My Worst Investment Mistakes

Stock market investing can be a great way to get rich. But sometimes, things go poorly. In this video, I break down my worst investment mistakes so hopefully you can avoid them and learn how to invest like a pro.

My goal is for you to learn some lessons and NOT repeat the same mistakes I made!

I began stock market investing when I was a teenager. And back in 2010, I was really getting into investing. I had just purchased a lot of Apple stock and was already beginning to see a nice return. Check out Apple stock market investing video here: https://youtu.be/YA8Q6EHdIDU

So I did research on how to pick stocks. Since I had relatively little money, I thought to myself that I might as well try and get rich!

In reading the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, I came across a stock market idea that I loved. See, back in 2010, the financial world was in chaos. We had just gone through a massive stock market correction and were just coming off the heals of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

I thought, then, that safe haven assets would outperform other stocks and assets.

Gold was a safe store of wealth and a hedge against inflation. Gold has never been worth zero, and gold has always had some monetary worth to societies everywhere.

Also, because the Federal Reserve was printing so much money, I thought we would have high inflation going forward.

So did I buy gold? Not quite. I was TOO SMART for that… or so I thought.

I wanted to buy a gold mining company. This was basically a way to potentially leverage my bet on gold.

Gold mining companies make more income when the price of gold rises, and they have lower expenses when the price of oil falls.

Well, the price of oil was falling, and I thought the price of gold was going to skyrocket. Double win.

But most gold mining companies have operations in unstable countries.

So in comes Agnico Eagle Mines, also known by the stock ticker AEM.

AEM was based in Canada and its operations were only in North America. So there was close to zero government risk to their operations.

So I made $5,000 of purchases of AEM and I bought it around $55-$60 per share. The price quickly went to $77 per share.

But then, one morning, I woke up, logged into my Merrill Lynch brokerage account, and saw the terrible, terrible news.

One of AEM’s mines had flooded and they were shutting it down.

And just like that, I lost 20% of my original investment. Now, AEM would no longer be able to extract any gold from their mine, and they would be responsible for the costs of remediation.

I learned a great stock market lesson: Diversification. That is why I invest primarily in broad based, low cost passive index funds. I get to own everything.

If i would have invested in a simple S&P500 index fund at that time, I would have made over double digit returns since then.

My second biggest investing mistake is not opening a Roth IRA earlier. I began working some when I was a teenager, and also began stock marketing investing as a teenager.

I should have opened a Roth IRA earlier, that way I would have had way more compounded growth and tax free income!

What do you think? Subscribe and comment below!

--------

The high yield, no fee, free ATM checking account I love that comes with a sign up bonus:
SoFi Money: https://bit.ly/2PQk3Sj

AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE: Some of the links on this webpage are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a commission if you click through and sign up. However, this does not impact my opinions and comparisons.

Видео My Worst Investment Mistakes канала Kevin Conway