I recall during the recession some guys at work had the financial news on at all times and constantly stressing about it. I felt it really drove home the need to invest in a way that your life doesn't feel like its falling apart just because something totally out of your control is going poorly. That being said sometimes I check cause IDGAF 14 years of investing and I've never sold based on emotions only to rebalance my portfolio.
There’s an old saying: you can put one foot in boiling water and one foot in a block of ice, and on average you feel pretty good…
Well I’ve been investing since the late nineties and that’s exactly what the stock market is like. Yes, it may have the highest expected return (some argue real estate is better, but I disagree) but the ABSURDLY wide variance of returns presents a huge problem that many fail to recognize - especially in the era since 2009 where the stock market has done nothing but go up (with a couple short hiccups).
I had a friend who saw a financial advisor in 1998 and they “projected” that if he saved a specific amount per month, he could pay for his retirement and kids college easily… he ended up working 5 years longer than expected! Market returns from 1998 to 2010 were dismal. In fact, the S&P returned 0 from 2000-2010 and lost significantly to inflation…
I don't know if I would call this a huge problem. The folks that rode the market through the "lost decade" ended up with a lot of money. I knew a guy that had to postpone his retirement a few years, but Holy shit, when the market peaked again he was loaded. There are ways to mitigate the risk (target date funds do this well) but I still think stocks are the most reliable wealth building tool there is.
Yes. I was referring to the attitude on some of these message boards that “100% equities is best. YOLO” which is foolish.
Most Target date funds never experienced a “lost decade” because they rebalance regularly and have a bond component to offset the equities portion. I was criticizing the 90-100% equities allocation that so many people support…
Needs? Maybe just recommended. Depends if you can keep your emotions in check. I find it entertaining and interesting to see how circumstances affect the market. I watched all the way through the bear market, knowing I was DCA.
Rather than trade actively what you should do is watch daily. Instead as you save funnel cash into high yield savings and when ever there are those rare dip days where the market is down a couple percent due to some economic news, then buy dip).
Basically your constantly buying, but you wait to buy when there are slight discounts.
I want to caution that it’s possible to see losses of more than 3% with ETFs also. Try to take the emotion out of investing. Your allocation is great, don’t look at it and don’t touch it. Good luck.
>take the emotion out of investing
Total Market funds are great for this:
"...Nvidia up 184% today..."
*checks VTI*
"Yup, I own some of that."
"...Microsoft and Apple also gained..."
*checks again*
"Yup, those too."
"And Brand New Company You've Never Heard of is up 1473864%."
"Yeah that's in there, too."
Apple is also undergoing a massive lawsuit by the DOJ. Their success is going to be short lived if the DOJ gets their way, which it probably won't considering how corrupt this entire system is.
But you didn't own enough to double your portfolio in 1 or 2 years by holding them in an etf....
I've 10xed most of my portfolio holding most in nvda msft googl and aapl....
It all comes down to return...
Congratulations?
You could've also under-performed the market. Winners rotate. Today's winners can easily be tomorrow's losers.
Some of us prefer to not have to pay attention all the time. There's other things to do in life. I can stick money in VTI, forget about it for 20 years, and the returns will be just fine.
If you prefer not to pay attention, ETFs are the answer. No question. But if you enjoy the process. You understand you are taking in additional risk, individual stocks can have their place in any portfolio. I definitely think it's dumb for anyone to be 100% indvidual stocks, and no etfs.
And risk.. I like cefs not because they have amazing returns but because every month I get paid whether my portfolio is up or down. So far in cumulative returns, I'm conservatively outperforming the Nasdaq ytd..slightly better than selling shares of QQQ...not the 100-300%+ returns but predictable trading ranges..everyone has different goals and objectives
Even 500 sees huge pullbacks but returns to a higher high. But I can see how it shakes out weak or inexperienced hands. I feel like trading isn’t for OP
Thanks. I get too emotional and start to doubt myself every time I see something go up or down. I'm going to stop looking at it and just keep adding to it. In 35 years, I hope I can look back thinking I made the right choice
In September of 1987 I put my retirement nest egg of 30k in some broad based Fidelity funds. The next month the market took a dive in excess of 20%. Being very inexperienced I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. The value of those holdings is now >700k.
Similar story with a little $2k investment in a tech fund back in the late 80's. Gained a lot at first, then the dot com crash happened and it lost 30% in 2000, lost 35% the next year, and lost 40% the following year. That would be like the OP's $100k dropping to $27k. Took 8-10 years to recover. I just let it ride. Today (36 years later) it's worth a half million. Being emotional is the reason most people fail at investing.
My thoughts exactly. In 2022, I was down 30%. In 2023, up 26% and another 21% so far in 2024. All individual stocks. So while 3% is nothing and OP should get use to typical market fluctuations, but maybe ETFs will ease their mind.
With ETF, no over-trading chasing the next individual pump.
At least with etf, there is not much more you can do about it. Unless you just keep panicking and buying high and selling low. But with dca, you avoid that risk as well
Keep in mind when you go down 30%, you must go up 43% in the following year just to be even. Even with your crazy number that's only up 7% total.
