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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.)
Don't worry about it. I first started my 401k in 2006. A year later I saw a shit ton of it poof and vanish in the 2007 financial crisis. It might have been $6000-10,000. That shit hurt. I panic sold the bottom, left it in some inflation protection fund for too many years, and missed out completely on the recovery. Learning this lesson is best when you are young, so by the time you are middle aged and have real assets, you have developed diamond hands.
Now I have a seven figure portfolio. I'm down almost six figures. I honestly don't give a fuck.
Let the S&P 500 and the tech ETF ride. In 20 years you'll be alright. Don't sweat the $1000 you put into relatively riskier plays, so long as the 10x leveraged option can't wipe out the rest. Leverage can be scary like that.
You're a student, and provided your degree is of any actual use, you'll have your entire adult life with an income to keep contributing to a portfolio. There will be more bull markets, there will be more dips. Investing is a marathon, not a sprint.
I was going to ask how the Nvidia ride was for you last month, since I know you stayed heavily into it.
How often do you reallocate? I've always been jealous of people with most of their money in 401ks and IRAs, because dealing with cap gains is a nightmare for my money with no tax protection.
I've just let it ride. Im still up over 20x. I may rebalance at some point this year and divert some into my S&P fund, but paying the 15% cap gains tax doesn't seem worth it at the moment. I may harvest some losses off Intel with it though.
Just think, if you'd only put $1000 into Intel in 2000, you'd have almost $300 now!
At least when something drops like this you get to say things like "Intel's up 16% this week!"
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