Investment Mistakes That Almost, And I Mean Almost, Wiped Out Sol’s Retirement Money

Mistakes we can avoid altogether

Sh!t happens.

Of course, it does.

But that is way too simplistic to think about things. We must dig deeper. Sh!t can happen to us in 2 ways.

• It visits us despite doing the right things. Okay. Take a deep breath~
• We actively collect it, and that poo pile explodes on our faces. Well.

In the case of Sol, it was the latter.

But, like all of us, he had moments of folly. He thought he was dutifully practicing the former. Well.

Mysteriously, his name reminded me of an acronym.

Sol’s Sh!t Outta Luck.

The Investment Portfolio of a Lifetime

Sol’s portfolio stumped me.

I have never seen anything like this.

Of course, I am not a nosy-parker. I don’t enjoy listening to or scrutinizing investment strategies, philosophies, and accounts. To each his own is my mantra.

Sol pressed on.

“Hey, please. Help me take a second look at my portfolio. I want to know what you think of it.”

My left eyebrow went up.

“And what are you going to do when I’m done?”

He stared at me and sighed a long sigh. It’s obvious. He has no clue.

“I have no idea. I will think about it later.”

Fair enough. We don’t always know what to do next. But the recognition of a problem is the beginning of a solution. I agreed to take a second look.

Although I got curious who [actually] took the first one. No matter.

Sol showed me his account.

In an instant, I noticed,

• Stocks turned into penny stocks.
• 10,000 fun coins were purchased at $2 and are now worth $0.30 each.
• 3 near-worthless NFTs* whose artwork is GOD-Like cryptic. Is it a monkey? A koala? Man!

*NFT = Non-fungible Tokens

On top of that, endless buy/sell transactions.

This portfolio Sol showed me is down 95% for the year. And this year hasn’t ended.

I am [just] glad this guy is still alive and breathing.

It’s 95%, pals and gals. I would have taken a 3rd job during the graveyard shift to make back my money.

But Sol appeared cool. He was unfazed. It felt as if he had weathered multiple financial storms.

I don’t know.

I’m guessing.

And I was hoping [and praying] that he had a second investment portfolio that is doing well.

“I hope this is money you can lose, Sol. You have been bleeding big money real fast.”

A reply came 2 minutes later.

“This is 70% of my retirement money.”

What. The. F.

At Loss of Words

Yes, I was.

I put myself in his shoes. It must have been terrible. He took years to grow the pot. It was meant for his Golden Years. Now? He lost money to the monkey. Err… koala.

“Hey man, what is with the monkey-la? Why did you buy that?”

“I don’t know. Everyone told me this is digital art. And since art is scarce, the price will always go up. Mona Lisa was valued at USD 100 million in 1962 and is worth $1 billion today, right?”

My fragile heart nearly skipped a beat.

Make it two.

Okay, three.

Sol was comparing the monkey-cum-koala, or koala-cum-monkey… to Mona Lisa??

I would be so bl00dy offended if I’m Mona Lisa. Oh, God. Come on. At least I can tell Mona Lisa is a female. At least.

Sol could tell I was having a conversation with myself. He decided to prick my thought bubbles.

“Hey, man. Is this a buy-and-hold for 30 years kind of long-term investment?”

I stared at him. I stared at the monkey. No, koala. No, monkey. Whatever.

And I thought to myself.

Who will buy this sh!t in 2053?

Maybe, Sol is the final buyer of the century. Maybe.

And I wonder.

Would Sol be happy to be an NFT collector?

Honestly? I doubt.

I had nothing to say. So, I said nothing.

The Endless Buy-Sell

“You have been on a buying and selling spree. Why?”

Sol laughed.

I wouldn’t.

My boxers would be soaking in cold sweat.

“I took profits when investments go well. I buy when prices keep dropping.”

Made sense.

Sol has been selling his winners and averaging his costs downwards by accumulating fun-coin from $2 to $1.50 to $1.20 to $0.80 to $0.42.

It demonstrated unbelievably good faith in the fun-coin.

“Are you planning to sell it, Sol?”

“Yes, of course. I will sell it when it hits $5 per coin.”

“Oh, fan-tas-tic [sarcasm intended]. Why are you so confident it will happen? What applications can you use this fun-coin for?”

“Oh, I don’t know. But this is my buy-and-hold play. So I keep buying. I know prices will always go up in the long term.”

“So… how do you know?”

“Because Warren Buffett and Jack Bogle said so.”

Trust me. I almost died. It was death by a thousand paper cuts.

First the monkey. Erm, koala. Now? Blind mantra following.

I screamed at the top of my lungs in quiet desperate silence. I no longer know what to say.

It felt like Sol was a buy-and-hold person when losing money and a trader when making some money.

It made no sense to me.

• Why accumulate sh!t-coins when everyone else is dumping it?
• Why sell off the winners [just] to book a $50 profit?

I have no clue.

“Aldric, why should I do?”

I smiled.

“I hope you are not retiring anytime soon, buddy.”

He gave me a bright smile. Sol assured me that he would still be working.

After all, he is only 43. He needs more money, he says.

And I remember thinking… indeed you do.

The Close

Investing our money accelerates our journey to retirement. It does.

We will never earn enough. We have to get the markets to compound it.

But it will only work if it is compoundable.

That is the investing mindset we need to have.

And.

Our investments should allow us to sleep well at night. Losing our money, mental health and future retirement is a triple whammy that keeps us in our cubical jail longer than we [actually] want.

Don’t do that.

And if there is one recommendation I have…

Please.

Please.

Please avoid buying a monkey that looks like a koala or a koala indistinguishable from a monkey.

Yes. It may be an artwork.

But… it is likely to be an offensive one… to the eyes of that next savvy buyer/investor.

Chew on it, pals and gals.

Chew on it.

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Oh, oh, you can buy me a cup of black too! Thank you!