When did you Begin Investing?

[jschembs]

Wellmont had an interesting tweet today that sparked my curiosity. To the extent you can, isolate the period when you began investing a meaningful portion of your net worth (not simply buying a stock while in high school).

[boilermaker75]

If I clicked the wrong date, is there a way to change/fix my vote?

[bookie71]

I started "playing' the market about 65 or 66.  (One of the stocks that lost big was Solitron Devices)

I woke up and began investing in about 1972.  Since I was a CPA felt I should use my area of expertise and do it right.  No more stories or catalysts for me.

[meiroy]

I started "playing' the market about 65 or 66.  (One of the stocks that lost big was Solitron Devices)

I woke up and began investing in about 1972.  Since I was a CPA felt I should use my area of expertise and do it right.  No more stories or catalysts for me.

 

Interesting. May I ask if you chose to analyze small caps or mega caps?

[Hielko]

I bought my first individual stock in 2010, consider this the point where I really started investing. I did have a meaningful amount of money in various mutual funds since 2007 though, so perhaps you could also say that I started there.

[wachtwoord]

2011 after reading the intelligent investor.

[alwaysinvert]

Went back and checked. The first stock I bought was on October 6, 2008. I then gradually switched all my funds over to actively managed in the next half a year or so.

[Mephistopheles]

I started in 2000-2005.

 

Better way to ask this question imo is "at what age did you start investing?"

[merkhet]

1996 @ the age of 13. Was a great ride until it wasn't. Then I found religion. (Graham/Buffett)

[jschembs]

I started in 2000-2005.

 

Better way to ask this question imo is "at what age did you start investing?"

 

That's another interesting question, but my main interest was gauging what cycles most folks have been through. I interned on the PHLX option exchange floor in 2000, so I very vaguely remember the dot com euphoria, but I wasn't really investing my own money until the mid-2000s. 2007 felt nothing like what I remember 2000 was like, which is why I don't think folks can say today whether or not a top is forming just because it isn't as euphoric as 2000.

[orion]

1996 @ the age of 13. Was a great ride until it wasn't. Then I found religion. (Graham/Buffett)

 

 

1994 @ the age of 14. Have to confess I was a chartist, made 10x during dot com mania, lost it all and just in 2006/2007 I finally became a value investor.

[bookie71]

Interesting. May I ask if you chose to analyze small caps or mega caps?

Small caps, there is too much summarization in the big companies.

[Jurgis]

2007 felt nothing like what I remember 2000 was like, which is why I don't think folks can say today whether or not a top is forming just because it isn't as euphoric as 2000.

 

2007 was not like 2000. Today/tomorrow is not going to be like 2007 or 2000.

[Travis Wiedower]

~2008 when I was in college. Not long after I had my entire portfolio split between Fifth Third Bank, Bank of America and Citigroup. Twas a good time to begin my career  ;D

[Scudbucket]

Started November 2007.  Not kidding.  Learned a lot real quick. 

[valueinvestor82]

I had a lawn maintenance business from age 11 through college, when I had my first business divesture and sold the contracts to one guy and the equipment to another in 2005. Along the way, I started with a CD at age 16 and then started reading, finally investing a few thousand in 2001 at 18 split between Select American Shares and Calamos Growth. 2003 my dad let me invest his savings and that begun my foray into individual stocks. I got fairly lucky and made a killing due to timing (AMR and XTO were big holdings, among others, riding those two to over 100% returns) and I'd say it took me until 2005 to really know what I was doing.

[KinAlberta]

First stocks in the late 70s in high school, but not meaningful amounts due to a lack of meaningful amounts. Shortly after more meaningful amounts went into bonds since interest rates were in the double digits and economies were tanking. Then from 1983/4 on almost exclusively invested in equities.

Note: I'd be substantially wealthier today had I:

- not bought a house by selling securities

- not paid off renovation loans by selling securities (at the worst times in terms of market cycles)

- not lived a fairly high lifestyle for my income (saved a lot when young and then very little as aged)

- not avoided investment debt (always thought I should be borrowing and buying more BRK), and all other debt (could have mortgaged my house years ago and invested the proceeds)

- moved a lot less money to cash well in advance of market collapses

- kept working at my old job rather than quitting to work for non-profits, etc.

