What Is the Best Investment That You've Ever Made?

[Blake Hampton]

What was your Geico equivalent?

 

- Idea origination?

- Thesis?

- Holding period?

- Position size?

[Parsad]

Reading the 1998 Letter to Shareholders on Berkshire's website when it first went online. 

 

None of my investments would have happened without doing that, so for the price I paid (free), and the return I received (independent wealth)...hands down the best investment ever made! 

 

2nd best investment...buying and reading "The Intelligent Investor".  Taught me how to value a stock.  

 

I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but they are by far the best investments ever made in my entire life.

 

Cheers!

[Malmqky]

Best investment I've made off the top of my head was buying a basket of energy stock calls and warrants during Covid lockdowns.

 

Thesis was simple - world wouldn't be locked down forever. I didn't have any particular insight into the industry, so I just bought a basket. Wanted some kind of leverage because I was very certain of the outcome, hence not buying shares and instead warrants/calls.

 

Holding period was like a year or so.

 

Position size was 25%ish. Too bad I didn't have the balls to go all in.

Edited December 9, 2023 by Malmqky

[LC]

JPM (then chase) stock when I was like, 9? 10? years old. 

 

I had no idea what I was doing - in math class, our homework was to draw a stock's price over a week's time as a simple way to learn how to use chart data, figure out what the x and y axis were... I only knew Chase because they had a branch across the street. My father saw what I was doing and asked me if I wanted to buy the stock. No idea why I even said "yes" but there I was with 2 shares of JPM courtesy of some birthday money from my grandmother that was sitting in my sock drawer. I was pissed when I realized I had to use my own money - that was going to be for video games and candy.

 

And by "best investment" really because it was the longest equity position I own.

Contrast that with the large sums my family had in 3% fixed annuities in the 90s. The opportunity cost they lost there is so immense over time, it is embarrassing. 

Edited December 9, 2023 by LC

[Sweet]

1 hour ago, Malmqky said:

Best investment I've made off the top of my head was buying a basket of energy stock calls and warrants during Covid lockdowns.

 

Thesis was simple - world wouldn't be locked down forever. I didn't have any particular insight into the industry, so I just bought a basket. Wanted some kind of leverage because I was very certain of the outcome, hence not buying shares and instead warrants/calls.

 

Holding period was like a year or so.

 

Position size was 25%ish. Too bad I didn't have the balls to go all in.

This, although I was 90+% lol.

 

To add some context, I had a large position in O&G before covid, but when covid came I pretty much put every cent I had into O&G.

 

Unfortunately I had just agreed on my first home a few months before covid came along so I had a very large deposit I couldn’t touch.  The amount of money I could have made is not worth thinking about.  Still, can’t complain.

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Sweet

[Blake Hampton]

1 hour ago, Malmqky said:

Best investment I've made off the top of my head was buying a basket of energy stock calls and warrants during Covid lockdowns.

 

Thesis was simple - world wouldn't be locked down forever. I didn't have any particular insight into the industry, so I just bought a basket. Wanted some kind of leverage because I was very certain of the outcome, hence not buying shares and instead warrants/calls.

 

Holding period was like a year or so.

 

Position size was 25%ish. Too bad I didn't have the balls to go all in.

Interesting, how long out were the calls?

[Kuhndan]

My son was 6 years old and opened a brokerage account thinking I needed to plan for college. I bought $2,000 of stock in a company called Emulex. Fifteen months later the stock had gone up 80x’s. Literally crazy. Sold it and took care of college.

[WayWardCloud]

Great topic, I'll be watching with attention. Thanks for starting it!

 

[Sweet]

1 hour ago, Kuhndan said:

My son was 6 years old and opened a brokerage account thinking I needed to plan for college. I bought $2,000 of stock in a company called Emulex. Fifteen months later the stock had gone up 80x’s. Literally crazy. Sold it and took care of college.

Holy cow

[brobro777]

2 hours ago, Kuhndan said:

My son was 6 years old and opened a brokerage account thinking I needed to plan for college. I bought $2,000 of stock in a company called Emulex. Fifteen months later the stock had gone up 80x’s. Literally crazy. Sold it and took care of college.

