Stock Market Keeps Moving Along

Terra Nitrogen (TNH) and Mastercard (MA) are the both recent investment mistakes I have made. This is not because their price dropped like a safe, they didn’t; they skyrocketed. That was my mistake, it sold one too early and misses out on buying one on the way up.

Terra Nitrogen (TNH) was a winner for me.  I bought it and it had a 7% yield.  I watched it rise and fall, sometimes 5% a day.  It was up 20% and I was concerned that I was getting greedy by holding on, especially since it showed extreme volatility.  Therefore, I dumped it mid-day on last Thursday.  Since then it is up another 26%, ooops!  I still got my 20%, right?

Mastercard (MA) is a miss.  I had a limit order for it at around 143 over a week ago.  It was there, but literally jumped 2 points and I missed the limit order.  At 145 I did not want to take the short-term risk because I thought I might have missed it.  Well, since then it has hit the mid-160s. Yikes!

We all make mistakes, especially in investing, and let’s hope these are as bad as it gets.

Written by Nagel on June 27th, 2007 with no comments.
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