Most people keep buying more and more stocks looking the the next MSFT-AAPL or whatever. They wouldn’t know what it is even if they tripped on it—And even worse buying their 100 or 200 shares of MSFT back in the day wouldn’t mean anything because most people will not add as the price goes up and eventually will get frightened by a 20K or 50K profit they will sell and give most to the tax man and then unfortunately probably buy something else and promptly lose the money.
B&W, you have a unique perspective on investments, which is interesting to hear. However, I have to say that I’m really sick and tired of your holier than everyone else attitude and talking about “most people” in generalities for which you have no supporting facts or documentation.
TMF is mostly about about Buy and Hold, and adding to winners. Saul’s philosophy is a version of that which adds frequent reviews of long term prospects into the mix. Very very few people here say “my stock went up 200% - I’m selling to lock in profits even though I think the future for the company is very bright.” One of the Gardner brothers is sitting on a 100 bagger in Amazon, for instance. I myself on sitting on some very nice gains in TSLA, and don’t mind riding the ups and downs of the stock - I’m happy to use options during the down times to make money since I’m confident in the long term prospects.
I also feel that you also to realize that everyone’s situation and perspective is different. You talked about a $180/month mortgage payment like it’s some big nut to crack. Where I live, that’s more than order of magnitude of the typical mortgage payment - and has been that way for decades. Getting sick young has to suck, but my point isn’t that my situation is better or worse than yours, just different.
Our past shapes us. My father died younger than I am today. He owned his own business and worked 6&1/2 days on it full time with only 1 week off per year. He died at work. I wasn’t going to let that happen to me - I wasn’t going to be like my dad and spend my young healthy years working just to build a nest egg that I might never live to enjoy. But, I don’t go about recommending that to others.
So, please insisting that investing in AMZN or AAPL or similar is a fool’s errand since we’re too stupid to profit from it anyway. Give us the credit we deserve.