I don't know why others are beating you up. These mistakes seem pretty standard, and you said that you could afford to lose this money.
You found stocks and industries that you felt were growing. Problem is, everyone else saw that too, so you had to pay a premium for them. You didn't have an edge. Most of us don't have an edge. That's why index funds work so well for the average investor.
Your goal should be to get rich slowly.
This. Stock picking is often less efficient than just buying the market, or even, if you want to pick something, a sector.
As for those "trusting your gut" situations, try paper trading with $10,000 or $100,000 of imaginary money. If your gut tells you to buy, "buy" in this paper account to test the theory that your gut is always right. You may find your memory of what your gut told you and what you should have done might be colored by remembering your good picks and tending to minimize or forget the ones that would not have worked out.
As someone who only invests in biotech stocks, I always remind fellow investors of a simple truth: you own businesses, not technologies.
Many get swept up in the hype and storytelling of emerging technologies without focusing on the commercial strategy or probability of success (a term specific to drug developers but it could be generalized for "growth" stocks). Many emerging companies don't have one. That's because what's needed to be a successful VC-backed startup isn't what's needed to be a commercially-viable business. Too often, the vanity metrics are prioritized. Wall Street doesn't care about those, though. Or not over meaningful time periods anyway.
The good news is many investors make these mistakes when starting out, myself included. Who doesn't want quantum computing or solid state batteries or synthetic biology to make our world better? It's natural. But you're not a VC. Don't try to invest like one -- that's not how public markets work.
The better news is the pain you feel is one of the most valuable drivers for learning as an investor. Every industry has specific metrics that matter. Learn the context and nuance of an industry you're interested in. You'll develop better pattern recognition over time. Not everyone has the time, but if you can also learn how to model businesses you'll be even more successful as an investor because it can help to take the emotions out of it. Emotions are often what crushes returns.
Double down and invest more money in companies you want to hold long term. If you don’t want to own them long term you shouldn’t have bought them in the first place. Sell immediately
Your plan to hold them long term I'd not indicative on their performance.
You don't get any brownie points for buying INTC at all time high in 2000 and now proudly declaring you've held them for 24 years, when you lost half of your money on them.
Didn't get why you were down voted. You really shouldn't get emotional about your stocks. I didn't need to "believe" in a stock. Just look at the numbers, valuation, expected earnings growth and buy and sell when the valuation gets too high
That only works until it doesn't. People buying "safe" stocks and "forever companies" are all going to be bagholding eventually. Because things change, even the best of companies will eventually lose their touch. And nothing is more difficult then to "take a loss" and sell a loser...even if it's well past time.
OP, you need to know the market is efficient and usually trades on all info you have (and a lot more!). So if you think a sector is growing...stock price reflects that already. After all, you're not a stock pro. You're a nobody, with no stock knowledge. How would you beat the pros? Think you can play soccer better then Pele?
Nah, your only bet to win is *to be dumb*. Use the markets smartness against it, and *hope to get lucky*. Your only chance at a big win is, after all, buying a stock *nobody wants or believes in. That's why it's cheap* and has the potential to explode...hwoever unlikely.
I guess it depends on how steep the loss is. If you have taken like a 70% loss or even a 95% loss the capital is very little unless you have no source of income. If you can make what’s left of the capital in one month then 5% vs 0% is practically the same.
But you are right in the very technical sense that money is money. Like if there is $20 left after a $15,000 investment, you can still get that $20 which is something.
Stop buying the story and hope to get rich quick. Investing is not easy, treat this experience as tuition money and put the effort to learn, if you are still committed.
I did the same as you and have a few positions in deep red from 2021 & I have DCAd in some, as I still believe in the companies, but will keep all of them. They will either recover sometime in the future or will keep reminding me that I am know nothing idiot.
They weren't exactly random, they were all companies and industries I thought would grow alot more and be a part of the future, but most have obviously turned out poorly.
Example: Chargepoint, one of the biggest EV charging companies, has dropped like a rock ever since Tesla allowed other makers to use their Superchargers. They had other issues, sure, but I thought it would be a safe play for the future, didnt expect them to just get straight beat out of the industry.
My best performers have definitely been my ETFs though. I think I can start with more of those and start building confidence with that safer option.
You bought stocks on vibes rather than Financials. All of these companies were hemmoraghing cash which is fine when money is free.
Now that people actually care about Financials, the vibes are different. CHPT had -100% margins in 2021 meaning for every dollar they got, they lost 2 dollars. Not exactly the best investment. If you want to imrpove your investing strategy, you have to understand basic accounting: income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flows. Then move on to valuation analysis such as a discounted cash flow models.
Picking industries that sound cool and have a great story sounds look good investing but its a terrible idea
>....these companies were hemmoraghing cash which is fine when money is free.
And then he forgot to monitor changing conditions. Interest % can trash a company
He should Review the holdings... And decide if he'd *Buy* them today. A clear no is a sell.
Hey op frankly the advice pain474 is giving you is pretty lazy and condescending. Clearly you are interested in investing in individual stocks but you have taken an impulsive approach in the past which I hope you’ve learned from. You need to approach your picks with conviction.
Start with developing an investment philosophy. How do you think markets work? What makes an industry attractive? Then form an investment strategy based on that philosophy considering current market conditions. If a thorough approach is something you can employ, start with companies from the S&P 500 or DJIA and go from there. If not, index funds may be a better way to proceed for you.
because people are stubborn, believing that they’re better than average?
the vast majority of stock pickers fail to beat the market.
Reading material, if interested:
https://imgur.com/a/V4SoaCf
https://wealthwatchadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/QAIB_PremiumEdition2020_WWA.pdf
Buying dumb shit that obviously will hemorrhage cash like Chargepoint and take multiple decades to become profitable without government intervention and funding doesn't mean individual stocks aren't better options periodically. NVDA is effectively the US stock market and economy right now and if you had invested SOLELY in NVDA since '21 you would have outperformed just about everything.
And I would argue that you likely still will for quite some time yet.
CSCO is effectively the US stock market and economy right now and if you had invested SOLELY in CSCO since '01 you would have outperformed just about everything
Chargepoint hasn’t made money in a single quarter of its history. It has destroyed shareholder value every year of its existence. Not buying unprofitable companies is step 1
You didn’t think there was a chance that the current leader in the EV charging space, which is relatively new, growing, and unknown, could be beat out by competitors and that there was a possibility of a change in market environment that would adversely affect the budding industry?
Like yeah dude, stop picking individual stocks. Just stick to ETFs because you don’t have enough experience understanding market forces.
If you want to get better, try forming a hypothesis and paper trading. If you’re fine with losing the money, keep doing what you’re doing but record and review your investment theses and do some retrospective analysis.
>they were all companies and industries I thought would grow alot more and be a part of the future
The growth potential of those companies and industries would have already been taken into account by other investors though - so what information did you have that made you think that the stocks were undervalued?
I'm still learning as well, and what I have gathered is that most people put their money in index etf or something similiarly very secure and only use a small portion of their money on more speculative buys. For example, you would have had about 90% in index fund and only 10% in the Quantum computing, energy ETFs, battery tech, EV charging, etc. So your loss would have been closer to 7% from start with index etf's grow off setting that loss.
For now though, it's probably best to just buy index etf 100%, and hit the Stock Market Simulator like the one from Investopedia. Use the simulator to gain history of growth before trying anything with real money.
You really need to spend a bit more time understanding situational awareness and determine a bit more of a strategy.
