeks it was trading over 2 cents!! Had I held it I could have sold for over $125,000!
Well that was it. I was through-- until about 3 weeks ago.
Last year a friend told me about FNMA. I decided what the heck. My business was doing well, I was about to retire anyway and had a little scratch that I could "invest". I put a stake on Fanny from my Wells Fargo account and sold it about 6 months later for a decent gain. I was happy. I put the principal back into my bank account and decided to re-supply my regular brokerage account with the profits. That's one thing you never want to do is trade penny stocks with a Wells Fargo account, their commissions for penny stocks are insane.
So I was going to get back into the penny market on Wednesday, April 2nd. I had the day before off and so when Tuesday came, I spent the day getting accustomed to my broker's website and trading tools. It was cool. I put together some stock screens, did a few searches, refined the screens and so forth, and up comes MONA.
I looked it over. I looked it over along with a number of others stocks. I put MONA on the top of my list to buy when my funds became available for trading the following day.
Wednesday morning came. I put in a small order and it was refused. wtf?? I tried it again. Again, the same thing. I called my broker, Ameritrade. "There's a chill order on this symbol." "A chill order? What's that?"
He explained it. Said their company couldn't trade it. "But there are millions of shares being traded as we speak? How come you can't trade it?"
His reply was basically: "We're looking out for our clients interest sir."
I hung up the phone. tried another one of my picks, same thing, chill order. Finally I made a few purchases, was happy a little, but still frustrated.
So I think to myself yesterday: "Well my portfolio value is only down about a third from 2 weeks ago, I guess that's not too bad... Seems just like old times... Hey, I wonder how MONA's doing?"
I tell you, it's the story of my life. The one stock that would have doubled the entire value of my account was the one I couldn't get. I swear that seems to be the story of my life, but it's a story I'm determined to change.
Good luck to you guys, if you get any good tips like MONA again, please take a little pity on a poor old fool such as myself and pass them along? I could use a little sunshine. Have a great day and congrats on an exceptionally good stock pick. And also, how is it that you all were able to buy this when I could not? Which broker do you use? TIA, have a great Easter and All the best to you.
Russ
