It was a mistake that I didn’t act immediately. I have not many but a sizeable amount of Twitter stock. I had a reasonable impression that the stock will pull back significantly after it banned Trump’s account permanently. I set a limit order hoping for a rebound. I set a price of $55, which is just above the peak of a month ago. Unfortunately, it was completely unrealistic wishful thinking. And I paid the price.
The news was on Jan 8th. If I acted decisively and immediately on that date, I could have sold it well above $51. If I didn’t act on that date but still set a realistic limit order of $49, I would have managed to sell it at $49 on Monday. I still had a chance to correct my mistake and sold it at $48 on Tuesday. But of course, I am not a professional day-trader. I usually buy and hold and don’t keep watching the market every day. But I eventually considered this a mistake a couple of days later and just sold it at $46. So it is eventually cost me 10% for my mistake. Of course, if I am even more sensitive, I could have sold it for around $55. It is really an 18% mistake as there are lots of hints that Twitter is going too far for this censorship game. When you alienated half of the population, you get half of the market. Maybe you have a more loyal base, but it is a business, not a political party. And much more loyal base won’t counter the revenue loss from eliminating half of the customers.
Update:
After Biden took the office, TWTR jumped back up to $48 at one point. I guess I timed it too earlier after all. But oh well, probably it is really unpredictable at that point. The question is if the users’ exiles are real. If that is so, long term it will still drop further. If not, it may pull back higher. But probably not higher than the original peak of $55.
Update:
It went back up to $50. I should be more confident with volatility next time and set a higher limit price.
Update:
Twitter is $52 today. People appear to have shorter memory than I think. A wrong bet after all.
Update:
It is over $70 after an increase in ad revenue. Really made the mistake of selling early. Even though I think the next quarter will get much worse.