 

Emulex! Haha I remember watching that stock going crazy because of that hoax thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulex_hoax

 

Those were the days 

 

 

[Santayana]

ORH calls in 2009.  It seemed like everyone knew the purchase of the remaining shares was imminent, but $35 calls were only a few bucks and it happened at $60.

[Gregmal]

From the shares initially to the call binge with @ERICOPOLY, to the big cash windfall in summer 2022….couldn’t have done anything better here.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Gregmal

[rkbabang]

By far it was ETH followed by BTC.  I bought BTC in 2014 at around $200 and ETH in 2015 at $8.  I turned a small 4 digit investment into a 7 digit return. I’ve made some good stock investments over the years, but nothing like that. I just wish I had bought a lot more.

[Paarslaars]

Well nothing like crypto gains for me unfortunately but the UBS calls this year we're a x5.5 return in less than 6 months.

[RichardGibbons]

This year, I bought C March calls on October 25, rolled the profit up in the second half of November.  I think it's about a 700% gain today.

 

On UAN, I made about a 14-bagger on reasonably large initial position of shares and calls (with a lot of rolling of options). That took almost two years, but was my biggest dollar gain.

A portion of my FFH calls back in the day went to 30 or 40x--I can't remember which. To my (weak) recollection, that was over the course of about 8 months, and I imagine those calls were probably my highest percentage gain on a single position.

[formthirteen]

The investments I've made in my self and my family. Knowledge and health is everything. I have everything I need now. Sometimes I forget this when I see an ad or something I need want.

 

 

- Idea origination?

 

Munger or Buffett, I think.

 

- Thesis?

 

Enjoy the ride.

 

- Holding period?

 

Cradle to grave.

 

- Position size?

 

All-in.

 

 

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by formthirteen

[beerbaron]

My prenuptial agreement... on so many levels. Most not financial.

 

Beerbaron

[John Hjorth]

 

A line in the specifications of transactions on a Mastercard account of mine, on the "BS Oversigt" [Translation from Danish : ~Payments service transactions overview of Automated payments transactions] for April 2013, covering a Paypal payment drawn on my Paypal account on March 13^th 2013 , drawn on the Mastercard account 15^th March 2013 of what must then have been CAD 10.00 with some spread on currency conversion [from CAD to DKK] to Paypal and/or Mastercard.

 

What I bought immediallly went to zero. And It does not even appear in any yearly account statements to me  from neither Paypal nor from the applied Mastercard account. Furthermore, I can't even sell the damn thing! Despite I have it and can't sell it, I can actually loose it, and it's actually very, very precious to me personally.

 

For everyone buying this thingy it's totally up to one self personally to get the best out of it.

 

To me personally, it's has been world's best doughnut!

[SharperDingaan]

Two of the better ones.

 

Personal vs business life. Way back in the day I worked for a prominent US Company doing business in Canada. I had done very well, and was under overt pressure to move to the US HQ; resistance was meeting with very direct 'phone calls, from high placed people who refused to hear 'No'. While the US was not my first choice, ultimately I was OK with moving; but my girlfriend at the time flatly would have nothing to do with it. End of the day the company and I agreed to amicably part, the girlfriend become spouse, and we're still together decades later.

 

Investment.  Long time ago, MX-T used to be in the Nova orbit (now merged into TCE), and per common practise at the time - was overextended. There were issues, the shares were well < CAD 2, and to survive - the company sold 5 yr LEAPS at a ridiculous strike, that rapidly sank like a brick. Methanol is a base industrial chemical, it was clear to me there were no other real choices, and I put nearly all of what I could lay my hands on into these LEAPS. It eventually went my way; but I learnt that when options go very deeply in the money (& stay there) there is no market for them, and they cannot be put up for collateral. I had to sit there for years until the LEAP finally expired, with a house sized unrealised gain that changed daily, unable to do a thing about it. Hence today, we almost always use stock/margin, 'cause that sh1te ain't never happening again!  

