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Stay with me as this will start boring at first, then you'll start to watch the impatience, ignorance and arrogance manifest. Please note within this 8 month period I have earned \\\~65K after tax in income. I am also a M26, so I appreciate I can take on losses and learn from it, but boy did I not learn.
I entered the stock exchange on the 28th of April 2025 due to the "hype" of the $TSLA crash (crash given 45% loss from Jan to March) and later the NASDAQ dip due to tariffs. I started out with CMC invest and from there I would buy certain stocks such as $TSLA, $UNH, etc. that had dips due to controversy with the idea that they would increase once the dust settles, as well as a few normal stocks such as $AAPL and $KO. The idea was, of course, to buy low sell high. However, it turns out I am a very emotional investor/trader and when the stocks such as $TSLA dropped, I would sell at a loss, then the stocks would bounce back and I would buy thinking this was it, which was followed by another dip and I would once again sell at a loss. I initially bought $TSLA at $315, which it is now $438 (+39% over 8 months) but I no longer hold any positions, what a waste.
I also tried a weird strategy of buying certain stocks just before a dividend ex-date, however, as I soon found out, although I gain the dividend I loss equal or more value in the stock I was holding, and often I had positions with random stocks such as $FGX.ASX or $DFDV with no real value. Or I would buy penny stocks hoping they raise by 100+% which, of course, they did not. Eventually I pulled out with a loss of -1598.15 from an investment of 6765.85 (-23.65% over 2 months)
At this stage, I discovered ETFs, and I wish I just stayed right here. I found that ETFs make a lot of sense, and quite liked the look of $ASIA.ASX, $HACK.ASX and $FAIR.ASX, so I downloaded Betashares direct. But I didn't stay here for long - you see my youtube algorithm had picked up on my interest in the stock exchange and introduced me to Benjamin (@benjjjaamiinn) who speaks of option trading and some of the biggest wins and losses, and I liked the sound of big wins. I came back and forth to Betashares direct and ultimately loss $41.96 from an investment of $6564.95 (-0.01% over 6 months), mainly due to selling too quickly to obtain funding for option trading.
I DID research option trading quite thoroughly, be it Investopedia, youtube channels such as ClearValue Tax (@clearvaluetax9382) and The Plain Bagel (@ThePlainBagel - still watch him recreationally), IBKR academy and some paper trading. However, understanding the theory/math/economics of option trading is not the same as understanding the finance of option trading - i.e. I could explain the Greeks and understand how they influence option premiums but not how to implement them appropriately for profit. As such, I lost hard. I used IBKR to facilitate my option trading. I did not have enough capital to simply purchase the calls of companies I thought would do well in the long term ($TSLA, $UNH, $NTDOY, $TTWO, $RBLX, $COIN), so I opted for credit spreads of the volatile stocks such as $TSLA or $COIN with often 0DTE to get quick gains - and holy fuck was I emotional, some of them I would have been successful had I just held, but instead I would often sell for a loss scared they'd become worthless as they lost like 0.5-1% value with hours before market close. I followed this up with call options on cheap pharmaceutical companies that were due for next phase report or earning report. I lost on most but did win on some, but mostly broke even. Finally, I then bet all my money (I think $9K) with 185/186 put credit spreads on $NVDA expiry of 19 December on the 10/12 two days before it fucking dropped for no logical reason despite a good Q4 earning report a few days later. But of course the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. At this point I stopped and ultimately loss $14842.89 from an investment of $25185.68 (-59% over 7 months). Options really does amplify your losses.
I did try cover calls on cheap stocks such as $BB, but didn't account for the stock price to just fall, which was very stupid of me. I would have liked to pick a stock or ETF such as QQQ, but didn't have the capital for 100x stocks for a covered call, nor enough for a poor mans covered call. Not that either would have been all that profitable given how volatile the NASDAQ is.
