How I started trading

My introduction to the financial markets was via Warren Buffett, the famous value investor.

Not that I met him.

A close friend gifted me the 1934 edition of Security Analysis, written by Graham Dodd, the man who taught Buffett at Columbia.

I thought, because I had read everything written on Buffett that I was ready to go and make some money.

And made money I sure did.

One of my earliest trades was purchase of a single share AMGN at 111.75 which I closed weeks later at 144.

In 1999, I bought ORCL at 13.5 and sold nine months later at 99.

I bought Agile Software (later acquired by Oracle) at 27 and sold at 76. It had declined from 106.

There were more such trades.

Then came the “dotcom bubble“ crash and I held on to my analysis and positions. My portfolio met utter destruction. It peaked at $ 114,000.

For many years since that first blow up, I still believed I had the skills to make money on Wall Street, through stockpicking, just like Buffett.

I went into the markets several other times with fresh capital and each time lost entirely everything no matter what I did.

Then one time, I stopped coming back because of lack of funds. Every penny I had went to living and surviving.

Reflection

Truth is I had begun with beginner’s luck and then developed a stubbornly high level (or amount) of arrogance from all my early success (the worst disease in personal finance). I was 20.

My starting 10K grew to 100K in under a year. I was not prepared to handle that amount. I did not have any professional fund management, trading or gambling experience.

All I knew then was: “I’m right and the market and talking heads on CNBC were wrong.“ Turns out, you needed skills AND experience to be a consistently profitable trader. And no shortcuts around feeling what works and doesn’t in the market.

Getting better

2024 is turning to be the year I’ve always waited for and wanted for myself. My trading performance at the darwinex Zero platform is nothing short of profitable. 635+ trades already and my win rate is stabilizing at a high 70-80 percent, something I myself keep telling others: It is not possible.

I credit the darwinex community for pushing traders to think about “risk-adjusted returns“ all-the-time and staying laser-focused on building a profitable track record.

More to come, as this journey’s only getting started.

A short track record proves nothing.