Spooky Investing Horror Stories

This week's AAII newsletter should have been published last weekend due to its theme but the topic is still quite valuable -- all the horrific mistakes investors commonly make that define the difference between profits and losses.  Enjoy, and hope everyone enjoyed their weekend.  

Thursday, November 3, 2022

Dear Member,

Heading into Halloween, we asked AAII members to share their spooky investing horror stories in the AAII Community. Several members answered our request with their personal tales. As a fan of horror movies (suspenseful, not slasher), I'm going to share some of those stories. Before I do, I'm going to tell you a ghoulish story of my own. During the dot-com bubble, I bought a technology stock a couple of days before Thanksgiving. It soared in value right after I bought it. I recall that it at least doubled in value, possibly much more. I don't remember the company's name or the stock's ticker symbol, but I do remember speaking to my father about it. He suggested on the day after Thanksgiving that I should consider taking profits.

My response as a still relatively new investor who had yet to live through a bear market was that I thought the upward momentum would continue into the following week. What I wasn't consciously admitting to at the time was my brain's overconfidence in its ability to know when to get out of the stock.

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