I’ve been trading for close to 10 years now, with the last 5.5 years, full-time.
In my first year as a full-time trader, I made more than 100% returns. When I was a new trader, I saw Investing as a waste of time since the best it could generate was 20–25% annually. Oh boy, was I wrong! I was young and naive.
As I saw drawdowns and losses, I realized making 100% consistently is impossible and stupid to even expect. I changed my expectations and started looking at investing.
Back in the day when I started, I remember buying TVS motors at 43. I sold most of it fairly quickly in the 50s. Today, despite a 50% fall, it still trades at 460. I wish I held all of it!
Being a full-time trader, I have a genuine problem of not being able to hold shares for the long term. That trader mentality is impossible to get rid of. Speaking to a lot of traders, I observed they had the same problem.
I did something very simple to solve this problem, I started putting my profits into Mutual Funds- Mostly large cap. However good or bad these Mutual Funds are, I know for a fact that I will still be holding them 20 years from now and I would’ve seen the benefit of compounding.
While making profits in the stock market is tough, keeping those profits is equally tough. Learning from my own and others’ mistakes, I’ve decided to take it slow, gradually invest and build a strong Mutual Fund portfolio.