That's not really the point, I think the point is that I shouldn't have been investing in something that could evaporate on paper in 3 months.
Either way, yes, the point is I'm a terrible equities/retirement investor and a better small business person. Everyone here has excellent reading comprehension, as I would expect on HN.
> That's not to say that your startup isn't a better investment, though.
I didn't sell at the first sign of danger (first of all - selling at the first sign of danger would have been a GOOD idea, but my father, the successful older investor, told me to hold on as it crashed.). I sold after the market had come back by around 60-70% from the lows. That was good enough for me, especially since another 'double dip' was a very real possibility in the beginning of 2010.
If I had sold at the bottom I would have lost nearly everything. But I finally liquidated after my startup was consistently making money and I actually wanted the cash to put back into the business / spend.
Keep in mind I was never broke - I just had a large proportion disappear for a while. That drove me to do 'smarter' things with it after some of it came back.
Having said all that, "You should have held on to it" is standard 20/20 hindsight that makes a market crash sound so predictable. I think I had pretty good forward-sight given the situation.
Everything can evaporate in 3 months. The world is a risky place, tomorrow someone could come out with something to make your startup irrelevant. Houses prices dropped, used car values drop with the GM and Ford bail out, we mine more gold every year. You show me an investment that is always going to beat inflation and I'll show you a scam.
The only way to real be secure is diversification and never stop innovating and hustling. If you do you'll get burnt no matter what you have your wealth in.
You sold because you were afraid of another "double dip" that didn't happen, and now you think you had "pretty good forward-sight"?
"You should have held on to it" is not hindsight, that's typically stock market investment advice. Unless a company's stats have changed to the point where it's now a bad investment, you should hold it and ride out the storm.
Yes, the entire point of my original post is that I am a terrible stock market/retirement investor and a much better small business person.
You must have missed the part where I didn't sell at the bottom, started a profitable company, liquidated the equities to invest into myself at +60% off lows, and then came out ahead 2.5 years later.
'Oh you should have held' is hindsight advice, it's not real advice. It isn't even really saying anything at all. It's just something you say after you hear someone's story about how they lost money.
I'm not sure how many posts it's going to take to tell you I did hold on, and that's why I didn't go broke and had the money to investment into my own biz.
I think at this point you're just trolling me now, so I'll end it with one more point:
If you know anything about Warren Buffett, you'd know his main thesis is to invest in only the things you understand. That's the advice I ultimately followed to end up in a better place.
Holding onto investments that you don't understand is not his advice at all - that's just a shitty platitude.
This is one thing that William Bernstein (I recommend his books) points out. You need to be able to calmly watch your portfolio halve in value and sit it out if you're going to be a buy and hold investor (or any investor, really). I have several friends who took their money out near the bottom of the latest crash and put it it cash or cash equivalents. It's the absolute wrong choice investment-wise, but it's understandable.
Selling before the bottom and buying before the climb is the right thing to do, but if you can do that, you're not spending time reading HN, you're either working hard as a trader or relaxing on your desert island.
That's not really the point, I think the point is that I shouldn't have been investing in something that could evaporate on paper in 3 months.
Either way, yes, the point is I'm a terrible equities/retirement investor and a better small business person. Everyone here has excellent reading comprehension, as I would expect on HN.
> That's not to say that your startup isn't a better investment, though.
I didn't sell at the first sign of danger (first of all - selling at the first sign of danger would have been a GOOD idea, but my father, the successful older investor, told me to hold on as it crashed.). I sold after the market had come back by around 60-70% from the lows. That was good enough for me, especially since another 'double dip' was a very real possibility in the beginning of 2010.
If I had sold at the bottom I would have lost nearly everything. But I finally liquidated after my startup was consistently making money and I actually wanted the cash to put back into the business / spend.
Keep in mind I was never broke - I just had a large proportion disappear for a while. That drove me to do 'smarter' things with it after some of it came back.
Having said all that, "You should have held on to it" is standard 20/20 hindsight that makes a market crash sound so predictable. I think I had pretty good forward-sight given the situation.