The Forgotten $450 Million Day

What actually happened

Electronic Data Systems had IPO'd in 1968 at a fantastic multiple and made Perot the symbol of the go-go years; the 1970 tech washout then took the stock down as fast as it had risen, and on April 22, ironically the day of the first Earth Day, Perot's stake collapsed by nearly half a billion dollars.

He didn't sell, didn't leverage, didn't explain himself to anyone. EDS's actual business, running data systems on long contracts, was fine, and in time the market agreed; General Motors bought EDS in 1984 for $2.5 billion, and Perot banked more than the paper he'd once 'lost.'

John Brooks made the day a chapter in The Go-Go Years; CNBC revisited it decades later with the same conclusion: the loss was real only if he'd made it real.

The play to remember

Paper losses become actual losses at the moment you act on them. The most underrated trade is the one you don't make.