Overreliance on or Ignoring the Experts Can Both Do Damage
My worst investment, in terms of stupidity, but not the biggest loss, was when I started acting on information I heard on a radio program about investing in stocks. Past performance is no guarantee of future success I had listened to this show and had been very lucky with my first investment; a…
Read Full PostOne of Thousands Who Followed the Herd to Big Losses in the Dot Com Era
The worst investment experience in my life was during the Dot Com period of the late 1990s, when almost everyone was a fanatic about the “Internet magic”. I was no exception. Many friends around me were talking about the idea of start-ups and later selling the “company” to some big guys on The Street, such as Yahoo or whoever, and making billions from this…
Read Full PostMissed Opportunity Stems from Hasty Decision on a Stock
A few years ago, I bought a stock at 40,000 Vietnamese Dong (VND) per share (US1.71) after considering that the stock was undervalued. Then, the stock rallied to VND50,000 and dropped back to VND41,000/share. I sold all my stock at this price to protect the VND1,000/share gain! After my apparently overzealous reaction, the share price doubled over the ensuing six months. Lessons…
Read Full PostClassic Bike Collecting Dust Is Better Than a Dog of an Underdog
When initially considering what my worst investment was, I thought about the 50-year-old Royal Enfield motorcycle that I bought in my early 40s (guess why?), which is so delicate that it never works and just stands in my mother-in-law’s garage in Switzerland. But on further reflection, it still makes me happy that I own this bike, which means: “I’m…
Read Full PostClassic Case of Caveat Emptor (Let the Buyer Beware)
My biggest mistake was the purchase of a presale condominium unit in the Philippines as an investment without doing sufficient due diligence on the developer and the process itself. Investor puts singular belief in property salesperson I just believed what the real estate broker told me and now I’m at risk of defaulting and losing all the down payments that I have made over the course of more than two…
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