Equity crowdfunding. I was listening to a lot of popular VC’s at the time and thought I should try investing in startups too. My only goal at the time was “get rich.” I have 1 company that is doing really well, a few that held my money for years only to return my original investment when the company was acquired (0% return!), and the rest have either failed completely or are chugging along with few prospects for growth or acquisition. I don’t think I realized at the time how painful having money tied up somewhere you can’t access it would be. Since then, I’ve realized other goals and expenses I would have rather saved the money for instead, with much less risk. Learned the lesson though, and now try to keep my investing simple, goal-oriented, and liquid.
Buying WorldCom after falling for the hype and thinking I was smarter than everyone else. Learned from the experience though and it now keeps me away from bitcoin and trading in general.
Taking an overconfident broker’s advice and buying a lot of Lucent at $75/share. It went to 55 cents when the company started missing its earning estimates.
Hiring financial advisors who had a few portfolios to funnel clients into, none of which matched my needs.
Not keeping real estate. I calculated what I’d be worth if I had kept all the property I’ve owned and it was a classic story of “If only”.
Several years before the summer Olympics in Beijing I was buying stainless steel for a factory. The owner of a supplier, just back from Japan, made a sales call. The Japanese stainless steel mill execs were all worried because China was busy building multiple stainless steel mills. The were afraid steel prices would fall. I knew there is limited nickel available (one of the metals that makes steel stainless) and the mills would have to bid the price up. That night I found a publicly traded nickel mining company in Canada trading on the NYSE, my wife and I figured out how much we could afford to loose, and we bought stock the next day. The price of nickel, and the stock, rose. When the stock price doubled I sold half, the price kept rising, then the company got bought out at a premium. We made a nice amount of money but I thought I was so smart. Then I lost too much of my gains buying losing stocks before I switched to broad ETF’s and mutual funds.
Equity crowdfunding.
I was listening to a lot of popular VC’s at the time and thought I should try investing in startups too. My only goal at the time was “get rich.”
I have 1 company that is doing really well, a few that held my money for years only to return my original investment when the company was acquired (0% return!), and the rest have either failed completely or are chugging along with few prospects for growth or acquisition.
I don’t think I realized at the time how painful having money tied up somewhere you can’t access it would be. Since then, I’ve realized other goals and expenses I would have rather saved the money for instead, with much less risk.
Learned the lesson though, and now try to keep my investing simple, goal-oriented, and liquid.
Buying WorldCom after falling for the hype and thinking I was smarter than everyone else. Learned from the experience though and it now keeps me away from bitcoin and trading in general.
Switching in and out of the stock market over the past 40 years convinced it was on the verge of collapse.
Several years before the summer Olympics in Beijing I was buying stainless steel for a factory. The owner of a supplier, just back from Japan, made a sales call. The Japanese stainless steel mill execs were all worried because China was busy building multiple stainless steel mills. The were afraid steel prices would fall. I knew there is limited nickel available (one of the metals that makes steel stainless) and the mills would have to bid the price up. That night I found a publicly traded nickel mining company in Canada trading on the NYSE, my wife and I figured out how much we could afford to loose, and we bought stock the next day. The price of nickel, and the stock, rose. When the stock price doubled I sold half, the price kept rising, then the company got bought out at a premium. We made a nice amount of money but I thought I was so smart. Then I lost too much of my gains buying losing stocks before I switched to broad ETF’s and mutual funds.