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Your investment regrets/mistakes

7,551 Views | 46 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by Removed:09182020
suburban cowboy
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AG
Read a lot of good advice in here over the years. However, most discussion threads are related to what successful investments or strategies you've applied over the years.

Let's hear your regrets and/or investment failures and what you learned as a result.

inb4 buy AMZN or AAPL early.
boulderaggie
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Waited too long before buying first house.

Missed out on early bitcoin.
QBCade
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Told my wife Salesforce was a laughable idea and nobody would use this, so don't even interview. This was when they prob had 50-100 employees. They wanted her to interview for sales.
Stat Monitor Repairman
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Sometime around 2012, I downloaded the software to mine Bitcoin.

Never installed it because I was worried that it had malware and that I should be focusing on 'real work' and stop messing around with internet bull*****
jmcfar_98
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Listened to my two teenagers about Facebook. They said nobody uses it so, I didn't buy any shares at $25. Talked myself out of buying Tesla at $20 wanted to buy it under $20 but it never went below $20 so for a few hundred dollars I missed out completely.

Did buy Amzn at $323 since it would show up at my doorstep everyday. So this one made up for some of the other ones.
59 South
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Not starting earlier and not buying into the market in 2008-09 except for 401k
IrishTxAggie
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Biopharmaceuticals. 1:20 hits.
LeftyAg89
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Mine has to be on my first job out of college... Jan 1990, 2nd week on the job. One of the veteran IT programmers on my team came over to me randomly and said "Windows!!!! Invest in Windows! I'm serious, Do it! It's the next BIG thing! They are going to be HUGE!" I had no idea what he was talking about, I just LOL and we changed the subject.

Here I am now, 30 years later, every morning when I boot up the PC I am reminded of what a dumbo I was for not listening to Steve! Steve is probably kickin' back on some small island out in the Caribbean sipping a pina colada! 60 cents per share back then.
akaggie05
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Bitcoin for me too. Read a random article about it in 2012 and even messed around with some GPU mining. Was seriously considering just buying 20-30 coins (back when they were less than $100 per). Holy crap.
Red Rover
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In 2009 a ridiculously high percentage of my portfolio was in AAPL. The stock price is almost 10x higher now than it was then. I took profits several times over the last 10 years. I still have almost 30% in AAPL but if I had held on to all of it longer it would be a retirement year changing amount.
diablo loco
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not buying more rental property after the gfc. austin/san antonio specifically. I also knew Vegas and Phoenix would bounce. Did nothing. I didn't have enough equity at the time. If I did I'd be writing this from a tropical island.
30wedge
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Not purchasing mineral interests in my area before they began using 3D seismic.
Ragoo
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My investing regret is not having the ability to take advantage of my broker grandfathers knowledge. He passed away my junior year at A&M. I spent a lot of time at his house. Even in retirement he recording the closing ticker and would scroll through every day at 4 pm. Mentally boring the closing price of his positions. Then retire to his office to record and plot them.
DRE06
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For the most part, no major regrets. I graduated in Dec 2006 and had no money in market during the 2008 crash. Every dollar I've invested (or didn't invest) has (or would have) made incredible returns. I spent a lot of money in my 20s having fun and that money would have been worth a lot today. That said, still not major regrets. Had a great time in my 20s and fortunately my wife and I both have great careers and we'll have plenty.

I will say that in hindsight, I now have a different opinion on mortgages. I refinanced into a 2.8% 15 year mortgage back around 2015 (I think). I should have just kept the 30 year term and put the extra money in the market. It has changed my perspective on the theory of cheap debt/leverage vs paying off your mortgage as soon as possible.

As long as mortgage rates are 4% or below, I'll probable recast my mortgage and invest the rest.
TombstoneTex
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HEAR
permabull
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Kool
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I got way too scared in 2008. When Obama was elected, I assumed it would get way worse and I stayed in cash far too long and missed out on a lot of run-up
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pfo
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Wish I would have invested in the Vanguard Index S&P 500 in 1978 and also their Total Stock Market Fund from the beginning.

Also, I would have done better had I never sold a single stock and paid the resulting tax.
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LostInLA07
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Not buying Netflix when they announced that stupid Quixter spin off name and their stock crashed.
CS78
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hypeiv said:

It wasn't a lot of money.. but I was convinced EXAS was was legit in the $20 range, it dropped to under $14 and I bought up to lower my cost basis...as soon as I was up a few percent I got out... Now that sucker is over is over $100


Don't feel too bad. I bought it at $2.43 what seems like 20 years ago and sold it in the $14s.
TwoMarksHand
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Kept my 401k in a MM fund for the first 2-3 years from '14 to 16' or so. I took too long to educate myself on exactly how to invest it. I guess it could be worse.
beerad12man
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Blackbox. Last year.
ktownag08
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1) Cancelling my order for Google at IPO price. Didn't understand how a "search engine" would turn into anything worth a darn.
2) Selling my original position in AAPL that was gifted to me by grandfather when I was just a baby. I've done the math and makes me sick thinking about it. Sadly he passed when I was only a few years old, but I wish I could talk with him about it.
3) Day trading my 401k a few years back while I was bored at work for a year. Learned a lot about what NOT to do and that it's wise to take smaller positions. Lost more than I'm willing to admit.
aggiehunter3
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When I first got into speculative investing about 4 years ago, I was researching companies pretty heavily based solely on fundamental analysis and ran across VEEV (crm space) and put some money into it at 25ish per share. I couldn't understand it because every quarter they would post positive results and the stock would fall 10-15%. I would get back to even before the next quarterly report only for the stock to get bashed again. I finally began understanding the valuation and although the company had positive earnings, "the street" felt it was overvalued from a p/e perspective. I held for over a year and a half and finally sold breakeven. The stock closed at $163.47 today....
Rock1982
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WCOM
LostInLA07
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Didn't understand how a "search engine" would turn into anything worth a darn.



