My first job out of college was at Andersen Consulting as an analyst. It was a decent paying job- US$40,000 a year. The job was fun too. I learned to code and built e-commerce sites. I had enough money and enjoyed a comfortable life.
Around the year 2000, I began day-trading. Work was so easy that I had plenty of free time, so I began trading IPO stocks. It was the peak of the dot-com bubble. Tech companies were going public constantly, and online trading had just become possible.
I made some money at first but then lost even more. I didn’t understand what I was up against, and my losses piled up quickly. Then, the dotcom bubble began to burst, and I was laid off. I had to stop day-trading. I lived off my savings. That lasted months as I couldn’t find a job. I burned through most of my cash and in the end I had to pack my bags and ran back to Hong Kong. I had about US $1,000 left in my savings and I put it all into one stock—AAPL, because Steve Jobs was back and he gave the world the iMac. Yea. I was that kind of investor. And that was in mid 2001.
I’ve held those shares ever since.
I was very shallow, very lazy, and very very lucky. Or blessed. 🫠
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