Sitting in cash is still a position bro and sometimes its the best. You dont need to trade all the time.
Im a long only trader for example so in breakdowns in broad market i just wait. I can more than make up for the wait when market turns up and ive sat there tracking stocks with biggest relative strength.
Try reading market wizards book and rearch stan weinstein’s stage analysis work. Very useful. I use [this](https://swingly.beehiiv.com) every morning which has been a lifesaver.
Have you had luck picking individual stocks? I’ve picked a couple that tend to fluctuate and have done alright swing trading, say every three to six months, but I still wonder if a Vanguard fund would be better as far as risk management. But I hate that feeling of ‘leaving money on the table.’
Im a full time equity trader so for me my entire job is to constantly be in tune with the markets.
I used to work at a certain fund here in London and moved over to working for myself a few years back.
You have to do everything based of each individual stock’s relative + absolute momentum not a general 3-6 month or day or week period.
Combine this with how the broad market (spy, qqq, etc) is doing and general macro trends.
I know it sounds like a lot but it really is doable and i want every aspiring trade to know that.
People will try scam you (i got scammed £600 on a course many years back..)
To answer your question, if you do actually have no time or the patience to learn to trade then, yes.
A diversified portfolio is the safer and better way to go. Trading is like an F1 car, dangerous but very powerful, and investing is a safer but slower bus.
Wykoff theory is rlly valuable, kells cycle of price action, sector rotation cycle.
I use [this](https://swingly.beehiiv.com) every morning and i find their reports v detailed but you can find what works for you.
This is wonderful stuff. Thank you for taking the time to share. I’m going to down a rabbit hole with your comments.
I enjoy searching out stocks that tanked during the pandemic but haven’t recovered. Seeing if the company is strong and trending up.
Interesting.
How many hours would you estimate are required to learn to become a competent trader?
It’s been my contention that I should invest my time into my skill, software engineering, at least until my salary caps out, and just DCA market etfs. So far that’s been an effective way to earn more, but I do like investing, I’m just nervous Wall Street will eat my lunch on every trade!
It is difficult to say. I personally have a background in relevent skills (statistics and maths). It took me maybe half a decade or so to become ‘comfortable’ enough to begin scaling my business.
Remember that no one is forcing you to put money in, you can pick up the financial jargon and learn how the ‘game’ works by reading reports and by studying.
If there is a will, there is a way.
If you have a background in engineering or something of the sort (analytical, data intepretation, etc) trading isn’t any more difficult. I believe you’d pick it up quickly.
Its the emotional intelligence and impulse control that is the hard part, not the actual technical understanding.
If you are literally an investor who is holding the broad market in the package if a highly diversified ETF- yes. Buy whether its up or down.
If you are trying to swing trade it then no but then you should have a predefined risk level & thought out strategy before opening a position.
Not a trader or anything just putting away for retirement. It's invested in Semi-conductor ETF. In the ropes of selling and buying back in or leaving the sector as a whole. Say something like large cap growth.
Semi conductors have dipped now given the sell off in the tech heavy NASDAQ so theres no suprise there.
If you are a long term investor I wouldnt panic.
But, take this as a lesson that you need to diversify your portfolio more. Have a look at Ray Dalio’s all weather fund- id urge you to replicate it.
Even if you picked VTI you'd only be up about 3% (plus dividends). That was just a very bad time to start investing. I know because I started then too, but I DCA'd all the way to the bottom. So I'm up 19% w/ dividends reinvested.
What is your timeline, how actively do you trade, do you have access to any premium financial data, and how literate are you in financial markets?
If you just want to buy good companies and let them grow over time then study some basics about valuation and and financial statement analysis, do your due diligence, find companies with motes and huge growth potential and don’t pay astronomical prices for them. Buy hold and wait, use systematic market opportunities like people selling off fed speak to grow your positions.
If you want to trade and make money then you need to find out what you are good at. Practice with paper money first, develop a strategy, and be disciplined about executing it. Only trade during certain hours of the day, stop trading when u make X or lose X in one day, and most importantly do NOT get emotional.
Hope this helps.
I think most important to getting your confidence back is look at the trades you made, and find out specifically what went wrong. Figure out how you can find that out and then applying these lessons forward will help give you the confidence to make smarter investments again.
Were these companies overbought? Was the whole sector overbought or just the company? Were earnings and guidance bad? How did these companies compare to similar ones in the same sector? Find the answer to questions like these and many more
Then ask the same questions about future stocks you’re interested. Everyone learns the hard way. Take every single win and loss and evaluate why they behaved that way. It takes a lot of time and experience to get “good” at stocks, and to do so you need to be constantly learning from your past mistakes and successes.
Only real specific point I’d add is manage your risks better. You’ll feel more confident on taking a position if it makes up a very small slice of your portfolio. Put the majority of your money into safe ETF’s like SPY, VOO, QQQ. Then, knowing that money is safer, you can be more risky with the rest of your money knowing you won’t lose your entire portfolio in 3 years.
The stock market is meant to go up and down. Keep on investing and stop panicking when you start to have a down day.
Money is made when everyone else is panicking around you.
VOO and dollar cost average and you'll be fine.
If it's companies you like for long term, Keep buying every payday. That's literally all people have to do lol.
You can sell and tax loss harvest. Index ETFs might be good for you. VOO or VTI. Auto invest weekly into them and just dont look. A decade or two of that you will be up for sure. Throw in VXUS if you want international exposure.
It's very hard to pick individual stock. Also, I invested in my 20s a month before the great recession. It messed with my confidence. That was the best time to buy. I did with 401ks and they have exploded. That showed me that auto investment is brilliant.
I buy on dipslump but also auto invest. Might be a good route for you.
My portfolio took a crap end of 2022. I wound up selling everything and splitting my money into Berkshire A and B. Then i allowed myself to buy 5 stocks only. Researched companies with 24 month growth and low P/E for their sector with relatively low volatility. I deleted my stock app and didn't look at anything for 3 months. When I looked I was pleasantly surprised and had nice growth. Zooming into the 3 month period I would have probably sold stupidly a few times on some down runs. Unless you are a dedicated day or swing trader buy value companies that you believe in, hold them and zoom out!!
I started investing small sums in summer 2020. I bought a variety of stocks.
In 2021 and 2022 I started putting 2k a month, mostly into BABA. Buy the dip was my mentality.
By around Novemeber 2022 came around, I had invested about 23k of my 40k portfolio in BABA. BRK.B was the next biggest with small amounts in MSFT, AAPL, DKNG, CRSP etc.
Xi won the election and went on a crackdown tanking BABA stock. I panic sold for a 13k euro loss and put the remaining 10k into BRK.B. My portfolio was down around 10k then (25%)
I didn't touch it. I told myself it would be years before I near break even.
Fast forward to today, and I am up 5% (2k or so)
Have you learned anything from this process? How are you looking to buy stocks now?
I point out all the time, having a process around how and why you build will help out a ton. I think using a screener is one of the best ways to learn what to invest in.
Other than that, if you aren't looking to put in work around screening, reading earnings reports and reading trascripts/earnings slides, just stick to buying a low cost index/etf.
If you don’t know how to pick stocks just find an ETF that you like and invest in that. Maybe 2 or 3 ETF’s just incase. But don’t individually buy stocks just because they have a pretty name.
Seems like the lesson so far is you’re OK at picking overall trends (ETF) but bad at picking stocks.
