Monday 5 June 2023

My Journey in investing in my 20s

Why you should start investing in your 20s if possible

Investing in your 20s can have significant long-term benefits due to the power of compounding returns. By starting early, you have more time for your investments to grow and compound over time. Additionally, investing in your 20s allows you to take on more risk, as you have a longer investment horizon to recover from market downturns. Finally, investing in your 20s can help you achieve your long-term financial goals, such as saving for retirement or purchasing a home.

What if I invested $1000 10 years ago? (Past performance is not a guarantee of future results)

If you invested $1,000 in QQQ (Invesco QQQ Trust) 10 years ago, on June 2, 2013, your investment would be worth $4,118.19 as of June 2, 2023, assuming you reinvested all dividends. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5%.

QQQ is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the Nasdaq-100 index, which is a basket of 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The Nasdaq-100 is known for its high concentration in technology stocks, which have outperformed the broader market in recent years.

However, it is important to remember that past performance is not a guarantee of future results. The stock market is volatile and there is always the risk of losing money when investing. If you are considering investing in QQQ or any other investment, you should carefully consider your investment goals and risk tolerance.

Here is a table showing the performance of QQQ over the past 10 years:

YearPriceReturn
2013$60.26-12.80%
2014$73.7522.00%
2015$74.891.70%
2016$102.3639.50%
2017$157.6053.60%
2018$156.91-0.40%
2019$184.2317.60%
2020$212.2616.30%
2021$309.1745.20%
2022$299.05-3.70%
2023$315.945.30%

As you can see, QQQ has had a very strong performance over the past 10 years, with a CAGR of 17.5%. However, there have been some periods of volatility, such as the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. If you are considering investing in QQQ, you should be prepared for the possibility of short-term losses.

My Journey

There has been a lot of young individuals who are very interested in investing but do not know when or how to start. To be honest when I first started when I was around 22 years old, I had the inertia to start as well, from which brokerage to use to finding out process for it. After creating my accounts, I was throwing small amount of money, few hundreds at different counters in the SGX. Buying Singtel, Design Studio, Tai Sin, SGX , Nikko AM STI ETF and OCBC. Some ended up profiting but some completely went to 0 which made my overall negative.

Design Studio was a huge lesson for me as I saw it halt in trading and so until now, I am unlikely to be able to sell it off and to be honest, it was a painful lesson as I just bought it without researching much and the profit guidance came just after some time that I bought it. SGX and OCBC turned out well but the losses from my other counters still overpowered the gains.

I held on to my SGX holdings but stopped adding and instead move towards the US market (bought some individual stocks although I also bought the index ETFs). It was much better over there due to the bull market and I bought the index but also occasionally dabbled into individual stocks, still listening to what was popular and I bought in. It was all good as it was a bull market and crypto came along, I bought some BTC and ETH when they were low but in minute amounts then came specifically LUNA. I decided I was going to put a substantial amount of money into LUNA and liquidated all my SGX holdings and split it into US stocks and crypto, looking back now, I was glad that I did allocate some of that money into US stocks (Tesla) rather than all in on crypto.

I am sure you know what happened next, the money in LUNA/UST went to almost 0. I cashed out whatever was left and just swap it for BTC/ETH. If I did not lose that amount, I would have attained my financial goals quicker but it was a good lesson and I learned from it including profit taking and risk allocation as well as not being greedy.

After that, I am now just buying into index ETFs and with small amounts that I have remaining after purchasing index ETFs, I put them into ETH, that’s my overall strategy for no, I do get tempted to buy individual stocks but I control that urge haha and tell myself, 'no, I should be building a base of index ETFs first or rather that should be my priority before I venture further.' So yup, my 20s have been about experimenting, buying different things that usually resulted me in losing money and finally just settled on index ETF specifically VOO and QQQ. What and how is your investing journey so far?

14 comments:

  1. compound only work if you hold for period of time and not flip flop every couple month

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    Replies
    1. Not true. Compounding can be done at different intervals, and if you take it to the extreme, then you will get what we call continuous compounding. It has nothing to do with flip flops or whatsoever. It only matters whether your trades are making money or losing it all and whether you are a trader or a piece of shit. Review your O-fucking-level math before you can even talk about finance.

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    2. You like my language? Yes, that's how they used to shout at each other on the trading floor at NYSE, or Solomon Brothers if you were that old. Although nowadays we have come and completely destroyed them but if you are lucky enough to meet me in person you will be surprised what a gentleman I actually am.

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    3. Ops, it's Salomon Brothers.

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  2. Oooo yea if market continue up. Flip flop here buy high sell low.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dude, I sibeh cannot tahan your English grammar... That idiots like you can make money in the stock market is an insult to the human race.

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  3. Hi there again,

    Its certainly an advantage to learn things at a younger age. But stocks investing is a different animal to learn lessons from, unlike other skillsets. In stock investing, the lesson learnt may be good only until the next crisis hit.

    Looking at the bigger picture, these are the lessons I learnt:

    1. Work. We are our best asset to generate income. If you are not working / not earning an imcome, do you think you can recover your investment from a market meltdown? The longer we work, the more money we can earn and save.

    2. Build up your wealth in layers. Our first layer is our CPF. Dont neglect this layer. Aim to hit the Full Retirement Sum in your SA as soon as possible and let the "real" compounding effect take effect! From our CPF savings, we could derive two important and reliable income taps for our retirement expenses.

    3. Cashflow gets more and more important as one nears retirement. Cashflow is money coming in and this is what will oil your lifestyle. In retirement or when you quit or lose your job, passive cashflow will have to be enough to feed you and your lifestyle.

    4. Diversify your investment across asset classes with the CPF as the base layer.

    5. Develop multiple income streams. And as you probably realise by now, to do the above steps, we need money. Money that can come from working and earning a salary!

    So the biggest lesson should be we are our best asset! Invest in ourself first and increase our value!

    You can see our income taps here : https://t.me/CPF_Tree/2115

    ReplyDelete
  4. When you start to value experiences more than wealth, then three things might have happened: 1) you became old 2) you became rich 3) you gained some unconventional wisdom.

    I have started to value life experiences more.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 新加坡lady要记住:凭运气赚来的钱,终将凭实力亏掉。一个人,无法掌握超出德行的财富。《周易》中说:“德不配位,必有灾殃”,也是这个道理。

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  6. Best if you find a Rich Husband.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even better if you have a Rich Dad.

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    2. Better than ever if your Rich Dad has only single child.

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