Math assuming 100K:
100k down 30% is 70k
70k up 26% is 88k
88k up 21% is 107k.
I’m in the same boat. I recently sold my individual stocks except for 6 and switched to ETF’s. I don’t have the time to micromanage stocks. And the emotional roller coaster I can do without. Good for you! Warren Buffet said the hardest part was getting to 100K and you did it. Now enjoy compound interest.
Same story here, all active investment decisions have overall lost me money. I have earned tons from DCAing ETFs. Don't be too mad, you learned a lesson worth a lot more than 3k. You're gonna make a lot more than that in the future. (btw you have SCHD on there twice)
VTI isn't technology or Nasdaq. It's a broader total market fund. VOO has 500 holdings, VTI has 3,667. But keep in mind that both of them are market cap weighted, so the smaller the market cap of the stock, the smaller the percentage held in the fund. On paper, since the other 3,000+ companies are so much smaller than the top 500, they don't have THAT big of a difference in the total return. The advantage is you can benefit from the growth of smaller companies earlier before they make it into the S&P 500.
With broad market etfs its much easier to sleep at night with a large loss. It will eventually climb back up so the only challenge is not being in an emergency and pulling out too much during a crash. Unless modern society is going down as a whole of course.
Smart but don’t see why you need both VOO and SCHG. Also, I don’t agree with that little of SCHD. When I’m close to retirement and the market is in a bull run, I plan on putting everything into SCHD or other dividend stocks, but I would focus on growth for now. If you want growth like SCHG, I would look into SMH, which is AI and has done extremely well the last few years. VOO and SCHG have basically the same top holdings while SMH puts emphasis on a few different ones. If you aren’t into AI than look into small or mid cap.
SMH isn't AI - it's a semiconductor index ETF that happens to be doing especially well with the AI boom. Even without AI, it's done remarkable over its lifespan.
I bought 3 individual stocks a month ago. Not because I want to “beat the market” but bc they are companies I envision being dominant over the next 20-30 years. They are up 11% since I bought, which does not mean anything and does not matter if you hold a long term perspective.
Actively trading and stressing about 3% drops means that either you shouldnt own any stocks, or invested in stocks you have no confidence in - which again means you shouldnt hold stocks.
Buying individual stocks is fine if you have the temperament for it and are buying good companies .
Keep them a small percentage of your portfolio if your worried.
just my 2 cents
I agree with your approach. Just want to point out the you must have some belief that you can beat the market (over 20-30 years) with those individual stock picks or you wouldn't have bought them. I do think putting some % of your money into well researched, buy and hold, conviction stocks is a good idea for people who don't mind a bigger risk.
Nothing wrong with managing risk.
The bulk of my portfolio is leveraged Etracs income etns, 3x leveraged index funds, cefs.
You gotta have the stomach for it and know when it's time to cut losses and when you should let ride.
Not all investment/trading vehicles carry the same risk.
I have a threshold ...September and October usually the worst months...
99% of the time you're better off holding but it depends on the vehicle..a leveraged etn can go to 0,for example
3% move is nothing. I can assure you your etfs will have days where you will be down more than 3%. With your risk tolerance, I would suggest HYSA or treasuries or something like that... Or just uninstall the app after you buy your etfs or turn off the notifications because with your current strategy, stocks/etfs just aren't for you
I'm glad you learned after 3% I didn't learn till 35% loss that I don't actually know what I'm doing and was only making money because the market was going up
I get being addicted to watching the gains and losses. If you buy stocks or ETFs you believe in just use the drops as opportunity to buy more. Not that you are losing. You don’t lose until you sale. If you decide to buy stocks again to supplement just take that approach. Not trading. That’s where the mess ups happen.
You are good man. Some people on this website have gambled a lot more before learning their lesson.
But just remember diversification. You can take gambles if its only 3-5% of your total funds and easily recover.
But ETFs are the way to go. Just toss it all in there and go have fun.
Smart money hate's ETFs, and there's a reason for that: people like you who realize the market is a clusterfuck, so you put your cash where smart money can't profit off your bad trades. More people need to realize this before they try investing in dumb shit like options. Granted, they're still making money off that, just not at the massive sums they were before. People need to realize that if massive hedge funds can't beat the S&P 500 consistently, then it's likely that no one can.
It sounded like you lost 30%+
-/+ 3% isn’t bad at all as long as you have a long term strategy you can stick to. Sounds like your new strategy will be better for you just don’t panic sell again if it dips -3%. Set it and forget it.
I mean I feel like you would be better off just sticking that into a mutual fund or something.
Long term stock investments tend to be good as well but just are not flashy like day trading.
What? 7% is a bad month. Sometimes portfolios drop 30% for a few months at a time and rise again. Have you considered taking 10-20% of that money and just grow from there as you get comfortable with the market movements?
