Baller Trade Stories

[VolcanicArts]

Does anyone have any stories of awesome stock trades or others they have made?

[J Boogie]

I invested in Chinese fertilizer company Yongye directly after the Chinese reverse merger fraud scandals came to light and cast shadows of doubt over many emerging companies in China who seemed to fit similar criteria.

My dad was a financial adviser and had researched this company thoroughly.  He said it was 100% solid, though heavily shorted.  He didn't advise me to buy it, but greed got the best of me.

I invested a few thousand during a time where I had very little money, and the stock price dropped from $8 to $3.

Talked about it with my dad quite a bit.  I doubled down at 3 so my cost basis was around $5.  Eventually they got sick of the scrutiny and went private and I got out just fine, pocketing a few thousand.

Far from the baller story you're looking for, but it's my personal story that I think of when I am tempted to gamble.  I got out OK, though I could have quite easily lost $8,000 when I only had $10,000 to my name.  I'm thankful to have learned the lesson in a way that didn't wipe out my hard earned savings.

I think you'll find most people on here believe in index fund investing for good reason - As often as we pick winners, we'll pick losers too.  My dad made a living picking stocks and he says that in retrospect he would have probably done just as well in index funds with half the stress he caused himself by trying to beat the market.  He felt really bad about the picks he made for himself and for his clients that ended up flopping.

[AnswerIs42]

I bought some bank preference shares during the depths of the 2008 crisis. The best value ones I got paid about 6.25% interest, and I got them for about £0.23 in the pound - so effectively an interest rate of 25% or so on the price I paid - it was just crazy :O

They stopped paying interest for a year or two pretty quickly, but then started again. They ended up getting exchanged for some slightly different securities with a better interest rate but some strange conditions that they could be converted into equity if things got really bad. Eventually, they ended up getting redeemed at par a couple of years ago.

So, I quadrupled my money on those, probably quintupled if you include the interest. Shame I only bought £500 worth of that particular share.

I bought some other bank prefs too, one I still own - it's always nice to still see the "+202%" in the "gains" column of that one every time I log in, and that's not including the interest.

I shouldn't pat myself on the back too much, though - I made some crappy investment decisions elsewhere and lost money, so it probably evens out.

[Chrissy]

I'll play...

I just sold Exelixis at $21... but I bought at $3 in 2015.  Put in $3k, made a profit of $7k when I sold, still have $11k riding.

[zinnie]

I've had apple stock since the late 90s. I was so proud of myself when I bought some for $12 a share and sold for $27 a share--I thought that was a huge gain! I sold off a lot of gains over the years but my average cost basis now is still only $27/share.

Of course I wasn't dealing with much money back then, so I only made about 50k on it in 20-ish years. If only I made decisions like that when I had some real cash to invest! (But of course now that I do, I'm smarter about individual stocks.)

[CheapScholar]

Every other week I buy a ton of index funds through my 403b.  Minimal risk and huge tax breaks.  Pretty baller if you ask me.

[Khan]

The best stories I have were wiped by my own mistakes. Then there's the points where I look back and I'd actually missed out on the real gains, like NOK going from $5-8, or Ebay rising another 30% or more after I'd sold it.
For example:
-bought Tesla at $22 back in the day, sold at $35. Then proceeded to short it at $50, covered that short in the 90's or at 100

[sdt1890]

Not exactly the type of story you are necessarily looking for, but makes me thinks of something I did at 14 back in 2004.

I was mowing lawns to make $$$ then and had a family member take me to look at a commercial mower that was listed in the local paper (don't think the section in the paper even exists today lol). I bought it for $700 (had to do a few minor maintenance things like changing the oil, filters, plugs, etc.) and used it for a few months, then found Craigslist shortly thereafter and after some Googling decided to try listing it on Craigslist for a much higher price than I bought it for, $1,700. The next day, I got an email from a guy that mowed for a living saying he only uses these specific machines because of their controls (called "T-Bars"), he showed up, offered me $1,500, I negotiated him up to $1,600. I remember recounting the $100 bills thinking I had hit the lottery!

[ulrichw]

I've had apple stock since the late 90s. [...]

I'm now a devout Boglehead, but back in the day did some investing in individual stocks using a generally contrarian strategy.

I had a number of them go to 0, but one of my few successful guesses was buying Apple after they got hammered in 2000.

I bought about $3,000 worth on 12/6/2000 and didn't start selling until 2011.

What's left of the position (400 shares) is up by 13,000+% (that's not a typo - it's worth 130 times what it was when I bought it).

With 20/20 hindsight I wonder why I didn't add a 0 to that transaction :)

I wouldn't recommend this strategy - I got very lucky - first, in the timing of the initial trade, and second, that I basically forgot about the stock until it had grown considerably. If I had been watching my stocks actively, I would have sold much sooner.

[VolcanicArts]

I've had apple stock since the late 90s. [...]

I'm now a devout Boglehead, but back in the day did some investing in individual stocks using a generally contrarian strategy.

I had a number of them go to 0, but one of my few successful guesses was buying Apple after they got hammered in 2000.

I bought about $3,000 worth on 12/6/2000 and didn't start selling until 2011.

What's left of the position (400 shares) is up by 13,000+% (that's not a typo - it's worth 130 times what it was when I bought it).

With 20/20 hindsight I wonder why I didn't add a 0 to that transaction :)

I wouldn't recommend this strategy - I got very lucky - first, in the timing of the initial trade, and second, that I basically forgot about the stock until it had grown considerably. If I had been watching my stocks actively, I would have sold much sooner.

Wow that's awesome. When I first started investing around age 18 I bought a penny stock for 0.6 cents. This stock was a total scam and most likely a shell company, but I didn't know any better at the time. I only put around 6-700 in initially, but I watched the price climb to 0.2 then almost close to a dollar later. I can't remember what I sold at but at one point my $600 investment was worth more than $60,000. Needless to say I only made about 15 k on that trade and the company was not only later worthless and delisted, but eventually disappeared altogether. I also have some pretty bad stories that came after that.