Just a very quick cautionary tale for those many of you who, like me, find themselves frequently trying to time the market but you convince yourself it's not the same reckless timing the market you keep reading about.
Some of you are legit day trading or just playing around with a small amount you're willing to lose and I get that, but I know a few of us try to time volatility to a lesser extent.
I wasn't much of a trader, had it all in VTI/VONG/SCHD for about 3 years which was going swimmingly. No idea what came over me but April 7th I thought we were in for at least another 7-10% drop. There was some "logic" to it but it was definitely an emotional/panic sell. I wasn't afraid of *losing* X amount, or that it wouldn't rebound. BUT, I believed that it was going to keep sliding for a bit so I thought I could #TimeTheMarket (sell before the bottom then buy back in like a month later).
What ended up happening was I sold VTI at $242, the literal bottom lmao, then played with SQQQ for a few days while nothing really seemed to happen (made a couple hundred dollars in the meantime). *Then*, the tariff pause tweet. Inside of like 2min I lost 10% of my portfolio to SQQQ (who tf was buying my SQQQ mid-spike by the way?) and was basically down something like -24% of my portfolio and the market had just rebounded. Sick to my stomach for days, for weeks. Awful feeling, and I know some of you know it too. I'm mid 30's with a family and we're not talking about just a couple grand.
Bought back in with VTI $267 and then pounced on a couple opps like Google's big drop and a few small gambles on Planet Labs/Lantronix/DUOT that I got super lucky with. Those and a bull market have brought me from behind the S&P500 by like 28% at one point to only behind by like 8% now. But oh my gosh so much time and stress just to get within spitting distance of the market...
Just kind of word vomiting so thanks for reading. Honestly sharing my experience in the hopes:
1. Those of you getting really lucky remember that, like trust, a portfolio built through dozens of good moves can be broken by one bad one if you aren't careful. Or...
2. Those of you that have lost a lot on options/panic selling/etc. know you can climb out of the hole if you reflect on what went wrong in your process. But in the inverse of #1, it takes a lot of good decisions to make up for the one bad one, let alone a couple bad ones (please don't double down on reckless unless it's money you're willing to lose).
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**TLDR**: Convinced myself I wasn't panic selling April 7th but the reality is the same, held SQQQ during tariff pause, through a ton of time and stress back close to market % but don't recommend. Bogleheads might be onto something...