2013 gift, page-6

There are lot's in your boat macnzl. This one owes me a lot too, but it was all my own fault.

I was much more naive in 2009, you didn't need to be smart to make money in those days, nearly everything I bought doubled, some where 10 baggers. I hadn't really factored in how badly they had all fallen the year before, the good and the bad. I didn't really question the meteoric rise of ARM any more than I did companies like Acrux. I should have of course, because the market was looking for the babies thrown out with the bathwater. ARM was decidedly in the bathwater category, the potential for a large direct shippable grade Manganese deposit never supported a share price north of a dollar without one hole drilled.

My lesson is try to work out the "actual value" of the stock, lol, in ARMs case that was cash backing maybe doubled while the manganese potential was there, much less now. Then when the sentiment seems to change, sell for anything that's better than your valuation and ignore any price it may have achieved during the rally. I had many many opportunities to exit this stock above 60c, and many more in the high 20's.

It sounds naive to say all this now, but at the time I was used to trading real estate. If a building ever sold for $500k, it's a safe punt you can sell it for $250k in the worst of times. I applied the same rule to ARM and thought by 60c in was undervalued. ARM fell from a high around $1.20 (the real estate equivalent of my $500k) to 7c (The building would now be worth $30k).

I view ARM as the lesson I had to have if I was going to invest in equities. I wasn't alone in my erroneous valuation techniques, it seems most U.S hedge funds and financial institutions were using a similar model in the early 2000's.

I am still sitting on maybe $50k of losses which I have been saving for a profitable year to help with tax. If they find something in the meantime, great, but this is their last 6 months for me.

With a buy price round 7-8c It should be worth a punt Riggers, good luck.