Here is my 4 biggest investing lessons.
Identity A Sustainable Investment Strategy That Suits You
When I first started investing, I wanted to become a value investor like Warren Buffett, but later on, I realized that type of investor needs to dedicate tremendous time to read annual reports to study the intrinsic value of companies. That’s something I don’t have time and interest to do.
Later on, I found out passive index fund investment suits me the best. This requires very little time and effort but gives you an average market return, which meets my investment needs. I also experimented with different stock vs fixed income combinations like 70:30 and 60:40 and found the ratio which gives me acceptable return and sound sleep. Since then my investment is made in auto-pilot. I hope you can find your strategy too and stick to it in the long run.
Manage Your Emotions
Our biggest enemy in investing is not the market, but ourselves. We often get emotional, sometimes greedy, and sometimes fearful, when the market price fluctuates. Emotion usually leads to irrational decisions. It’s best to plug ourselves from market movements. I think it is ok to listen to financial news like CNBC or Bloomberg but those should be mainly for educational and entertainment purposes. Never make an investment decision based on something you saw on TV or the internet!
Stay Invested
I opened my first brokerage account in my 20s, and bought a few shares, but went panic during a market downturn, sold everything, and exited investing. I finally went back into investing after a few years but missed the bull market in between. If I stayed invested I would be in a much better place today. The lesson I learned is always stay invested.
Pay Attention To The Cost
During my early years, I used a brokerage firm that charged high transaction fees and bought mutual funds with high management fees. I didn’t notice those fees but they had eaten into my returns significantly over the years! Finally, I realized the price I paid and switched to low-cost index funds and low-fee brokerage firms. I wish I could’ve known this much earlier!
下面是我的4个投资上的教训。
找到一个可以坚持的合适你的投资策略
当我开始尝试投资的时候，我想做一个像巴菲特一样的价值投资者，可后来发现那样的投资者需要付出大量的时间来阅读年报来分析公司的内在价值。这是我没有时间和兴趣做的。
之后我发现被动的指数基金投资更适合我。这需要很少的时间和精力，但是可以得到平均的市场回报，符合我的投资需求。我也尝试了不同的股票和固定收入的比例比如70:30和60:40，找到了可以给我理想回报和安稳睡觉的比例。从此我的投资基本自己跑。我希望你可以找到你的策略然后坚持下去。
管理好情绪
我们投资中最大的敌人不是市场，而是我们自己。在市场波动时，我们常常情绪化，有时贪婪，有时害怕。情绪化常常让我们做出不合理的决定。最好是能远离市场波动。我觉得听听CNBC或是Bloomberg之类的财经新闻是可以的，但是要出于教育和娱乐的目的。不要用你在电视或是网络上听到的消息来做投资决定。
保持投资
我20多岁时开了第一个股票交易户头，买了些股票，但是市场下行时我吓坏了，就全部卖掉然后不再投资了。我几年后才重新开始投资，但是已经错过了中间几年的牛市。如果我一直保持投资，我今天的财务会好更多。我得到的教训是要保持投资不要离场。
注意投资费用
我开始投资的时候用了一个收取比较高交易费的股票经纪公司，买的基金也是管理费很高。我完全没有注意这些，但是后来才发现它们大大吃掉了我的收益。最终我意识到了这个教训，换到了一个低交易费的股票经纪公司，和低费用基金。我要是早几年知道该多好！
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