Tuesday, 31 January 2017

AAPL

Courtesy of Megarain's latest post, I came across a story which may or may not be true, (there are a few inconsistencies in his tale) of someone who unexpectedly inherited Can$2.5million three and a half years ago, and now has:
$325,000 Canadian left. I have a $100,000 personal loan at 8% (yeah), a $51,000 credit card debt accruing at 19% per year and various debts ranging from 6 to 10%. Oh man I feel so dumb – I could have paid the car I am driving in cash, but somehow I ended up getting financing
In an attempt to win back some, all or more of his 'lost' money, he's shorting Apple, whose earnings come out today (Tuesday).

He's certainly convinced himself that Apple will disappoint the market, and needs the current price of $121.63 to dip below $120 to start making some money.
If Apple's stock price goes up, well...

 Also concerning was the line:
Look, I’ll be blunt: I want my two point five million back. It’s mine and I want it back, period
Something tells me the poster hasn't yet accepted his losses. "It's mine"? No. It WAS yours, but not any more.

 I concur with Megarain's anonymous commenter, who wrote: 
Interesting read. I have to say that the guy sounds like a bit of an idiot though.
' but if you do exist God: please, please, please, please, please help me. I have never been lucky in this life and you have thrown many obstacles in my way, but if you help me here, everything is forgiven.' --> writes the guy who inherited 2.5 mill from a random uncle.
I think even if the trade goes his way, he'll find a way to squander his winnings.
It's a very generous offer to god that he will forgive him, and of course god has nothing better to do today than fudge Apple's numbers to help this guy.

 Apple's earnings are always of passing interest, but I'll be thinking of this story when I see the numbers today. On a day (Monday) when the NASDAQ dropped 0.83%, (thank you Mr Trump), that AAPL closed the day little changed from Friday may not be a good sign for our Canadian poster. We shall see.

 One interesting piece of his post was his start in trading soon after inheriting his millions:
I wanted to trade. I had always wanted to trade and the world of day-trading seemed like a utopia to me. At first, I had success.
People might remember my big Apple bet a few years ago where I essentially made $30,000 in under a week.
Looking back at it today, much later, I regret winning that trade.
Perhaps if I had lost everything on that trade, it would have disgusted me from trading forever and I would still have much of that $2.5M today.
But I won, and I won for a good while, and it kept me going.
Then, I began to lose.
I've heard others say that the worst thing that happened to them was winning that first bet / trade. Be careful what you wish for.  
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3 comments:

  1. James31 January 2017 at 08:49

    Without attempting to start an argument, this reminds me of the socialist ideal of spreading wealth. Some would like to evenly distribute all money to everyone in the world but this story shows that such an ideal would be folly.

    It is estimated that there is $70 trillion in cash and so our approximate population of 7 billion would each receive $10,000 each. Within weeks there would be millionaires and billionaires again but many more poor people. All because people would start racing to accumulate more cash or more trappings of wealth.

    There would probably be different faces amongst the billionaires. Maybe previous billionaires would be penniless because this time the gamble didn't pay off. Millions would be whining again because others have more than they have.

    We would soon be as we are today with those who accumulate cash, those who are unable to save any cash and those for whom money slips through their fingers because they believe they deserve a certain lifestyle.

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  2. Megarain31 January 2017 at 19:15

    Its v possible its a massive hoax, but, was a decent read, and passed the day.

    As a set-up, the mkt being weak today, will maybe exacerbate any weakness in the Apple earnings, so, have a token position .. short.

    I seem to recall u are flying for the Superbowl .. via a John Grisham interview/podcast, on Brian Koppelmans- State of the moment, I listened to a book, called 'Playing for Pizza', which has a NFL Qtr-back, as the hero. Its a v good read, and something u can happily pass the flying time with .. if u havent read it.

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  3. Megarain31 January 2017 at 19:39

    One other thing .. hes showing a live stream of the earnings call // I imagine, it will be entertaining, no matter what :

    https://www.youtube.com/c/FSComeau/live

    Starts in 55 mins ..

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