Lucky

Well, I was lucky thanks to my friend Vikram Bandit, aka Vikram the Whiner, the current CEO of Citicorpse. Here is what happened. I thought financial stocks were overpriced after the Santa Claus rally that ended in the middle of last week. So on Thursday I decided to buy 100 shares of an Ultra Short Financial Sector exchange traded fund (SKF). Total purchase price including commission was $11,236. Over the weekend there were news stories about how Citicorpse is going to have a much larger than expected operational loss of over $10 billion this quarter, and is under pressure from the Feds to start dismembering itself. As a result the Citicorpse stock price dropped over 17% today. My short fund had risen on Friday and rose a lot more today. Around 3 p.m. I decided to sell it and take the profit. Total sales price including commission was $13,197.72, for a profit of $1,961.72, or 17.5%, in two trading days.

Note: I do NOT recommend purchasing this ETF. It can be very hazardous to your financial health. I could just as easily have lost 17.5% (or even more than that) on my investment in two trading days. At this point I have no idea whether I will ever have sufficient courage (or foolhardiness) to buy it again. This time the trade happened to work in my favor. I don't at all put this down to skill. I was lucky.