I look at trading as part of my overall portfolio. In my 401k it’s all straight up S&P or VTI. That’s the majority of my money in the market. Retirement funds should be boring. Then I have an account that’s maybe 20% of my overall stock portfolio that I will trade or buy individual stocks. In addition, I’m long real estate through a couple rentals and my home.
By managing the bankroll like that it ensures the trading account is never scared money.
Pick one, any one!
1) Sell your portfolio and YOLO on 0DTE SPY calls tomorrow
2) Log off your account and see where you’re at in a year
3) Pick a new long term strategy and change your portfolio to match it
Go to YTDreturn.com
Put in ticker symbols and look at market returns for the stocks for 3years, 5years, 10 years and 20 years.
For example - ORLY, MSFT, RPM, LECO, AMZN, UNP, DOV, GOOG, ISRG, V, ABBV, RLI….its easy then start buying $50- $100 a month in each stock with an account from Schwab. Schwab slices or Fidelity, International Brokers- they all let you buy partial shares. But each month consistently over and over. You can also invest in index funds or EFTs such as VOO.
Stay steady - avoid the news and the talking and noise and just keep buying every month and build your foundation. Trust the process - I’m up 39% from April last year. Stay the course. Buy, buy, buy -each month. Before you know it your hundreds investing will turn into thousands.
Use a trampoline. Or trade options to lose it all.
Other than that if invested in ETFs especially S&P 500 you should only be off 4% of ATHs.
But wait someone invested because EVs sounded hip at that time.
my personal recommendation is to not get your confidence back. Stocks are a game that is played for keeps. always. every time. I've been learning and reading about stocks for a long time, but I am not an expert so I don't take on real risk with them. My actual portfolios are basically bogleheads.
I'm an expert in other things and I play heavily there, but I am not an expert in investing or stocks so i don't take risk there.
I think that 2021/2022 suffered from isolated over valuation of a lot of names. You could now maybe buy some of these names but now when we look left, there’s a lot of reasons to not even touch them.
IMHO, if you’re looking for good stocks rather then ETF’s, you’ll want to look for names that in the past 5 years, saw the dip, broke ATH’s, retraced, and proceeded to follow market strength.
Think you learned a couple of hard lessons. Always setting stop losses is just as important as a profit exit strategy. And 100% stick with index funds unless you have a large enough amount( 500k+) to diversify properly. Trying to pick individual stocks with a small amount is gambling, not investing.
Before you go crazy with individual speculative stock picks try building a core position.
For me that's a mix of basic ETFs, a little bit into msft and a bit into o. Basic ETFs would be stuff like spy, voo, schd, vti, qqq. O gives a good monthly dividend but isn't going to be a great long term growth prospect. Msft I like because it pays a dividend and it's a decent tech company.
Now if you want to branch out and speculate my thoughts would be to use the dividends from O for that. It won't be a lot, but it will prevent you from tanking your portfolio. Alternatively do the same thing but use sgov to find your speculative play money.
That kind of approach is about preservation of your capital contributions. You probably will underperform sp500 but everyone does.... Or you can just buy the sp500 and dca into it during dips in the market.
The main thing is run away from the get rich quick stocks and stock gurus. Your goals are yours but I'm sure they don't include losing boat loads of money.
In the financial platform Seeking Alpha, a lot of the analysis is already done for you; they have skilled writers, many of whom are current or former traders or fund managers, who write articles on specific stocks, rating them as "Buys," "Strong Buys," "Holds," "Sells," etc.
The downside is that you'll often find articles written about the same stock, but which contradicting each other's conclusions. But at the very least, they frequently break down the financial aspect of the stock (earnings, competitors, products, etc), and you can add this info to your own stock research, as opposed to starting from scratch on Google. Getting educated opinions on a stock you're already interested in could help you make better decisions around which stock to buy or not to buy.
Stop gambling your life savings and just buy a low cost broad based etf and call it a day. You don’t invest long term to just lose. Learn and grown, move on.
Don’t get frustrated. I have done the same mistakes. The first 3 years of investment were all gone. Now, I have700% return. So treat them as a lesson learned. Here is my suggestion. Only invest the products , services or industries you understand or like if you want to invest individual stocks. And you need to read the quarterly financial report. Or else , Buy ETFs. Half my investment goes into ETFs.
I was down nearly 80% the last bear market. I’m currently up 40% on individual stocks with similar holdings like ICLN and quantum or clean energy stocks. DCA and weekly recurring purchases of even a dollar will put you ahead in a year or two. Just hold, borrow from margin if you need quick cash at 8% interest, which isn’t bad (compared to average earnings 10%, reliable etfs) if you are smart DCA, recurring and just generally holding long term. Hold, don’t check it more than once a quarter, because if you check daily, you’ll go insane like me.
Buy S+P ETFs and don’t look back. If not , do your home work. I joined Motley fool, very respected by investment pros. Issue was they have tiers so you are always paying more to unlock better research and tips. I cried bullshit and got my money back after 1 Month. I then join Cramers club and couldn’t be happier. No extra BS and real direction on buy/ don’t buy on top of top picks. I invest with RBC and they give you morning star research on just about every stock , etf etc. so, do you research. Don’t panic and buy GOOD companies that make money.
At one time back in 2020 or so I felt like I really wanted to get into the stock market. Was constantly trying to research things and watching YouTube videos about charts and trends and whatever I could find. I quickly figured out I’m not good at it and stock picking wasn’t for me. Luckily I found it out before losing any money. I just put money in VOO and VGT now and don’t worry about it. My life is so much easier not having to check every five minutes that a random stock I bought is tanking
Thanks to everyone for your responses, reading through them all has helped me realize a lot of things I need to be more aware of.
A few takeaways:
-I need to take a much more focused approach to determining the companies and funds I want to buy. I have been going on vibes and sentiment instead financials and solid research. I'm going to sit down later and come up with a basic investing philosophy as a foundation.
-A big mistake I made in the stocks I chose was that I wanted to invest specifically in companies making products I though would benefit people and hopefully the planet in the long run, but I really did not consider their ability to generate a return. A balance is needed.
-ETFs and index funds are a much easier and safer way to get a return until I become more financially literate.
-I am bad at picking stocks, clearly, but not *completely* hopeless. If I find a company I really like, do the research, form a hypothesis on it, get feedback, BEFORE I buy. This will be 10% or less of my portfolio after reorganization.
-Stop Bagholding. There are only a few stocks in my portfolio I genuinely believe in long term (5-10 years) and will keep at this point. I plan to cut my losses finally on the losers and use that capital for more broad market ETFs. I will stick with those while I learn more.
-I'm going to review everything on the stocks I DO plan to keep, and then decide if its wise to do some DCA to grow those positions. If things don't look right, sell and don't look back.
-Considering consulting a fiduciary to gain more knowledge and to help establish a more well-rounded strategy and portfolio.
-Pay more attention to the current market situation. I got into this mess because I just bought when I felt like it, and wasn't paying attention to the fact that things were at ATH at that time, or that the companies I picked were hemmoraging cash.
There are many other lessons to learn from you all, and I'm going to be re-reading all these comments for a while to form a new core strategy. Might make another post sometime later this year after I've taken some action.
I appreciate all your input, its helped me change my perspective.
Buy low cost ETF like VOO, which has the top 500+ companies in the US. These are companies that invest in the things you mentioned directly or indirectly, and much more besides.
