Top Investing Mistakes to Avoid | Summer Series

Bryce: [00:00:31] Welcome to the Get Started Investing feed summer series, proudly brought to you by Superhero. Over six episodes, we're going to be hearing from members of both the Equity Mates and Superhero community and covering some of the biggest questions for anyone starting their investing journey. And as always, I am joined by my equity buddy Ren. How are you going? 

Alec: [00:00:49] I'm very good. Bryce Great to be back for this second episode of the summer series. I'm hoping at this point you and I are on a golf course or at the beach, maybe not even together or we're not together. We spend a lot of time together so we can take a break over summer. Yes. Don't be blowing up my phone when we're separate, though 

Bryce: [00:01:09] I promise I won't. I will let you have some clean air to breathe. But Ren last episode, we covered the question Do you have an investing goal or style? And this episode we're covering the question. What is your biggest investing mistake? Love this topic! Everyone has a mistake, but the important thing is that we all have learnings from it as well. So before we crack in a reminder that the summer series is brought to you by a superhero who allow you to buy Aussie and US shares and ETFs with no monthly account fees, and you can now earn Qantas points with superhero. So is it superhero.com.au/Qantas to learn more eligibility criteria? Terms and conditions and fees and charges apply. 

Alec: [00:01:53] We're speaking to community members again in this episode. We've got Courtney, we've got Simon, and we've got Queenie. A lot of people will be familiar with Queenie from the Invest with Queenie Tik-tok and Instagram. You know this the whole concept of this summer series is to speak to members from the superhero and the Equity Mates community to remind people that while investing money may feel a bit lonely at times, it might feel like you're alone. There's a whole community of people that are facing similar challenges and going through the investing journey with you. This episode, I think in particular, is a great reminder of that, that everyone makes mistakes, and we've obviously chatted about our mistakes on this show before, but everyone makes mistakes and that is absolutely okay. And some of those mistakes are really tough and they're ones that I would definitely have made as well. Others are funny and, you know, we can laugh at them like my Slater and Gordon misstep. But I think it's a really good reminder that we're all in this together. We're all trying to figure this out. No one is a perfect investor, despite what they might tell you on social media. And it's it's a learning game. 

Bryce: [00:03:05] It is a learning game. So before we kick into it, Ren, we've all heard you. Slater and Gordon say, let's let's let's leave that one. Any more recent mistakes? You've been in the game a while. So, you know, we've spoken to a lot of experts. Anything that you recently look at and go to Ash and I've done that. 

Alec: [00:03:24] The two mistakes that I really make hay out of Slater and Gordon and then buying bitcoin in 2017 at the top are done to death. So let's not worry about them. More recently, I think there's been a lot of mistakes of omission, of hearing about companies, and they're not doing anything about it on our Equity Mates summer series, on the other podcast feed. We do a deep dive on Calix, the company that is up over 600 percent in the last 12 months and that we heard about nine months ago. But I think as an investor, you can't kick yourself about that because there's so many things that you miss, like nobody can swing at every pitch and every even the best investors of all time have missed more great opportunities and they've taken. And that's OK. That's the game. So you can't really beat yourself up about that. One that does come to mind was Zillow. For people unfamiliar, Zillow is like a house listing website similar to real estate, dot com or domain. And my view was that Zillow has a similar dominant position to real estate dot com in a bigger market. The kicker was Zillow was also trying to algorithmically buy houses, and that business did not go so well and they exited it and the share price is down meaningfully. That was a small position, but a small position that is now smaller. Nice because it went down and went down. What about you, any recent mistakes? 

Bryce: [00:04:53] I think if I say recent as in like the last three years, what 

Alec: [00:05:00] you tell me, no mistakes in the last two years. 

Bryce: [00:05:03] I think the biggest mistake is I've had too much cash on the side. 

Alec: [00:05:06] Oh, must be nice. Must be nice. Biggest mistake is, I'm too rich. 

