Biggest Investing Mistakes

Thrugelmir

Superscrooge wrote: »

What has been your biggest investment mistake or worst investment strategy?

Selling winners and holding onto losers.

Losers rarely recover. Winners continue to grow.

prosaver

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Selling winners and holding onto losers.

Losers rarely recover. Winners continue to grow.

thats like one of my replys.
charlie brown itss funny ...
i like it when the teacher goes blah blah
its reminds me of school:p:D

InvestInPoker

Not starting earlier

Not being invested enough

Using a financial advisor when you dont have to. Costs a huge amount in the long run.

economic

I made two big mistakes that probably would have seen me retire by now:


- buy London property few years earlier (I could have given my financial position) in desired area.
- buy stocks into my ISA rather in in cash isa specially taking advantage of 2009.

tmsbry

Biggest mistakes

Panic selling when the market dips

Overspending when the markets soaring

Thrugelmir

prosaver wrote: »

thats like one of my replys.
charlie brown itss funny ...
i like it when the teacher goes blah blah
its reminds me of school:p:D

Later in life you appreciate the wisdom more.

paulstar

Buying individual company shares in the belief I was going to do better than the general market. Eventually I realised that was just playing. Now it's buy-and-forget tracker funds.

kangoora

Buying $8K of Nortel shares when they hit $30 on the way down after the dot com boom, thinking that was a good price - sold them at $5/share a year later when i left employment with them. Still, they eventually went Chapter 11 and bankrupt so it could have been worse........

ColdIron

El_Torro wrote: »

Also not making more use of salary sacrifice pension contributions. It was only recently that I started paying in more than the minimum.

I would have to echo this. Pensions, particularly via salary sacrifice, are one of the most tax efficient forms of saving. When my defined benefit plan was terminated (thanks Gordon) and I switched to a defined contribution one I continued with the same payments. All these years later I am now contributing 50% of my salary to make up for lost ground

Review your pension contributions, your older self will thank you for it

colsten

Not educating myself earlier about investments (excuses: I am too busy / it's too hard to understand anyway)

Holding shares in a single company (lured by employee purchase scheme and share options)

Spending basically all my salary each and every month on lots of stuff I didn't really need

Smoking my way through the equivalent of a nice detached house