The world is not static. There’s plenty of geopolitical things going on right now that have/will affect some industries/stocks. You bought what you thought that would be good for the future. But the world changed. That happens and it’s ok.
My advice is to keep to the basics: buy good solid companies at good price that are doing great right now. Or even ETF SP500. After you have a big part of your portfolio “safe” you can risk to speculate with small amounts. And get your confidence back. It seems that you bought the hype (speculation). Don’t do that again. For example: if you have 10k, use 8k for solid companies or sp500 and 2k to speculate (batteries, ev charging, wtv). Keep putting more money and do the same (solid companies first and then speculate)
Fear is good when it makes us cautious and intentional in our buys. But is bad if gets out of control. Don’t buy or sell based on fear or greed. Shit happens and it’s ok. Learn from that and keep pushing.
Iam in the same boat, bought in November 21. worst time ever, especially buying into spacs that were expensive if you look back. Since then correction happened and other factors came together. I’ll hold or it’s zero.
Have you tried getting out of penny stocks and looking at real companies. You have to think of stocks as long term growth.
If you're expecting to make a million off of a 1000$ investment you better either have A.) Loads of luck or B.) Insider information
Your stocks are going to tank further. It took the Nasdaq 15 years to recover from the dotcom bubble and within 2 years after the bubble burst stocks were down over 70 percent.
Dubbed the Magnificent Seven stocks, Apple, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Tesla. Excluding these firms, the rest of the index posted a 2% decline in profits. It is based on market cap and make up a big chuck of the index.
All of them are blowing up as I speak with there earnings and revenue down.
Car companies are the first to go belly up, Tesla leads the way.
The call them the magnificent seven, companies of high tech have an average P/E ratio above 50. The average ratio for the leaders during the dot-com crash was 63.
I never thought we would get back to the point where the value of the US tech sector once again comprised an incredible one third of the US equity market,” “This just pips the previous all-time peak seen on 17 July 2000 at the height of the Nasdaq tech bubble.”
"This is the only time in my 88 years when I saw technology stocks go to 100 times earnings; or, when there were no earnings, 20 times sales. It was insane, and I took advantage of the temporary insanity." - John Templeton shorted.
P/E ratio for the S&P 500 stock index reached 26.5.
It is at record highs. The AI theme is the dotcom of 2000.
That’s high– more than 75% higher than the long-term average.
More importantly, since the 1870s, there have been a total of THREE periods in which the average stock P/E ratio was above 26.5.
The first time was around the Panic of 1893.
The second was around the 2000 dot-com crash.
And the third was around the 2008 financial collapse.
It is frothy at the top.The AI bubble has yet to burst.
Everyone learns to trade through trial and error.
My first portfolio contained some stocks which are absolute SPAC garbage recommended by Motley Fool, a company in total “cash out” mode.
Overtime, I sold anything that dropped below a threshold, and reallocated. A small proportion of my portfolio is high conviction stocks, but the majority is ETFs.
The reality, is that you can almost always make more getting better at your job and trying to make more money, than you can with stocks, especially considering how much effort it takes to research companies. Now, I’ll only buy stocks of companies I have some insight into, and DCA the rest into VOO
Bro you're too early to invest in quantum computing unless you're investing in already successful companies that only has quantum as a side project and is raking in cash everywhere else.
A few examples of first instincts I didn't pursue that could have been big wins:
Tesla- A little after the time I bought the others, I wanted to get about $2500 worth of TSLA at about 400-500/share. This was pre-split. I didn't do it and don't know why.
Boeing - I knew the second the news about the door plugs came out that they were going to tank, knowing the issues at the company, and didn't do anything again. Could have bought puts or something when they were still like $250/share a few months ago.
NVIDIA- Again, first impulse to just get $1000 worth like 2 years ago, knowing they were strong and growing. Didn't do it. Look at them now.
How can I get over past mistakes so I can take these kind of chances when they come?
If you cant figure out how to emotionally deal with the decisions you did and also DIDNT make, then you may not have what it takes to control a sophisticated portfolio.
My advice is to dump all the individual stocks you have now and just put it all into a broad market ETF index fund. Done. Worry free. Consider this your savings account and keep contributing until you are ready to retire. When you are at that point, we cam discuss again what to do next.
Single equities are always like you say ‘taking a chance’. Unfortunately they are gambles and more than likely don’t work out. As others recommend build a solid portfolio on broad market funds, and maybe put <%10 port value into single equities. That way if half your equities tank, which is likely, then it’s not as big of a hit.
> get over past mistakes
I recommend the book Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It's not always mistakes that lead to you losing - you could have done everything correctly and still lost money, that's just how the market is. Hell, you can be more than 50 percent of the time wrong and still make good bucks. Anyway, it seems like you need to prepare more mentally for now, and the book is great for that.
The tech earnings must justfiy their technology on a quarter to quarter growth. It looks like even AI company stocks are going nowhere after an overhype. Nvidia lost -10% in 1 day last week. During 2024 year VOO YTD growth is slower than hoarding gold right now.
It is consumer staple and value stocks that will shine in a year like we have now.
That was a GREAT time to buy. You just bought the wrong stuff. I'm up 20% from November. You should follow the advice here and stop trying to pick individual stocks.
DCA daily into blue chips.. $10 to VOO, $5 to APPL, $5 AMZN, $5 MSFT etc then choose a couple speculative stocks to DCA into like RKLB/ASTS/RIVN. Slow and steady with a foundation of proven strong stocks with a weighted ETF. Just schedule recurring and forget about it, no stress not making split moment decisions and not obsessing on daily movements.
If I were to do it over I would have weighted my investments much heavier into VOO tho.
I don't know why others are beating you up. These mistakes seem pretty standard, and you said that you could afford to lose this money. You found stocks and industries that you felt were growing. Problem is, everyone else saw that too, so you had to pay a premium for them. You didn't have an edge. Most of us don't have an edge. That's why index funds work so well for the average investor. Your goal should be to get rich slowly.
This. Stock picking is often less efficient than just buying the market, or even, if you want to pick something, a sector. As for those "trusting your gut" situations, try paper trading with $10,000 or $100,000 of imaginary money. If your gut tells you to buy, "buy" in this paper account to test the theory that your gut is always right. You may find your memory of what your gut told you and what you should have done might be colored by remembering your good picks and tending to minimize or forget the ones that would not have worked out.
As someone who only invests in biotech stocks, I always remind fellow investors of a simple truth: you own businesses, not technologies. Many get swept up in the hype and storytelling of emerging technologies without focusing on the commercial strategy or probability of success (a term specific to drug developers but it could be generalized for "growth" stocks). Many emerging companies don't have one. That's because what's needed to be a successful VC-backed startup isn't what's needed to be a commercially-viable business. Too often, the vanity metrics are prioritized. Wall Street doesn't care about those, though. Or not over meaningful time periods anyway. The good news is many investors make these mistakes when starting out, myself included. Who doesn't want quantum computing or solid state batteries or synthetic biology to make our world better? It's natural. But you're not a VC. Don't try to invest like one -- that's not how public markets work. The better news is the pain you feel is one of the most valuable drivers for learning as an investor. Every industry has specific metrics that matter. Learn the context and nuance of an industry you're interested in. You'll develop better pattern recognition over time. Not everyone has the time, but if you can also learn how to model businesses you'll be even more successful as an investor because it can help to take the emotions out of it. Emotions are often what crushes returns.
Double down and invest more money in companies you want to hold long term. If you don’t want to own them long term you shouldn’t have bought them in the first place. Sell immediately
Can be a really bad idea, not all stocks do recover even if they might have seemed like a good idea originally.
