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I used to sell plasma, and I used the funds on Robinhood to try investing without affecting my regular cash flow. Through sheer luck, in one day, my account went from around $200 to over $2500. I was overjoyed. I’d clearly made a genius-level decision that would only continue to pay out.
Anyway, I woke up the next day with less than I’d had to start. Should’ve taken the money and run. Or not tried to time the market. Either way, it felt like I’d lost $2300 instead of $50.
Need to read a random walk down wall street. Great book. The premise is no matter what news story hits the market, that information is already reflected in the stock price. Therefore, his theory is that you cannot out beat the market and it is in your best interest to dollar cost average a market tracker. That is investing. Myself I believe what you are describing is gambling.
Haven't read that book, but I've been very successful with the opposite approach. A favorable article about a company's stock in popular mainstream media (not business publications) can push the stock up briefly over the next couple weeks based on false hopes of the clueless general public. Get in immediately, get out within a couple days if nothing happens, and within 2 weeks if it does. My other rule is only do this with options, not actual stocks. And yes, I too would call this gambling - but investing is never not gambling. It's just more or less so depending on how you do it.
That is true investing is never not gambling but a lot of people use like their savings for what you would do and that's the difference. Its like the casino, go into it with the amount of money you are willing to lose. If you can't lose that money don't go into the casino. Same principal with individual stock picks and options.
Might want to check this out: Beat The Couch.
That's an interesting game but it assumes the same amount either in or out all at once. Not what I'm describing where each month you invest a set amount into the market each time. This is what 401ks do. While the beat the couch is pretty cool it doesn't take into account the dollar cost averaging aspect. It's all in or all out. It's not in, then buy more, then buy more, then buy more then buy more etc....you get the picture.
Having said that it is absolutely true that time in the market is better than timing the market.
I fully agree it's not a complete stock market model, but I don't think It claims to be.
I don't remember it addressing what happened to dividends paid; are they just banked, reinvested, etc.
It's certainly a cool tool
This is why I don't invest. I tried it for a relatively short span of time. It was a large company that isn't a scam or anything but I can't remember the name of it. They had three sort of options for investing...1. high risk/reward, 2. Medium risk/reward, and 3. Low risk/reward.
I either picked 2 or 3 or something. Can't remember which. All that stupid thing did was lose money due to broker fees. I watched the money slowly drop over the span of around a year from "fees" with literally never earning a dime. I thought it was ridiculous so I pulled the rest of the funds.
I instead chose to place that money in a high yield savings account. Does it earn money quickly? No. But it isn't wildly unpredictable like investing and it will never lose money unless I take money out. Investing isn't for me.
With all due respect, what you did was not investing; it was closer to speculating. If your time horizon is less than 5 years, what you should look at is a savings account/certificate of deposit, not the stock market.
I had a mutual fund once (the Putnam Health Sciences Trust) that went down three or four years in a row (probably about 30-35% total). The same financial advisors who recommend I buy it advised that I sell it for the last two years I owned it. I didn't take their advice and held on to it - the next year it had about a 75% increase. I would have missed that and locked in my losses if I had listen to them.