Stanely Druckenmiller is one of the most legendary traders of all time. He ran his fund for 30 years and averaged a 30% per year return with no losing years. But here's a story of how he felt the market was going to crash during the dot com bubble and still lost a bunch of money.
Stanley Druckenmiller: This was one of my biggest investing mistakes.
Somebody asked me what I learned from this and I said, “Nothing. I already knew it.”
In January of 2000, after riding that tech boom to a T and making billions of dollars in 1999, I sold everything.
I had a couple of internal portfolio managers at Soros who didn’t sell out. They had smaller portfolios but made 30% after I sold.
And I just couldn’t stand it anymore. And I’m watching them make all this money every day. For two days, I’m ready to pick up the phone and buy this stuff back.
I pick up the phone and I buy them.
I might have missed the top of the Dotcom Bubble by an hour.
I ended up losing $3B on that trade alone. I had made more of the year before, but you know $3B is a lot of money.
It was all because I got emotional and dropped every tool of discipline I’ve ever had. And somebody says, what did you learn from [the trade]? And I just said, “I learned nothing. I learned that 25 years ago.”
same. sold everything at the top. still got rekt 🫡