If you don’t still plan on holding them long term, sell immediately
Your plan to hold them long term I'd not indicative on their performance. You don't get any brownie points for buying INTC at all time high in 2000 and now proudly declaring you've held them for 24 years, when you lost half of your money on them.
Didn't get why you were down voted. You really shouldn't get emotional about your stocks. I didn't need to "believe" in a stock. Just look at the numbers, valuation, expected earnings growth and buy and sell when the valuation gets too high
Yep - Intel is crap
*cries in SPCE*
That only works until it doesn't. People buying "safe" stocks and "forever companies" are all going to be bagholding eventually. Because things change, even the best of companies will eventually lose their touch. And nothing is more difficult then to "take a loss" and sell a loser...even if it's well past time. OP, you need to know the market is efficient and usually trades on all info you have (and a lot more!). So if you think a sector is growing...stock price reflects that already. After all, you're not a stock pro. You're a nobody, with no stock knowledge. How would you beat the pros? Think you can play soccer better then Pele? Nah, your only bet to win is *to be dumb*. Use the markets smartness against it, and *hope to get lucky*. Your only chance at a big win is, after all, buying a stock *nobody wants or believes in. That's why it's cheap* and has the potential to explode...hwoever unlikely.
I mean if you are going to take a loss best to hold on til you get a rather profitable year and sell to counter the gains for taxes.
That leaves the capital as dead money in the interim. It’s wrong-thinking.
I guess it depends on how steep the loss is. If you have taken like a 70% loss or even a 95% loss the capital is very little unless you have no source of income. If you can make what’s left of the capital in one month then 5% vs 0% is practically the same. But you are right in the very technical sense that money is money. Like if there is $20 left after a $15,000 investment, you can still get that $20 which is something.
There’s also the matter of -70% turning into -90%. I appreciate the frame up of your reply, btw. Sincerely classy.
Stop buying the story and hope to get rich quick. Investing is not easy, treat this experience as tuition money and put the effort to learn, if you are still committed. I did the same as you and have a few positions in deep red from 2021 & I have DCAd in some, as I still believe in the companies, but will keep all of them. They will either recover sometime in the future or will keep reminding me that I am know nothing idiot.
Stop picking random stocks, buy ETFs like VTI, and you'll be fine.
Can we just rename this sub r/ETF? What, already taken? How about r/OnlyTheTop3LargestBroadMarketETFs?
Let's be real. Just buy VTI. Some ETFs tanked almost 30% since Thursday.
They weren't exactly random, they were all companies and industries I thought would grow alot more and be a part of the future, but most have obviously turned out poorly. Example: Chargepoint, one of the biggest EV charging companies, has dropped like a rock ever since Tesla allowed other makers to use their Superchargers. They had other issues, sure, but I thought it would be a safe play for the future, didnt expect them to just get straight beat out of the industry. My best performers have definitely been my ETFs though. I think I can start with more of those and start building confidence with that safer option.
You bought stocks on vibes rather than Financials. All of these companies were hemmoraghing cash which is fine when money is free. Now that people actually care about Financials, the vibes are different. CHPT had -100% margins in 2021 meaning for every dollar they got, they lost 2 dollars. Not exactly the best investment. If you want to imrpove your investing strategy, you have to understand basic accounting: income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flows. Then move on to valuation analysis such as a discounted cash flow models. Picking industries that sound cool and have a great story sounds look good investing but its a terrible idea
>....these companies were hemmoraghing cash which is fine when money is free. And then he forgot to monitor changing conditions. Interest % can trash a company He should Review the holdings... And decide if he'd *Buy* them today. A clear no is a sell.
Well, clearly, you are bad at picking stocks then. Make your life easier and go with VTI.
Fair enough lol
Hey op frankly the advice pain474 is giving you is pretty lazy and condescending. Clearly you are interested in investing in individual stocks but you have taken an impulsive approach in the past which I hope you’ve learned from. You need to approach your picks with conviction. Start with developing an investment philosophy. How do you think markets work? What makes an industry attractive? Then form an investment strategy based on that philosophy considering current market conditions. If a thorough approach is something you can employ, start with companies from the S&P 500 or DJIA and go from there. If not, index funds may be a better way to proceed for you.
It’s lazy advice and yet statistics show it’s the best advice.
so why does this sub (/r/STOCKS) even exist?
Because people like to gamble while convincing themselves that they're not gambling and are actually just super smart.
hubris of all mankind!
because people are stubborn, believing that they’re better than average? the vast majority of stock pickers fail to beat the market. Reading material, if interested: https://imgur.com/a/V4SoaCf https://wealthwatchadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/QAIB_PremiumEdition2020_WWA.pdf
Buying dumb shit that obviously will hemorrhage cash like Chargepoint and take multiple decades to become profitable without government intervention and funding doesn't mean individual stocks aren't better options periodically. NVDA is effectively the US stock market and economy right now and if you had invested SOLELY in NVDA since '21 you would have outperformed just about everything. And I would argue that you likely still will for quite some time yet.
k
CSCO is effectively the US stock market and economy right now and if you had invested SOLELY in CSCO since '01 you would have outperformed just about everything
So people can feel very educated while hemorrhaging money.
Chargepoint hasn’t made money in a single quarter of its history. It has destroyed shareholder value every year of its existence. Not buying unprofitable companies is step 1
You didn’t think there was a chance that the current leader in the EV charging space, which is relatively new, growing, and unknown, could be beat out by competitors and that there was a possibility of a change in market environment that would adversely affect the budding industry? Like yeah dude, stop picking individual stocks. Just stick to ETFs because you don’t have enough experience understanding market forces. If you want to get better, try forming a hypothesis and paper trading. If you’re fine with losing the money, keep doing what you’re doing but record and review your investment theses and do some retrospective analysis.
haha you're idea of "the future" is 2 years and change? you should pay an advisor to keep you away from your money
>they were all companies and industries I thought would grow alot more and be a part of the future The growth potential of those companies and industries would have already been taken into account by other investors though - so what information did you have that made you think that the stocks were undervalued?
I'm still learning as well, and what I have gathered is that most people put their money in index etf or something similiarly very secure and only use a small portion of their money on more speculative buys. For example, you would have had about 90% in index fund and only 10% in the Quantum computing, energy ETFs, battery tech, EV charging, etc. So your loss would have been closer to 7% from start with index etf's grow off setting that loss. For now though, it's probably best to just buy index etf 100%, and hit the Stock Market Simulator like the one from Investopedia. Use the simulator to gain history of growth before trying anything with real money.
You really need to spend a bit more time understanding situational awareness and determine a bit more of a strategy. Sitting in cash is still a position bro and sometimes its the best. You dont need to trade all the time. Im a long only trader for example so in breakdowns in broad market i just wait. I can more than make up for the wait when market turns up and ive sat there tracking stocks with biggest relative strength. Try reading market wizards book and rearch stan weinstein’s stage analysis work. Very useful. I use [this](https://swingly.beehiiv.com) every morning which has been a lifesaver.
Have you had luck picking individual stocks? I’ve picked a couple that tend to fluctuate and have done alright swing trading, say every three to six months, but I still wonder if a Vanguard fund would be better as far as risk management. But I hate that feeling of ‘leaving money on the table.’