 

Point to all this is that it's just money; you have to be able to walk away, and you have to understand that it works for you - not the other way around. Lot of ways of accomplishing this, and the colourful 5% are some of the better people to talk to!

 

SD

Edited December 10, 2023 by SharperDingaan

[no_free_lunch]

$CSU.to.   I actually missed the big moves and sold way too early but even still I managed to double my money in half a year.  I've had lots of other doubles and larger but this was different.  I had a huge position in it as it was going for 15x earnings, with no debt, growing 30% a year or something and holding a diversified set of niche software businesses.  It didn't ever feel like there was much risk.  I probably had 10% in it (for me that's huge) but always regret not making it larger.  It was the near certainty that I would not lose and possibly make a huge gain that stands out.

[sleepydragon]

4 hours ago, SharperDingaan said:

Two of the better ones.

 

Personal vs business life. Way back in the day I worked for a prominent US Company doing business in Canada. I had done very well, and was under overt pressure to move to the US HQ; resistance was meeting with very direct 'phone calls, from high placed people who refused to hear 'No'. While the US was not my first choice, ultimately I was OK with moving; but my girlfriend at the time flatly would have nothing to do with it. End of the day the company and I agreed to amicably part, the girlfriend become spouse, and we're still together decades later.

 

Investment.  Long time ago, MX-T used to be in the Nova orbit (now merged into TCE), and per common practise at the time - was overextended. There were issues, the shares were well < CAD 2, and to survive - the company sold 5 yr LEAPS at a ridiculous strike, that rapidly sank like a brick. Methanol is a base industrial chemical, it was clear to me there were no other real choices, and I put nearly all of what I could lay my hands on into these LEAPS. It eventually went my way; but I learnt that when options go very deeply in the money (& stay there) there is no market for them, and they cannot be put up for collateral. I had to sit there for years until the LEAP finally expired, with a house sized unrealised gain that changed daily, unable to do a thing about it. Hence today, we almost always use stock/margin, 'cause that sh1te ain't never happening again!  

 

Point to all this is that it's just money; you have to be able to walk away, and you have to understand that it works for you - not the other way around. Lot of ways of accomplishing this, and the colourful 5% are some of the better people to talk to!

 

SD

 

Can't you do an Exercise on the LEAPs since you can't sell it anyway? You could do exercise a portion of it, and use the profit, and exercise the remaining. 

[aws]

I probably helped create the best investment ever for another person when I sold my hobby Bitcoin mining business in 2011, along with roughly 1000 Bitcoin at about $10 each.

 

Other than that I've not had anything too spectacular. I've had a 200x on an option, but the position size was tiny. My biggest dollar gain is in Berkshire, but that's just because of the size of the position.

[Malmqky]

19 minutes ago, aws said:

I probably helped create the best investment ever for another person when I sold my hobby Bitcoin mining business in 2011, along with roughly 1000 Bitcoin at about $10 each.

 

Other than that I've not had anything too spectacular. I've had a 200x on an option, but the position size was tiny. My biggest dollar gain is in Berkshire, but that's just because of the size of the position.

 

I have a few bitcoins held in a wallet on an old laptop of mine. Don't remember the credentials to access. Sad days.

[Malmqky]

21 hours ago, blakehampton said:

Interesting, how long out were the calls?

 

Between 6 months and 2 years, with most being closer to a year iirc.

[SharperDingaan]

28 minutes ago, sleepydragon said:

 

Can't you do an Exercise on the LEAPs since you can't sell it anyway? You could do exercise a portion of it, and use the profit, and exercise the remaining. 

 

European option, plus back in the day the spreads were much higher than they are today ... if you could even get a bid.  

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/optioninvestor/08/american-european-options.asp

 

The reality is that if the strike on your call is much < 30% of the current market, it is a lot smarter for the would be call buyer to simply buy the stock and put up 30% margin. Your LEAP has essentially become worthless until there is a liquidity event - as it has gone no bid; if you need the exit, the bidder wants a minimum 40% liquidity discount. Of course if you don't need the liquidity, and can do something else while waiting, you screw up the bidders plan  

 

SD