Hey Vivid, how did your investments do last year?
It’s one thing to teach you about investing and saving. It’s another to actually follow through on those lessons! Here at Vivid, one of our core values is to be Radically Honest. In that spirit, we asked our writers and editors to reveal how their investing and saving went in 2021. Maybe you’ll be able to avoid their mistakes, or learn from their successes!
Oliver
In one sentence, how did your year in investing go?
Very bad, and then a lot better.
What was your investing strategy? Did it work?
This year, I thought I was going to sell in May and go away, but it turns out, staying on the sidelines was harder for me than I thought! I ended up putting more of my savings into ETFs, and kept investing the other 20% in companies. Toward the end of the year, I started paying more attention to company fundamentals, including analyst recommendations. I did the math recently, and I ended the year roughly 4.6% up. In the same time the S&P 500 increased by almost 27%, proving that it’s very hard to beat the market.
What was your worst investment decision?
At the beginning of the year, I bought a lot of airline stocks, because someone told me that as soon as travel restrictions ease, the share prices should skyrocket. That didn’t quite happen, and I sold at a 30% loss. Ouch.
I also bought some AMC stock and sold it at a 20% profit. After that, the stock tripled. I really missed out on a nice little profit.
What was your best investment decision?
Late in the year, I started looking deeper into the companies I was investing in. I wanted to see if analyst recommendations could help me figure out some undervalued stocks. I ended up investing in AMD, which was at the beginning of a rally. It ended up rising more than 40%, and I ended up selling around that level. I have no idea where it’ll go from here, or if it’s peaked already, but I’m glad I bought in when I did.
I also made like 60 euros on Dogecoin, so no complaints there.
What will you do differently this year?
I want to do two things differently. For one, I’m going to start a savings plan, where every month I invest a regular amount into an ETF. That way, I’m automatically saving and investing at the same time.
Secondly, I want to get deeper into researching the companies I invest in. I’ve managed to improve my returns by at least checking the analyst recommendations on stocks, but I also want to pay closer attention to earnings reports and comparing companies to their peers in a sector to see if a stock is undervalued.
Pablo
In one sentence, how did your year in investing go?
Long, stressful and rewarding.
What was your investing strategy? Did it work?
In one word: diversification. I’ve tried to diversify my investments as much as possible, between different industries and different products. Basically, around 70% of my portfolio is dedicated to less risky investments, such as ETFs, blue chips or Big Tech. I also put some money in the luxury sector this year, in the hope I would be able to buy champagne with my benefits. Jokes aside, I also started investing in cryptos and had some fun with Wallstreetbets, but the latter didn’t really work. The more the year went ahead, the more I read about companies’ finances and had a closer look at their earnings reports.
What was your worst investment decision?
Buy high. Sell low. I invested some money in crypto around March, watched it grow for a while and then crash. Of course, I panicked and sold...
What was your best investment decision?
Not to panic. It may seem a bit contradictory with what I’ve just said before, but some time after I sold, I decided to give another shot at cryptos and to diversify more my crypto investments. Luckily, I bought the dip. Of course, there’s been ups and downs since then, but I now see it as a long term investment. So far it’s been working out quite well, since I’m up around 75%. I know it will go down at some point (as it already did), but I plan on holding and seeing where this leads me. I’ll just have to resist the temptation of cashing out.
What will you do differently next year?
Next year, I’d like to start a proper savings plan and invest monthly a regular amount of money in ETFs. I think it’s time for me to really think about how I can as safely as possible at least beat inflation.
Paula
In one sentence, how did your year in investing go?
Surprisingly good but in small measure.
What was your investing strategy? Did it work?
Honestly, my strategy is not the most advisable. It is based on trial and error. I watched the evolution of the share price and bought when I thought something was cheap, thinking I was buying the dip. But sometimes it kept falling and in the end I ended up selling as soon as I was able to recover more or less the investment. The truth is that I don't regret it because I did it with small amounts of money, to experiment and learn, and now for 2022 I want to plan my investments properly. I would say that it was worth it, especially because of the low commissions that Vivid has.
What was your worst investment decision?
Not daring to invest enough. At the beginning of the year there were shares of major companies in the energy sector with a much lower price than usual due to the pandemic, but it was foreseeable that they would go up. I thought about it, but in the end I didn't buy the dip. Now I have a friend who has earned enough money with that company –I won't say the name– to make the trip of my dreams.
Nvidia was also known to have potential because of the shortage of microchips, and yet I invested little money. Oh... if only I had risked a little more.
What was your best investment decision?
Selling Dogecoin. It was too stressful for me. Also my small investments in Moderna and Nvidia.
And there is something that is not an investment directly, but lays the foundation to start building a serious strategy: this year I managed to put aside and save a significant amount of money. With this buffer I feel more confident to go big next year.
What will you do differently next year?
I would like to plan a long-term investment strategy, and start putting fixed percentages every month in ETFs, stocks and a little bit in crypto. Thanks to the content we have created here, I already know how the different types of assets behave: the volatility of crypto, the cycles of certain industries or the stability of ETFs.
Stephanie
In one sentence, how did your year in investing go?
Buy high, sell low.
What was your investing strategy? Did it work?
I started the year being pretty new to the investment world. Crypto got into my mind; I became obsessed with it and started looking for information everywhere on the internet. I decided to give it a try, learned about the different coins and diversified my portfolio. I tend to be a pessimistic person, so diversifying was the key to avoiding losing everything with one big investment in the wrong place.
What was your worst investment decision?
One word: Dogecoin. I should have known better because it was clear from the beginning that it was going to be only a memecoin, but I got drawn by the hype. I invested in it on the exact day when the coin peaked, and 12 hours later, it started to sink and never recovered.
What was your best investment decision?
Knowing the projects behind the coins really help in understanding where you want to put your money. When you invest in a regular company, you want to know their plans for the future, and it's the same with crypto. I invested in other 5 different cryptocurrencies and crypto tokens, and I got a decent ROI. I resisted the urge to sell everything when Bitcoin crashed and dragged all the other coins with it, and the decision paid off. I actually used that moment to invest in more coins, especially Ethereum. I still didn't cash out, though, so I hope to keep the positive path next year.
What will you do differently next year?
I want to start investing in the traditional stock market. The crypto hype got me, but I think that it's definitely worth it to start analysing companies and investing money in stocks and ETFs. I'm not abandoning crypto though, it's just another way of diversifying my portfolio.
Any opinions, news, research, analyses, or other information contained on this website are provided as general market commentary, and do not constitute investment advice, recommendations nor should be perceived as (independent) investment research. The author or authors are employed by Vivid and may be privately invested in one or several securities mentioned in an article. Vivid Invest GmbH offers as a tied agent of CM-Equity AG the brokerage of transactions on the purchase and sale of financial instruments with the exception of those in the area of foreign exchange brokered by Vivid Money GmbH.