Taking a quick break from my debt story I wanted to turn to a quick investment update.
I am an amateur investor to say the least. I made my first serious investment almost three months ago to the day. In that time it's been a pretty wild ride. I received my first dividend payments and I got a chance to really see my money take some action as the stock market was on fire for this first party of 2012. I saw how my money went from one value to a much higher value. This is a very lucky experience as if I hadn't experienced the high first I would be even more distraught now that my portfolio is at an all time low.
As of this morning I have now lost $16. That means that after all the dividends I received and all of the money I have poured into the market these last few months it is worth $16 less.
That is very difficult for me to accept and I'm not sure I've even seen the bottom of it yet. It's very unfortunate as I had just purchased some shares of AAPL (a great company who I think we will see many more great products from in the future) just before the stock decided to correct itself (or the market correct the stock rather).
However I'm not going to give up. When the chips are down I know that this is the time to try and pick up some shares at a discount. I have to learn to see things long term and that if the market is down things are on sale. If the market is up so are my stocks.
How did you handle your first loss?
I think the important thing is to redefine what a "loss" is. I think too many investors look at the price of the stock, and say it's a gain when the price is up and a loss when the price is down. That's not true, if you don't sell the stock. What matters is the dividend price and the number of stocks you're holding.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first invested, one of my stocks went up by 20,000 yen. I was so excited and I immediately sold it. Then, 3 months later, I had no dividend income. I could have bought something else, but most stocks went up in price equally.
Now, I'm happy when one of my stocks tanks, and see it as a positive sign to buy more!
Note: I only have stocks in big companies that I'm confident will be around forever.