Investing can be - interesting. Right? 

Even more interesting when you move through a pandemic, international situations, inflation, potentially your own recession, layoffs, and life steady life-ing. We’ve seen crypto and meme stock boom and shift. And find ourselves trying to get investing solid to build generational wealth and enjoy it within our lifetime.

It’s not just your own portfolio that may have taken a hit - even your retirement accounts have taken shaking throughout all of this. Many people are unaware that their retirement accounts are tied to the stock market; some felt that impact back in 2020 when the Rona ish hit the fan. I do want to talk about that in another post, but I did talk about retirement planning in this one. Click to make it stick.

I wanted to talk about a couple of my favorite isms when it comes to investing along with some context in which you can start to align better in the stock market. Each of these has been what has helped other people and me over the years better learn, leverage, and lengthen your portfolio. I wanted to talk about these isms because the fear of loss in the stock market has made investors stop contributing and distribute not only within your retirement portfolio but brokerage accounts.

That fear that I just talked about is linked to Loss-aversion. That can manipulate your decision-making as an investor in many ways - often negatively. Loss aversion is like thinking you’re going to miss the money if you don’t unload or sell that stock at the right time. I know that Uncle Warren said “Time In” within the stock market vs “Timing”, but a lot of investors became Casper about investing the more and more we see ish hit the fan. One of the ways I see this is through selling stock without researching - beyond Meme Stock. Fear of the unknown and acting in it can mess more up than you think - especially when it comes to money. 

I wanted to introduce some of my isms to make sure that from this year onward, you become the investor you need to be to generate the wealth you wish (will) see. 

“Find Value During The Volatility” 

I started saying this during the March 2020 market shake-up or sell-off, whichever you prefer to call it. Instead of panic selling, panic buying or just panicking - you have to start researching before, during, and after you purchase that stock/fund/crypto you heard about. Knowing how it has been performing will give you some insight into what to expect when it comes to how it will show up in your portfolio. For instance, Tesla or TSLA was popping before their stock split back in 2020, but people brought off the hype of the plug but didn’t factor in that EV had/has been going through a bit of a squeeze. Most people need to zoom out when companies/stocks/crypto aren’t performing as they would like. Potentially rotating your position in $TSLA (unless you’re trading) into a fund like $VTI or $QQQ would be amazing for you. You also get exposure or holding portions of other funds in the fund by doing so. 

I always advise people to look at their holdings when things are good and bad to leverage how they should proceed with it. “Plan It, Don’t Panic” is something that I use as a pair to the ism. What I mean by Plan It, Don’t Panic (with investing)  is when you see a company trending and you get triggered that you do the panic tings I talked about in the previous paragraph. I’ve seen people go “All Money In” like Nipsey and try to find “Where The Money Resides” when they don’t research as the stock not performing well or exchange drops.

Another one that I use a lot is “The Scale Is In The Start” - I mean that you don’t need to do a lot to see a lot when it comes to investing. Social Media has really changed the landscape of the way we see money and investing. A lot of people feel that they have a lot of money to invest in the stock market. This is why I created a way for people to see things like Fractional Shares, ETFs, and REITs to begin or stick with investing. It is within your budget - no matter if you have only $5 per check. Yet, leveraging your retirement plan to start learning about investing by pooling your money along with what your employer matches. Even if your employer doesn’t match your contributions, use the resources they provide you on diversifying your portfolio or leveraging allocations ( how much of your portfolio goes to what specific fund type). How you continue the scale will be impactful to how you grow as an investor. 

Beyond the isms, don’t get caught thinking that you shouldn’t invest at this time due to the fact many things are going on. This is when you leverage insights to know how to implement in the stock market  - better. When you better develop your strategy, you will be able to understand stocks better and build the gains. Companies may be in a rough place, but you understand how to pocket for the long game.

Don’t stop, keep stocking!