Comments on: Humble Beginnings – Adventures of a Stock Investing Newbie

By: stag do

stag do — Sat, 05 May 2012 06:01:54 +0000

Any of you come into a significant amounts of £ from humble beginnings? Did you manage to keep a normal life and not tell? Most importantly, how do you keep your relationship as blissful as it is? In what unexpected ways do you change as a person, or what unexpected things are different?

By: zen

zen — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:03:03 +0000

@Tamayo: Sorry it took so long to respond, I’ve been pretty darn busy recently. I predominately hold ETFs and Index funds for my retirement account. As far as trading, I mainly do advanced option trades (ie bull puts, bear calls, condors, etc). My strategy is very different than most people because with options I can make money in any market (up, down, sideways). I shoot for consecutive singles and doubles and tend not to trade for Homeruns (although a homerun every now and then is nice).

People call this recovery a suckers rally. IMO, the sucker is the one on the sidelines. I understand that we are in the midst of a jobless recovery with unemployment still high, but I believe high unemployment is here to stay. Natural unemployment is usually around 4%, when the dust settles, I think it’ll be 1-3% above that. Simply an opinion.

Companies have been cutting costs for almost a year and now they’re beginning to realize they are more efficient than they ever were.

I personally believe we’ve already hit the bottom since March. Before I launched this site, I ran a stock group and was active on many stock forums. Sorry, I won’t say which ones for anonymity.

I would look into tech for opportunities.

Please see my WEBSITE DISCLAIMER

By: Tamayo

Tamayo — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:52:45 +0000

Zen,

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I also went through what you did during the .com crash. I also had held onto a IPO for too long just watching it drop. Being a noob was very costly. One thing also is that this current rebound/recovery is like watching the ship sail by. What are your thoughts on that? Do you see some stocks that are way undervalued and can still be had at a bargain? 08/09 was/is a rebuilding year for me so now that im at where i am, i have some discretionary funds to put in the market… oh and are you option trading too?

peace

By: How to Begin Stock Market Investing | The Zen Capitalist

How to Begin Stock Market Investing | The Zen Capitalist — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:08:21 +0000

[...] The best way to start investing is NOT by jumping in head first and putting down $2000 on some random company that you hope to appreciate over time. That’s the way I started in high school. It hurt. With ill-preparation, I was not able to control my emotions, I did not understand the financial tools available to me, I was inundated with simple financial information, and I lacked the decision making skills when it counted the most. It’s my goal to prepare you the right way so you don’t relive my experience. [...]

By: zen

zen — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 07:55:49 +0000

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, a great read. I’ll have to look up Market Wizards.

The story above is just the tip of the iceberg with my experience with trading. The rest of it will unfold in the next couple of months.

I am just grateful that I was humbled by the market early in my career. IMO, if you haven’t been already, it’s just a matter of time.