Missed Opportunities

I really want to throw up when I see how many stocks I was seriously considering buying when they took huge headers back in 2008, but was too scared to make the plunge because of all the rampant fear that the sky was falling and that all stocks would go to zero (now that I look back on that idea, it’s ludicrous, but when you’re in the clutches of fear, there’s not much you can do other than make what you feel is your best decision for you and your family).

Because of the market fear and panic, I missed out on many stocks that I was eyeballing that have skyrocketed since the fears have abated a bit. I do still wonder though, do we really have a solid reason for these fears abating, or is it simply all of us zestful Americans wanting to make a buck, jumping back in with all confidence, before we should? Part of me does think the “recovery” isn’t really going as well as it should be, and we should still be leary of stocks, but every time I think they will take another precipitous turn for the worse, I read news like “jobs reports spur the market” and things like that. So now I wonder if I’M being too negative.

Some of the opportunities I feel I missed out on, maybe even as short term investments, were Genworth Financial. This was one of the scariest stocks I was looking at because it deals with the housing market, which as we all know, is what got us started in this huge mess in the first place. Anyone who touched this stock back when it was seventy eight cents per share was probably due for a head examination. But look at it today. It’s priced over eleven dollars a share. That, my friends, is what’s called a ten bagger, and you could have multiplied your money by ten times had you bought this “on the bottom”.

However, you obviously don’t have a crystal ball to see into the future, so how could you have known that? Other companies that I was looking at, like Chinese search giant Baidu, were around a hundred bucks a share and now are priced at well over 400. That’s a four bagger right there. And I missed it because I was too scared to buy anything. I have a list where I keep track of stocks I was looking at and at what price, and let me tell you, when I see missed opportunities like this where I was ready to make a move and didn’t, well, it pretty much makes me realize I maybe should listen to my gut a little more!