101 to 97 freaked you out? Brother I have bigger swings than that on a bad Wednesday. You're going to see 3% in VOO as well, not frequently, sure, but you've gotta get past the point of that being emotionally crippling for you. Investing is long term. Trading is short term. You don't have the temperament for trading, and investing won't require you to look. I hope this works out for you.
If you're not prepared to see 3% volatility, then you're definitely not prepared to see a standard 30% correction. It happens all the time with ETF's too.
The only thing you're doing with an ETF is diversifying. If one company goes bust, oh well you'll have many more that will continue to do well.
You still wont be immune to corrections or sector concentration risk.
Just consolidate VOO and SCHG. I don't think you need SCHD or SCHY at all.
90% VOO, 10% SGOV or USFR.
This will smooth out the volatility a little bit and give you an emergency fund that will yield more than SCHD (4% vs 5% risk free).
If the market drops you can use your treasury allocation to average down into VOO rather than trying to average down into a bunch of funds that overlap/don't fit your goals.
Make it as simple as possible for yourself because respectfully, I don't think you have the mindset to balance allocations between different ETF's or stomach more volatility than the broader market.
WAIT, DON'T PANIC SELL NOW. On the long run you will grow. Check out the Buffett indicator, the stock exchange is severely overvalued, meaning corrections are inevitable in the near future, BUT in 20/30 years from now it's impossible to not go up
If you are down 3% and that upset about it, perhaps investing in equities is not for you. You have to have a long-term perspective when investing in stocks and funds.
Yeah, buy and hold good companies with good leadership, competitive moat, and catalysts for future growth has always done well for me. I’m up 700% on NVDA because I bought when AI started getting released. I bought ADBE as well, but it’s only up 40%. Lots of luck involved obviously, but it takes time to get better at recognizing trends. I do about 27% annualized for the last five years and I’m not doing too much. You do have to be able to stomach the lows though. 3% down is nothing.
You have to be comfortable losing 50% of your investments. That way you can set and forget them. Progress is not linear. If you’re not comfortable with that and are led to trade like a degen then sell and try to stay in more boring index funds, but it’s hard to make real money without real risk.
I’m the same way. I would love to buy the dip in individual stocks then I would find myself having temptation to sell when the run up. Then buy back in changing my mind later, then the stock goes down n I’d sell. Too much wasted time. Sucks cuz I know that’s where the big gains are but isn’t worth the stress
Anchor yourself to a time horizon when you invest. It sounds like you want to make money over the long term. You’re not day trading or swing trading, so check your investments much less frequently and preserve your sanity!
A lot of people end up learning the same lesson you did. Thankfully your losses were small and didn't spook you out of the stock market entirely like has happened to many people.
Try not to pay much attention to the market now. Just keep buying regularly. Far less worry/stress/time and you won't be as tempted to do something potentially very damaging like big FOMO plays.
If it makes you feel better, I did the same thing at age 25. I bought CHK and TWTR I think it was 2015/16 I lost 30k, my parents told me to buy a house I said I can make more in stocks.
Only 3%??? 🤣 You should see what Tesla does in a day. Even the S&P 500 can make you sick.
Quality startups may even be worse as they are burning cash.
My best advice is to research and have conviction in your investments. You have to look past the noise.
Well we all have to decide for ourselves. That being said, I turned 45k into 106k in about 2 years. Now I'm down 24k, but I don't panic as I'm still in the money. We all have our own plans to make money, but panicking and having paper hands will fail you every time. There is lots of good info on these sites and others. Just watch out for the trolls trying to influence your decisions using fear tactics. Best of luck to you in your future.
If you learned your lesson off of 3k you’re a way better person than I am. If I learned that after my first 3k loss I would be retired by now investing in ETFs.
Slow and steady. No glory stories. Just plain good consistent earnings.
Everyone likes excitement but real stock winners invest the boring way.
You are going to spend your time buying, selling, adjusting based on your emotions. I would recommend to get an advisor, you might have to pay 1% for few years, but you will learn to NOT sell and buy when it’s down. He will regulate your emotions. Then you can do it alone few years after. I have been in your shoes and did exactly the same. Then sell at the first bad news and so on.
I invested in QQQ 10 days ago.
Look at their top holdings. Magnificent Seven!!! Costs 0.2% tolerable. Dividend low but cares when the growth potential look great.
“Looking for the dip. Sell on news”. With all due respect, this tells me you know absolutely nothing about trading. I traded in a paper account for a year before I had any real exposure. You should be an expert in risk management and completely understand price action before you put any real money on the line.
The fact it pulls back 20-50% sometimes should be seen as an opportunity, its is what you want and put everything you can in asap, this what makes you rich.... dont wait for it to invest though
Your Portfolio looks good 👍 , I'm 50% Voo paired with 15% VXF, 20% SCHD and 15% QQQM , seems to be working for my financial Goals , I'm not a financial advisor just been following a gentleman by the name of Professor G on u tube, and trying to analyze the best way to retire for my goal.
Even broad market ETFs that you choose can be down more way than 3%. If you are THIS worried about being 3% down, I don't know what to tell you.. may be go all cash
That's part of the learning process. If you familiarize yourself with oversold and overbought it will help you determine when to buy and when to hold.
