Learning From Losses | The Turn

So yeah, I eventually subscribed to this reco group. I paid the full year though there was a monthly payment option. I paid a year in advance because I thought I'm gonna be 'using' them for the long term. But this thought change slowly in time.

Here's what happened.

There were 14 stock recommendations. I just chose 4 that have the biggest projected upside. One of them was BDO.

I started buying BDO at 129.50.

The next day. It went down. I was hesitant to buy again but the guru said 'think of it like your buying something on sale'. So I went ahead and bought again at 127.60.

It dipped again the next day but managed to bounce up the next few days. I was starting to see greens on my portfolio. Gains in just few days.

But the stock went down again. This time I added more shares at 127.20.

Then up again. Then a long red candle. Eating up all the gains from few days back in one swoop. I bought again at 123.30.

Another red candle the next day.

And another.

And another.

It felt like I was free falling. Together with the stock.

Some people in the group started panicking and posted their concern about the stock price diving and more importantly their losses also getting bigger.

I was one of them. But I kept silent. I kept my cool. I just told myself, you're in this for the long term. These are just short term volatility. That's how blue chips works. Eventually they will go up.

Then the guru issued his side. He made some analogy about BDO's price dipping several years ago and eventually went up. He said that If people backed down at the time where BDO was in its low, they would not have made money compared to if they held on and wait the storm out.

I even defended the guru's and my side. I posted my thoughts on the situation. Here's a excerpt from that post.

My honest thought was the group didn't focus much on risk management. Their reason being that every people has a different risk tolerance. So they didn't stressed it out so much. I disagree. But that can be a topic on a different journal entry.

Going back. BDO never managed to get back to my first entry price. It even dipped lower. Thinking of averaging down, I added more went it hit 110. I managed to lower my AEP at 123.

But at this point. I was doubting my actions and was losing hope of it going back up anytime soon. I felt like my money was going to waste sleeping and losing here where I could've put it somewhere else.

I sold everything the next day at 108 when my -10% stop loss was hit. Considering that this stock ate almost 50% of my portfolio, I lost a good amount of money.

And on the next few days after I sold. The universe decided to punish me. BDO started its ascent with the index.

Although I managed to execute my stop loss. I realized it was a wrong move to average down on a down trending or sideways stocks in the first place.

Don't ever turn into an investor.

You'll never know when it will hit the bottom or when it will go back up. It was just what happened to me after I sold all my positions on BDO. Who knew that BDO will get back up after that day? No one. It could've dipped lower for all I know.