I'll preface this post by pointing out I have a somewhat limited knowledge of the market.
Not at all ashamed to admit that every few years I've shelled out a few hundred dollars for a Motley Fool Stock Advisor subscription.
I've been pleased with their recommendations and service overall. (Imo, money well spent.)
But today I ran into a lifetime first -- and the reason I'm making this post.
One of the companies I bought as a result of a Motley Fool recommendation, Shopify (ticker symbol SHOP) ran aground today.
I pulled up Yahoo Finance this morning and noticed SHOP was down about 6.5% shortly after market open.
I thought this kind of odd because, at least at the time, no news stories had been posted.
About 45 minutes into the trading day I saw a video where Jim Cramer basically said "time to sellify Shopify" because of negative news posted on Twitter by Andrew Left of Cintron Research.
Cramer specifically mentioned the video at the following link:
https://t.co/QBKEIVdpTa
I watched the video... and was both amazed and disgusted by what was being said.
(I highly suggest you watch the video.)
FYI, this was the first time in my life that an analalyst -- ANY analyst -- had said anything THAT negative about ANY of the companies I've owned.
In hindsight I fully realize:
I had been periodically picking up shares based on the story... that of an ecommerce technology company with a solid software platform undergoing significant "growth." (Same thing could be said about AMZN early on.)
Apparently, Shopify's "growth" was never driven by the kind of customer base the run up in share price was based on.
If that turns out to be true, or if there is a high likelihood of that turning out to be true:
The correct thing to do is get out.
And that's exactly what I did.
Note to self:
From now on no new shares based on someone else's recommendation alone (no matter how good that someone's track record.)
I resolve to, at the very least, take 5 minutes out of my day -- and actually LOOK at the company's website.
-jp
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