I started trading this year thinking I would just learn as I went
That didnt really happen
Most of my trades came from following other people
posts comments screenshots stuff like “this one is about to run”
When it went up I felt like I knew what I was doing
When it went down I held and hoped it would come back
Now Im down more than I expected to be
What bothers me isnt only the money
Its realizing how many things I didnt understand at the time
I didnt really have a plan
I didnt manage risk
Most of the time I couldnt even explain why I was in a trade
Ive stopped trading for now and Im trying to slow down and actually learn
Instead of reacting to whatever idea I see next
For those of you who have been doing this longer
what helped you move from guessing to actually understanding what you were doing
Trying to learn before I lose what I have left
This year I realized how little I actually understand about stocks
byu/SolutionWest5213 instocks
Posted by SolutionWest5213
21 Comments
Honestly the hardest part was realizing I didnt even know what I was doing wrong at the time
If your picking stocks you have to first assess how long you want to hold the stock and how much you believe in the company.
Do research, invest in things you want to hold for a couple years because you like the direction of the company or sector.
Something like 90% of traders don’t beat the S&P.
Welcome to normal.
If you are willing to do it, look up what the predictions are for some stock. As a beginner, you want to look at the most assessed ones. There is this thing in finance that tells you that the most assessed markets are the more accurate, NOT GUARANTEED BUT MORE ACCURATE. so if there is a 75% of a stock going up for the gold mining industry, then yes take the stock but invest little at a time and or a lot at a time but with diversification.
Honestly you should learn first before getting into the market
VOO and chill.
Buy red dawg that’s really it. You were buying on crazy green days cuz you thought it would continue to moon and got scared on red days.
Man up
It’s always crazy to me how many people jump straight into stocks, instead of something simpler like a mutual fund.
Put about 85% of your money in boring index funds with a small yield. Gamble the rest away. You could lose it all or become a multi millionaire
Try in and out the same day. It works for me quite well. Even if you only clear $100/day that 20k per year. But you need to closely watch the market,
I’m not an expert, but I think when you start trying to understand the value of the business model, things turn around, because I’m up about 200% this year. I’ve made some mistakes and I need to learn more fundamental analysis, but for most part, anything I’ve thought “I understand why this is valuable” has either gone up or at least stayed stable.
Drone stocks are doing okay, battery stocks I missed the explosive growth of QS and SLDP by just a hair, Planet Labs carries my portfolio right now. I haven’t done particularly heavy due diligence, but I just generally try to be more active in understanding what’s going on.
Just in general being more cautious about where I put my money has paid off, but there have been a few plays I missed because I was being too cautious, but I just try to learn from the misses and the mistakes. Also diversifying and never putting in more than I’m willing to lose has kept my portfolio up even though I’ve made some mistakes with bets I took on limited info.
90% of people who try to trade lose money, why do you want to follow the masses? You’re following losers.
If you want a decent place to start, read the market wizards books. The first one is great which is literally just called market wizards, the other one, New market wizards, there are some more recent ones on top of that like unknown market wizards. You have to learn how to think and you’re going to listen to stories and narrative from proven profitable traders
This covers a lot of the psychology, you also need to learn how to do fundamental analysis and technical analysis properly, one thing at a time though, I would start with the psychology. Without that, nothing matters
I traded penny stocks and got out with a big profit. Doesn’t seem to be a lot of sense involved in that market so I put that to an end. Most of my trading after that was just small cap companies with a good outlook that also fluctuate 10-20%, or ETF’s that swing as well.
If you dont take the time to reflect and learn, the market wont give you a second chance.
When you try to trade individual stocks, you compete with people whose job it is to analyze companies and markets all day and who have every resource at their disposal to do so.
No way you will come out ahead consistently. It’s still fine to try, but wins will always happen more due to luck than your “skills”.
so you just picked random stocks people said on here? im on reddit a lot but i find stocks people say and research them to see if i can trust it.
? If you followed pelocy trades it has better performance than SP. But you have to be fast selling at profit!
Stop trading. Start investing
Gonna give the advice everyone says they follow:
1) you’re buying a piece of a company. The annual report is checked by an accountant. JoeyLottaNumbers’s rumor post is not.
2) everyone quotes Buffett’s “be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.” Nobody quotes his ” read 100 pages [of annual reports] a day.”
3) Sometimes the entire market is crazy for a really long time. It is very hard to resist for a really long time.
4) if you can’t be Warren Buffett, be Jack Bogle. R/bogleheads, I think.
omg same, i’ve just been throwing money at things that look good and hoping for the best. literally need to actually learn this stuff instead of just following random tips from the internet.
Same here honestly I’ve been relearning things from scratch and a friend shared a few things that helped me slow down