I sold a tranche of British Aerospace to buy AAL when they were roughly on parity. That evening the Paris attacks unfolded - the following week BA shot up, AAL slid down and down... I also set my stop loss too tight on Randgold Resources - it triggered at 5850. This episode alone has cost about £5-7K! Like you say, never try and guess the market.
That's harsh - very hard to know what level to set stop losses at with the dramatic swings in commodities recently. I had a stop loss of 5,800-ish on some Randgold Resources shares which was touched. They were nearly £10 per share more than that recently! I'm a long term holder of AAL so still in the red (average circa £8.92). One day I hope I'll get back in the black!
Timing is everything... In my case I sold a tranche of BAE to top up on AAL when price wise they were on parity (450-ish). That evening the Paris attacks unfolded. BAE shot up the following week, AAL continued its downward spiral - only now am I back on track but for the sake of a day it could have been quite a different story.
Is it correct that there are massive short positions being held on silver? Some reports I've read suggest that this is the case. Similarly, the gold/silver price ratio is apparently way off historical norms. At what point do the shorts throw in the towel?
Looking at the sharecast article on the LSE front page it looks like it was a bit overcooked: "(ShareCast News) - Fresnillo said operations at its Saucito mine in Mexico will not be suspended after a pipeline burst over the weekend. The silver and gold miner said the incident occurred due to the rupture of a pipeline while non-toxic solution was being pumped from the beneficiation plant to the tailings dam. Fresnillo does not expect any material financial impact or loss of production as a result of the incident and said an investigation into the cause is underway. "Following the incident, Fresnillo immediately informed the authorities, who have concluded in their initial review that the situation is of limited scale, and as a result operations have not been and will not be suspended," the company said. It added that 85% of the affected area has already been remediated and said it expects to conclude all the remediation activities by Friday. At 1542 GMT, shares were flat at 668.50p following heavy losses earlier in the session"
Particularly when compared to BHP's Billton so far understated catastrophe - 60 million cubic metres of waste! From Moneyweek email letter today: "On 2 November, 2015, a tailings dam from an iron ore mine part-owned by BHP Billiton and part-owned by Vale, burst. The entire subdistrict of Bento Rodrigues was flooded with toxic waste. 13 people have died so far. The knock-on effects are catastrophic. 60 million cubic metres of iron ore waste soon reached the Rio Doce, which has a drainage area of, according to Wikipedia, 86,715 square kilometres, with 230 municipalities relying on it for subsistence. Flowing down the Doce, 17 days later the poisonous mudflow reached the Atlantic Ocean. Now it is spreading up and down the Espírito Santo coast. The consequences to the river and its wildlife, not to mention the livelihoods of all those depending on it in some way, are still unknown. One biologist, Andrew Ruschi, has put a timeframe of 100 years for the waste to dilute. It remains to be seen how negligent BHP and Vale have been. Both companies already have preliminary fines. The figure of $5bn is being bandied about for further down the road."
Has the share price reaction been a bit overblown? 85% cleaned up and no loss of production? https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/buzz-fresnillo-burst-pipeline-saucito-094401116.html ** Silver (Shenzhen: 300221.SZ - news) miner Fresnillo (Other OTC: FNLPF - news) 's shares down 8 pct, second-largest loser on the FTSE 100, after a pipeline burst at its Saucito mine spilt about 450 tons of tailings ** Mexico's environmental agency PROFEPA says spill affected about 8000 square metres of industrial land, adds 85 pct of recovery work completed (http://bit.ly/1R9pC9E) ** Fresnillo says it has not and will not suspend operations at mine ** Stock down nearly 13 pct YTD, far outperforming the FTSE 350 Mining Index which has lost half its value * Co second-largest loser on Stoxx 600 Basic Resources Index (venkateshasoumithri.mamidipudi.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net) .. . .