LogFAQs > #950871188

Nanis23 posted...

In the last few days I was making a excel sheet, trying to figure out whether I actually gained or lost money in my whole adventure in the stock market.
It wasn't a simple "I put $50k into Robinhood and now it's $52k so I gained $2k" because I have 3 different accounts and need to take into consideration stuff like currency converation, the time I transferred stocks from my bank account to a new broker and so on

The end result was something I was afraid of. To know that I actually lost money in the stock market
Since I bought my first stock in July 2019...I lost $1400
The true culprit is the dollar tanking. As it results in a $4410 loss. Otherwise, I would have been $3000 in the green
So..yay >_>

I am debating what I should do. I am clearly not good at this. A fucking year and a half and this is my result? what a disgrace. Novice traders that only created their account a few months ago already made a thousands dollars profit and I can't even have a single digit profit
I am spending so much time in this. In Whatsapp, Telegram groups, Internet forums (like this stock topic), WSB and so on. All of this for what?
Not to mention the emotional impact this has on me

And yet...I know the feeling of making tons of money on the stock market. I did it. It felt good. I want to feel it again and I want to make money again. I know it has the potential and I need it if I ever want to buy myself a apartment someday.
A $40k income in a year when a decent apartment here costs $500k (and I am not even halfway there) because Israel sucks and we have a real estate bubble for years now that the government doesn't give a shit it and the prices keeps climbing even despite fucking COVID

I don't fucking know what to do

Are you trying to pay in full for the apartment? What about getting a mortgage? You have more than enough for a down payment (by US standards, I don't know what the rules are in Israel).

As for investing, yeah, you aren't a very good trader. I know it's hard psychologically because it involves risk, but you could try investing - meaning holding stocks for extended periods of time. Maybe think about it this way - if your money is not invested in stocks or real estate or something then it's invested in fiat currency. And as you've seen, investing in USD is pretty bad. Based on what you've been saying recently about only being willing to risk small amounts of money in stocks and that only for short periods of time, I think the reality may be that you have been very heavily invested in USD (or shekels, not sure if your brokerage is storing the money in USD).

It's critical not to beat yourself up over "breaking even." Like if you had made $1,420 more so that you were $10 in the green would it make a real difference? In the grand scheme of things, really it doesn't. Investing in a long term thing, and it's asking too much to expect to make money immediately. There is also a real risk that you won't even make money in the long term, but that risk is why investing is on average profitable.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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