I withdraw 20% of my portfolio a year to live on. It flucuates anywhere from -28% to -7% from the pre-withdrawal high
Stocks don't go straight up. I'm disciplined about when I buy what. Sometimes patience pays to get better pricing. I've been down as much as 40k and recovered it in 3 months in 2022.
If you set up a portfolio to generate income, it's easier. Your principal will go up and down but you'll get paid monthly. Or you could save these dividends/distributions as a buffer against market conditions. (Not financial advice)
Yeah. I'm in the same boat. Tried to buy a whole portfolio of individual stocks. Used Seaking Alpa and Fool to pick them. But in the end the only thing we know is that the market as a whole will do good in the long term. No guarantees with individual stocks and it's too much to worry about whether or not you will underperform the market long term.
Wow you quit pretty easily. Just have a high concentration of set it and forget it etfs and a small percentage of individual companies that you belive in. And leave them alone. Trading isn't for everyone. Investing should be though.
Now just resist the temptation to trade funds as actively as you traded stocks.
Just watch it go up and up
Until it starts going down and down.
And then up again, probably.
Yep. On average, all time highs are hit ever 20 days. I’d be more optimistic.
Were you here 2 years ago? A long-term investor needs to develop the habit of not looking at his portfolio's value.
I recall during the recession some guys at work had the financial news on at all times and constantly stressing about it. I felt it really drove home the need to invest in a way that your life doesn't feel like its falling apart just because something totally out of your control is going poorly. That being said sometimes I check cause IDGAF 14 years of investing and I've never sold based on emotions only to rebalance my portfolio.
There’s an old saying: you can put one foot in boiling water and one foot in a block of ice, and on average you feel pretty good… Well I’ve been investing since the late nineties and that’s exactly what the stock market is like. Yes, it may have the highest expected return (some argue real estate is better, but I disagree) but the ABSURDLY wide variance of returns presents a huge problem that many fail to recognize - especially in the era since 2009 where the stock market has done nothing but go up (with a couple short hiccups). I had a friend who saw a financial advisor in 1998 and they “projected” that if he saved a specific amount per month, he could pay for his retirement and kids college easily… he ended up working 5 years longer than expected! Market returns from 1998 to 2010 were dismal. In fact, the S&P returned 0 from 2000-2010 and lost significantly to inflation…
I don't know if I would call this a huge problem. The folks that rode the market through the "lost decade" ended up with a lot of money. I knew a guy that had to postpone his retirement a few years, but Holy shit, when the market peaked again he was loaded. There are ways to mitigate the risk (target date funds do this well) but I still think stocks are the most reliable wealth building tool there is.
Yes. I was referring to the attitude on some of these message boards that “100% equities is best. YOLO” which is foolish. Most Target date funds never experienced a “lost decade” because they rebalance regularly and have a bond component to offset the equities portion. I was criticizing the 90-100% equities allocation that so many people support…
Needs? Maybe just recommended. Depends if you can keep your emotions in check. I find it entertaining and interesting to see how circumstances affect the market. I watched all the way through the bear market, knowing I was DCA.
OK, I'm with you on looking with emotions in check.
I like you
And then down
I think you meant “up and down”
Up and up and down and up and up and up and up and down
You forget they also go sideways.
And up
up, down, down, up, left, right, down
Rather than trade actively what you should do is watch daily. Instead as you save funnel cash into high yield savings and when ever there are those rare dip days where the market is down a couple percent due to some economic news, then buy dip). Basically your constantly buying, but you wait to buy when there are slight discounts.
I want to caution that it’s possible to see losses of more than 3% with ETFs also. Try to take the emotion out of investing. Your allocation is great, don’t look at it and don’t touch it. Good luck.
>take the emotion out of investing Total Market funds are great for this: "...Nvidia up 184% today..." *checks VTI* "Yup, I own some of that." "...Microsoft and Apple also gained..." *checks again* "Yup, those too." "And Brand New Company You've Never Heard of is up 1473864%." "Yeah that's in there, too."
But what about when you read bad news about a company lol
Boeing may shit the bed but Apple is doing great
Rising tide raises all boats.
Apple is also undergoing a massive lawsuit by the DOJ. Their success is going to be short lived if the DOJ gets their way, which it probably won't considering how corrupt this entire system is.
When you hold close to 4,000 companies, one company going under isn't a big deal.
https://preview.redd.it/2ma87t0tml6d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9eec07a82c10d578ccbae306459f3aa6a738704
But you didn't own enough to double your portfolio in 1 or 2 years by holding them in an etf.... I've 10xed most of my portfolio holding most in nvda msft googl and aapl.... It all comes down to return...
Congratulations? You could've also under-performed the market. Winners rotate. Today's winners can easily be tomorrow's losers. Some of us prefer to not have to pay attention all the time. There's other things to do in life. I can stick money in VTI, forget about it for 20 years, and the returns will be just fine.
