distopiandreamgirl83

Hatorian said:

Silver lining though I’ve had 5 straight profitable trades in the past 2 weeks. I just need to trust my decisions and not close out too early. 

Hey that is awesome. I have exited too early many times. Now I almost always just keep moving my stop loss up when I'm in profit until I get stopped out. Of course you can still get stopped out and have it continue higher but at least I don't feel like as much of a dope when that happens.

Thanks for sharing the guide, it looks extensive! How long did it take you to learn all this? I look forward to going through it.

Thanks, wow I think it's been at least 15 years since anyone recognized where my handle is from! haha

Thank you for your reply. Part of me really wants to take this opportunity to make a bold move and try something different. However, I know that it would be more practical to try to find a new job, hopefully paying more, build up some more savings and then try to start something on the side. It's just hard to for me to muster up the motivation to do serious job hunting when I am thinking of that job as just a means to an end. I keep cycling through job searching for normal full time jobs, looking at training to do some other kind of job (potentially something I could go out on my own with later), or looking at business ideas/side hustles. Right now I am doing a half-assed (third-assed?) job of all 3.

I think you have a great idea of taking some courses on the side to build out your resume. One of the reasons that I'm so jaded with my current job is that I'm not learning anything new anymore, and we are lagging technologically in our industry, so I don't have a lot of experience with the latest and greatest tools that other companies are using. I am definitely considering further education, I'm just not sure if I'd be better off sticking with the area my experience is in (digital marketing/music/e-commerce) or something else that I might like better and might pay more.

Anyway, I should have a better idea in the next month or so if my job is likely to end this year and I guess that will be a big factor in my plan. Thanks again, I really appreciate the input!

Does anyone here enjoy giving career advice or know any good resources? I have been poking around reddit boards but I haven't seen anything really relevant to my situation or anyone with extensive knowledge commenting. I've been working in basically the same job for my whole career (I am 12 years out of college) and I feel like I don't have much to show for it. I'm a little jaded with the corporate world and would like to have my own business someday. My job may be ending soon and I need to figure out my next steps. I'm not sure if I should focus on trying to find a better job in my same field (which I don't really like), learn some new skills to try to find a better job in a different field, or try to start a "side hustle" which could maybe later turn into a full time business. Anyway I can give a much more detailed background but I thought I would put a feeler out first. I appreciate any and all advice or recommendations. Thanks! 

michielterlouw said:

My thoughts:

1. Start by making sure you really know what your goal is. You write that you don't want high-risk speculative stuff, but also that you don't "just want to go for 5% returns". These are potentially conflicting statements. In today's market (with historically low interest rates), most experts say that about 5% is what investors should expect from a well balanced portfolio.
   
   
2. The majority of your return is the result of your asset allocation (how much you put in bonds, stocks, and other categories). Picking individual stocks is exciting, but ultimately doesn't influence the result that much (unless you cherry-pick a few speculative companies to invest in)
   
   
3. The golden rule is that: as an investor, you need to make sure you get rewarded for the risk you take on. If one investor (John) puts all his money in company ABC, and makes a 7% return, and his friend Anna puts all her money in companies ABC, DEF, GHI and JKL and also makes 7% return.... then I would say that Anna is the better/smarter investor. John took on more risk by putting all his eggs in one basket, but was not rewarded for the additional risk.
   
   If a third investor comes along (Bob), and he makes 7% by investing in an index fund that tracks the average weighted share price of 500 companies, then he's doing better than John and Anna, because he gets the same result with less risk.
   
   What this means is that, if you decide to be stubborn and not follow a broad index, you are intentionally taking on more risk than necessary. Professional investors do this, because they believe they have better information than the average investor, and they believe they are better at analyzing the available information. Some of them succeed.
   
   If you take on extra risk, you have to realize that you are betting on your own ability to analyze the market better than millions of other investors (better than "the crowd"). This can be an exciting bet to take, but there's also something inherently arrogant about it (I'm not judging)
   
   
4. There is no rational reason for Dollar Cost Averaging. Historically, putting in all the money at once (lump sum) leads to higher returns. On the other hand, some people just sleep better if they spread their investments.
   

I don't understand your last point on dollar cost averaging. Can you elaborate? It makes sense to me that on average the lump sum investments would have more time for growth and therefore perform better in aggregate. But as an individual investor with a lump sum to invest at a single point in time, the average is less relevant - you would be trying to avoid buying in at the top of a market cycle and being an outlier on the low end, right?

Check out crowed funded real estate platforms like Fundrise and Groundfloor, or real estate investment trusts (REITs). It's a good way to get exposure to real estate without having to be actively involved in managing property. I have been a landlord before and while it can definitely be worth it, it's a huge pain (finding new renters, late rent, plumbing emergencies etc). Many of the crowd funded real estate platforms and REITs pay out dividends from the rental income they receive.