I invested around Ā£17k in 2020, my portfolio is currently worth 10.5k. I seem to have naively bought everything when it was at the peak. Iāve been wondering to myself if I should have even joined the stocks journey, I was in it for the long haul but will coming up to year 3 and itās a little demotivating (+ monthly fees etc.) Anyone else in the same boat?
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2020/2021 crazy times in the market. Looking back it was full of meme companies, overhyped green energy/ev companies, overhyped OTC companies, Spacs galore, unprofitable companies (many still unprofitbale now) with super high share prices. The standout companies that spring to mind are Hylion, Nikola, Lucid, Blink Charging, Affrim, Upstart, Asana to name a few.
Longhaul? But you state 3 years. 3 years is not a longtime at all. What monthly fees do you have? and which companies are dragging your portfolio down?
2022 and 2023 has humbled me even though i made some good money. Im carrying a couple of heavy bags from 2021/2022 and they sit in my portfolio in the red as a reminder to not be greedy and to do thorough research. My risk appetite is not what it was and i find myself more selective with my investments. I try to swerve penny stocks for my big investments, although i do have a few gambles in my portfolio but i dont hold big positions in them.
On the whole im enjoying the journey.
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Another way to look at is you have Ā£10.5k and hopefully a lot of lessons learned.
One should be, dont let stocks lose you too much money, another would be diversify, and the final one, do research.
Ā£10.5k is a big chunk of money to invest for your future.
Know what you dont knowā¦
Make some rules for yourself and stick to them.
One might be close any trade that loses you 7% or 10 % MAX.
Another , only hold X % in each stock.
Or just split the cash between VWRL and S&P 500 and leave it.
You can very easily have all your money back in a few years or less, and a long and prosperous investing futureā¦sounds like you just need a tighter system and to take the level or risk you are happy with and is sustainable.
The first few years seem to be as much about learning as they are accumulating, and you are well down the road on both counts.
You need to be in this for 5-10 years PLUS and have some kind of plan.
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So youāre down quite a bit. Im not sure what youāve invested in, feel free to share or not whatever makes you comfortable. But You mention your in it for the long haul, its with remembering that its only been 3 years.
One thing I think that might be a common āmistakeā so to speak, is not having a proper reason for what youāve invested in.
By that I mean if I asked you why you were invested into a particular stock, ETF, or Investment Trust, would you have an answer? I get the feeling most people (including myself at times) wonāt have a solid response.
So, youāre investments are not necessarily a mistake, but maybe its a good time to review your investments. note them down in a document if you havenāt, and note down why youāre invested in them.
this might help you identify the investments you have good reasons for investing in an believe will do well for you long term, and it might identify the investments youāre not actually as confident in as you thought.
You can do all this without buying or selling anything, and it can just inform how you might take your investing journey going forward for the next year. then do the review again periodically.
And yes, I have some investments that are down 30% and some that are not. though I think for now at least that they will be ok long term (5-10 years)
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Find this really interesting to read as I am still in my first year. Fell in to many traps mentioned above. Bought into something at its peak and it soon fell back.
Biggest thing I would say I have learnt is do not be loyal to a stock and that many are seasonal so to speak.
When you get one going well, do not be too greedy as you may well be selling close to its peak. Maybe have a limit your willing to accept as profit. Although I end up following the stock and am gutted when it continues to rise 
.
I have found the forums quite helpful. There is some good folk in here. Good luck
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Well you might be pleased (or not) to hear that you are probably a pretty normal āinvestorā. Why We Trade | Morningstar
IMHO, most ānewbiesā should not be trading individual stocks. Sure there are loads of people out there gambling ā¦ the more the merrier ā¦ when I worked on a front desk in the city, some several years ago, we referred to āstupid moneyā. Our American colleagues called it ādumb moneyā ā¦ and that money made other people money. People make money whether or not you gain or lose.