Bryce: [00:05:11] No, no, no. I've had too much of my thought. I've had not too much of, but I've yeah, I've just had too much cash sitting on the side, constantly somewhat fearful of this. You know what, Mike, be as a correction, and I've always the strategy is always to have cash on the side for us when something does hit the fan. And you can deploy. But I think my allocation of that has probably been too much. I've just seen what's going on in the market in particular over the last 18 months. And what could have been if that money was in the market, just in an index fund? Yeah, that's my money. 

Alec: [00:05:49] Yeah. The very best investors, you know, we speak about dollar cost averaging and, you know, not timing the market, just having time in the market. The very best investors of the last two years, really since the Covid crash have just been dollar cost averaging into an American index fund, or they've 

Bryce: [00:06:07] just been 100 per cent 

Alec: [00:06:09] in. Yeah, because all its pain is just those superstar American companies just putting in the work and just grinding higher investing sometimes is a very simple game that we make complicated in. The last 18 months have really shown me that. So not specifically a mistake, but I think sometimes I try and over this pudding and try and overthink things, and I just need to buck the genius of, you know, some Bezos. Yeah, Zuckerberg, you're not the first one that I would have said, you know, Tim Cook and and the gang over there and just trust that they know what they're doing. Hmm. 

Bryce: [00:06:53] But anyway, enough of our mistakes. Let's let's get into it. Let's hear from Courtney, Simon and Queenie about what they considered to be their biggest investing mistakes. So we are joined by Courtney, who started investing at 21 after her parents bought her a subscription to The Motley Fool Share newsletter, surprisingly, this wasn't her biggest mistake. Courtney, it's lovely to have you here.

Courtney: [00:07:23] Yeah, thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. 

Bryce: [00:07:26] So this episode is all about mistakes. We've all made mistakes as investors, and we love hearing the stories of mistakes to help people either not make them or realise that it's not the end of the world if you do. What is your biggest investing mistake?

Courtney: [00:07:41] I'll probably start with saying that my biggest investing mistake was probably not doing enough research and not being curious enough on what I was getting myself into. So I guess to sort of Segway into the mistake that I made and minus the motley chef behind the subscription letter that I got from my parents. So I was set up with an investment broker, Halifax Investment Services. You know, mom and dad set up the account for me and for my 21st birthday, basically, and they gave me the Motley Fool Share Advisor newsletter. They said, pick a couple of shares that will let the broker know, you know, you can start investing with them. And I was sort of just on my way. I didn't really do any research or ask any questions. I just looked at mom and dad and was like, Oh, sweet, they know everything. I'm sure it's fine. So I started, you know, putting in, you know, a thousand dollars here, a couple of grand there over probably about four or five years, all the way up until I was about sort of twenty five, twenty six. And then I decided to save for a house deposit. So I started to sort of stop putting money into shares and start saving the cash in my bank account, then eventually save for a deposit for an apartment. So that probably then took me to twenty eighteen, where I sort of had a decent amount of money to buy an apartment, but I wasn't quite there. So I thought what I'll do is I'll dip into a little bit of my shares to get me that deposit. And when I actually went to contact the stock broker Halifax Investment Services, I then go to bounce back email saying that the company had actually gone into liquidation. Or I got this email and I just remember being like, What does that even mean? I honestly had no idea, like what the implications of that email meant. And then slowly, there was like a hotline that you had to call that I obviously got on the phone to and they said, Oh, you know, the company is going into liquidation. Investors can't access their funds, they're going through the courts. And this all happened in like 2018. But I hadn't contacted the stockbroker until 2019. So I'd heard nothing of it because I think because my mom subscribed me to the stockbroker, she was getting the email on not me 

Bryce: [00:10:19] and my mom didn't say anything. No. 

