I hate losses.
I love writing about my trades.
Therefore, I write about painful losses, even while they are on paper. It just makes me a better investor and I get feedback from smart people along the way.
I had a winning silver trade the last week on the blog and stream and yesterday I started a new silver trade in $agq with a small (500) share dip at $182 (just bought 500 more pre market at $163, 200 more at $157….oy).
This morning I am looking at $160 and hearing it traded to $145 in the middle of the night. The paper loss is not big for my portfolio but wow are the percentage losses bad considering I have owned the security (or lack thereof) for less than 15 hours.
I will attempt to trade out of the stock because silver is being driven more by liquidation right now than fundamentals, but the sector is broken and I won’t stay for long.
I diclose when I trade, not so YOU trade, but to note what I am doing and that allows me to continue to talk through MY trade. I don’t say BUY this, or Sell that, I write what I AM DOING. I think it works, because as open as I am, and as many losses as I have taken over the years, I never get the hate mail. People don’t yell at me or blame me.
I think it all comes down to TONE. I have chosen to forgo ‘Must Buy’, You should Buy’, ‘Buy of a Lifetime’ …with I am buying, this is interesting (no position), don’t chase, holding….
That is not everyone’s style for sure, but I do encourage people to do it this way. With today’s choices and filtering, we have so much power to find these fresh, smart, talented and responsible voices. It’s why TV and stock picks is not something I do and have turned off. You can still write great headlines without urgent call to actions. Using calls to action in financial headlines is at best linkbaiting and at worst financially dangerous and irresponsible. If you do it, you will get hate. You deserve it. Looking back at the ones I have written (only as linkbait), I am horrified to think of some investor scanning the headline and just following what I do.
Jim Cramer/TheStreet is a master at the SEO financial headline. Here is one from April 25th titled ‘Keep Buying Silver‘. I think he means KEEP BUYING SILVER. That was 30 plus percent ago. I just watched the video and he meant it.
I am trying to find his ‘I stopped Buying Silver’ or ‘Holy Shit, my Keep Buying Silver headline was stupid’ or ‘I can’t take the pain anymore in Silver, I am a shmendrick, sorry’, but he has long removed himself from this responsibility and prefers to use new media to complain and shout. As @mdbrenner summed up last night ‘Cramer has become a coin toss machine with a mouth’. That’s not mean, that’s funny and true and a better use of new media.
In Jin Cramer’s own words…WRONG!