Originally Posted by
TegridyFarms
For starters—I have been incredibly lucky. First major investment was circa 2009 with SBUX when it was hovering around $10 and nobody would ever buy a $5 latte again. I put pretty much 80% of every penny I had to my name into that stock. That gave me a six figure starting point two years later.
Once I sold SBUX I decided that was a combination of luck and skill. I decided at that point to buy a little company that was mailing discs out called Netflix, which also doubles as my biggest regret. To the guy in this thread who said “I love stories like these, when the taxi driver starts talking about how much money he makes....” screw that.
NFLX Paid $16.02 a share and sold for $42. Had 1,200 shares. Still a nice profit. Today had I held that, those 1,200 shares alone would be worth $605,000. I fell victim to reading internet message boards on finance, listening to people say “bears make money, bulls make money, pigs get slaughtered.” Lesson learned.
Since then I have had some luck with some biotechs. Other than that I look for emerging markets/sectors/companies. WKHS, RMG, PLUG, BLINK, FCEL being just that in the EV sector. These are going to be huge going forward. I also own RIDE which I bought in the SPAC phase when it was DPHC (actually a reverse merger concept with WKHS).
Opportunities are there if you read, know what you own and go from there. I’ve made some mistakes (NFLX, FB—again sold way too soon, etc.) but that is tuition. Outside of that I have had some pretty good success and once the ball gets rolling, it becomes easier and easier. So for someone with $10,000–once you hit $25,000 that’s a big deal. Then $100k happens and from there as long as you’re disciplined and willing to stick to a plan good things happen.
Have my parents to thank honestly for seed money. They had set money aside for college for me and ended up giving me a portion of it once I got a scholarship. Best of luck Deltoids, just like our day jobs there are a million ways to do it—just be smart about it.
the resounding theme here is that the hardest part of investing is sitting on your hands and letting the companies and markets do the heavy lifting. I too have “taken profits” on positions that would be worth a life changing amount had I held them until today. But, that’s part of the journey with long term, buy and hold investing. You won’t understand it until you go through the course at HKU.
I like Tegridy’s dabbling in these EV stocks; I’ve done well trading contracts on them, but like he said the sector is HOT right now. Many have virtually zero fundamentals behind them and are nothing more than the figment of someone’s imagination (NKLA for example). These are fun to trade but 1% will live on to be the next TSLA. I wouldn’t start with them if I were building out a portfolio at this moment.
As always; NTFAFAP (Never take financial advice from a pilot)