Be extremely wary of any advice given to you about buying a particular share by some stranger on this forum or anywhere on the internet.
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I bought in 2021 also a semi bad time I missed out on the massive gains people made from the pandemic to the massive rally.
Before that I judt watched the market to learn patterns and see how it works mostly paranoid to even join for all the reasons everyone else tells you when you mntuon stocks.
I was doupting myself judt the other day until all my saviors came to my rescue.
The money I have lost I donāt really see it ad a loss I see it as a lesson. Iām not talking about some that are down 4%, etc Iām talking about the penny stocks I first bought when I joined thinking theyāre cheap yay buy them as if I lose Ā£10 itās not so bad.
I followed that stock and missed out on profits when everyone bailed so it was like a pump and dump scheme and I got left behind so that definitely opened my eyes to penny stocks and anything thst relates to that type of invedtments.
I guess most of us investing in that era are feeling pretty devalued but thatās because we missed out, the world changed wars started and yada yada.
You have way more cash than me in your portfolio and thsts a decent chunk you have lost for me as a newbie I would of crumbled no doupt at that. My loss was in the range of Ā£220 odd but my gains plus free shared helped thst be a loss of Ā£60 ish when I sold to move to an isa.
The only thing is Iām not sure if that counts stamp duty and fxs fees as part of the gain loss, sorry Iāve forgotten again.
Its good to see others though in the same struggles at least you know youāre not alone.
I pick by far more safer invedtments now in my isa than I was before and thats the lessons I learned from what I was calling playing around.
Best investment so far with the best returns when selling in gia and rebuying again in isa has been Rio Tinto, but as much as I would love to pump tons of cash into it Iām vary that mines donāt last forever etc
My worst performance stock both when I sold in gia MGC Pharmaceuticals and I rebought the same amount of shares into my isa that I lost in my gia and within 3 days it went down another 45% haha.
The reason I bought was a hope that somehow I would get lucky and something amazing would happen again at least it was only Ā£10 and that bought over 8.5k shares.
But yea safe investments for me until I can fully read a companies finanicals because currently Iām gambling and so is anyone else who buys without further research into a companies data, finanicals, what they do, their purpose, will they last, do they need to relocate project sites over and over, dept all the usual stuff.
I guess you can get away with doing the above by just buying ETFS as even if one company fails itās Usally replaced by another although if something like amazon or Google collapsed Iām sure your ETF would suffer bad also.
Peaches and plums
P. S. I would also like to say I never followed any meme stocks etc and MGC Pharmaceuticals was my own doing because I just seen it as cheap and easy to buy. I almost feel like that was a meme stock the way it got pumped and dumped so fast.
Suspiciousā¦ I am
Yes because at the end of the day their just in it for the money for the most part.
You get a few investors who actully care about the company but most are just shouting please go up share price please so I can cash out and move onto another company and or be rich with the sale and content.
Its like they want good news from the company and they want the company to do really well but the second the share price hits a high they sell out.
Then you hear all the negative talk because they sold out to soon or because their not in the company anymore itās bad now all of a sudden. I have seen this many times as well.
My only regret was believing investing in the UK market was the best option
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@BlueSonic If you donāt mind me asking was that individual stocks or a FTSE100 ETF? Were you focusing on dividends?
Rio has done incredible and if I had a ton of cash I would of made a good stack 2x in a row for me itās up over 5% again in the last few days from neg while the snp, all world, l and g, Lloydās all are stuck in neg 4%
Its up 7% since last Monday
I would feel fairly certain in saying you arenāt alone! It sounds like I started around the same time as you and throughout 2020 if was great, a rising tide lifts all boats an all that! Since starting, although not as much recently, I read a lot to educate myself in understanding financial statements and having a āgraspā on how markets can work. All was going well but my biggest failing about a year or two into it was probably overconfidence and consequently poor risk management. I over exposed myself in an AIM stock and through a mix of my poor portfolio allocation and what I deem to be some unscrupulous activity on their part, means my portfolio is around 20% down after 3 years.
