Greetings everyone,
First of all, sorry for my English, as it is not my native language.
This post or rather a question is perhaps not directly investing related, more towards psychological side of investing. As we all know, emotions as such are significant part of investing world. I am rather new to the market, have been following closely and investing stock markets for the last 5 years. I love this world, all the variety, I enjoy participating in the community, the route from company discovery, through research of different business models, making my own economic analysis/predictions to eventually opening stock position, following the outcome of my decision etc. I honestly take a lot of enjoyment from this world, even my failed decisions.
We all have heard about cryptocurrencies, as did I for a while now, heard about it from here and there, but I never really paid much attention to this world, as I honestly considered currencies significantly different world from stocks. Honestly, for a significant time I also believed crypto to be something of a ponzy scheme, a bubble, which will pop eventually. Lately I have done more research and honestly I have changed my mind significantly. It is impossible to say, where crypto might be heading, where the total market cap grows or if it will pop tomorrow, but that is not the point of my post. Anyway after some research I have invested about 6-7% of my portfolio value into the cryptocurrencies that I believe to have bright future. I am risk-averse and will not put any higher percent into currencies, however looking back a year, at those market caps, i would have likely added significantly higher percent of my portfolio.
Now to the psychological aspect of my post. With the volatility and popularity of crypto, one can imagine my position has done 100%+ returns in less than month, does not take genius to reach this. As everyone know, this is nothing compared to current crypto market situation, those entering crypto market about year earlier, returns of (tens of) thousands of percents are normal or common (just as an example, if one would have thrown equal amount into top 10 market cap crypto currencies one would already have few thousand percent gains in one year). Not to mention the biggest gainers by far, we have all heard about the famous 10 000 bitcoin pizza purchase, which would yield 100 000 000% rate of return. History has shown all kind of asset bubbles throughout history: dot com bubble, housing bubble latest, to those from the past such as South Sea Bubble and Dutch Tulip bubble. There were big winners with the right timing, but with such events, most investors eventually lost majority or all. These asset bubbles were big, but what we are currently seeing in the crypto currency world are those asset bubbles on steroids, and even this does not describe the insanity. In my mind this is unprecedented event, the fold increases markets have never seen, nothing really compares to current situation. I do not want to call it a bubble, as honestly I do not know where this insanity is heading, when it might pop or if it ever will. Perhaps it will grow into 1 trillion market before correcting 50%, which would still leave current investors big winners by far. My problem with this all is that even that 100% gain with less than month is by far higher rate of returns than classical stock investments reach in perhaps 4-5 years. Honestly I can not shake the thought of how being year earlier, I would have seen returns higher than I will likely achieve in the next 20 years on the stock market. I am well aware of the hindsight bias and the fact that I would have likely cashed out if I have achieved close to few hundred percent gains, but what IF I wouldnt? I am honestly disappointed in myself and each returns on classical stock markets are “ruined” by the returns I woulda-shoulda-coulda done on the cryptocurrency markets. It seems I missed once in a lifetime opportunity, as this really is unprecedented thing we are seeing.
I need to somehow shake this, let it go, forget or accept, investing fellows, how are you making sense of this situation in your mind? I would be really thankful for your answers, as this is honestly bothering my rather much, more than it should perhaps.
TL:DR I feel like I missed once in a lifetime opportunity in terms of potential financial gains from crytocurrencies. Also seeing cryptocurrency market rate of returns has somewhat ruined the enjoyment I get from rate of returns from classical stock markets.
Thanks for your input, thoughts and advice in this matter.
Submitted September 04, 2017 at 03:40AM by Ordinary_investor http://ift.tt/2wxe23z
