What was your biggest ever mistake?

[DeepState]

... After 12 months, I feel more naive and greener than ever.

You are making progress!

1. When we start something, we are unconsciously incompetent. We have no idea what we don't know. Often that makes us quite confident when walking into the unknown. I have a neighbor, a retired CEO of a mid-sized subsidiary of a US firm, who started trading last year. Up by 30% early on, he declared that he was better than Buffett. All the usual trader talk came speeeewing out. Four am starts to cover the US developments, had to be at the desk for the closing action - no exceptions. On it went. Total Rambo. One year later, he declared that there was no way he could make money from trading.

2. As we learn, we become aware of our (usually epic) incompetence. We become consciously incompetent. At this point, we usually feel like total crap. A lot just drop out at this point.

3. After a while, if we persist with purposeful effort, we can become consciously competent. We can do it, but it takes effort. It is exhausting.

4. Under certain conditions and truly sustained effort, this becomes easy and we do it by gut. It becomes automatic. We become unconsciously competent. It just flows.


You are at stage 2. It's better than stage 1. It's the point at which you start to improve. Up until then, most people can't be told anything. They are too busy telling you how it should be done. At that stage, we don't know we don't know.

When I ran a team, I would never hire the young bucks until they had their arrogance hammered out of them and, whilst super smart, entered with the attitude "I know I don't know. But I know I can learn and will bust a gut to do so". In my case, it took about four years to get to that point (at least, I think I got there). You are super-smart Faramir. Your accelerated program got you there in one.

 

[tech/a]

My biggest mistakes have been opportunities I have not investigated.
Seen them but not followed through.

Far more costly than errors of judgement.
Far more frequent as well

 

[Faramir]

Worst was the exit fee, mine about $4000
This is where you reward the bustards, despite a dismal failure at managing your funds.

Just reading my last MLC statements before I rolled over to an Industry Fund. I can't find the exit fee. I was just happy to leave my old fund. I occasionally look at Smart Investor monthly magazine and selectingsuper.com.au. My new fund is always many positions ahead of my old fund/product. I will be the first to admit that I do not have the best solution but I definitely know it is a much better solution than before. I think selectingsuper is a good site. Maybe there are other good site as well.

You are making progress!

1. When we start something, we are unconsciously incompetent. We have no idea what we don't know. Often that makes us quite confident when walking into the unknown.

2. As we learn, we become aware of our (usually epic) incompetence. We become consciously incompetent. At this point, we usually feel like total crap. A lot just drop out at this point.

You are at stage 2. It's better than stage 1. It's the point at which you start to improve. Up until then, most people can't be told anything. They are too busy telling you how it should be done. At that stage, we don't know we don't know.

....... entered with the attitude "I know I don't know. But I know I can learn and will bust a gut to do so".

Thank you DeepState. I do not think I am super-smart. I am just grateful that when I was in Stage 1, I was nothing like this thread.
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28842
Your Lottery ticket sums up that thread.

Now my challenge to manage my time better so that I can dedicate more time to learning. I might even leave Stage 2 and hopefully enter Stage 3, even if I do it in very small steps.

My biggest mistakes have been opportunities I have not investigated.
Seen them but not followed through.

Far more costly than errors of judgement.
Far more frequent as well

Tech/a, were the opportunities you missed ocurrred more frequently when you first started or are they current 'mistakes' or is it because you had focused on one trade/good opportunity that another one passes by? Was it the lack of time and too many opportunities presenting themselves at once that it was difficult to prioritise them?

Thank you everyone for your honesty. I am happy that we are trying to learn when I could have been negative, regretful and not productive so that my mind could have been closed to learning.

 

[get better]

You are making progress!

1. When we start something, we are unconsciously incompetent. We have no idea what we don't know. Often that makes us quite confident when walking into the unknown. I have a neighbor, a retired CEO of a mid-sized subsidiary of a US firm, who started trading last year. Up by 30% early on, he declared that he was better than Buffett. All the usual trader talk came speeeewing out. Four am starts to cover the US developments, had to be at the desk for the closing action - no exceptions. On it went. Total Rambo. One year later, he declared that there was no way he could make money from trading.

2. As we learn, we become aware of our (usually epic) incompetence. We become consciously incompetent. At this point, we usually feel like total crap. A lot just drop out at this point.

3. After a while, if we persist with purposeful effort, we can become consciously competent. We can do it, but it takes effort. It is exhausting.

4. Under certain conditions and truly sustained effort, this becomes easy and we do it by gut. It becomes automatic. We become unconsciously competent. It just flows.


You are at stage 2. It's better than stage 1. It's the point at which you start to improve. Up until then, most people can't be told anything. They are too busy telling you how it should be done. At that stage, we don't know we don't know.

When I ran a team, I would never hire the young bucks until they had their arrogance hammered out of them and, whilst super smart, entered with the attitude "I know I don't know. But I know I can learn and will bust a gut to do so". In my case, it took about four years to get to that point (at least, I think I got there). You are super-smart Faramir. Your accelerated program got you there in one.

+1

I see stage 2 from most people I know who have delved into stocks at some point in their life. Interestingly enough, it's these people that seem to sell me their sage advice of "stay out of the market, it's too risky" and "leave money in the bank, best way to protect your capital".

Luckily for me, I like to keep an open mind and have persisted which has allowed me to start Stage 3 (or so I think!).

Thanks for the wise words.

 

[StockTrader010]

By far my biggest mistake so far has been buying individual equities.

Over time, I've learned that taking on firm-specific risk is not worth the risk. Stock-picking is such a waste of time. Instead, I've learned that performance improves when I stick to ETFs. As for the allocation between different ETFs, naive diversification ftw!

According to Investopedia, even Markowitz uses it (http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/11/naive-diversification-vs-optimization.asp)

 

[darkhorse70]

Good feedvack DS. Might have to stick that one on my wall.

 

[blaze182]

Haven't read through this yet, but will in a few days when I get some more time, bound to be some interesting things here.

My biggest mistake was being greedy, and massively over-extending my original position sizes. (Yep, sizeS, I did this multiple times... I like to make sure I learn things ).

 

[evilk9]

Not learning about investing sooner

 

[shouldaindex]

This is a brilliant thread.

My biggest mistake is believing the 'reality' of sites like MF (pick the next winner, why not, here are some) or HC (Gonna 10 bag, believe me or stop downramping).

It hasn't translated into $ losses, but the learning journey was put at risk by taking those places at face value, which put my $ at risk. I'd prefer to get the knowledge/strategy/skills right, than to get an individual stock pick right, so that's why I consider that a mistake.

 

[hhse]

Buying shares and sitting on it.