Our investing stories

You can probably find terabytes of philosophies, strategies, theories, and other information about investing on the internet — in addition to all the memes. 🚀

However, we’re creatures of habit who learn by listening and imitating those around us. Often the information we value the most comes from people we know. That’s why we asked our Vividian buddies, our experts, about how they invest. You shouldn’t see these as advice, but maybe you can find some inspiration in their experiences.

Maksim Bochkov (Invest lead)

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I am a long-term investor — usually from 1 month to 3 years —  and prefer to follow a growth strategy based on the waves of the economic cycles. So, right now I have reduced my positions in the exchange and increased my assets in the real estate sector. My portfolio is proportionally composed of 60% shares, 30% ETFs, and 10% bonds.

My first investment was Ford shares, the manufacturer of my own car. I lost some money there, but we can call that a test. There are some tips that I learned from my experiences:

• Diversify your portfolio. Buy stocks from different sectors.
• Invest in brands you know.
• Keep your standard position size for your ordinary investments (which for most retail investors is no more than 2% of their investment capital per asset) and 2 times lower for the risky ones.
• If there is a drop in the market, you should only add more money to your positions when main indices fall over 10%.
• If you need cash, sell your most profitable positions.
• Sell the positions you consider overvalued in the first place.
• If you have shares from companies whose business is under serious threat, sell them even if you have a loss.

Maximo Nami (Junior Recruiter)

I have two investing philosophies: a serious one and a not-so-serious one. Of course, for my serious position, I prefer buying ETFs and diversifying my portfolio to take fewer risks. But that is not how I got into investments. 

I got into this world because I am a Reddit user. Wallstreetbets was always recommended to me, but I only paid attention to it when the pandemic started. I saw this whole thing with Gamestop when it was just a joke, a meme. But I didn’t buy the dip until this year, after the first spike. I did it together with a coworker when it went down to $80. Then it went up again, and we ended up selling it at $130. Now we can say we are some of the people who won some money with Gamestop, even though it was only like €40. We are very happy about that.

GME is definitely an exciting investment, just because of all the hype, not because it was very good from a financial perspective. We got a lot of excitement from entering into our apps, checking our portfolio, and thinking: oh, where is it right now? What is happening? What’s the drama? It’s like paying an entrance fee for some excitement in your life. 

To be serious for a moment, my best gain has been Volkswagen, I think. And my worst loss, silver. Or maybe that stock of a pharmaceutical company that a friend recommended me and I bought in the worst moment ever, Altimmune. He said it was doing great, but at the moment he said those words it just stopped doing that great.

Oliver Sachgau (Editor in Chief)

My investing philosophy is based on the fact that most people can’t beat the market, so I’m actually a very big fan of ETFs. I have a large portion of my money invested in ETFs that I just don’t touch and see as my stable base of investment. 

Then I dedicate 20% to 30% to more “fun” investments in companies. I read a lot of news and think about what is going to be in demand soon, what’s coming up. For example, right now there is a big move looking at how the pandemic recovery is going to work and who it is going to help. But even checking every company and reading all the news, I probably can’t do better than an ETF. 

I’m also going to try out this strategy called: “sell in May and go away”, where you only invest from January until May. Some investors believe that, especially as summer starts, things start slowing down, and in fall and winter markets tend to go down. It hasn’t always proven true, so let’s see if it ends up being better. 

Before I started investing, I didn’t realize how stressful it can be to hold the stock and see it go up and down, and that was really interesting. It’s a lot more tied to emotion than I thought it would be. 

My tip is never to assume you’re a smart investor. Not even professionals consistently beat the market. So anybody who seems to know exactly how to invest and has a total fix on it is probably wrong. You just have to be ok with the fact that most of us are guessing and there’s always a chance that everyone is wrong.

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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. All opinions expressed herein are the personal opinions of the people expressing them and are not made on behalf of Vivid Invest GmbH or Vivid Money GmbH.