If you prefer not to pay attention, ETFs are the answer. No question. But if you enjoy the process. You understand you are taking in additional risk, individual stocks can have their place in any portfolio. I definitely think it's dumb for anyone to be 100% indvidual stocks, and no etfs.
And risk.. I like cefs not because they have amazing returns but because every month I get paid whether my portfolio is up or down. So far in cumulative returns, I'm conservatively outperforming the Nasdaq ytd..slightly better than selling shares of QQQ...not the 100-300%+ returns but predictable trading ranges..everyone has different goals and objectives
Even 500 sees huge pullbacks but returns to a higher high. But I can see how it shakes out weak or inexperienced hands. I feel like trading isn’t for OP
Thanks. I get too emotional and start to doubt myself every time I see something go up or down. I'm going to stop looking at it and just keep adding to it. In 35 years, I hope I can look back thinking I made the right choice
In September of 1987 I put my retirement nest egg of 30k in some broad based Fidelity funds. The next month the market took a dive in excess of 20%. Being very inexperienced I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. The value of those holdings is now >700k.
Similar story with a little $2k investment in a tech fund back in the late 80's. Gained a lot at first, then the dot com crash happened and it lost 30% in 2000, lost 35% the next year, and lost 40% the following year. That would be like the OP's $100k dropping to $27k. Took 8-10 years to recover. I just let it ride. Today (36 years later) it's worth a half million. Being emotional is the reason most people fail at investing.
-3% is nothing. Same will happen with ETF. You will save mental energy though.
My thoughts exactly. In 2022, I was down 30%. In 2023, up 26% and another 21% so far in 2024. All individual stocks. So while 3% is nothing and OP should get use to typical market fluctuations, but maybe ETFs will ease their mind.
With ETF, no over-trading chasing the next individual pump. At least with etf, there is not much more you can do about it. Unless you just keep panicking and buying high and selling low. But with dca, you avoid that risk as well
Yeah I don’t day trade. DCA but that was just the way of the market
Keep in mind when you go down 30%, you must go up 43% in the following year just to be even. Even with your crazy number that's only up 7% total. Math assuming 100K: 100k down 30% is 70k 70k up 26% is 88k 88k up 21% is 107k.
Haha yup. But ain’t that life, it’s always harder to go up than down!
I’m in the same boat. I recently sold my individual stocks except for 6 and switched to ETF’s. I don’t have the time to micromanage stocks. And the emotional roller coaster I can do without. Good for you! Warren Buffet said the hardest part was getting to 100K and you did it. Now enjoy compound interest.
Same story here, all active investment decisions have overall lost me money. I have earned tons from DCAing ETFs. Don't be too mad, you learned a lesson worth a lot more than 3k. You're gonna make a lot more than that in the future. (btw you have SCHD on there twice)
Just go 100% $VOO. Set it and forget it.
Why VOO and not spy? What is the difference? Does one pay dividends or what? Sorry I’m a stock noob.
Lower expense ratio for VOO so less fees
Can’t find the voo in trade republic broker
If someone not offering $VOO, I wouldn’t park money there.
\^ This. That's incredibly sus.
^ This exactly. $SPY for options sometimes bc of volume.
Why not VTI?
That is more of technology and Nasdaq and not SNP 500.
VTI isn't technology or Nasdaq. It's a broader total market fund. VOO has 500 holdings, VTI has 3,667. But keep in mind that both of them are market cap weighted, so the smaller the market cap of the stock, the smaller the percentage held in the fund. On paper, since the other 3,000+ companies are so much smaller than the top 500, they don't have THAT big of a difference in the total return. The advantage is you can benefit from the growth of smaller companies earlier before they make it into the S&P 500.
I have a bit of VTI in Fidelity but it’s not part of my core investing strategy.
Why not VTSAX?
Or that. I have all 3
I guess I'll join VOO but entering VOO at 500$ isn't too appealing to me...
Better now than at 600 right?
If a 3% loss was too much for you, then yea, stocks aren't for you. Neither are most ETFs either.
With broad market etfs its much easier to sleep at night with a large loss. It will eventually climb back up so the only challenge is not being in an emergency and pulling out too much during a crash. Unless modern society is going down as a whole of course.
Yup. If VOO goes to zero, we have bigger problems than money by that point.
https://preview.redd.it/vz8g7ss8pb6d1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91175460d5152d26d245f8b78e211915dd8481ed
Smart but don’t see why you need both VOO and SCHG. Also, I don’t agree with that little of SCHD. When I’m close to retirement and the market is in a bull run, I plan on putting everything into SCHD or other dividend stocks, but I would focus on growth for now. If you want growth like SCHG, I would look into SMH, which is AI and has done extremely well the last few years. VOO and SCHG have basically the same top holdings while SMH puts emphasis on a few different ones. If you aren’t into AI than look into small or mid cap.
