I once lose 8k in forex. just because I managed to get return 2k before losing huge amount. I was greedy and overconfident. That was 7 years ago.

Started investing since 2009.

Lesson learnt: Best time to start is after a recession.

Lost about EUR2k trying to understand forex derivatives.

Lesson learnt: Not for mortals. Will not touch ever again.

Got some stocks in the red, but fortunately overall up cos of portfolio diversification. Worst performer -44% (LPKF). Best performer +511% (MSFT). Lucky enough to have made more hits than misses. My holding period is very long. I've held MSFT for 10 years.

Lesson learnt: Diversify, won't be super rich, but will let you sleep at night.

Invested in a friend. Purely emotional decision. Bought into his sob story, and wanted to help him

Long story short, the guys a con. Lost about 20k.

The experience gained however is immense. Never give into emotional blackmail and be prepared to burn a bridge. That pain of being betrayed is still very fresh, and now all my friendly loans are backed by paperwork and guarantees/collateral.

Invest in btc n eth during hoo haa time. Lost 10k. Lesson learnt.
Goal post need to be shift again.

BTC is gaining traction back from 4000 to current >5000 level.
It's time to go in again!

it is easy to start up any business but within 5 year how many of them close down? 70% and within the next 5 yr how many of those surviving business actually survive.? only 10%.. just like any top athelete and business. this is a truth and a statistic that we cant ignore. But here is the trick the moment you are within that top 10 % you can buy anything include private yatch or jet or any limited edition watch. This is the truth.

Trading is a business that if you have no risk management you gona loss it. it is all about probability mindset and dealing with constant uncertainty. which is no different from traditional business.

i am consistently taking my losses whenever it predefined. following my trading plan.
you can be a long term trader that follow monthly chart or short term trader watching 15 min to 1 hour chart it is the same except the reaction have to be much quicker in 15 min chart.

prior entry you can choose what to buy at what price level and how much to buy. and after entered the trade you only have 2 choice where to take profit and cut your losses it is all about emotion and psychology. if you dont have that sorted out dont take it.


QUOTE FROM SOROS;
IT'S NOT WHETHER YOU ARE RIGHT OR WRONG, BUT HOW MUCH YOU MAKE WHEN YOU'RE RIGHT AND HOW MUCH YOU LOSE WHEN YOU'RE WRONG.

This post has been edited by normanTE: May 7 2019, 04:32 PM

Lost 230k investing in precious metals stocks.

However, that was after I made 1.8mil in them same stocks.

Lesson learnt: nothing goes up forever!


Anyone here got burnt by Genneva gold???

Thank you for all not hesitate to share the experience. It's really seldom reading about the adverse side of investment as none would like to share the failure.

So far, have not seen any unker aunty share about the 2008 and earlier recession, how to live over the doom days. May be we all here are majority investor (or new) of youngster generation which yet to experience those suffering moment from financial and investment perspective.

Always we heard some sifu suggest to average down and when you believe continue to hold, or save warchest and get ready to hoot during/after recession. I just don't understand how to hold up my believe when the price arrow are shooting down in a graph and my heart is keep pumping the blood all over the body while we unable to identify where is the bottom and start bounce back.

Are you able to hold?
Are you dare to hoot?

This post has been edited by fairylord: May 7 2019, 06:41 PM

How to know what to hold? Hold cash rich companies, companies which people still need to use during bad times or good unit trust.

Yes no problem holding.
Yes no problem hooting also as evidence in Dec 2018. When price of a stock drop by almost 30%* take a chance and hoot.
Not seating on 10%p.a dividend


This post has been edited by Ramjade: May 7 2019, 07:37 PM

The reason why investor can decide on the above questions is because they don't have strategy and plan.

The fundamental of the investment is very important. First criteria is u must satisfy yourself whether ur selection of your investment is a good and resilient one. Once u satisfy yourself with that, then it is very easy to decide. When the price is low, u keep entering to average down. U will not be able to identify the bottom but if u have a plan (like down by x% or x amount then u enter). Without a plan, u wont know when to enter.

This is why many investor exit the market last year and those who stay invested or even top up during down period get to reap off the benefits when it rebounded.

Back in 2008 when the market was bad, auntie A invest more when the investment is losing money. When comes to 2009, uncle B enjoys a 60% rebound but auntie A who invests more when the market was low enjoy 80% rebound. In this case, both auntie A and uncle B invest into the same investment, which is good and resilient, just that A top up when it's low and B didnt top up.

