Reviewed my
ten-year journey as a noob investor to somewhat lesser noob now. I do believe
for my journey it is more of trial and error for first 5 years and some daring
bets during year 6-7 before humbled and taking more of a knowledge/evidence
approach. year 8 was the reset post covid and past 2 years i am gradually getting humbled and tactical with evidence based approach.
As a
beginner I think better to start with large index funds with proven track
records while initial position into growth stocks/ speculative investments
controlled to a sizable portion.
Most major
lost belong to two groups, mainly greed (easy to avoid) and misjudgment. For
misjudgment of stocks (during early year is mainly SGX catalyst or small cap
stocks) it is only to blame with lack of judgement on the “soft” aspect and risk
management – things like 100% believing in AR which may and can be manipulated
or clever accounting.
Refine strategy as
it goes, less panic sell, hold quality positions. Be humble and buy index some.
Don’t miss out on macro trends.
Pace.
Few days ago I was discussing with friend and came to a conclusion about pacing. In terms of investment, different people have different time preference. I quote example like Bitcoin, during any 12 month span anyone will deem it as high volatility and thus high risk investment. Spread the chart over one cycle or full duration of BTC's existence and it turns out to be an excellent investment.
Another example was trading ( ref to options and <1 week holding period) or gamify or hustle culture. During bullrun of 2020-1h2021, with plenty of VC funds sloshing around anyone could have made a small fortune playing Axie or dump into some SPACs. But is that sustainable? Long term is that worth building expertise into this skillset,only to find that expertise being made irrelevant after 1 year when bear market comes and VC funds dried up? The counter thesis to this is the old-school thought of building personal professional network and professional expertise with indemand skills to increase your salary.
There is no right or wrong answer. As we cannot conclude what will happen in near future, especially so with advent of AI and other ground breaking tech. One can only travel at his own comfortable pace. For me that is having toes in as many areas as I could via my investment while trying to climb the corporate ladder to secure above average compensation to boost my wealth accumulation.