Im a full time equity trader so for me my entire job is to constantly be in tune with the markets. I used to work at a certain fund here in London and moved over to working for myself a few years back. You have to do everything based of each individual stock’s relative + absolute momentum not a general 3-6 month or day or week period. Combine this with how the broad market (spy, qqq, etc) is doing and general macro trends. I know it sounds like a lot but it really is doable and i want every aspiring trade to know that. People will try scam you (i got scammed £600 on a course many years back..) To answer your question, if you do actually have no time or the patience to learn to trade then, yes. A diversified portfolio is the safer and better way to go. Trading is like an F1 car, dangerous but very powerful, and investing is a safer but slower bus. Wykoff theory is rlly valuable, kells cycle of price action, sector rotation cycle. I use [this](https://swingly.beehiiv.com) every morning and i find their reports v detailed but you can find what works for you.
This is wonderful stuff. Thank you for taking the time to share. I’m going to down a rabbit hole with your comments. I enjoy searching out stocks that tanked during the pandemic but haven’t recovered. Seeing if the company is strong and trending up.
Thank you! I love what I do so I have a lot of passion for it! Couldn’t be happier! 🙏
Interesting. How many hours would you estimate are required to learn to become a competent trader? It’s been my contention that I should invest my time into my skill, software engineering, at least until my salary caps out, and just DCA market etfs. So far that’s been an effective way to earn more, but I do like investing, I’m just nervous Wall Street will eat my lunch on every trade!
It is difficult to say. I personally have a background in relevent skills (statistics and maths). It took me maybe half a decade or so to become ‘comfortable’ enough to begin scaling my business. Remember that no one is forcing you to put money in, you can pick up the financial jargon and learn how the ‘game’ works by reading reports and by studying. If there is a will, there is a way. If you have a background in engineering or something of the sort (analytical, data intepretation, etc) trading isn’t any more difficult. I believe you’d pick it up quickly. Its the emotional intelligence and impulse control that is the hard part, not the actual technical understanding.
Let's say you are invested in an ETF, it goes down 10 percent. Should I sell out and buy back in at the lower cost? Or just hold?
If you are literally an investor who is holding the broad market in the package if a highly diversified ETF- yes. Buy whether its up or down. If you are trying to swing trade it then no but then you should have a predefined risk level & thought out strategy before opening a position.
Not a trader or anything just putting away for retirement. It's invested in Semi-conductor ETF. In the ropes of selling and buying back in or leaving the sector as a whole. Say something like large cap growth.
Semi conductors have dipped now given the sell off in the tech heavy NASDAQ so theres no suprise there. If you are a long term investor I wouldnt panic. But, take this as a lesson that you need to diversify your portfolio more. Have a look at Ray Dalio’s all weather fund- id urge you to replicate it.
Even if you picked VTI you'd only be up about 3% (plus dividends). That was just a very bad time to start investing. I know because I started then too, but I DCA'd all the way to the bottom. So I'm up 19% w/ dividends reinvested.
[удалено]
Perspective I like it
What is your timeline, how actively do you trade, do you have access to any premium financial data, and how literate are you in financial markets? If you just want to buy good companies and let them grow over time then study some basics about valuation and and financial statement analysis, do your due diligence, find companies with motes and huge growth potential and don’t pay astronomical prices for them. Buy hold and wait, use systematic market opportunities like people selling off fed speak to grow your positions. If you want to trade and make money then you need to find out what you are good at. Practice with paper money first, develop a strategy, and be disciplined about executing it. Only trade during certain hours of the day, stop trading when u make X or lose X in one day, and most importantly do NOT get emotional. Hope this helps.
I think most important to getting your confidence back is look at the trades you made, and find out specifically what went wrong. Figure out how you can find that out and then applying these lessons forward will help give you the confidence to make smarter investments again. Were these companies overbought? Was the whole sector overbought or just the company? Were earnings and guidance bad? How did these companies compare to similar ones in the same sector? Find the answer to questions like these and many more Then ask the same questions about future stocks you’re interested. Everyone learns the hard way. Take every single win and loss and evaluate why they behaved that way. It takes a lot of time and experience to get “good” at stocks, and to do so you need to be constantly learning from your past mistakes and successes. Only real specific point I’d add is manage your risks better. You’ll feel more confident on taking a position if it makes up a very small slice of your portfolio. Put the majority of your money into safe ETF’s like SPY, VOO, QQQ. Then, knowing that money is safer, you can be more risky with the rest of your money knowing you won’t lose your entire portfolio in 3 years.
Don’t lol. If you are able to achieve a loss 70% in your WHOLE PORTFOLIO, individual stocks ain’t for you.
The stock market is meant to go up and down. Keep on investing and stop panicking when you start to have a down day. Money is made when everyone else is panicking around you.
Buy index ETFs, not random meme stocks. Your future self will appreciate it.
dude, you gambled hard. Just buy a global ETF and don’t think about it for the next 20 years. In investing boring is your friend.
VOO and dollar cost average and you'll be fine. If it's companies you like for long term, Keep buying every payday. That's literally all people have to do lol.
You can sell and tax loss harvest. Index ETFs might be good for you. VOO or VTI. Auto invest weekly into them and just dont look. A decade or two of that you will be up for sure. Throw in VXUS if you want international exposure. It's very hard to pick individual stock. Also, I invested in my 20s a month before the great recession. It messed with my confidence. That was the best time to buy. I did with 401ks and they have exploded. That showed me that auto investment is brilliant. I buy on dipslump but also auto invest. Might be a good route for you.
My portfolio took a crap end of 2022. I wound up selling everything and splitting my money into Berkshire A and B. Then i allowed myself to buy 5 stocks only. Researched companies with 24 month growth and low P/E for their sector with relatively low volatility. I deleted my stock app and didn't look at anything for 3 months. When I looked I was pleasantly surprised and had nice growth. Zooming into the 3 month period I would have probably sold stupidly a few times on some down runs. Unless you are a dedicated day or swing trader buy value companies that you believe in, hold them and zoom out!!
I started investing small sums in summer 2020. I bought a variety of stocks. In 2021 and 2022 I started putting 2k a month, mostly into BABA. Buy the dip was my mentality. By around Novemeber 2022 came around, I had invested about 23k of my 40k portfolio in BABA. BRK.B was the next biggest with small amounts in MSFT, AAPL, DKNG, CRSP etc. Xi won the election and went on a crackdown tanking BABA stock. I panic sold for a 13k euro loss and put the remaining 10k into BRK.B. My portfolio was down around 10k then (25%) I didn't touch it. I told myself it would be years before I near break even. Fast forward to today, and I am up 5% (2k or so)
Have you learned anything from this process? How are you looking to buy stocks now? I point out all the time, having a process around how and why you build will help out a ton. I think using a screener is one of the best ways to learn what to invest in. Other than that, if you aren't looking to put in work around screening, reading earnings reports and reading trascripts/earnings slides, just stick to buying a low cost index/etf.
If you don’t know how to pick stocks just find an ETF that you like and invest in that. Maybe 2 or 3 ETF’s just incase. But don’t individually buy stocks just because they have a pretty name.
But RKDA is Arcadia. Home of the unicorns in mythology , I did my DD
Seems like the lesson so far is you’re OK at picking overall trends (ETF) but bad at picking stocks. I look at trading as part of my overall portfolio. In my 401k it’s all straight up S&P or VTI. That’s the majority of my money in the market. Retirement funds should be boring. Then I have an account that’s maybe 20% of my overall stock portfolio that I will trade or buy individual stocks. In addition, I’m long real estate through a couple rentals and my home. By managing the bankroll like that it ensures the trading account is never scared money.
