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It's me again the guy who posted here three weeks ago about investing his small and modest trust fund into the stock market. Yup.
https://www.themotte.org/post/1695/friday-fun-thread-for-february-21/300977?context=8#context
I bought at the literal peak and feel like shit.
I'm angry at Donald Trump, myself, but most of all at the market for not pricing in Trump's clearly telegraphed idiotic decisions.
I picked the absolute worst date to start investing in the last three years and am experiencing no small amount of self-pity. Others at least get to have a few months of being in the green. I had one fucking day.
I put 16,000€ into the S&P 500, 500€ into Nvidia, 1,500€ into tech ETFs, and 500€—I shit you not—into an S&P 500 10x leveraged option trade I did for entertainment. Lost it all, of course.
Overall, I'm down 2000€ (~15%) right now.
I have no income stream to buy the dip with, as I'm still a student. I never had more than 2000€ in my bank account before this. I wanted to be really dilligent about not spending this money.
Woe is me. I know the market will recover, this is just a blip on my journey, all that bullshit. Still, it feels awful knowing I could have just waited one week. All that time researching Bogleheads stuff, and now I'm left wondering if I got in right at the end of the gravy train.
I still believe in my reasons for investing (I'm convinced AI will lead to an extra 1 percentage point of growth year over year).
But goddamn. My whole family was against me doing this (the money was in gold before), and ah man, it's all so fucking unfair.
(Yes, I'm a whiny upper-middle-class student who doesn't have a job, but hey, hedonic adaptation and all that. My problems are just as real as those of you who are less tall and handsome.)
Hey it's me the guy who encouraged you to use leverage.
You mention Bogleheads so I'm sure you know holding is the best move. Do not sell. Your family's advice was garbage and mine is good: do not sell. The S&P 500 is a good investment, though I personally prefer VTI!
Some are claiming this was the fifth-fastest selloff since 1950! Wow! Lick your wounds. What happened to you was marvelously unlucky. Keep in mind that all we've done is return to price levels last seen in September, a mere 6 months ago. I put a slightly smaller amount of money aside in its own account when I was your age and have never touched it, and it's been magical watching it grow.
I do still believe you should learn to trade derivatives with a responsible portion of your wealth.
Definitely not planning to sell. Sadly, my play money got burnt up by the sudden downturn, I wanted to use it to learn and do slightly riskier things. Cant afford that any more.
So ... done, and done? Congrats!
It sounds like I'm mocking, but I'm serious. My first investment account was a whopping 4 figures of "play money", split between one stock that promptly quadrupled and another that went bankrupt, and I'm really glad I got a nice lesson in diversification well before it was time to invest with kids' college money.
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