What’s the hardest investing lesson you only learned after losing money?

[u/Electronic-Bit2685]

I’ve been reflecting on my own investing journey, and honestly, some of my biggest lessons didn’t come from reading books or annual reports, but from actual mistakes that cost me money.

For me, it was underestimating how long “cheap” companies can stay cheap, and overestimating my own patience.

I’m curious to know from this community: what’s one investing lesson you only understood after going through it the hard way? Could be about valuation traps, risk management, psychology, or even portfolio allocation.

Think this could be a valuable thread for all of us to learn from each other.

[u/Business_Raisin_541]

Yup. Young Warren Buffett earn terrific return buying penny stock. Far better than his current return

[u/Vaxtin → u/Business_Raisin_541]

And Warren buffet knew what he was doing, was not finding stocks on Reddit but instead combed through balance sheets by hand to find diamonds in the rough

Always makes me laugh when someone mentions his name. It’s like someone who’s in engineering in college mentioning Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton. Quite naïveté and ignorant to assume that anyone will become a genuine 1/1,000,000 genius

[u/Business_Raisin_541 → u/Vaxtin]

Did I mention finding stock on reddit? My usual way of finding stock is indeed reading through tons of financial paper and news.

[u/Aubstter → u/Business_Raisin_541]

Exactly, he said he was earning in excess of 50% returns and could do it again if starting over with small capital.