That saidā¦I never withdraw a penny and aim to max out my ISA allowance every year where possible. Through a couple of nasty experiences (the instance above been one) I am acutely aware of the dangers of the markets these days and with some good rates on offer by banks I have started to utilise my cash ISA allowance a bit more!
If your circumstances allow, hang in there pal and just keep a clear head, donāt try to chase the losses, youāll hopefuly make it back and more with patience!
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The best part about being on the forms, no one at work wants to listen to me talk about markets, politics share prices stocks, the future etc but on here we can and thatās amazing at least I can always count on my online stock buddy friends to socialise and geek out with 
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The original point of this thread, however was about loses and regret.
No loses are good.
But investments are long termā¦and there is LOTS of learning along the way.
Dont give up OPā¦just rethink what you are doing and keep learning
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This was my GIA Last January and I held on to well established companies to then have it go deep red, you do look back and say shiz I could of nailed some profit but thatās hindsight.
But thatās all sold now at a profit and at a loss as I wanted to start a fresh in an isa even though I know you need to reach a certain level of cash for it to be worth while. I say it is what it is and I aināt switching providers just for the sakes of reaching the cash target.
But yes this is about regrets this topic but I think this is a good topic to show journeys, fails and wins.
It seems most of us who have commented started around 2020 to 2022 ish
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As I think people may have mentioned before, you sound suspiciously like you are attempting to day trade. Or at best over thinking things. Consensus is thatās not a great idea. No one who invests sensibly (Iāll not try to define that here) over a 20 year time frame tends to have regrets. And having (unsuccessfully) attempted to prove some of my clients were āpassive investingā, the other outcome - trading - is also bad from a UK tax point of view 
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No I know over the long term investments should see wonders.
But who didnāt sit when it was announced on TV a lockdown where the world stops who didnāt think of shit the market?
Thatās not day trading thatās common sense to me really.
My example above was only stating while the world stops the markets wouldnāt do well while all the fear was riddled in the short term that was, but look what happend everyone made a killing in lockdown and the announcement of countries opening.
China for example especially for me my investment in rio was waiting and waiting for chinanto reopen then boom. Some things are predictable even if people constantly donāt want to belive it.
Iām in it for the long game but all my calls or gut feelings I have said out loud and to people yet I never done it and got punished for it.
AI was the last one I got smashed on I said to people at work I need to get in on amd and Nvida but was out if cash needed pay day to come(those were stocks I wanted for the last 3 months but had to get my portfolio going woth some others) . It hapoend before with Amd, tesla, bitcoin etc and I always shoot myself when I donāt listen to my gut.
Everytime I was about to buy any of those stocks I was interested in they went to the moon and I said no way am I buying now, thatās because I didnāt have a clue what was going to happen if the hype was at the top and everyone would sell so I never risked it.
Likewise now I still havenāt bought amd, Intel, nivida etc their all on my fave lists as well. A few analystās said these few chip manufactures are about to go crazy so I put them on my fave tabs never bought into them they went 178% up.
Its these kinda things I just laugh at and go fk or oh well missed out on that one 
I think people think on here I sit and draw lines and use candle sticks etc and think I can make a buck here and there, Iām not talking about that.
Big events, world events etc make things obvious like I had some army clothes stock before not sure how I had it the second the Ukraine war was on the cards it shot up because again itās a militery company so kinda obvious wars = money.
Not everything is predictable but people do it on a daily basics in the real world watching people at work saying oh look at him heās placed dyes in a stupid place again heās going to spill it and boom he does. We do these pattern recognition interactions on a daily basics.
You can use it on the market but for me it would only be for really big news other than that yes I will just buy in and hold long term and for the record my guessing games I never once sold when I predicted what it would do I just said it to people and held my portfolio as it is.
Let it crash then recover.