...

[Guest]

I was 13/14 in 1994/1995. I bought VTEL with my birthday/Christmas money.  I thought "video conferencing was the future!" I then lost...around 90%. It was a good amount of money at the time - about $1000 (for a 14 year old). It was a good learning experience though.

 

I read it back in Individual Investor magazine for any one who might remember it.

[innerscorecard]

First stocks in the late 70s in high school, but not meaningful amounts due to a lack of meaningful amounts. Shortly after more meaningful amounts went into bonds since interest rates were in the double digits and economies were tanking. Then from 1983/4 on almost exclusively invested in equities.

Note: I'd be substantially wealthier today had I:

- not bought a house by selling securities

- not paid off renovation loans by selling securities (at the worst times in terms of market cycles)

- not lived a fairly high lifestyle for my income (saved a lot when young and then very little as aged)

- not avoided investment debt (always thought I should be borrowing and buying more BRK), and all other debt (could have mortgaged my house years ago and invested the proceeds)

- moved a lot less money to cash well in advance of market collapses

- kept working at my old job rather than quitting to work for non-profits, etc.

...

 

But do you think all these decisions helped lessen your stress and thus improved your quality of life sufficiently so that it was worth it? Or were they just mistakes?

[feynmanresearch]

Late 2014, when I was 22.

[John Hjorth]

... , but my main interest was gauging what cycles most folks have been through. ...

 

I'm calling this old topic - from 2015 - out for a bump & spin, because I find the question interesting and usefull as background information for reading posts by fellow board members.

 

I hope you'll chim in, if you haven't already.

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

For my part, September 2012 @ age 54 [born 1958], for stocks. Approx. 15 years with bonds before that.

[rkbabang]

I started buying stocks in 1996 right after graduating from college.  But I was pretty much buying random tech stocks without really knowing or even trying to know what I was doing.  I wouldn't say that I started really trying to learn about investing until after the tech crash in 2000-2001 or so.

 

[Cigarbutt]

Late 1990's, when started to experience positive cash flows from my own operations.

Autodidactic learning. Took a while.

Reading annual FFH reports helped define a contrarian, concentrated and value-based approach.

 

Around 2000, inherited Nortel through a spinoff (Bell Canada). Sold Nortel. Then watched it rise and fall.

These were the days when re-pricing of risk and mutual fund run risk were discussed and when concerns were backed by more than words.

 

[Guest longinvestor]

2005 is when I started "investing". All previous efforts were "wth" type. But those mistakes were important to my learning. If I didn't have those nasty experiences, likely wouldn't have been here. I read more and have developed focus on mistake avoidance. Age? Let me say that I was in my lower middle years when those scars developed. Thankfully.

[gfp]

I see this old thread was revived.  I started investing in 1999 when I got a job in Chicago designing one-page investment reports for an investment/tech startup specializing in separately managed accounts.  It was a web programming / graphic design job, but required me to learn what information investors wanted and how they wanted it laid out on a one-pager.  (at that age I copied morningstar's and value-line's one-pagers and tweaked from there).  Back then I thought it was a big deal to have my web program query the databases and produce a PDF with performance charts, etc, on the fly.  Probably not the best way to do that, especially at the time. 

 

Before that I had owned Disney shares, but that was more of a childhood gift from my Dad to get me into investing and to request the cool stock certificate to put on my wall.  My father was an investor and option seller.  He introduced me to options premiums, credit spreads, and various credit producing combinations when I was in high school (I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, lots of options and futures folks up there), but he passed away when I was in college.

 

I bought my first Berkshire shares in 2000, and my first big position in Berkshire when the markets reopened following the September 11 WTC attacks.  I think I remember 2001 trades being in the $2100/ B share range but I'm not sure.  I know there were a block of shares with an 1850 cost basis but I think those were earlier than 2001.  I was a full time investor by 2001 and still remember watching the attacks live on CNBC.  Started managing accounts for a few family members in 2001.

 

I was born in 1980, for reference