Most Costly Investment Mistake – Apple Inc, My True Story

Do a Google search right now and you will find a plethora of write-ups on on “investment mistake”.

They share one similarity – they are all theories, so to speak. Theories of mistakes made by the rest of the population which you would want to avoid yourself.

People whine about losing money in investing, and boast about their profit when they make money.

But not many study their past losses and learn from what they did wrong, much less blog about it.

To them, it’s a vicious blow to their pride.

Incidentally, a friend asked how was my stock investment in US stock market.

My short answer: I gained money and lost money, but most importantly, I garnered first hand experience in knowing what worked and what didn’t work so well. That shaped my still-evolving investing profile today.

My long answer: I am going to blog about this, including uncensored excerpts from my brokerage transactions history.

The fact is, everyone lose money at some point – it is just a matter of how much, and how you control the damage done without jeopardizing your financial situation.

If Warren Buffet could be candid about his investment mistakes, why can’t we? After all, we are human.

So yea, I am going to be radically honest about my investment mistake. And I am glad I could afford to make mistakes like this before I am in my thirties.

The year was 2008. I was a small time retail investor who have just started my journey dabbling in the US stock market.

Some disclaimer here; I am not a US resident, but I am using Ameritrade as my direct brokerage.

Here is my first and most costly mistake – not keeping the ownership of the world’s most valuable company.

Which is the world’s most valuable company at the time of this writing?

Apple Inc. (AAPL)

Note that I did not said, “not buying the shares of the world’s most valuable company”

I guarantee you that this is every retail investors’ mistake in 2008.

I said “keeping”.

Because I possessed 11 shares of Apple in my portfolio back in the 2008 during the financial crisis.

Yes, you read that right.

Eleven shares of AAPL purchased on 30 Oct 2008 with cost of $ 108.52 per share.

Total cost = $1,193.71

I bought it because my fundamental analysis showed its then stock price then was undervalued by more than 50 percent.

But at over 100 bucks a pop, it was still, relatively, an “expensive” stock. Anyway, I later came to learn that price is not equal to value – the hard way.

You could Google how much Apple is worth today. I am not repeating this news here, but let’s summarize what this means in just 1 sentence.

“Market capitalization exceeds $ 500 billion and is still growing, This s higher than the gross domestic product of Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, or Taiwan.”

Apple Inc share is worth $ 545 per share at today’s closing price.

If I had just left my money idle in my brokerage account since 2008, I would have grown $ 1,193 to a whopping $ 5,595.

$ 4,402 of lost opportunity cost by doing nothing.

Five fold return in a period of 3 years.

Or 67 percent annualized compounding return in 3 years.

“You could be doing (almost) everything right, but still lose money. Because one rule might contradict with another rule in investing.”