Any way to try and claw back my bad investment choices/don't laugh please.

Marcon

Possibly the real takeaway from this is NOT to work out a 'what if' scenario - it's entirely pointless and as OP has already said, you'll end up doing your head in.

Universidad

hachiman_2 said:

do I just learn from the experience?

Don't learn the wrong lesson from the experience.

The truth is that nobody knows what happens next when something goes up, and nobody knows what happens next when something goes down. But the one sure thing is that if you sell after something went down, you have crystalised that loss, and your fortunes then depend on whether your next set of choices perform well. 

Past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future performance, but it has always surprised me that among the people who believe it is, the first bit of performance they tend to ignore is their own.

The "right" thing to do is probably to pick an investment strategy that suits your appetite for risk, and then not think too much about the day to day amounts - don't try to guess the market, better people than us fail every day.

ukdw

I tend to take the view that if a fund occasionally goes down then it is a good rather  than bad thing as it demonstrates its a volatile and therefore hopefully high growth in the long term. 

As long as  the combination of funds A, B,C &  D are decent well diversified portfolio, then rather than regretting buying B,C & D, I would possibly be thinking they are currently 'on sale', and might even be considering re-balancing some of the gains you have made on fund A into further purchases of B,C or D.

barnstar2077

Just put everything in the most sector diversified, globally invested, mostly equities fund.  One or more of the funds you have available to you maybe inappropriate, like a 100% bond fund etc (if you are years away from retirement.) 

If you are not sure of the make up of each fund, type the names of the funds in here and hopefully it will become a bit clearer.  If it also gives you the fund charges, or any other info about asset allocation, include that too.

Diversifying across funds for the sake of it is illogical if it is clear that some options are inappropriate to begin with.  Like betting on every horse in a race.  Even if the race track computer system glitched and you were given the same odds for every horse, you would know that half the field were just there to make up the numbers and wouldn't bet on them. 

leosayer

The only thing you can do now is learn from your experience and don't make a similar mistake again.

The best way to do this is by selecting a fund or funds which you know are right for your circumstances (time horizon, tolerance for volatility, future needs etc.). That way, even if you get a poor outcome (eg. a 10 year long equity bear market) you still know you made the right decision at the time.

If you're not comfortable with that, then maybe DIY isn't for you.

ader42

If you’d put all your funds in to Nvidia shares in 2023 it would have quadrupled. If you’d put the right numbers on a lottery ticket last week…

For what it’s worth, 3/4 of all fund managers do not manage to beat the stock market indexes so sensible people just buy low-cost index trackers.

Albermarle

ader42 said:

If you’d put all your funds in to Nvidia shares in 2023 it would have quadrupled. If you’d put the right numbers on a lottery ticket last week…

For what it’s worth, 3/4 of all fund managers do not manage to beat the stock market indexes so sensible people just buy low-cost index trackers.

Sensible people with a relatively high risk tolerance.

The majority of people are more medium risk types, or even lower. So in that case a sensible investment would be more a 60/40 multi asset fund. 

jim8888

I think most self-taught experienced investors have many "mistakes" they'd hold their hands up to. It's part of the learning process. I was one of those who thought he was clever by bailing out the US when Trump was voted in and, after that, I vowed to stay in Vanguard Lifestrategy funds! I still have the occasional serious urge to follow one of my hunches and plunge into gold or something, but have resisted the temptation, telling myself the best long term strategy for me is to "do nothing". Do not tinker, do not mull over your portfolio while nursing a second big glass of red wine, do not listen to anyone's opinions, blogs, podcasts or broadcasts (well, listen, just don't do anything!) and tell yourself that you're in it for the long term, while acknowledging that in the real long term, you're dead. That works for me. 

MetaPhysical

Oftentimes, one of the most important things to do is to do nothing.

Cus

Get back on the horse, maybe next time you'll beat the market...
Actually, don't.