The idea of this column is to illustrate the importance of buying and holding.
To do so, I’m showing you my screw-ups.
I made many mistakes as a newbie stock market investor. I couldn’t help but to quickly learn the perils of selling a stock prematurely.
Anytime I need a reminder, I can just thumb through my brokerage account’s transaction history or search for a company’s name in my inbox. I still have virtually every confirmation email. They help me track my entries and exits and compare them to where a stock’s price is at present.
The only thing I can’t stand more than selling for a loss is looking back and seeing a stock price has soared after I sold.
Sadly, I have more than a dozen such examples. If I listed them all, this column would stretch into next week.
But my ample blunders from when I didn’t know any better helped to build my buy-and-hold tolerance. Now, it’s not hard at all for me to have a long-term investment horizon. Not even forever feels very long.
Consolidation is my only saving grace for several of my early exits.
I folded much of the money from multiple positions into my chosen total stock market index fund. That helped me to salvage the majority of the appreciation I would have lost from selling individual stocks.
It eased the pain of parting with a skyrocketing stock.
But I still wonder what if?
Here are my 10 biggest regrets.