I wanted to touch base with you, and see if I can learn from your experiences about investing beliefs.
Q2 2020 hedge fund letters, conferences and more
What Are Your Investing Beliefs?
I recently asked folks on Twitter the following question:
"What is something you used to believe about investing, but do not believe anymore?"
I received some interesting responses. You can check some of them here.
I also reached out to readers in my investing newsletter, and they offered some great ideas as well.
I wanted to reach out to you and see if you would be willing to share any investing beliefs you had, which you no longer have. If you are willing to do so, I would also appreciate hearing more about the reasoning behind the decision.
You can feel free to post your comment below.
I will likely use those in an article that may appear some time in the future. Obviously, your names/profile names would not be used.
Thank you for reading!
AnonymousAugust 12, 2020 at 7:54 AM
A nice question!
I would say that I had until very recently two investing beliefs: (1) investing is so risky that it essentially equals gambling and (2) choosing stocks is so complicated and time-consuming that a regular fellow could never do it.
I changed my mind quite recently though. About three months ago I happened to read a book and a couple of blogs recommended by a friend. So the first belief to go was the riskiness aspects and the realization that the 'risk' (of stock price eating up my hard-earned money) is significantly reduced in case of receiving payments while holding stocks. I was initially drawn to ETF investing, but after more reading, researching and training I arrived to the FIRE movement and discovered that the individual stocks fit much better the idea of generating an acceptable yield and that there is a lot of help out there (dividend achievers lists etc).
My experience in investing was limited only to a couple of investment funds (very unhappy with the returns) and participating in one IPO without really knowing what I was doing, as well as some small amount in crowdlending. However, I now have a growing investment portfolio of US and European stocks.
So I am still quite a beginner and time will tell, however I am quite convinced about the course, because it doesn't happen often that one has their belief so strongly shaken. So far so good.
Your blog has also been a great discovery, certainly one of the best out there!
Biggest problem has been believing big companies are run by smart people that can turn things around. F, GE, IBM, super worried about XOM
Next is pursuing high yields.
I try to decide on next purchase and then look at it as a commitment to come in and buy more in a year. It helps me to review balance sheets.
Regards
