В каком-то из форумов Motley Fool недавно была опубликована довольно поучительная история одного молодого инвестора:

Well, it looks like the powers that be finally wiped out my trading account. I learned a lot in the past year and a half, but after riding margin down and paying taxes, etrade sold the rest of my margin off at 2:08 pm eastern time today leaving me with 300 bucks. Thats right, they sold me out right before the market rallied big time in what would have left me with a close of at least 5K in the account. So is life, live and learn I guess, and I learned margin is the devil and am getting sold out at what is probably the begining of a massive rally. I'll give you a little background of my career and what I learned for those interested in reading.

Well, I started approximately 1 1/2 years ago in the stock market knowing absolutely nothing. I just read everything I could get my hands on and started learning as I went. I learned a lot too. I got started right in the middle of the 1998 crash and lost 40% to in the first couple of months on my original 6K investment. At this time I didn't even know what margin was fortunately or I would have been close to getting wiped out then.

By mid January of 99 I had a portfolio of 25K in value. I was one happy kid until the nets crashed sending me plumetting down to 7K which I held at throughout the summer before beginning to make a little back, finally getting to 12K or so by October. I still didn't have a margin account although I knew what one was at the time.

Around this time I found XLA, the stock of the decade in my opinion. I went in 100% and stirred up the Fools message boards when I made my announcement. I got responses like "double or nothing eventually leads to nothing," and "I hope you lose it all because if you don't lose it all this time, you will eventually lose it all in another stock going in 100%." Well needless to say XLA had a great run taking my portfolio to nearly 50K by years end and I was trading in and out of that stock like crazy so I will eventually have to pay my taxes on those gains. Also needless to say, you guys here on the fool are 10 times smarter than me. You told me it would happen and I wouldn't listen. I have learned my lesson now though.

Well I continued to do well in the early part of this year and began using a little marging. In late Febuary I decided I would take a little off the table if I hit 100K in the market and buy me a new SUV so I would have something to show for my investments even if I lost it all. Well on march 10 I hit my high of 97K and unfortunately never got my new SUV.

About a week later I was at around 45K and decided to go 100% into CMGI. I kept my 200 shares and bought some JUNE 125 options leaving me with a little in margin. I thought I was safe. I thought CMGI wouldn't go below 100. Boy was I wrong. Oh yeah, I also posted it on this board and got the response "double or nothing eventually leads to nothing." Man should I have listened.

Well, I took about 6K out to pay taxes late last week and went on margin to do it, and now etrade sold my assets at 2:08 this afternoon leaving me only 300 bucks when at the close I would have had 4-5K. Disappointing to say the least. With 5K, I could make a comeback, with 300, I am dead in the water.

Okay thats my history and now lets see what I have learned and hopefully others will learn from my mistakes.

1. MARGIN IS THE DEVIL
There is now no doubt in my mind margin is the
devil. I will never in my life use it again. I
will invest what I have and only what I have. Do
not use margin if you wanna continue investing
throughout your life because you will eventually
get called.

2. Double or nothing eventually leads to nothing
Very true, I found out first hand

3. Don't put all your eggs in on basket
I did it many times before, don't think I will do
it ever again, although it does have its advantages
in realitively small accounts

These are the three biggest things I learned and is the best advice I can give to anyone wanting to prosper in the market. I spent my time learning options and looking for trends and figuring how I could make a million before I was 21 and not enough time focusing on the basics. I should have focused on diversifing and buying high quality companies and don't forget taxes. Yes, long term buy and hold does have its advantages. Taxes were a killer for my and my short term trading taxes.

I guess this will be my last post for a while as I leave the market for a time. At least I will be able to focus completly on school better.

Don't worry about me though, I will be back. It will take time, but I will be back. My goal is to slowly accumulate 100K before I graduate which is probably 3-4 years away since I am co-op'ing at GT. I will sock away all the money I can into this market gradually buying the leaders. I will not only invest in tech but also old economy to get diversity. I had the false since that holding one B2B play and one Infrastructure play was diversification in this market, but now I know it isn't. I will not use MARGIN, i plan on opening a new account and not applying for margin because if it is there I will want to use it and I don't need that again.

I bid these boards farewell for now though, but hope to see you all again in the future. I feel like it was best for me to lose it all now at the tender age of 19 rather than lose it all 15 years from now. I guarantee that it want happen again, thats for sure. I have time on my side and the knowledge I have gained may be worth more than all the money I have gained and lost.

Good luck to all and for Gods sake stay off of MARGIN

By the way, I'm not the greatest writer, so hopefully it wasn't too hard to read if you actually read this far.