Made a slow lane mistake, what now?

[Sam Kennedy]

In January I made a slow lane mistake of investing £450 in shares (£20 of which is fees, so only £430 invested).
Over the last year, including dividends there's been no growth, my portfolio is at the same value. The plan was just to leave this investment for 30 years, and let it grow at roughly 5% per year, but I can see this is a waste of time. I could cash out now and have £400 cash for a loss of £50, or I could just leave it for a rainy day?

What are your thoughts on this situation?

 

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[TonyStark]

“I could improve your ultimate financial welfare by giving you a ticket with only 20 slots in it so that you had 20 punches—representing all the investments that you got to make in a lifetime. And once you’d punched through the card, you couldn’t make any more investments at all.”

- Warren Buffett

 

[Snoophek]

I'd take it out and invest in myself. 400 is plenty for books or basic courses. Or even better, start a business with it.

 

[Nily]

I

In January I made a slow lane mistake of investing £450 in shares (£20 of which is fees, so only £430 invested).
Over the last year, including dividends there's been no growth, my portfolio is at the same value. The plan was just to leave this investment for 30 years, and let it grow at roughly 5% per year, but I can see this is a waste of time. I could cash out now and have £400 cash for a loss of £50, or I could just leave it for a rainy day?

What are your thoughts on this situation?

I have a feeling you went into the sharemarket without learning the basics.

Pick up 'Intelligent Investor' by Benjamin Graham if you're interested.

As for your $400, assuming you have no intention of investing it in yourself or a side business, put it into Vanguard.

It will spread your capital into thousands of companies or bonds, depending on your risk/age factor.

Your capital will experience mediocre gain between 3%-10% per annual depending on the state of the economy.

The information above is not to be taken literally. Consult another Slowlaner (ie. financial professional) for more information.

 

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[ZF Lee]

I smell DANGER.

Read MJ's book again. He mentioned that he did something similar and ended up with a measely $600+ from all his Slowlane sufferings of investing crap.

Financial instruments only work with RETARDED NUMBERS in which a yield of 6% or less would have higher magnitude if you pumped in millions from a Fastlane business. Besides a better strategy would be to use that as income to mantain your nest egg after a successful Fastlane venture.

If you started out with tiny numbers to invest in a portfolio, I'm sure wealth would mean spending time in a wheelchair

If you were to consult a financial advisor, be vary that most of them are SALESMEN and give no shucks about turning you into their next customer for their sales target. A friend of my dad's works in a bank dealing with such financial products, so I KNOW.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I made a slow lane mistake

You didn't make a mistake. The Slowlane takes 50-100 years to work effectively. You are simply in YEAR 1 of a long, long wait.

Just wait another century -- you'll be a millionaire! Suze says so!

 

[SparksCW]

What are you trying to achieve?

£450 at 5% over 30 years is less than £2000 and that's assuming you can achieve 5%

Just cash it out and invest it in something that might actually make you some money.

Look at starting a business, or putting that into books/courses that will teach you better ways of making money.

Investing is good when you have spare cash, lots of spare cash. Until then you need to generate cash.

 

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[fhs8]

In January I made a slow lane mistake of investing £450 in shares (£20 of which is fees, so only £430 invested).
Over the last year, including dividends there's been no growth, my portfolio is at the same value. The plan was just to leave this investment for 30 years, and let it grow at roughly 5% per year, but I can see this is a waste of time. I could cash out now and have £400 cash for a loss of £50, or I could just leave it for a rainy day?

What are your thoughts on this situation?

You just wasted your time. For you to just recoup your original investment you'd have to gain 4.7% on your investment (to go from £430 to £450) assuming no fees selling the stock. Why would you pay £20 in fees just to buy stock and you only invested £450 are you kidding me? Also a one year time span is way too short.

Investing in stocks is a great idea when you have no use for money laying around for a long period of time.

 

[speakers4u]

Cash out, investment the money in your own personal development. You'll then be ahead of 99% of the population.

Think about, how many people do you know that truly invest a good amount of cash into furthering themselves each year? Not many.

We love to go out, and invest in external ventures, but rarely do we take the time and money to invest in ourselves.

That's what sets us apart. That's why we're here.

 

[ZF Lee]

You didn't make a mistake. The Slowlane takes 50-100 years to work effectively. You are simply in YEAR 1 of a long, long wait.

Just wait another century -- you'll be a millionaire! Suze says so!

Suze is still there?!
Sigh, the financial markets require a widespread culling of BS

 

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[Mikkel]

If you dont mind losing 50£ then id just pull out. It doesnt seem like you made a calculated decision when investing but rather just assumed that based on history most stocks increase with time. If you have reason to believe otherwise then keep it in.

I myself have seen 2-5% increase in my stocks almost each day since the presidential election, and I had reason to believe that. So for myself, I'm keeping my money there since that money will grow faster there, at the moment.

Once I need that money for my business, it will be cashed out.

So, if you don't have a good plan, then I'd get out.