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Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

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Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered how you have become relatively financially secured given the number of investments decisions/mistakes you have made and for some of us are still making, both out of ignorance and sometimes idiocracy? My main one has been exchanging funds before thinking through the ramifications of the decision.

Comments

  • @Bobpa, do you remember the kiddie-ride at the amusement park where a little kid would sit in a little car and go around in a circle? Kids would turn that little steering wheel frantically pretending they were controlling the direction of that little car. Towards the end of the ride they would usually just sit back in the seat and enjoy the ride with a somewhat bored look on their face. That's at times how I've felt about investing over the years.
  • Ever wonder what it would be like to live in a world where being secure in your old age wasn’t dependent on complete randomness and luck? Linking retirement to the stock market is a bit like linking it to a roulette wheel.
  • Whether carousel or roulette wheel, time is finite for all of us.

    Where we land when our time runs out puts unique risk on our net worth as individual investors. I try to do a mental exercise where I knock 30-50% off of my Equity/Bond investments value to get a sense of what that would mean to my comfort level with the downside volatility of these assets.

    Jerry Jeff - Wheel
    "The wheel, though, keeps spinning 'round."



  • edited March 2022
    MikeM said:

    @Bobpa, do you remember the kiddie-ride at the amusement park where a little kid would sit in a little car and go around in a circle? Kids would turn that little steering wheel frantically pretending they were controlling the direction of that little car. Towards the end of the ride they would usually just sit back in the seat and enjoy the ride with a somewhat bored look on their face. That's at times how I've felt about investing over the years.

    Cool! @MikeM

    And in a few years it won’t be kiddie cars. You’ll hop (crawl?) into a real car with or w/o a steering wheel and off you’ll go!

    :)

    Re the question. Never look back! … But of course we all do dumb things or “step right when we should’ve stepped left.”

    To rephrase an old country song: “I was commodities when commodities wasn’t cool”. Lost my shirt in Oppenheimer’s now defunct commodities fund (QRAAX) back during the worst commodities bear market in history. They shut it down just as commodities showed signs of coming to life.
  • A little LUCK also helps. I've seen the roulette wheel produce the same number 4 straight times.
  • edited March 2022

    Ever wonder what it would be like to live in a world where being secure in your old age wasn’t dependent on complete randomness and luck? Linking retirement to the stock market is a bit like linking it to a roulette wheel.

    +1. MOST people can't even dream of having the sort of modest portfolio I've got. And it's not even my doing: I INHERITED the biggest slice. The rest has been my own decisions about what to do with it all, yes. My in-laws in that shit-hole country overseas go hand-to-mouth. How poor ARE they? When we send boxes of stuff, it includes LAUNDRY DETERGENT. Anyone who needs THAT sent to them is in a bad way. Just like everywhere else, they can't get out of their own way politically----- allowing for corrupt assholes to run the country. And part of that picture is the CULTURE, too. As long as things just don't move without a bit of bribery here and a bit of bribery there, nothing will ever change. To say nothing of the fact that (very much like HERE) very few have an inkling about how to grow their money and invest.
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