Courtney: [00:10:22] So she just ruki rookie error. So then it was just this massive shock. And like, I had to try and figure out what this all meant for me. You know, they were talking us through when we'd get our money back and if we get any money back at all. And it was so up in the air it was devastating because not only was my money tied tied up with this stockbroker that I couldn't access, but nor could I buy this apartment that I had found to sort of, you know, buy and stop my or get my foot into the property market. So I was devastated. But, you know, I think from there it was just like a huge learning curve for me. And it has since made me realise that there is a lot more to investing. My parents probably simplified it for me, and they made it very accessible to me. So I therefore never questioned anything. And since now that all this has happened and I've very much been researching now and listening to podcasts like yours, you know, in a whole heap of other podcasts as well. And I've just sort of like, you know, I had this massive realisation that like, Oh my God, I would like went in so fast and loose, like, had no idea. And yeah, I think definitely a learning for myself and anyone out there is to ensure that like you're asking yourself the right questions, you're talking to your friends, you're talking to your parents, or maybe not your parents, and just making sure that you feel like it's a safe place to put your money. So I think that. Was probably my biggest mistake, but also my biggest learning. 

Alec: [00:12:10] It's tough because you were doing everything right. Starting investing, you're putting money into the market over a long period of time. But I think it's a good lesson that the platforms that you use and the brokers that you use are also really important. 

Courtney: [00:12:26] Oh, so important. And I think I've probably, you know over research now who I to invest my money with because of it. And you know, it was still going through the process with the liquidation and the administrators with Halifax, and it's constantly being pushed out on when we will get our money back. You know, they said 2020, they said 2021, now it's 2022. So these things can take years and years and it has happened in the past. It is quite unlucky, though, because Australia's very regulated, I think, in this space. So it was a bit of a bit of bad luck, I guess. But also, I think I wouldn't change it, though, because it's meant that I'm now more invested in, I think, building myself to, like, have a whole heap more knowledge than I did and to build my portfolio again, you know, because I've sort of have lost out on a lot of money as my portfolio, the money that I get back. Well, this is according to way. The courts with it at the moment is that I will only get back the value of my portfolio from November 2018, and I've missed the massive off of the market over the last year or so, which is devastating. I hate to say it's not to say that I don't want to invest. And yes, it's like, you know, knocked me off my block, but I'm definitely going to get right back on it. So that's 

Bryce: [00:13:58] right. Well, Courtney, thank you for joining us. As I said at the start, it's always good to hear from beginner investors and those that are well into their journey on challenges. They're facing, how they've become the mistakes and of course, resources as well. So it's been a pleasure. 

Courtney: [00:14:10] Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. 

Bryce: [00:14:18] So Simon is a father of two who has been investing for a number of years but came across a speed bump after signing up with a self-managed super fund. He's going to share his story with us and some of the lessons that he learnt from this situation. So it is our pleasure to welcome Simon to get started investing. Simon welcome. 

Simon: [00:14:35] Thanks for having me. 

Bryce: [00:14:36] So Simon, can you tell us about your biggest investing mistake, what happened and perhaps any major lessons that you learnt from it? 

Simon: [00:14:43] Yes, so. I think ours is all around self-managed super funds. So I probably started way back in 2009 when the GFC happened and I was watching a few people at work who had to prolong their retirement dream because they lost all of their super, basically. So from there, I started to think about diversifying our super fund and and our retirement savings, but didn't really have a clue how to do it. And then over the next couple of years, friends of ours got caught up in the self-managed super fund space and they were talking about buying property, which was really cool for us to be a part of our property. So we started poking around in that space and eventually set one up with the idea of buying an apartment. And then from there, we just had barrier after barrier pop up and basically the the property took longer to get started than we expected. We changed self-managed super fund like a portfolio manager at that time as well. We noticed the customer service from him went down. So then from there we started getting a bit bit nervous and thinking, Oh, is this the right thing for us? Was taking longer than we expected, or we're not really getting what we thought we were. So we've got some independent financial advice, and from there we identified a whole bunch of issues. We have basically looked at a 10 year plan and from that, because of the amount of money we're going to put into like a mortgage through the super fund over the 10 years, we weren't actually going to make any money at all. We're going to be completely reliant upon doubling the property growth and hoping that the market booms, which when we looked at that in comparison comparison to, say, the share market with this financial adviser, we're going to have a much safer return on that type of process. So so we made the really tough decision to pull out of the out of the apartment and the self-managed super fund and ended up losing probably a year year and a half worth of super savings. To all the fees that we we basically had with setting it all up had to give away some of the deposit for the unit and then also so winding it up and moving across to this new financial adviser. So it was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. But we feel like now that we've got it pretty much and just shares now a good, diverse portfolio that is probably a safer bet in the long term, even though like, yeah, we had those rose coloured glasses on for the apartment, but it just wasn't going to work out. Yeah, there'd be 

