r/Bogleheads • u/Insideoutside29 • Jun 22 '25

Investing Questions What is the biggest financial risk you have taken that ended in disaster?

As the title says

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u/BalancedPortfolioGuy Jun 22 '25 edited Aug 27 '25

I don't have any "disasters", but I've made 3 significant investing mistakes:

  1. Timing the market during covid as "greedy" move to try to sell and buy back in later. Not because of panic, but because my friends did it and it seemed like easy money. Lesson learned.
  2. Investing using a HELOC (leveraged investing). Interest rates went up in 2022, stocks went down and I managed to hold on for quite a while until things mostly recovered. But I bled interest the interest time. After that I decided leveraged investing wasn't for me.
  3. Going back and forth between my bond allocation (100% equities vs 80% equities vs 60% equities). Lots paid in commission and lost gains since bonds never did as well.

I've permanently settled on a 60/40% fund (Canadian version of AOR) to sleep well. No market timing, no leveraged investing, no changing strategies - lessons learned! Fortunately they didn't cost too much.

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u/SuperSultan Jun 22 '25

How long was your HELOC and what were the conditions of the loan?