In 2019 I fell prey to weed stocks and got off Robinhood. I put $30k across two weed stocks (CGC & ACB) and watched that turn to $15k in a few months. Then I went all in APHA and gained back to like $21k and cut my losses. -30% for the year.
2020 was my second year investing in stocks on my own. Opened a ROTH IRA with TD at the end of 2019 and contributed the max for 19 and 20 so I had 12k to work with. I told myself that was all I’d invest for the year because what got me in trouble with weed stocks was I kept averaging down like $5-10k at a time and kept losing. Honestly, if not for my weed stock mistakes I probably would have lost much more when the pandemic hit. I was completely on the sidelines late 2019 until May 2020 because I was so shook from those losses and the market crash from the pandemic.
I learned a lot this past year but still made some of the same mistakes. For example I put the entire thing into GAN and was stuck holding for months. I was down 40% at one point but actually ended up selling for a profit. Also sold the whole position in my favorite stock ROCK when I was up 20% and it’s now up 100% from where I bought in. +14% for the year though so I can’t complain
I already contributed max to the ROTH for 2021 and opened a TD brokerage account put $6k in there as well. Laying out my strategy going forward while I wait for a little dip here.
I think I will DCA into the bigger names I want to hold long term in the brokerage account. With the ROTH I will still try to do some active trading here and there.
I have way more capital to invest but I want to learn more first. Unfortunately the best lessons I’ve learned thus far were from making mistakes myself. I’m afraid to throw a few hundred thousand in all at once but also have FOMO with money just sitting in the bank. I honestly don’t trust myself as a novice investor
I just checked my TSP from when I worked for the gov and it had a 20% return for 2020
This is one of my fav threads on NT. Keeps me in check. Hope we can all flourish this year