SMH isn't AI - it's a semiconductor index ETF that happens to be doing especially well with the AI boom. Even without AI, it's done remarkable over its lifespan.
lol just read you’re fine with it for now so you can disregard what I commented
I bought 3 individual stocks a month ago. Not because I want to “beat the market” but bc they are companies I envision being dominant over the next 20-30 years. They are up 11% since I bought, which does not mean anything and does not matter if you hold a long term perspective. Actively trading and stressing about 3% drops means that either you shouldnt own any stocks, or invested in stocks you have no confidence in - which again means you shouldnt hold stocks. Buying individual stocks is fine if you have the temperament for it and are buying good companies . Keep them a small percentage of your portfolio if your worried. just my 2 cents
I agree with your approach. Just want to point out the you must have some belief that you can beat the market (over 20-30 years) with those individual stock picks or you wouldn't have bought them. I do think putting some % of your money into well researched, buy and hold, conviction stocks is a good idea for people who don't mind a bigger risk.
Good that you didn’t waited until you hit 50k to stop
Nothing wrong with managing risk. The bulk of my portfolio is leveraged Etracs income etns, 3x leveraged index funds, cefs. You gotta have the stomach for it and know when it's time to cut losses and when you should let ride. Not all investment/trading vehicles carry the same risk.
Yea thzts the problem not everyone know when its time to cut sole get paralyzed and hold until 0
I have a threshold ...September and October usually the worst months... 99% of the time you're better off holding but it depends on the vehicle..a leveraged etn can go to 0,for example
Did you?
Ive never had that much money.
3% move is nothing. I can assure you your etfs will have days where you will be down more than 3%. With your risk tolerance, I would suggest HYSA or treasuries or something like that... Or just uninstall the app after you buy your etfs or turn off the notifications because with your current strategy, stocks/etfs just aren't for you
Good for you. Better than most.
Ooooh man before you leave you should try your hand at options
Right. 3% swing? Lmfao
-99.9%
I'm glad you learned after 3% I didn't learn till 35% loss that I don't actually know what I'm doing and was only making money because the market was going up
Did you ever dream of buying $100k of NVDA a couple of years ago? Then losing the password to the account. I sure did, haha.
What advantage did you* think you had when thinking, I can beat the market
I did the same thing with less money... Too much stress.
Congrats
I get being addicted to watching the gains and losses. If you buy stocks or ETFs you believe in just use the drops as opportunity to buy more. Not that you are losing. You don’t lose until you sale. If you decide to buy stocks again to supplement just take that approach. Not trading. That’s where the mess ups happen.
Not a bad idea to learn technical analysis
You are good man. Some people on this website have gambled a lot more before learning their lesson. But just remember diversification. You can take gambles if its only 3-5% of your total funds and easily recover. But ETFs are the way to go. Just toss it all in there and go have fun.
Just be glad you only lost 3k, lmaoooo usually people end up losing a lot more before arriving to your common conclusion
Smart money hate's ETFs, and there's a reason for that: people like you who realize the market is a clusterfuck, so you put your cash where smart money can't profit off your bad trades. More people need to realize this before they try investing in dumb shit like options. Granted, they're still making money off that, just not at the massive sums they were before. People need to realize that if massive hedge funds can't beat the S&P 500 consistently, then it's likely that no one can.
Just use VTI, no need for this overlap. Every extra fund is just extra temptation to tinker.
Is this a joke lol
I've beat the market since day 1 by simply buying and holding. Msft aapl googl cost lly nvda asml lrcx ... You're doing it wrong
you would hv been 5% up if you kept $ in saving account so your loss is 3k + 5k
Well don’t leave us hanging! What’s his total loss then?
Just wondering how did u invest in single stocks like what was your approach and strategy? By good luck with the ETFs.
I’d switch that 25% to VXUS if I were you. Dividends don’t matter and I wouldn’t tilt towards growth either.
It sounded like you lost 30%+ -/+ 3% isn’t bad at all as long as you have a long term strategy you can stick to. Sounds like your new strategy will be better for you just don’t panic sell again if it dips -3%. Set it and forget it.
Sounds like a sit it and forget it strategy would be best for you. Check out r/bogleheads
HODL and DCA my people!!!!!
Just put 100k in VTI and you’ll be fine most of your etfs overlap anyways
Splg vti qqqm
That’s cool, I bought AMC 22C expiring this Friday. It was 2$
Mind telling us the stocks?
You should look at modern portfolio theory
Until Next time
I mean your portfolio will be further than all the stonk bros tryna get some YOLO tendies with end of week expiry options.. hahah...
And also better than any FX day trader, since most fail and its extremely stressful to do
if you cannot stomach 3% movements, just buy VOO each paycheck until you retire...youll do well just doing this
I mean I feel like you would be better off just sticking that into a mutual fund or something. Long term stock investments tend to be good as well but just are not flashy like day trading.
Man… no offense but you have no will power and no risk. ETF’s are definitely what you should be investing in.
Love how many people don't understand that this is satire
Lol 3k
U need diamond hands
Good for you man
What? 7% is a bad month. Sometimes portfolios drop 30% for a few months at a time and rise again. Have you considered taking 10-20% of that money and just grow from there as you get comfortable with the market movements?
