Long URA @ 13.55, long again at 15.99, sold at 13.08 (loss 1.69/share)

On March 14, following the tragedy in Japan, people starting dumping the Global X Uranium ETF, URA, out of panic. On March 17 I saw this and I was expecting a nice bounce after the 30% nosedive, so I went long URA at 13.55.

In the morning, I read an article on The Big Picture that was trying to demystify the current panic about nuclear power.  I realized that this massive drop was due to panic selling and decided to pick some up while it was cheap.

Buy the fear, they say.

A few days later, on Monday, March 21, URA was showing a nice 20% gain from the recent bottom, and I made a big mistake.  Instead of SELLING into the enthusiasm, I got caught by it, and decided to double down and buy some more at 15.99, expecting the ETF to make a full recovery to at least 17 within a few days.

But things did not go as planned - not at all.  URA entered a downtrend and started a slow tumble down to new lows.  On 5/19, after witnessing a descent to below $13, I finally gave up and decided to sell at the next mini-rally. I placed my sell order at 13.67, which is just below the resistance level set by the previous low.

5/24 update: URA failed to reach my target and started a new leg down.  More than two months have gone by, and this has to stop.  I sold URA for 13.08 today, for a loss of $1.69 per share.

The single most important lesson I learned here AFTER A 10% gain, DO NOT DOUBLE DOWN and instead sell at the first 1% drop.  You can expect these dead cat bounces to never climb fast back up to the price before the drop.  It may eventually get back there, but who wants to wait?

Also, another lesson: I remember reading on some blog some guy talking about a target of $19 when we were at $16, and I somehow started to expect that.  This cognitive bias caused me a big loss. I was reading this blog in search of confirmation, and because of confirmation bias, I choose to believe this crazy number that his guy may have pulled out of his hat.  I should be smart enough to avoid making this mistake again.