Bryce: [00:17:14] a lot of members in the community who, you know, they're not quite at the stage of managing a self-managed managed super fund. But on the other hand, you know, there's there are a lot of people coming into the Get Started Investing feed community who are at that point in their life where they're looking to make sure that they're optimising their super and setting it up. So well, what would be if you had your time again, what would be one of the lessons or pieces of advice that you would tell yourself going through that process? 

Simon: [00:17:42] Yeah, I think independent financial advice. So we got onto the self-managed super fund through a mortgage broker because we were so keen on on property, we didn't really realise that all the the whole thing was set up towards property. And even though we had a bit of money and share at the time, it was towards property investment shared as well. But going to this independent financial adviser who was able to really map it out in full detail for us and even things like where they where they offer you the years worth of free rent and so forth, we thought that was a pretty cool, cool thing. But then when the independent financial advice, avoid basically paying for that in the price of the units that you are actually giving yourself the free the free 12 months, I think, you know, learning those lessons through the independent financial provider was the biggest lesson, and I wish we did that before we sign on the dotted line.

Bryce: [00:18:31] Well, luckily you did get it, and it feels it sounds like it's certainly more sorted. 

Simon: [00:18:35] Yeah, definitely a nice, big relief. 

Bryce: [00:18:39] That's good. So Ren, before we hear from our next guest, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and then we'll be right back into it. So we're joined by Queenie Tan, otherwise known as Invest with Queenie, who has built herself an amazing platform of over 100000 followers across all your social media channels. Sharing her journey to financial freedom. This is the first time that we've spoken with Queenie on the podcast. We've been following her for a while now and we're very excited to be chatting here in the studio. Her and her partner Pablo, have just quit their jobs to focus on doing content full time. Must be very nice. We love seeing those two lots of congratulations and welcome to Get Started Investing feed. 

Queenie Tan: [00:19:23] Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm so excited because, yeah, I've also been likewise following your journey as well listening to your podcast. So it's so nice to actually meet in person. Like it's just so weird, like seeing you guys are real people.

Alec: [00:19:38] It's so funny. Well, Queenie Bryce wants to get as many tik-tok tips from you as possible, but before we get into that, we're here to talk investing mistakes. So can you tell us the story of one of your biggest investing mistakes? 

Queenie Tan: [00:19:51] Of course, sir, let me take you back to 2017. It was when I first discovered cryptocurrency and I was in a bar with my friend and he was telling me about what he was investing in. And he was just like, Yeah, it's it's pretty crazy. Like, he just puts money into these crypto coins and he's just making these insane returns. And I was like, You've got to tell me what you're buying, like, what is this like? This is insane because at the time I had just I've been investing in ETFs and like robo advisors for a little while, but I was like, That sounds so boring, like crypto is where it's at. I can't believe I haven't done this before. So that night I set up a coin spot account. I started to invest in cryptocurrencies. I had no idea what I was doing. I was just kind of like buying a bunch of random coins. I think my first investment was like $100, and then I take the next day and it was like $110, and I was like, Wow, that is insane. And then I was just like addicted. I was hooked. I was like, I did not have a strategy. I was just putting money in. And then suddenly I think I invested all up around like four thousand five thousand dollars. And then by the end of the year, or maybe like a year later, it was worth $20000. And I remember seeing that I was like, Oh my God, I hit the jackpot and I was just thinking, like, I mean, at this rate, I'm going to be like a billionaire. Like, you know, like, it was insane. And yeah, so unfortunately, it kind of hit that high where my portfolio was worth about $20000, and then it fell pretty quickly within two weeks. So that was, you know, when the crypto market just really took a nosedive, my portfolio was worth about $2000. After that date, I was looking and it was like, No, it's not that bad. Like it's going to go back up like it will go back up eventually. So I think I waited about a year to kind of just did not really do anything. And then I was like, Well, that was really dumb. Like, what did I even buy? Like, I did not even know what I bought. Like, it would have been fine if I kind of feel like I would have had more conviction in my portfolio if I invested in Bitcoin, Ethereum and just kind of stuck to those ones. But I just had a bunch of random crap that I was just like, What is this like? I'm pretty sure some of them were just scams as well. So it was like, Oh, you know what? Like, I'm just going to cut my losses, take it out. Like, it's been a year. Nothing's happening. Nobody cares about crypto anymore, whatever. And so I just kind of took it out and just invested in shares and whatnot. And yeah, so my lesson was I actually have since bought into crypto again because I really do like the space and I think it is exciting, but I'm doing it differently. One, I'm not investing in a bunch of random coins that I have no idea about and just sticking to Bitcoin and Ethereum two. I kind of know the space now that even if it does take a nosedive in my portfolio falls by 90 percent. I'm not going to freak out and, you know, sell all my coins. I know that up front, I know how volatile the space is. So that is my story of my biggest investing mistake as well. 

