My investment journey: Keeping an open mind to find out what works personally

Originally published on Oct 7, 2021

My interest in financial markets started in the 2000s. At that time, value investing was a very popular investment style, mainly because value investing worked very well in the 2000s.

I subscribed to an investment service by someone who calls himself Sage. He teaches his customers by letting them observe his buy/sell actions in the stock market and explains the rationale behind the moves. By and large, he was a sincere teacher and the fees were cheap ($100 per year). Like everyone, he had his flaws. As a student, you can also learn from observing a teacher's flaws.

Value investing was his religion. His mind was closed to other investment styles. Charts were voodoo, hocus-pocus stuff to him. It is ok for an individual to reject other investment methods but it is not ok for a teacher to tell his students that just because this method does not work for me, it will not work for you either. Conversely, just because a method works for him, it does not follow that it will work for all his students. I learnt the hard way that what works for others may not work well for me.

All of us are unique individuals with different natural abilities, different temperaments, different inclinations, different intellects.

We have to discover ourselves to find out what works best for ourselves. Be open-minded as we try out different things and not dismiss them outright before even trying.

I have read up and tried several investment styles. Value investing, growth investing, dividend investing, passive investing with market indices, position trading individual stocks with market timing etc. There are pros and cons to each style.

Perhaps I will share my experiences with the different investment styles that I am familiar with.

Again, I emphasize what does not work for me may work for you. You may be smarter, have a stronger stomach for risk. What I can do is share what works for me and the pros and cons of the different investment methods. You have to discover what works for you yourself.