Mistakes, Mistakes

I'm an amateur stock market investor. One fine day I had thought to myself, "Hell, I don't really need money for anything anyways, other for fuel and drinks, so why waste it?" And thus I began my foray into this jungle.

I consider myself a risk-taker. Which doesn't mean I go about hunting for small-cap, sub-100 Rupee stocks; nor do I (anymore) go on the tips of some 'expert' on the telly. I can put it a substantial amount of cash and bear the occasional arrythmia because the greed is there. And of course, I have no dependents nor debts of any kind, so there's no urgency.

There is an IT company called Mindtree. In a nutshell, its run by one of the ex chairmen of Wipro, and it looks pretty darn good on the fundamentals side. When it came out with an IPO, it was, on the surface, a must-have stock. "Aankh bandh kar ke khareed lo" types. Hell, it was so good that it was oversubscribed about 100 times. And so, even thought I applied with a modest sum of 20 grand I got nothing. I had locked in my cash for a month waiting for the results and the refund. Lost out on many other opportunities.

I learnt that for an excellent IPO; like Mindtree, or the erstwhile Tech Mahindra, one should consider buying it on the listing day, or maybe a few days after that. Lesson 1 learnt, I ventured to buy this elusive stock after all, in the Secondary Market.

Cut to today morning, before the Opening Bell. Last Traded Price: Rs. 649. I thought of getting ambitious and bid for Rs.655. I had to go to my clinic and and left it at that.
Cut to the afternoon. I checked the stock status at my college 'digital library'. it had shot up to Rs.725.

Words cannot describe the euphoria I felt. It was, maybe the first time I had the guts to go about buying a stock with a substantial amount of my savings, based on some sound research. I met two friends with whom I couldn't help but share the joy. It was a particularly boring day at the clinic till then, but what difference can a few idiot Residents make to a person on the path to financial freedom and riches galore!

And, cut to evening, 8.30pm. I had just been let off by my Residents. Those sadistic loafers had made me wait till 7 doing odd jobs of collecting lab reports from two floors down and up several times; and filling in OPD registers with fake names for an upcoming MCI Inspection. Although totally exhausted the faint excitement of the days profits (and future profits) were still ebbing within me.

Well. Disaster. For some reason the order had expired. My bid, although it was acceptable, didn't go through. I tried several times refreshing my Order Book, hoping against hope for something to come through, but nothing happened. I went to my account to see my balance funds and they were still there. What had happened? I don't really know, but there was a column which I had left blank while placing my order - called "trigger price". I never used to fill it so I really didn't know what it did, maybe that did me in.

I'm gonna find out what exactly went wrong but till then I'm only gonna buy when markets are open.

I keep getting reminded everyday that the market is not for the weak of heart. One makes mistakes but one learns a lot from every one of them. The more mistakes you make the more you learn. It is difficult to remember that when you are losing money all the time :) but it shows if you persevere.

I'm just caught thinking what to do tomorrow. Should I still go for Mindtree (thinking long term) or should I wait for lower levels. My gut tells me to buy. I'm not going to clinic tomorrow.