Why would I only invest in property only!

Yep exactly, investing is as much speculative as it is skill and knowledge. Giving an investment a limited timeframe to perform and expecting great results immediately is foolish. There are many share options, as there are property options, I certainly don't buy an IP with the goal to sell it in 1-2 months time if it has not performed spectacularly.

 

i dont think you have enough experience in the share market, seriously a loss of $2000 and reading books for two months is far too premature to make this kind of judgement

also you realise the years post GFC rates have been on a steep downtrend which has made a lot of people with property (unintentionally or not) 'richer' and feel like they are property 'experts' and that property only has one way up

shares are great to have as part of ones portfolio, i'd hate to be stuck with all my money in property once we see rate rises

 

Might need to check out this thread and have a read of motivated money. Certainly gave me another tool in my arsenal.

Peter Thornhill

 

he is not a stock broker, he just trades

 

@standtall Thanks for sharing and sorry to hear about your loss. May we ask what stocks you bought and why you bought them?

 

I somewhat did what you did many years ago.
I read all that I could, thought I was ready for it.

Put most of my savings into a trading account, and bought many different shares.
Some went up, some when down - I treated it like day trading.
When they went down a certain %, I sold to 'protect' myself.
When they went up a certain %, I again sold to 'protect' myself.

I ended up selling everything when I could no longer 'day trade'. Ended up making about $15k (some did really well, others I sold waaayy too early). I pulled them all out. I was somewhat happy and didn't look at it again for ages.

A few months ago, I started looking into shares again, remembered I had the account from back then. Signed into the account, and I had all my previous shares on a 'watchlist'. I'd be more than $80k better off today if I had kept them.

 

All online retailers - I was hoping some would take off based on good last quarter.

From what I could gather from online public data, none of them had a good last quarter and I didn't want to risk a tumble given result announcement will be coming in next few weeks.

Now that money is sitting nicely in the offset, ready to be used in next IP purchase

 

False. ASX200 in Feb 2012 was at 4250. It's now 5650, a gain of 33% plus dividends.

 

WTF ?

Agreed. Buy houses.

 

Time in market is more important than timing market.

You need to assume that money invested in shares can't be touched for at least 7 years. It is true, the market could double overnight, you could sell tomorrow and tell everyone what a gun trader you are. However if it drops, that is where you need to be patient for the market to revert to it's long term growth line and where you will start to see a return.

If you only have 2 months to invest you might as well bet on red or black at the casino.

 

Yep...Fat Cat Super Funds...Remind me again of what/whom Super is supposed to be for

Here's the markets returns since you started in 1980, investing continually along the way via Super

STW which mirrors the ASX 200 is up 38 1/2 % over the last 5 years looking at today's chart, throw in dividends and ongoing investment

But why invest in only 2% of the world market alone, the US Market proxy is up around 140% (Plus dividends) over the same 5 years and the World (ex US) up around 53 1/2 % (plus dividends) . If you had equal weight in all 3 you'd likely be up around 78% + over those 5 years

And hopefully you continued to invest and re-invest over those 5 years

 

I have been researching the stock market for awhile (12 months) and have concluded if you aren't already in, now is probably not the right time to dip your toes in.

People seem to be making pretty desperate moves to chase profits over inflation.

I'm am already in it through my superannuation and have a fund which allows for direct investment of a proportion of the balance. So I can have a tinker there and get some usa exposure. This also enables you to spare your money from of the default funds which tend to invest in a lot of rubbish shares

 

Hi standtall, i feel its unfortunate you have come to your current conclusion on equity investing. It's great you have started off by trying to educate yourself in this field of investing, most people just open the trade account and start throwing darts. Also dont take this the wrong way but it sounds like a classic case of "a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing".

Every time i hear this and "property doubles every 10 years" I just cringe.
If you have not seen the movie "the big short" please give it a watch. While it does relate to US housing the point it gets across is just how dangerous it is to become complacent on past returns of a single asset class.

Having all your portfolio in a single sector is extremely high risk! and to hold it short term would be considered "speculative trading" not investing. And yes the price of an individual company can crash to zero, but why are you taking that risk??

Personally i invest in 3 shares, well ETFs to be exact. One that covers the broad Australian market, one that covers international market and one that covers a specific sector that i am bullish on. I then "Dollar cost" average in to them. When the price drops on them, I don't panic I just smile and buy more at the cheaper price.

Do yourself s favor and research ETFs and boglehead portfolio, this will give you an entry to this asset class with a risk/volatility profile you may be more comfortable with. (There are 2 great threads in this forum on these topics, with some very knowledge people).

 

Yes, shares are clearly not for you.

 

Shares, or even working out the basics of % returns per year from shares, are clearly not for you. The last 5 years have been very good for sharemarkets, as a time period.

 

Not quite. Anyone who did that would have done pretty well. E.g. see the attached screenshot with STW performance (which is pretty much ASX 200 ETF) - nice 11.14%p.a. return.

 

PROPERTY:


Yuck, yuck, yuck:



INDUSTRIAL SHARES (Yellow line):

 

Bahaha!

@austing I see that this concept of "property only" has temporarily overwhelmed your senses, such that you can only manage to communicate your disgust with pictures!

 

I was so distraught and overcome when I saw the thread title then imagining such a horrific scenario of "property only" that I was speechless. Hence I could only communicate with images. My ability to communicate in words is only now returning. Call it post-traumatic shock, not a thought (property only) I want to experience ever again: