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Not sure I have had a real “challenge” with my “trading”.
Maybe I will give background although I sent you a message with the subject “Entertainment” that gave some background. So, I won’t go back over the vert skater, yoga teacher info.
I am 55. 2.5 years ago my wife passed away. She had a small amount of money she left me. Significantly more was left in trust for my daughter. I think that made sense. My daughter is 17. Her having a head start with stuff in simple investments, I think will be fine.
I took the money that was left to me and started “investing”. Buy and Hold, compared to my complete lack of knowledge (at the time) seemed fine.
I did make a bunch of maneuvers (trades) that made me a decent amount more than I would have if I had just bought and held. But the manner in which I was doing that was completely foolish. I definitely limited my upside with strategies like the one from the Investopedia article (“Traders would also be wise to consider setting limits on the amount they are willing to win or lose in a day.”)
I had not found your podcast at that point. Meb Faber actually pointed me in your direction.
Okay, maybe the biggest drawback to my strategies for trading so far are they are really all stock and index (etf) purchases. Have not really looked at bonds, currencies, commodities, options, futures, shorting.
And the idea, at this point, with how the market is (pretty high right now), of not having an exit strategy (hold and hope) seems crazy.
But, it seems I am not super risk averse as long as there is an upside potential.
So, perhaps the biggest challenge I have had was not knowing anything whatsoever when I decided I should try and figure this out.
While trying to learn I have consistently been astounded at how I went through so much of my life not thinking at all about money or finance and never having known how the stock market works or that you can make money even when the market is going down if you know what you are doing.
I have learned enough in the last few years to know how little I know. And to know I have been lucky to have had a market that has been going up a lot of the time. And to not be afraid to enter and buy a bunch last December as the US market was going down.
But that is not necessarily knowing anything. I just thought the trend was going to reverse and I was not worried about trying to catch a falling knife.
Now I would have done it differently and probably made more off the drop. But, still, not because I know enough. But because I have a couple of more tools.
C.
Thanks for the nice note. My FAQs are a good start.
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