Hope everyone is enjoying the new year! You can find a recent article of mine over at Seeking Alpha here. I look forward to hearing what you guys think and sharing the lessons you have learned from your investment experiences.
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The Stoic Investor 
Great article Stoic. I started investing at the end of 2011 and have learned many lessons along the way. I’m actually very grateful that I encountered these hiccups at the beginning. It will make my road to FI that much smoother from here on.
IRF… Thanks for the comment. Learning our lessons early is indeed beneficial. I’m sure I have many more lessons ahead of me. I’m looking forward to it as long as they are not expensive ones! 🙂
great article. looks like you have plenty of time to get a good retirement portfolio.i am 74 retired in 2001, never in the stock market until march 2009. i was not making anything with my savings and thought the market had gone about as low as it was going to. so i started playing and that was what it was at first. but made money in 2009,2010,2011( not as much), and did well in 2012. the hardest thing to know is the difference between patience and stupidty on holding on too long.i do not buy anything that does not have a good dividend.mostly mlp’s and trade in and out of about 20 of them,depending on the ex dates. do not do options ,futures, or shorts.
Jan… You make a good point about making the distinction between patience and stupidity. I’m afraid what I feel is patience when I’m waiting for that perfect price is really just being stupid for not seeing that it really is not going to make much of a difference in the long run. Perhaps this is my next lesson to learn…
good luck, i am still learning the difference!
Hey Stoic,
I read your article, it was a great one! I identified with pretty much everything you said, especially points 1, 2, & 4. The world is always falling… so true! Let’s not forget the U.S. credit rating downgrade… There will always be something to make people worry. One of the most profitable lessons I’ve learned is to get greedy when others fear and to fear when other get greedy! To tie into point 1: dividend matters even more during times of distress. Being able to disconnect from market prices and focus on income is a wonderful psychological tool for divend & income investors! I love it!
I do not like to admit mistakes either, but I’m starting to realize that nobody is perfect. I’ve found that holding a diversified portfolio of many different companies helps me stay true to myself, admit mistakes, then move on. The more holdings I have, the less I count on any particular holding. As they say, diversification is the only free lunch in investing.
I started taking control of my investments around the same time you did. We went through a lot of the same experiences even if we weren’t blogging the whole time meaning I can identify with what you have to say.
I hope you continue to write more articles, I believe you’ll have an audience whose interested. Good Stuff!
CI
Thanks for the comment CI!!
This is very true and helped me in the early days to deal with volatility.
I don’t think anyone like admiting they were wrong. Over the years I’ve moved away from the pressure I put on myself to always be right and now look at my mistakes not as failures, but as a growing understanding the the subject. This is true in investing, our careers and personal relationships. I think it’s true in just about everything.