Finally, cryptocurrency. Using Kraken pro, I actually had decent gains at first, around 15-20% gains in 2 months. I tried a few meme coins which all crashed, but most of my cryptocurrency adventures was with BTC, ETH, SOL, ADA, LINK, XPR and FLR. however, in October, before the fucking crash, I discovered margin trading with 10x leverage. Whoa my 15-20% gains could be 150-200%! Sign me u.. Oh it's crashing, it's crashing hard. Well lets short it at 10x leverage and make my money back! Oh it's bouncing fuck me, I had $3.5K gain at one point and wanted for it to reach $4.5K to get back my profit, but then I lost that too - for fucks sake people put stop losses/trailing losses in, don't be me. You would think I would have learned my lesson, but no I thought I had "experience" and that with the right capital, I could gain the $6K total I lost back so I returned to leveraging last week. With $8K in hand I short ADA with a 10x leverage on the 30/12 at $0.35 which was followed by a 5% drop of $0.33 ($4K unrealised, only 2K to go!) to a 6% gain of 0.37 with no end at sight. In the end I had lost $13083.94 from an investment of $37422.81 (-35% over 6 months).
I am also in debt with $4K to wallet wizard (instant loan) I thought I could win back in leveraging, and $6K to a credit card and $2.5K to zip used to cover every day expenses to leave me with cash I could use to invest with.
I have since dropped all investments. Whats missing from everything above is how my life was impacted. My fiancé noticed I had become angrier, short-tempered, depressed, impatient and was locked away in my study for long periods of time in the middle of the night (stock exchange would open up at 9:30pm my time). My work suffered as I was often sleep deprived and my mind never really left my portfolio. I had gotten short loans with interest rates of 25-40%pa because I though leveraging with crypto would make my money back and I could pay off the loan instantly. I had even started a business to earn extra money to fund my investment/trading "strategies". The business has actually been quite successful with a profit of $18.3K over 8 months for about average of 3.2hrs/week of work and is probably the only positive thing to come out of my trading, though all of the profits of my business has been lost to my trading.
TLDR/statistics
CMC Invest - "buy low, sell high" + taking advantage of controversial stock losses = realised loss of -1598.15 (-23.65% over 2 months)
Betashare direct - ETFs (though short positions) = realised loss of $41.96 (-0.01% over 6 months)
IBKR - option trading = realised loss of 25185.68 (-59% over 7 months)
Kraken Pro - cryptocurrency with 10x leveraging = realised loss of $13083.94 (-65% over 6 months)
Grand total (cancelling out transferring funds from one exchange to another) = realised loss of \*\*$25066.84 over 8 months\*\* (annualised to $37.6K) which is 37% of my net income.
I paid approximately \*\*6.5K in fees/commissions\*\*, with $4K due to Kraken Pro's fee and maintenance fee with leveraging.
I would say I traded \*\*2364.7717 stocks\*\* (more but I don't have CMC invest records anymore) and \*\*665 option trades\*\* (mostly in the form of high value credit spreads or low value debit spreads).
As a masochistic experiment, I transformed every deposit and withdrawal I made into buying and selling $BGBL.ASX (top 1500 global companies) on betashare direct which does not charge fees for betashare ETFs (I thought of doing the NASDAQ, but it felt like cheating given I now know it performed better than expected in the face of tariffs and the AI boom). Every deposit purchase $BGBL at that date's opening price based on Yahoo finance historical data, and every withdrawal sold at the opening price, and dividends were re-invested. Had I just did this strategy from the start I would currently hold 318.96 shares of $BGBL which would be worth, as of 2/01, $26055.72, which means I would be \*\*$51K richer\*\* then I currently am today which is fucking insane.
What am I doing from here? paying off my debt, save up to $25006.84 (my total loss) into an offset account to save on interest for my mortgage and then, and only then, will I set up the portfolio I wanted. This portfolio was never done because I wanted $10K in capital to set it up and options, leveraging etc. was suppose to get me there, but I will DCA instead;
20% $ASAI.ASX
20% $ELFB.DE
10% $XMET.ASX
10% $NDQ.ASX
10% $HACK.ASX
5% $ARTY
5% $QTUM
5% $RBTZ.ASX
5% $DRIV.ASX
10% Crypto (BTC 40%, ETH 20%, SOL 20%, ADA 5%, LINK 5%, XRP 5%, FLR 5%)
IDK if I've done my math right, but either way, despite the many warning experienced traders gave me, I took on too much risk and this was the consequence.