Bryce: [00:23:04] At the time of recording bitcoin's at an all time high. So you must be you must be happy with that. 

Queenie Tan: [00:23:10] Yeah. Do you guys have crypto? Like what? 

Bryce: [00:23:12] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've got bitcoin bit of a Syrian and like 50 bucks in what's it called? She bought it. I didn't 

Alec: [00:23:23] put it at the top, 

Bryce: [00:23:27] but at the time, literally, what, 50 bucks a year? Because I think at the time one of my mates was in commerce and I'm not making a fortune so much money grab. It made a lot of money, but overtreated completely screwed the whole thing up. And so I put fifty bucks in in Shiba Inu, just as a yellow, if this goes. Just like anything like coming is going to be swayed. Well, it went the other way because playing it, so 

Alec: [00:23:53] it's always a worry when you can't say the name of your investment. 

Bryce: [00:24:00] Yeah. We were both in crypto. I think there's a platform that at the moment that we both use that you can sort of micro invest into it, which is which is good. And yeah, but we actually equities all the way. 

Alec: [00:24:12] We actually bought some bitcoin for Equity Mates, so we could say that Square, Tesla and Equity Mates are the three big companies buying bitcoin. Yes. Yes, yes. 

Bryce: [00:24:26] But equities all the way for us? Yeah. 

Alec: [00:24:29] Yeah, yeah. 

Bryce: [00:24:30] Nice. Well, any thank you so much for sharing your insights and such enthusiasm, I guess, for educating others in this space. Alec and I are such fans of what you're doing and Pablo as well. And yeah, it's been great having you on. 

Queenie Tan: [00:24:44] So thank you. Thank you so much for having me, guys. It's it's such a pleasure to finally meet you guys and like Chad. And yeah, thank you so much for having me on the podcast and thank you guys for listening. 

Bryce: [00:24:53] As well as always, Ren great to hear from community members. Always good to hear stories to remind ourselves that we are not in this alone. So thank you to those three for sharing their mistakes. We hope that you've been able to learn something from them. 

Alec: [00:25:07] Yeah, I love the fact that Clinton has been able to quit her job as well. Yes. Yeah. Nice. It's a great story. And even better that Pablo Clay and his partner was able to quit as well. So I guess the question that I have is when are you going to bring Jared in and get her to quit, quit her job and join us full time at Equity Mates? 

Bryce: [00:25:27] The day will come, the day will come. But anyway, let's let's wrap it up. The summer series is brought to you by a superhero who allow you to buy Aussie and US shares and ETFs with no monthly account fees, and you can now earn Quantas points with superheroes. So visit superhero dot com slash Qantas to learn more. Eligibility criteria, terms and conditions and fees and charges apply next week. We are answering the question around what is one thing you wish you knew when you started investing, and we've got a bunch of amazing investors sharing their answer to that question, so we will pick it up then.