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I think it was around $20,000-30,000... I was gambling earnings with options hehe. I still gamble with earnings, but just with a little money for the thrill.
I'm embarrassed to say but more than $80,000. I distinctly remember what happened. It was like this: The employees of United Airlines (UAL) had offered to buy out the company for $165 per share or thereabouts. Gerald Greenwald of Chrysler, a real financial whiz, was hired to run the company. UAL stock was selling for over $140 per share in anticipation of the buyout and I decided to sell 30 UAL 120 puts expiring a couple of months later and way out of the money. I got about $2 per share or $6,000 less commissions. I told myself that selling the puts was a no-brainer, an easy $6,000 profit.
Well, as fate would have it, the UAL buyout fell through on "Black Friday," October 13th, 1989 crashing the stock market and the "junk bond" market along with UAL. There was no world wide webb at that time and very few people had a PC. If you wanted a real time option quote, you had to call your broker. (There was a real time quote service available in select markets for several hundred per month, which information was transmitted as an "SCA" over a local FM radio station.) I was away at the time of the crash and when I returned UAL stock had dropped to around 95. I sold back the option for around $30 per share and had to pony up over $90,000 to cover. I was sick for weeks after that and it took years to finally use up the capital losses from my fiasco.
I lost $18,000 in my home purchase in the 80's. Purchased when values were up, at 56k, but sold out at 36k at about the bottom of the market, cause we were moving. Ouch.
I lost $18,000 in my home purchase in the 80's. Purchased when values were up, at 56k, but sold out at 36k at about the bottom of the market, cause we were moving. Ouch.
I lost 300K in less than 60 months on a 2nd home. Purchased summer 2005 (height of market) and watched the place lose $1,000 a week in value.....200K in equity/100K in carrying costs.....While it was a sizable hit, some of that money was from previous homeruns, it was a hard "life lesson" at the time but it didn't bankrupt me in the long run.
Lessons were:
1. Real Estate can be tough to sell at any price despite a prime location
2. 15-20 yrs of solid income isn't guaranteed forever
3. Don't get sucked into nonsense purchases you really don't need
It was a perfect storm of situations but 10 years later I still live in the same place, still have money invested and I am much wiser on spending money on anything!
As I remember, everything in sight was going up (unless you're talkin' '99 or so...)
Not everything went up. While stock picking is generally less likely to yield bad results in a rising-tide market, nonetheless it still can very reasonably happen.
And as for me, commodities futures contracts...oh boy.
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