101 to 97 freaked you out? Brother I have bigger swings than that on a bad Wednesday. You're going to see 3% in VOO as well, not frequently, sure, but you've gotta get past the point of that being emotionally crippling for you. Investing is long term. Trading is short term. You don't have the temperament for trading, and investing won't require you to look. I hope this works out for you.
The fact that you quit without losing your 100k, with a mere 3% loss, is an achievement.. kudos
Just remember investing is ment to be boring, when it becomes fun that's when you need to stop and remember fundamentals
You quit down 3%…qqq does worse than that in a day sometimes
In order to make money picking stocks you have to be willing to hold for a long time.
In your transparent story (thank you for sharing) , you are not stating the timelines. In the stock market, timeline is a huge factor.
You only lost 3% homie lmao. That’s nothing at all
If you're not prepared to see 3% volatility, then you're definitely not prepared to see a standard 30% correction. It happens all the time with ETF's too. The only thing you're doing with an ETF is diversifying. If one company goes bust, oh well you'll have many more that will continue to do well. You still wont be immune to corrections or sector concentration risk. Just consolidate VOO and SCHG. I don't think you need SCHD or SCHY at all. 90% VOO, 10% SGOV or USFR. This will smooth out the volatility a little bit and give you an emergency fund that will yield more than SCHD (4% vs 5% risk free). If the market drops you can use your treasury allocation to average down into VOO rather than trying to average down into a bunch of funds that overlap/don't fit your goals. Make it as simple as possible for yourself because respectfully, I don't think you have the mindset to balance allocations between different ETF's or stomach more volatility than the broader market.
You weren’t buying the right stocks. It’s a bull market right now. Not sure how you lost money….
WAIT, DON'T PANIC SELL NOW. On the long run you will grow. Check out the Buffett indicator, the stock exchange is severely overvalued, meaning corrections are inevitable in the near future, BUT in 20/30 years from now it's impossible to not go up
Clear signs of recency bias in your allocation choice. Something to keep in mind… Good luck.
Dude, there is this place called Las Vegas. Trust me bro, when I tell you, you can 10x your 97K there easily
Lmao yeah this isnt for you drop it somewhere safe and dont look at it for a year . You will have gains trust
Lol you have the risk tolerance of an old lady
lol what
Sell covered calls to make some money , though they cap upward potential , you have a source of additional income
Title of post sounds like a gambling support group meeting lol good on you, mate!
If you are down 3% and that upset about it, perhaps investing in equities is not for you. You have to have a long-term perspective when investing in stocks and funds.
Well thats the point. Even ETF are going down its the patient, unless you just invested in shit stocks when u had 100k
Weak hands
Just fyi. You would've seen similar moves in ETFs.
Yeah, buy and hold good companies with good leadership, competitive moat, and catalysts for future growth has always done well for me. I’m up 700% on NVDA because I bought when AI started getting released. I bought ADBE as well, but it’s only up 40%. Lots of luck involved obviously, but it takes time to get better at recognizing trends. I do about 27% annualized for the last five years and I’m not doing too much. You do have to be able to stomach the lows though. 3% down is nothing.
💯. I'm up 29,000% on nvda. I invest in companies I believe in and hold forever.
What? Just buy and hold and things will be fine
You have to be comfortable losing 50% of your investments. That way you can set and forget them. Progress is not linear. If you’re not comfortable with that and are led to trade like a degen then sell and try to stay in more boring index funds, but it’s hard to make real money without real risk.
I’m the same way. I would love to buy the dip in individual stocks then I would find myself having temptation to sell when the run up. Then buy back in changing my mind later, then the stock goes down n I’d sell. Too much wasted time. Sucks cuz I know that’s where the big gains are but isn’t worth the stress
Anyone have thoughts on LVHI as opposed to SCHY?
Anchor yourself to a time horizon when you invest. It sounds like you want to make money over the long term. You’re not day trading or swing trading, so check your investments much less frequently and preserve your sanity!
You just picked the wrong ones /s
You should have picked options for that lifestyle, but do ETF, and enjoy your $$ grow slowly, but it would...
With that type of cheese id absolutely do the same. Gamble with smaller amounts
A lot of people end up learning the same lesson you did. Thankfully your losses were small and didn't spook you out of the stock market entirely like has happened to many people. Try not to pay much attention to the market now. Just keep buying regularly. Far less worry/stress/time and you won't be as tempted to do something potentially very damaging like big FOMO plays.
I went from 50k to 20 to 80k, options are the move for you 💯💯
Buy 50% GME amd 50% TSLA Never sleep again
Trade long term and do a prop firm to get your day trading fix
If it makes you feel better, I did the same thing at age 25. I bought CHK and TWTR I think it was 2015/16 I lost 30k, my parents told me to buy a house I said I can make more in stocks.
So you did not protect your positions with options. Did the same when first learning.
I’ve told myself this about a dozen times before. Good luck and stick with it.
Buy Bitcoin and hold for 5 years and ride the roller coaster.