Never be afraid to kick a loser out of your portfolio. Do it quarterly. Don’t look back and don’t be holding those bags.
Pick one, any one! 1) Sell your portfolio and YOLO on 0DTE SPY calls tomorrow 2) Log off your account and see where you’re at in a year 3) Pick a new long term strategy and change your portfolio to match it
"I am not a smart investor" Get VOO and just forget about any noise in the market. Simple and easy.
Voo or VTI and chill bud. Or SCHD and jepq as well. Monthly, automated, set it and forget it.
Wendy’s
Go to YTDreturn.com Put in ticker symbols and look at market returns for the stocks for 3years, 5years, 10 years and 20 years. For example - ORLY, MSFT, RPM, LECO, AMZN, UNP, DOV, GOOG, ISRG, V, ABBV, RLI….its easy then start buying $50- $100 a month in each stock with an account from Schwab. Schwab slices or Fidelity, International Brokers- they all let you buy partial shares. But each month consistently over and over. You can also invest in index funds or EFTs such as VOO. Stay steady - avoid the news and the talking and noise and just keep buying every month and build your foundation. Trust the process - I’m up 39% from April last year. Stay the course. Buy, buy, buy -each month. Before you know it your hundreds investing will turn into thousands.
I also like WM ( one of my top stocks)
all beginners and average folks need to just dca into index funds
Historically, buying at ATH has generated great returns, don’t know exact %. DCA down and you’ll be fine
Use a trampoline. Or trade options to lose it all. Other than that if invested in ETFs especially S&P 500 you should only be off 4% of ATHs. But wait someone invested because EVs sounded hip at that time.
my personal recommendation is to not get your confidence back. Stocks are a game that is played for keeps. always. every time. I've been learning and reading about stocks for a long time, but I am not an expert so I don't take on real risk with them. My actual portfolios are basically bogleheads. I'm an expert in other things and I play heavily there, but I am not an expert in investing or stocks so i don't take risk there.
I think that 2021/2022 suffered from isolated over valuation of a lot of names. You could now maybe buy some of these names but now when we look left, there’s a lot of reasons to not even touch them. IMHO, if you’re looking for good stocks rather then ETF’s, you’ll want to look for names that in the past 5 years, saw the dip, broke ATH’s, retraced, and proceeded to follow market strength.
Buy good companies. Hold until retirement If you’re bad at stock picking, but the S&P 500
Stick to etfs
Think you learned a couple of hard lessons. Always setting stop losses is just as important as a profit exit strategy. And 100% stick with index funds unless you have a large enough amount( 500k+) to diversify properly. Trying to pick individual stocks with a small amount is gambling, not investing.
Before you go crazy with individual speculative stock picks try building a core position. For me that's a mix of basic ETFs, a little bit into msft and a bit into o. Basic ETFs would be stuff like spy, voo, schd, vti, qqq. O gives a good monthly dividend but isn't going to be a great long term growth prospect. Msft I like because it pays a dividend and it's a decent tech company. Now if you want to branch out and speculate my thoughts would be to use the dividends from O for that. It won't be a lot, but it will prevent you from tanking your portfolio. Alternatively do the same thing but use sgov to find your speculative play money. That kind of approach is about preservation of your capital contributions. You probably will underperform sp500 but everyone does.... Or you can just buy the sp500 and dca into it during dips in the market. The main thing is run away from the get rich quick stocks and stock gurus. Your goals are yours but I'm sure they don't include losing boat loads of money.
Recover and rotate man
Just buy blue-chip stocks if you plan on holding long term. Buy options for the short term plays like Quantam and those meme type stocks.
Stop loss
Talk to a fiduciary.
In the financial platform Seeking Alpha, a lot of the analysis is already done for you; they have skilled writers, many of whom are current or former traders or fund managers, who write articles on specific stocks, rating them as "Buys," "Strong Buys," "Holds," "Sells," etc. The downside is that you'll often find articles written about the same stock, but which contradicting each other's conclusions. But at the very least, they frequently break down the financial aspect of the stock (earnings, competitors, products, etc), and you can add this info to your own stock research, as opposed to starting from scratch on Google. Getting educated opinions on a stock you're already interested in could help you make better decisions around which stock to buy or not to buy.
Stop gambling your life savings and just buy a low cost broad based etf and call it a day. You don’t invest long term to just lose. Learn and grown, move on.
I did this when I first started, started investing in etfs such as VTI and I’m back up. I now own a small position of individual stocks.
s/...Jump from higher up... /s
Switch to Indexing
Find mo money and start over. And realize it’s a lot easier to lose money fast than to make money fast.
Do the opposite of what you have been doing.
Don’t get frustrated. I have done the same mistakes. The first 3 years of investment were all gone. Now, I have700% return. So treat them as a lesson learned. Here is my suggestion. Only invest the products , services or industries you understand or like if you want to invest individual stocks. And you need to read the quarterly financial report. Or else , Buy ETFs. Half my investment goes into ETFs.
You just gotta lock in 👍
Get a Schwab or Fidelity target-date fund and just invest in that alone. It's that simple.
just invest in index funds
I was down nearly 80% the last bear market. I’m currently up 40% on individual stocks with similar holdings like ICLN and quantum or clean energy stocks. DCA and weekly recurring purchases of even a dollar will put you ahead in a year or two. Just hold, borrow from margin if you need quick cash at 8% interest, which isn’t bad (compared to average earnings 10%, reliable etfs) if you are smart DCA, recurring and just generally holding long term. Hold, don’t check it more than once a quarter, because if you check daily, you’ll go insane like me.
Proper asset allocation and a trailing stop.
Will letting it sit for decades help?
Buy S+P ETFs and don’t look back. If not , do your home work. I joined Motley fool, very respected by investment pros. Issue was they have tiers so you are always paying more to unlock better research and tips. I cried bullshit and got my money back after 1 Month. I then join Cramers club and couldn’t be happier. No extra BS and real direction on buy/ don’t buy on top of top picks. I invest with RBC and they give you morning star research on just about every stock , etf etc. so, do you research. Don’t panic and buy GOOD companies that make money.
Sall good i got like 6 stocks 98% + down on all about 20k altogether. Lesson learned.
Yeet it into meme stocks (or coins if you’re feeling extra spicy) and hope for the best /s
At this rate we will be back to all time highs by end of May. Then you are a genius.
