School me on investing...

I might buy multiple times if the price of something I like keeps going down but when I sell, I always sell the whole thing. If I don't trust that it's gonna keep going up, I'm not going to hold onto part of it. And if I'm sure that it will, no reason to sell part of it early.

 

Bought 5000 shares of Transocean when it was down around $0.70; today it closed at $1.82.

But I still didn’t top slice it; I left it alone. The 52 week high is over $7 per share, and before the downturn it was around $40-50 per share. So I’m just gonna let it ride for now.

If it gets up to $5 or so, I might skim some of it then, at least enough to cover what I put in it. Then I’ll continue to let it ride and see what happens.

 

I make partial sells all the time, depending on the reason why it went up.

Like for example, about a year or two ago (can’t remember exactly), there was some drama in the Middle East about a major strait being locked down (if tariff agreements weren’t made), which would hurt oil exportation in that part of the world.

The market reacted to that in a major way. Oil shot up to $70/bbl, and subsequently oil stocks shot up.

But that wasn’t “real”. Oil supplies hadn’t been depleted; there was no swing in the supply-vs-demand. The market just reacted to a possible swing (that never actually happened).

I skimmed my ass off and took a lot of profits from the oil stocks, but left most of the shares still in them because even though they were up compared to recent times, they were still WAY below the 5-year high. So I wanted to make some money, but didn’t want to unass all of them.

Then sure enough, shortly thereafter they came to an agreement. The straits never even got shut down. The oil stocks went right back to where they were. But I’d already got my profits out of them.

So if I feel there is a sudden spike that isn’t “real”, but just a market reaction to something that may or may not even happen, I’ll take advantage of it. But I won’t sell all of it unless I feel it has permanently (for all intents and purposes) maxed out.

 

I would have sold all of it and bought it again when it came down . I've done that a bunch of times.

 

I *almost* did. But somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking “what if this is THE turn, and from here it will continue to go up to 2013 numbers?”.

Because of that, I’ve been reluctant to sell ALL of it when it gets a little spike for one reason or another.

For example, I’m up several thousand just on TO over the past few trading days. I might skim it at some point, but I won’t sell all of it, just is case this is *the* turn we’ve been waiting on.

 

What do you think of Gush? I got in at $20 and its going up pretty good. Thinking it may be a good long term deal to keep. I was going to ask about Transocean as well, but I see Gorilla George already commented on that. I was thinking buy now and hold for a while to see how it goes.

 

See #841.

That's the risk you take when you play with stocks.

I try to go in with an exit strategy and stick to it no matter how tempting things get. If I look at this talk and think it's going to double, I'm selling when I'm up 100%. If I bought to hold indefinitely going in, then I may or may not sell it.

 

For the most part, I’m in it for the long haul (as far as oil stocks go).

Like I said, I might skim at some point. But for me it’s not worth making a few grand now, if it prevents me from possibly making tens of thousands later.

Ida been pissed if I sold 5000 shares of TO last week when it went up to $1.25 a share, because it’s up to $1.82 now. BUT...not as pissed as I would be if I sold it at $1.82, and a year or two from now it was at $30.

 

Nice.
As an industry guy how do you feel about Baker, Schlumberger and HAL? seems all are rising now but i may need to thin down at some point.

Speaking of long stock plays...im about to go balls deep in GE for the next year or 2. Even if they get back half their value from a few years ago, ill be sporting a GMT Master....

 

GUSH....the Direxion 2x S&P oil EXP and PROD ETF?
Oh hell no. Those leveraged ETF's should not be held overnight...and certainly not long term...days or weeks is long term for them....

If things go wrong for a few days its bad, like......its all gone...poof.

Leverage and Derivatives is one big reason the 2008 collapse happened. You've been lucky that oil Exploration & Service is on the way up...but you'd better have a way out.
There have been instances of these funds going to zero overnight...like all the money gone...nothing you can do.

Read...
https://www.investopedia.com/articl...5/why-leveraged-etfs-are-not-longterm-bet.asp

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/fea...eraged-oil-etf-collapse-unlikely-experts-say/

 

Those 3rd party service companies will typically trend in the same manner as the Operators (Shell, BP, etc), and the Contractors (Transocean, Nabors, etc).

Of those 3, Schlumberger and Baker are likely the most solid.

Baker is “coming into their own”. The best BOP in the market used to be made by (or called) Hydril.
Another company that makes a lot of oilfield/BOP related shit is (was) Vetco.

GE bought Hydril and Vetco.

Then in 2017 GE bought Baker (also known as Baker Hughes).

Not long after that GE went into the shitter. They then sold all their shares back to Baker to remove themselves from the oil and gas industry, in order to “get back to their roots”.

Long story short, what is known as “Baker” now, is essentially Baker Hughes, Hydril, and Vetco all rolled into one bigass company.

So 3 years ago, Baker would have been a hard “no”. But now, they are big enough and provide enough services, that if any oilfield stocks do well, Baker will do well.

BTW, I went balls deep in GE back when it was $6.20 a share. As of now it’s over $10.

 

Different kind of derivatives but phantom stock created by options does play a role. 2008 was all due to the cmbs market. If anyone hasn't watched the movie The Big Short. You should. Great movie even if you don't care about investing

 

Yes it is, great movie.
And yes MBS in general and sub prime was a root cause of the crash and they are a form of derivative. My point was with leverage and leverage derivatives the swings are magnified. SO up is great. Like hookers and blow in Vegas on someone else's dime good. But when it goes its jump out the window bad...

 

True story

 

at the close today.... JUMIA.... I'm now up... +202.08%

 

RTX
I made the "pessimist" trade when the covid hit. Stock went straight to the shitter, was down $40k.

It stayed there during OMB. But now that it seems that our government will get "back to normal", RTX erased all my losses and is still heading up. The market seems to be saying that we're back in the war business. IDK.

 

No stock right now makes any sense. There is no real reason that everything is not in the tank. Finance analysts cannot answer the questions.

 

Agreed. Market is being propelled by retail investors, and a lot of the RobinHood army.

 

My XRP is finally heading up! I've been down about 95% on my investment all these years! Hoping I can salvage something!

 

The market can't drop until at least after the mid-terms. It would look bad. If you can just print an unlimited supply of Franklins, you can continue to inflate a bubble all you want.