Not saying that history will repeat but if u know your investment well, have a plan / strategy, then u will succeed more than those investors who doesn't have the knowledge.

Also, those "sifu" is partially right bout average but this is half the story. Did they tell u the other half of the story is to satisfy yourself with a solid and resilient investment? If one keep average down a lousy investment, then this person is losing more money even more especially when the investment doesn't rebound or stay negative for the next 10 years or more.

You see from the stock/shares part of view. There are other types of investment which if hoot correctly and hold, have low risk (if you know your investment well).

Of course, common scenario almost if not all investor will lose or make wrong decision throughout the journey, but if one has the proper knowledge, the wins are always more than the lose and the lose generally is insignificant amount if compare to the wins.

So if one made a good choice at the present time, but suffer loses in the future due to circumstances say market downturn, rather than term it is as "burnt", we would say its a loss of money in investment.

If use the term "burnt" meaning one have no proper knowledge and sebarang hentam making poor choices and occur losses. Hence the term burnt.

Siu dai talk kok only.

just remember this: when you -50%, you need +100% to make it back to where you came from, and it's almost impossible given that if you cannot make positive investment.

This maths is hard coded to make people lose in investment especially without first understanding risk of ruin.

If you don't know this, you will probably tinkle with martingale and end up ruining your portfolio.

x% traders will lose x% of their portfolio in x days. You tell me what is x=?

1. Bank Foreign FD: bought when GBP tanked around 2008, huge chunk of profit eaten by massive bank FX spread
2. Bank Gold Account - went practically nowhere in 6 years, CAGR prolly around ~2%
3. Crappy endowment plans - PruCash, HLA Evergreen - more than halfway through/completed, will just put leave them in the naughty corner of my portfolio
4. Heng Yuan share - learnt to treat i3 forum like kopitiam
5. 'Saving' more with ILP - have since tuned down premiums to levels enough to sustain policy

All in all, only no. 4 resulted in -ve realized returns. The rest being cost of opportunity.

This post has been edited by roarus: May 7 2019, 10:30 PM

Before I start, I would like to clarify that I am not yet an unker category, but I have lived through 2007-2008 subprime crisis (second crisis in my life).
Reason I did not share about the subprime crisis is because my losses were quite insignificant as compared to the loss I shared regarding MEGB. I had the first crisis in year 2006, just before the 2007 subprime meltdown hit.
So my capital wasn't a lot when it hits. I only started rebuilding back my warchest from 2008 onwards by hustling in between classes and then reinvested everything (hoot) back into stock market into 2009. That was my big break and I finally got to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I recovered when the market boomed into 2010, where I got the confidence and hoot into the wrong MEGB (which made me lose a hell lot of money I recovered).

The MEGB saga took me 3 years to get back on track and in 2013 I decided to put back everything to hoot the market again. Between 2013 and 2015, it was my hayday as I made a lot of money (and loss some).
For the past 20 years of my investing journey, I have lost and re-hoot the market over several times. Now I have learnt to hold on to my stocks, don't want to repeat the same mistake again of selling and realising the losses during a crisis.

Sold an ICO at 13x profits, then it went on to 100x. Opportunity cost of RM200,000 there.

Held another ICO up to 25x and didn't sell, now trading at cost price. Opportunity cost of RM80,000 there.

lost more than 10k because trusted my remisier to make the right speculative call

lesson learnt: DYOD

Made some losses investing in stocks and lessons learnt. I think due to the following reasons:

1. 'Does not really understand' what and why I am actually buying. Some are from tips, analyst recommendations etc. They will only tell you when to buy, wont tell you when to exit.
2. Does not have the time to monitor closely, and also the knowledge to reach a decision. Some people will said everyday just spend a few minutes look at the price, but you also have to know what each price level means, otherwise it is just numbers to you.
3. Most important. Did not set exit target (take profit and cut loss). Ended up just buy and don't know when to sell.
4. Since doesn't have a clear objective, I guess it also doesn't help in mitigating the emotional up and down looking at the stock price movement. Ended up making decisions based on gut feelings.


So after these lessons, I realized I'm not suitable to invest in stock market. So I go for unit trusts, but i guess this one is a story for another day as this thread is about getting burnt in investment.

Goldquest from Hong Kong.

Younger years, plain stupidity.

Invested in an offshore registered company for 5k, but got return 300k in a month. Instead of sending money back but i decided to let go. Dont understand why the gain in such a short period scare of dirty money. Dont know whether im stupid or what but probably im fated to be a failed investor who has small risk appetite

Amithabha........Om, Om, Om.



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