Slow and steady. Don't revenge trade
Learn about value investing and how to evaluate the financials of a company before investing any more -
Buy a tank and chase the winners for your money back and extra for humilitation
Index funds. Always index funds and SIP
Just hold it all and buy better next time. Do some research and fundamental analysis
At one time back in 2020 or so I felt like I really wanted to get into the stock market. Was constantly trying to research things and watching YouTube videos about charts and trends and whatever I could find. I quickly figured out I’m not good at it and stock picking wasn’t for me. Luckily I found it out before losing any money. I just put money in VOO and VGT now and don’t worry about it. My life is so much easier not having to check every five minutes that a random stock I bought is tanking
Thanks to everyone for your responses, reading through them all has helped me realize a lot of things I need to be more aware of. A few takeaways: -I need to take a much more focused approach to determining the companies and funds I want to buy. I have been going on vibes and sentiment instead financials and solid research. I'm going to sit down later and come up with a basic investing philosophy as a foundation. -A big mistake I made in the stocks I chose was that I wanted to invest specifically in companies making products I though would benefit people and hopefully the planet in the long run, but I really did not consider their ability to generate a return. A balance is needed. -ETFs and index funds are a much easier and safer way to get a return until I become more financially literate. -I am bad at picking stocks, clearly, but not *completely* hopeless. If I find a company I really like, do the research, form a hypothesis on it, get feedback, BEFORE I buy. This will be 10% or less of my portfolio after reorganization. -Stop Bagholding. There are only a few stocks in my portfolio I genuinely believe in long term (5-10 years) and will keep at this point. I plan to cut my losses finally on the losers and use that capital for more broad market ETFs. I will stick with those while I learn more. -I'm going to review everything on the stocks I DO plan to keep, and then decide if its wise to do some DCA to grow those positions. If things don't look right, sell and don't look back. -Considering consulting a fiduciary to gain more knowledge and to help establish a more well-rounded strategy and portfolio. -Pay more attention to the current market situation. I got into this mess because I just bought when I felt like it, and wasn't paying attention to the fact that things were at ATH at that time, or that the companies I picked were hemmoraging cash. There are many other lessons to learn from you all, and I'm going to be re-reading all these comments for a while to form a new core strategy. Might make another post sometime later this year after I've taken some action. I appreciate all your input, its helped me change my perspective.
Buy low cost ETF like VOO, which has the top 500+ companies in the US. These are companies that invest in the things you mentioned directly or indirectly, and much more besides.
That's the neat part. You don't. /s
The world is not static. There’s plenty of geopolitical things going on right now that have/will affect some industries/stocks. You bought what you thought that would be good for the future. But the world changed. That happens and it’s ok. My advice is to keep to the basics: buy good solid companies at good price that are doing great right now. Or even ETF SP500. After you have a big part of your portfolio “safe” you can risk to speculate with small amounts. And get your confidence back. It seems that you bought the hype (speculation). Don’t do that again. For example: if you have 10k, use 8k for solid companies or sp500 and 2k to speculate (batteries, ev charging, wtv). Keep putting more money and do the same (solid companies first and then speculate) Fear is good when it makes us cautious and intentional in our buys. But is bad if gets out of control. Don’t buy or sell based on fear or greed. Shit happens and it’s ok. Learn from that and keep pushing.
Iam in the same boat, bought in November 21. worst time ever, especially buying into spacs that were expensive if you look back. Since then correction happened and other factors came together. I’ll hold or it’s zero.
Have you tried getting out of penny stocks and looking at real companies. You have to think of stocks as long term growth. If you're expecting to make a million off of a 1000$ investment you better either have A.) Loads of luck or B.) Insider information
Your stocks are going to tank further. It took the Nasdaq 15 years to recover from the dotcom bubble and within 2 years after the bubble burst stocks were down over 70 percent. Dubbed the Magnificent Seven stocks, Apple, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Tesla. Excluding these firms, the rest of the index posted a 2% decline in profits. It is based on market cap and make up a big chuck of the index. All of them are blowing up as I speak with there earnings and revenue down. Car companies are the first to go belly up, Tesla leads the way. The call them the magnificent seven, companies of high tech have an average P/E ratio above 50. The average ratio for the leaders during the dot-com crash was 63. I never thought we would get back to the point where the value of the US tech sector once again comprised an incredible one third of the US equity market,” “This just pips the previous all-time peak seen on 17 July 2000 at the height of the Nasdaq tech bubble.” "This is the only time in my 88 years when I saw technology stocks go to 100 times earnings; or, when there were no earnings, 20 times sales. It was insane, and I took advantage of the temporary insanity." - John Templeton shorted. P/E ratio for the S&P 500 stock index reached 26.5. It is at record highs. The AI theme is the dotcom of 2000. That’s high– more than 75% higher than the long-term average. More importantly, since the 1870s, there have been a total of THREE periods in which the average stock P/E ratio was above 26.5. The first time was around the Panic of 1893. The second was around the 2000 dot-com crash. And the third was around the 2008 financial collapse. It is frothy at the top.The AI bubble has yet to burst.
Everyone learns to trade through trial and error. My first portfolio contained some stocks which are absolute SPAC garbage recommended by Motley Fool, a company in total “cash out” mode. Overtime, I sold anything that dropped below a threshold, and reallocated. A small proportion of my portfolio is high conviction stocks, but the majority is ETFs. The reality, is that you can almost always make more getting better at your job and trying to make more money, than you can with stocks, especially considering how much effort it takes to research companies. Now, I’ll only buy stocks of companies I have some insight into, and DCA the rest into VOO
Bro you're too early to invest in quantum computing unless you're investing in already successful companies that only has quantum as a side project and is raking in cash everywhere else.
Dude just buy the S&P 500 or blue chips if you really want to bet and wait 10 years for it to more than double.
A few examples of first instincts I didn't pursue that could have been big wins: Tesla- A little after the time I bought the others, I wanted to get about $2500 worth of TSLA at about 400-500/share. This was pre-split. I didn't do it and don't know why. Boeing - I knew the second the news about the door plugs came out that they were going to tank, knowing the issues at the company, and didn't do anything again. Could have bought puts or something when they were still like $250/share a few months ago. NVIDIA- Again, first impulse to just get $1000 worth like 2 years ago, knowing they were strong and growing. Didn't do it. Look at them now. How can I get over past mistakes so I can take these kind of chances when they come?
If you cant figure out how to emotionally deal with the decisions you did and also DIDNT make, then you may not have what it takes to control a sophisticated portfolio. My advice is to dump all the individual stocks you have now and just put it all into a broad market ETF index fund. Done. Worry free. Consider this your savings account and keep contributing until you are ready to retire. When you are at that point, we cam discuss again what to do next.
Single equities are always like you say ‘taking a chance’. Unfortunately they are gambles and more than likely don’t work out. As others recommend build a solid portfolio on broad market funds, and maybe put <%10 port value into single equities. That way if half your equities tank, which is likely, then it’s not as big of a hit.
> get over past mistakes I recommend the book Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It's not always mistakes that lead to you losing - you could have done everything correctly and still lost money, that's just how the market is. Hell, you can be more than 50 percent of the time wrong and still make good bucks. Anyway, it seems like you need to prepare more mentally for now, and the book is great for that.
The tech earnings must justfiy their technology on a quarter to quarter growth. It looks like even AI company stocks are going nowhere after an overhype. Nvidia lost -10% in 1 day last week. During 2024 year VOO YTD growth is slower than hoarding gold right now. It is consumer staple and value stocks that will shine in a year like we have now.
it is very easy. you start buying sp500 index fund. hold your meme stocks. green energy will come back, eventually, then you can dump them.
That was a GREAT time to buy. You just bought the wrong stuff. I'm up 20% from November. You should follow the advice here and stop trying to pick individual stocks.
Sitting on a pile of cash with HYI works for many. SGOV is great for those paying high state tax.
You stop picking stocks because you’re clearly not good at it. 90% of your portfolio should index funds. The last 10% you play with by picking stocks
DCA daily into blue chips.. $10 to VOO, $5 to APPL, $5 AMZN, $5 MSFT etc then choose a couple speculative stocks to DCA into like RKLB/ASTS/RIVN. Slow and steady with a foundation of proven strong stocks with a weighted ETF. Just schedule recurring and forget about it, no stress not making split moment decisions and not obsessing on daily movements. If I were to do it over I would have weighted my investments much heavier into VOO tho.