I am The Worst Investor In The World, especially stocks. If I pick randomly, if I take tips from friends, if I study the wisdom of pundits, even if I hire a manager to trade it for me -- everything I touch goes into the toilet. A few examples ...
* When I was young, the market had gone sideways for my entire life (1960-1982) -- the only way to make money was timing. So when I first started investing in 1980 my stocks (mostly HP) went up and up and up. It was well out of its normal sideways channel, and I got scared. Got totally out of the market. Sure enough, about 3 months later there was a huge crash -- in 1987. HP dropped alllmost down to the level I got out at. I wasn't sure it was time to get back in, and then it kept going up and up and up without me. Finally I said "this is insane, I've missed out on all this growth," and I jumped back in ... in late 1999. Missed about 1300% growth and then immediately took a big drawdown. I was underwater for over a decade.
* I bought a big chunk of BRK-B -- in mid-2007. It promptly tanked. I said "this is a buy-and-hold-forever stock, I'll hold on..." Gritted my teeth for over a year but I finally bailed with a 30% loss. Literally the next week BRK-B took off and never looked back. In 3 years it grew almost 6x -- but not for me.
* I said "I suck at this. I'll hire a pro." Picked a guy with a great track record for 10 years. He had a $100k minimum so I gulped and ponied up. He promptly dumped the whole wad into the market ... in late September '08. 2 weeks later my $100k was $50k.
* I bought a bit of TSLA in 2020. It almost doubled in 2 months -- great, I finally got one right!! My brother the Tesla fanboi was managing my mom's estate and he bought a whackload more right at the peak, raising my average price considerably. That was late 2021. TSLA proceeded to tank 75%. By the end of 2022 I said "This is crazy low" and I put in a buy order at 100. It got down to 102 and took off like a scalded cat, doubling in a month. Now with the recent drops I'm down 40%.
When I left Megacorp in 1991 I had $100k of HP stock (employee stock purchases) in my 401k. If I had ignored it for 33 years it would be worth about $2.25M now. But after 30+ years of prudent investing, I grew it all the way to ... $50k. (Turns out compound growth requires a **positive** return, who knew ...)
It's a miracle I can retire at all. Thank God for real estate.