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Hello everyone, I am 24 years old and made the worst mistakes of my life so far this year. And the end is not in sight...
About one year ago, it wasn't going well with my family and I. And at the time I thought the only way to get a better life was earning more money. I heard that stocks were a good way to use money you don't really need or use, but I never liked it. The concept in general, the scary stories, the uncertainty, etc.
But thinking this was the only way, I forced myself to do it. Unfortunately, I wan't in the best place mentally because of everything going on and I randomly invested 20k euro in the S&P 500 without doing ANY research. Not how investing works, not what DCA is, not keeping up with the news, nothing, I only knew the S&P 500 by name and that is was kind off safe. This was one week before the Tariffs crash. I was devastated.
Fast forward a month or two, and I realize my second mistake. I didn't buy the S&P 500 stock, no, I bought S&P Global (SPGI). I was even more devastated, I didn't have to wait one the market as a whole to recover, I had to hope a single the company did as well. Worse, because I'm European, the S&P Global stock was in euro's (MHL.DE), so when SPGI recovered around August, I was still 10% down because the Dollar dropped as well.
I swore to myself I would become a better investor in the future. I spent hours and hours researching stuff and regretting I didn't do it before. But I learned everything about ETFs, DCA, that stock picking was risky, ... Around September I started putting 500 euro monthly in an all world ETF. In October when SPGI dropped a bit, a also put in 8k more, to make the recovery faster. I also knew what to do in the future with SPGI, put a stop loss to be safe, even if I sell for a small loss, it's much better than keeping the risk of all that money in one company and with Trump. And no panic sell if it should go down a bit again.
Fast forward to about a month ago, SPGI made a pretty good recovery, I was almost free, it only needed 5% more, I was so happy. But then began the second nightmare. It climbed a little more, I was about -500 down, I tried to sell for a little more than the highest bid price, but it didn't bite, so I left the sell point at -500. The weekend came, then I was busy with work, and read somewhere that their earnings was in a month. I became so hyper focused on that because the outlooks where all positive, that I didn't even think about any negative way it could go, and I completely forgor about the stop loss.
I'm sure you all saw the news the last couple of weeks. First the new Anthropic model that shook the financial stocks, it went down by -16%. But no worries, the earnings were around the corner. Everyone was saying the rebound was going to happen, such a great company with an amazing track record. Not a single thought reminded me that I never set a stop loss. Their earnings came, they missed the mark, they are now down 30% of my break even. I panicked so hard, couldn't believe my eyes, and why the fuck did I forget about the stop loss?? I sold 1/3 in that moment (stupid app only let me sell 8 shares at a time), never felt so desperate in my life. For a brief moment it felt relieving, finally getting out while it was storming down. The the realization came in, I locked in losses. I am now looking at a 3.2k loss, and still have 18k at -30% for I don't know how long. I can't even sleep or eat anymore at the moment.
I don't know what to do. I feel stupid, dumb, ashamed. I made a mistake one year ago, invested blindly with no research, ok so be it. I do my research for weeks, knowing what to do in every situation and even starting with ETFs. But the last month, at every stage where I could have done something, I didn't. Forgot the stop loss, not trying harder to sell because it only needed a couple percent more for break even, was blinded by the earnings coming soon, thought only about what could go better even I a single headline can be devastating right now, ...
Now the question is, do I keep it for who knows how long until it recovers (by break even in USD is 550, pretty much their ATH), or do I bite the bullet and sell everything because who knows how lower it can go (that would be about 10k loss total).
The shame I feel is even worse than the financial loss. For information, I currently have 70k saved, 15k in ETFs and the 18k at -30% (and counting) on SPGI.
I would appreciate any help. Have a good day and may you never make the same mistakes as I did.