I Learned A Valuable Lesson In Not Being Greedy
This is my friend called $CHEF. What is $CHEF, you may ask?
The Chefs' Warehouse is a specialty food distributor that began sourcing products for high-end chefs 35 years ago. With locations in major metropolitan areas across the United States and Canada, The Chefs' Warehouse serves the finest restaurants, hotels, caterers and gourmet stores in North America.
It took quite a tumble during this here pandemic, you know, because every restaurant in the world closed.
Like most stocks it was doing fine and dandy and then BOOM, crashed like an asteroid in March.
Now, I regrettably did not invest heavy enough when everything crashed. It was such an incredible opportunity and I didn't get aggressive enough. I mean PENN went down to 4! There was so much money to be made in the market it's ridiculous. Stonks literally had nowhere to go but up. Even the bankrupt companies like JCPenny were going up. It's crazy how the market works.
So while I didn't get in at all time lows, I did sprinkle some money in a few places, and then heavily in a few more. One of those is $CHEF. It's traded at $30+ a share for the last 2 years, certainly there is money to be made there. So I got in at $14.89. For more money than I should put into 1 stock. But I felt good about it. Get in at 14.89, sell at 20, collect a great return, freeroll the summer. Easy as cake.
Well, last Friday it went over 20. It was my time to sell. But we've all been there- whether it's at the blackjack table, betting sports, playing poker, or trading stocks, you want to push it. You told yourself you'd sit down with $200 at the BJ table and leave if you got to $1000. Well what happens when you get to $1000? You want to keep it going. Keep letting it ride. What could possibly go wrong?! Everything. Everything could go wrong.
And that's what happened with me and CHEF. I was all ready to sell. But I started thinking "well if it made it this far, why would it slow down? Why would I collect my 30% gain when it could hit 25 next week?".
Flash forward to this week and today:
C'mon Eric. BE SMARTER! The entire reason I put that much money into this one stock was to sell at 20!!! That was the entire point! Get in, make profit, get out, be 30% richer. It was so easy! But I pushed it. I just haddddd to push it. And now? Now I either have to buy more (duh) or just sit on my thumb and wait for it to get back up again (knock on wood). I know I am NOT selling this puppy for a loss, that's for sure. I'll ride it back down to $3.60 if I have to. I'll go on welfare. I'll go back to working at the Olive Garden. But I am not selling this until I get what is rightfully mine.
The lesson though- don't be dumb. Sure stock generally "always go up" but it's also okay to take your 30% gains before they go down. Because when they go back down, guess what? You can buy more again at that lower price again! Amazing!
It'll be fine though. It'll be fine. The sun will come out tomorrow. And it better be god damn green.