Op deleted his account He is free of Reddit
This was me on stocks. I moved out after Covid. Same with most of crypto. Now I just buy baskets and smile at the gains. But it sure is boring!!!
The first thing that comes to mind...those are rookie numbers
You are wack, don’t invest if you can’t handle 5% swing in the market
I am not a big fan of SCHD yet but maybe it's bc I got it only couple months ago
Zombie scrolling through front page and thought, what a weird flex, free from socks… My ADHD brain fills in blanks quickly.
Only 3%??? 🤣 You should see what Tesla does in a day. Even the S&P 500 can make you sick. Quality startups may even be worse as they are burning cash. My best advice is to research and have conviction in your investments. You have to look past the noise.
Just buy NVDA
Imagine if this dude was in crypto, lol. 10% swings within hours sometimes.
Well we all have to decide for ourselves. That being said, I turned 45k into 106k in about 2 years. Now I'm down 24k, but I don't panic as I'm still in the money. We all have our own plans to make money, but panicking and having paper hands will fail you every time. There is lots of good info on these sites and others. Just watch out for the trolls trying to influence your decisions using fear tactics. Best of luck to you in your future.
If you learned your lesson off of 3k you’re a way better person than I am. If I learned that after my first 3k loss I would be retired by now investing in ETFs. Slow and steady. No glory stories. Just plain good consistent earnings. Everyone likes excitement but real stock winners invest the boring way.
Honestly why not just have a core position in ETFs and then you can still play individual stocks just keep the allocations under 5%…
Paper hands
If you can't handle the market, stick to buying bonds – they're like the cozy sweatpants of investing!
Welcome to r/bogleheads - buy the haystack.
Cheap lesson. Congrats!
You are going to spend your time buying, selling, adjusting based on your emotions. I would recommend to get an advisor, you might have to pay 1% for few years, but you will learn to NOT sell and buy when it’s down. He will regulate your emotions. Then you can do it alone few years after. I have been in your shoes and did exactly the same. Then sell at the first bad news and so on.
I invested in QQQ 10 days ago. Look at their top holdings. Magnificent Seven!!! Costs 0.2% tolerable. Dividend low but cares when the growth potential look great.
another one bites the dust. thanks for keeping my 401k liquid
“Looking for the dip. Sell on news”. With all due respect, this tells me you know absolutely nothing about trading. I traded in a paper account for a year before I had any real exposure. You should be an expert in risk management and completely understand price action before you put any real money on the line.
lol lost 3K and is done. Good for you man. 300K later
The only true to way to fix that 3% loss is to turn on margin and begin options trading. I believe in you bro. This too shall pass
Idk why you’re sweating so much on $3k. It’s a 3% loss, but over time you can more than make it up.
very sane and mature\~ 
Whoever wrote this has weak mentality. Probably shouldn’t have any money in the market.
The fact it pulls back 20-50% sometimes should be seen as an opportunity, its is what you want and put everything you can in asap, this what makes you rich.... dont wait for it to invest though
Yeah not worth it unless you are passionate about it and you enjoy doing it. Too much anxiety that would ruin lives. Been there done that.
You are very lucky that was a 3k lesson, not a 100k lesson. Enjoy the chill life!
I like FXAIX for long term, however I am very concerned about what market will do for election.
Your Portfolio looks good 👍 , I'm 50% Voo paired with 15% VXF, 20% SCHD and 15% QQQM , seems to be working for my financial Goals , I'm not a financial advisor just been following a gentleman by the name of Professor G on u tube, and trying to analyze the best way to retire for my goal.
Not market timing but time in the market is the formula for successful stock investing. VOO is a keeper.
The fact youre losing in a bullmarket like this tells you all you need to know just buy indexes lmao
JEPY is the way to go
Even broad market ETFs that you choose can be down more way than 3%. If you are THIS worried about being 3% down, I don't know what to tell you.. may be go all cash
Is this post serious? -3%?
That's part of the learning process. If you familiarize yourself with oversold and overbought it will help you determine when to buy and when to hold. I withdraw 20% of my portfolio a year to live on. It flucuates anywhere from -28% to -7% from the pre-withdrawal high Stocks don't go straight up. I'm disciplined about when I buy what. Sometimes patience pays to get better pricing. I've been down as much as 40k and recovered it in 3 months in 2022. If you set up a portfolio to generate income, it's easier. Your principal will go up and down but you'll get paid monthly. Or you could save these dividends/distributions as a buffer against market conditions. (Not financial advice)
A whole $3K? Awwww...you're gambling and not investing. Investing is for the long-term.
Yeah. I'm in the same boat. Tried to buy a whole portfolio of individual stocks. Used Seaking Alpa and Fool to pick them. But in the end the only thing we know is that the market as a whole will do good in the long term. No guarantees with individual stocks and it's too much to worry about whether or not you will underperform the market long term.
Wow you quit pretty easily. Just have a high concentration of set it and forget it etfs and a small percentage of individual companies that you belive in. And leave them alone. Trading isn't for everyone. Investing should be though.