So far, not so good pretty well sums up the year to date for me. I accept there are going to be challenges in life, and more for me than most given the high-risk and solitary path I have chosen to take. Not always fun, but undeniably part of the glamour. I'm in a business that wins big in the good times, but can lose big in the not so good.
More recently the challenges have been piling one atop the other. I've a pretty phlegmatic temperament and when push comes to shove have a perverse kind of determination. Generally I process the challenges and press on, inspired anew to overcome the odds. This week though I received an unexpected bodyblow.
I'm pretty active in the investment market. By temperament I'm anything but risk averse. I've made small packets of money along the way, and made a shitload for mum a couple of years ago. I've lost too, sometimes decent amounts. It always pinches. This week I discovered I had lost a bunch more, unnecessarily so as it feels.
One of the things that gets me is what I didn't do. Had I invested in what I felt was right I'd be well ahead now rather than drastically behind. Given the choice I'd have cut my losses a long time before what my broker did. I'm pragmatic about these things, you lose some days, you win others, more than anything you want to retire in good order so you can fight another day. That didn't happen, and cannot happen now.
I'm peeved with my broker, but reality is I'm responsible. I trust to their expertise. I have a good relationship with my broker and have been happy to believe that he knows a lot more than me, which is only sensible. I can fault the choice of stocks in hindsight, but there's nothing to say they were wrong when I slapped down the money to pay for them. And in truth short of peering into a crystal ball there's no way of knowing what's going to transpire down the track.
There's more fault in how the stocks were managed, but once more there was nothing to stop me from picking up the phone and instructing my broker to bail out. I didn't do that and the result is I lost about $30,000 of value in the last 70 odd days on top of $20,000 before that. He should have better advised me, there's no doubt of that - but I should have been more diligent also.
In the end I had to make the call to salvage something from the disaster. What's left is a fraction of what it was, too little to do anything serious with. For the moment I'm out altogether, taking my cash and waiting for the market to show some more consistent and positive intent. That might be a while I think. We survived the GFC very well, but I think Oz may be in for a spot of bother over the next 18 months.
In any case the damage is done for me. I haven't been a particularly happy camper the last few days - this piece of news the sour icing on a very unappetising cake. It's done though and there's no use dwelling on what I don't have and can't help. As always I look ahead. Plenty of opportunity there, and lots yet to be written.
