patrick.net

zzyzzx says

I would avoid FB stock.

Yeah, I avoid it (and many stocks) the same way that I avoid the roulette table. Shit, the roulette table has better overall odds I think...47.4% chance of 200% return. Facebook is particularly risky given how much hype there still is in the market, and the major players that can easily manipulate the stock price for their own return (at MY expense).

Big companies that provide basic necessities and give dividends...yes please. I'll leave day trading to the day traders.

Another mini-rally today. Any theories?

No ideas here.

Ah, Facebook. The single thing that just zapped a huge chunk of productivity gains made by technology, and the internet. Where else can a person share useles and mundane daily activities with others who couldn't give a shit less?

i used my gambling money to short-term trade facebook. buy at $21.7x. sold last week at $24.yy.

it's super volatile and scary.

i also tried to buy fb when it IPO'd but i got locked out because the computers couldn't handle the order volume. i'm really happy/lucky that i was able to successfully cancel my buy order that day; in hindsight, that the price should have, but didn't drop below $38.00 was a sign i should not have been on the buy-side since there was heavy selling pressure but from what i read the investment banks were propping it up to keep it above the $38.00 IPO price.

i also traded zinga for a tiny profit going long, despite it falling in price about 85%+ percent. got out just in the nick of time on that one. lol.

my biggest mistake so far this year was selling a large chunk of my total-market fund and going to cash in my 401k, i actually timed it well and got out close to a top in march (i think or maybe april/june - too lazy to look it up), but didn't believe the rally and missed the run up from june to october. i could have got back in a few weeks ago at what i sold at, but i'm a bit cautious and think there may be some down side and i can get back in at a better price. it's all kinds of fucked up though because of bernake and QE3 ($40B/month buying MBSs will do that); the fed has a huge influence ("don't fight the fed) and because of that you need to understand the economy as well as the feds influence on it

i'm considering buy some more of the total market fund to increase my equity exposure a bit since i'm not anywhere confident of being able to predict the market direction today, even though i'm negatively biased.

good news is i haven't taken a capital loss so far this year on any position which is great (and slightly lucky).