Investment Strategies and Thoughts

[RedWolf]

My grandfather told me a long time ago that God is not making more land. I have done well with real estate both in the US and internationally.

I've had my shares of ups and downs in the stock market. I owned a lot of Cisco shares in the 90s and cashed 90% of it in before the dot bomb. I owned a bunch of Worldcom stock and as it was tanking I kept doubling down. People always tell you the winning stories they never tell you the losing stories.

I just thought it would be a good thread to start and I would love to hear everybody else's stories of wins/losses, thoughts, strategies etc. Hopefully we can make this somewhat funny/humorous. We have to learn to appreciate our gains and laugh at our own foolish mistakes! 😃

 

[Kel Varnsen]

I’m not a big investor by any means. When I buy stock, it’s normally a couple of thousand dollars and that’s maybe once or twice a year. I hold them for the long term. I rarely sell unless I feel like I have to get out. But several years ago, I bought 2 stocks around the same time in the same industry. I figured they would probably both take off and if one failed, maybe one day the other would buy the weaker stock. The two stocks were Lyft and Uber.

Lyft has been a terrible stock.

Uber was terrible for a while because of the pandemic, but has rebounded and is now a money maker for me.

I’m still holding out for that merger or buyout to merge the stocks into one that will be a winner.

 

[Darrell Green Fan]

The only individual stock we own is Starbucks. The volitity of individual stocks is not for me so I chose to make it simple. Mutual funds and ETFs spread the risk, I invested a lot in simple index funds with rock bottom fees and just ride the market. For my bond allocation, I'm 65 and am a 60/40 guy, I utilize managed funds as index funds have too many low paying bonds for me.

 

[Darrell Green Fan]

I’m not a big investor by any means. When I buy stock, it’s normally a couple of thousand dollars and that’s maybe once or twice a year. I hold them for the long term. I rarely sell unless I feel like I have to get out. But several years ago, I bought 2 stocks around the same time in the same industry. I figured they would probably both take off and if one failed, maybe one day the other would buy the weaker stock. The two stocks were Lyft and Uber.

Lyft has been a terrible stock.

Uber was terrible for a while because of the pandemic, but has rebounded and is now a money maker for me.

I’m still holding out for that merger or buyout to merge the stocks into one that will be a winner.

I was a rideshare driver for 4 years after I retired. Loved loved loved the job, driving around talking with people on my schedule was a perfect retirement job. But the companies are absolutly terrible to the customers with their non-existant customer service and are even worse to the drivers. We faced constant threats of deactivation because a certain segment of the customer base does not have a problem costing a driver his or her livelihood by making a false claim to get out of paying for the ride. So I could never invest in these companies, they are horrible people

It finally happened to me. But I was smart and protected myself with a dash cam. After I answered all the required questions such as "have you ever solicited a rider for sex?" I asked when the ride was so I could supply video proof that this never happened and was told it was 6 weeks ago. Instead of understanding that nobody waits 6 weeks to report sexual harrassment from a driver, she waited because she knew the dashcam had overwritten the file in 6 weeks, they kicked me off and labeled me a pervert which removed my ability to be a customer. They later asked me if I wanted to reactivate my account, I guess they caught this rider lying again, but I had lost all interest. I got it back just so I could order a ride in a pinch but I never want to drive again, just wouldn't enjoy it because I never knew which rider in my back seat was going to stab me in the back.