I have decided my first ever post to be about my investing journey so far. I believe that by doing something, we learn more than just reading the books. With this post I would like to share what I have learned until now.
So how everything started? I was a teenager when I watched the movie Wall Street, the one with Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen. This was the moment that I have decided that I want to become an investor/trader. Unfortunately, I was too young to invest, so I had to wait a few years. I will be completely honest. It didn`t even cross my mind to use this time to learn more about investing. So I was just patiently waiting for the years to pass.
And so, one day, I`m already 18 years old and fully ready to start investing. Of course, I had no idea what I`m doing. My first investment was in a local bank. I didn’t review its financials at all. I was a customer and I liked the institution. That was my whole due diligence. Also, I`m pretty sure that I overpaid some commissions to acquire these stocks. Fortunately, few years later the price doubled from I paid, so it turned out to be a profitable trade. Beginner’s luck. Over the next few years, I have invested only in local companies. I was true to myself and I have never checked their financial statements. Until this day I still hold some of these positions in my portfolio. Turns out that the beginner’s luck was working for me.
Fast forwarding few years. Two or three years before 2019 I started learning about investing. Primarily through books on this topic. Of course my education in Finance has helped a lot, but I wanted to get deeper. So in 2019 I felt that I am ready to invest in US equities. I started investing in the beginning of the year. My investment schedule was every month with each paycheck I get. Everything was going great, my investments were up, I was feeling good. And then the crash in 2020 came. Of course as a sophisticated investor I panic sold everything as soon as I saw some relief in the market.
I am sure that you can imagine that I wasn’t really happy about the market boom that followed. I was already out of the market. And I said to myself “never again”. After this experience, I started chasing the hot stocks. They were trading at sky-high prices and were loved by investors. If you follow the market, you know that this didn’t turn out well either. I have successfully delayed the pleasure of panic selling and I was holding to my stock picks. On a later stage I saw that these stocks aren’t going anywhere and I have decided to sell them. This wasn’t a panic selling it was more like “desperate selling”. After this I said to myself “never again”.
Obviously, I was doing something wrong. And then I decided to learn everything about Warren Buffet and his investing philosophy. I have read a lot of books on Buffet’s philosophy. I have also dedicated myself to studying the Benjamin Graham`s investing style. So studying these two brilliant people shaped my current style of investing. I describe myself as a value investor. In the best-case scenario, I am a GARP (Growth at a reasonable price) investor. If you decide to follow my blog you’ll see that my usual investments are in dividend paying value companies. Since adopting this style, I feel a lot more comfortable with my investments. I`m not shaking when the market is volatile. I believe that this is a good philosophy – to be calm and comfortable while building wealth.
By starting this blog I`m committed to write down every investing idea that I have. I hope that my ideas can be helpful for someone (just ideas, not investing advice). This way, I`ll also keep track of my thought process. It will be easier for me to review the decisions that I have made. I`m almost certain that my investing style will evolve in the years to come. I`ll be more than happy if you join me in that journey.
I hope you enjoy and find it useful to read my blog!
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