Yep
IslandAg76
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Too timid on my buying of stocks in 2008-09. Bought some but wish I had gone all in.
JSKolache
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Buying on leverage hasnt worked for me. Lesson learned.
Phat32
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Sold FB at $30
Had GOOG in cart at IPO but didn't go
Didn't put enough in BAC at $3
Not mining Bitcoin
Spending too much when I was young
YouBet
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I don't have too many since I've rarely invested in single stocks or even entertained it. IOW, what you don't know or never knew about really didn't hurt you in this case.

The primary one I can think of is that we moved 4 years ago. We were considering a high rise vs a single family home. Both were same exact price. We opted for the latter primarily because we had dogs and hassle factor of dogs (one of them 100 lbs) in a high rise wasn't for me.

That same building is selling the units we were looking at 4 years later $300k more than when we almost purchased. I told wife this would happen and it did but it was living practically decision vs an investment decision. Our house has obviously appreciated too but not nearly that much.
infinity ag
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Not index investing earlier.

I was led into the wide world of investing by an Aggie whom I knew only virtually over IRC (the chat line). He used to tell me that he hated index investing. I wasn't sure I knew why, but that deterred me from considering index investing for many many years. So I blindly followed, with no logic applied.

I was an active investor until about 5 years ago for about 15 years. I was making about $15k a year after a lot of struggle, and some years I even lost money (with struggle and stress). Then I had a moment where I had to decide what I wanted from this - to make money or to have fun. Both I was not able to do very well. I decided I wanted to make money and sacrifice the fun part of it. Best decision I ever made, paid off my house, no loans currently, and all set for when my son goes to college in a few years.

My college Finance Prof had mentioned this to us in class back in 2007. I wish I had taken his advice seriously. But never too late.
infinity ag
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ktownag08 said:

1) Cancelling my order for Google at IPO price. Didn't understand how a "search engine" would turn into anything worth a darn.
2) Selling my original position in AAPL that was gifted to me by grandfather when I was just a baby. I've done the math and makes me sick thinking about it. Sadly he passed when I was only a few years old, but I wish I could talk with him about it.
3) Day trading my 401k a few years back while I was bored at work for a year. Learned a lot about what NOT to do and that it's wise to take smaller positions. Lost more than I'm willing to admit.

Oh wow.

I bought AAPL in 2007 just before the iPhone and kept it until a year after Jobs died, and I made a lot of money (incl home downpayment) with it. You probably had it way earlier.

GOOG, I bought in 2004 right after IPO but sold it in a few months.
P.H. Dexippus
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Almost exactly 25 years ago, Forest Gump was released. It had the quote, "[Lt. Dan] got me invested in some kind of fruit company. And so then I got a call from him saying we don't have to worry about money no more and I said, 'That's good. One less thing'."

I've owned the stock off and on since that time, including my first custodial brokerage account I opened with $1000 from mowing yards and Christmas gifts. If I'd kept that $1,000 in AAPL since Forest Gump came out, and never added to it (except DRIP), it's be worth $530,000 today.

I was a somewhat early adopter of Amazon, using it to buy text books in undergrad and grad school. If instead of spending the approximately $7,000 on textbooks 16 years ago, I had instead bought shares of AMZN, I'd have $325,000 today.

I did my senior-level business negotiations project in 2004 on the likely fall of Blockbuster and the rise of Netflix and RedBox. Had I spent the $500 graduation gift from grandma on NFLX instead of apartment rent in Midtown, I'd have $50,000 today.
Ag13
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Mr. AGSPRT04 said:

Almost exactly 25 years ago, Forest Gump was released. It had the quote, "[Lt. Dan] got me invested in some kind of fruit company. And so then I got a call from him saying we don't have to worry about money no more and I said, 'That's good. One less thing'."

I've owned the stock off and on since that time, including my first custodial brokerage account I opened with $1000 from mowing yards and Christmas gifts. If I'd kept that $1,000 in AAPL since Forest Gump came out, and never added to it (except DRIP), it's be worth $530,000 today.

I was a somewhat early adopter of Amazon, using it to buy text books in undergrad and grad school. If instead of spending the approximately $7,000 on textbooks 16 years ago, I had instead bought shares of AMZN, I'd have $325,000 today.

I did my senior-level business negotiations project in 2004 on the likely fall of Blockbuster and the rise of Netflix and RedBox. Had I spent the $500 graduation gift from grandma on NFLX instead of apartment rent in Midtown, I'd have $50,000 today.
Brutal way of thinking about things.

My family were very early adopters of Netflix and Amazon due to my dad being quite the tech guy. I have calculated before what if we had bought 1 share of AMZN every time we ordered a package or bought $10 of NFLX a month. Regrets.
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