It’s March 2008:...

I just made one of the larger decisions of my life, and I immediately feel this weight of responsibility to sort my financial life out a bit. I always enjoyed aspects of the market but had little to no experience and had delayed a proper investment account for no other reason than simply funneling funds to other things. Call it young naïveté but I wasn't that young. Mostly, it's me not being told about the best path and me not taking the initiative to learn about the best path. Within a few days I open my first brokerage account and begin the process of trying to figure this all out. My first purchase? Shares of Apple after it declined more than 35% over the previous 4 months. This is also my introduction to market orders and how understanding the spread is relevant to getting the price you intend. Within 3 months the stock pops almost 50% and I think, "This is all pretty easy; just buy good companies."

Within another 9 months (think March 2009) the stock drops more than 55%, and two months later is up almost 60%. Yes, I have other stocks in my account at the time, but Apple illustrates my experience the most efficiently. This stock, like virtually everything else in the market at the time during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) is living a whipsaw life.

Now here's where it gets good. The stock market is all anyone and everyone is talking about as people watch their retirement accounts plummet daily; the fear is palpable in the air. People are scared and turning to anything to give them answers and comfort. Me? I'm the newbie and feel like I'm drinking from a fire hydrant with the volume of news and information pouring across the screens each day. I devour everything I can and feel relatively comfortable with many of my purchases (especially as the market begins its recovery following March ‘09) but ultimately take a detour that goes south: I listen to someone who works in finance and who I think knows about the markets. The problem? He's a reactionary person by nature and in May 2009 says the market's move up since its March low is merely a dead-cat bounce and will drop again…but will be worse. I start doing some research and reading about dead-cat bounces and am instantly worried about losing any gain I have after this roller-coaster. I don't have much but it's all I have. So what do I do? I sell my Apple shares.

This ends up being one of my first investment mistakes, one of my biggest investment mistakes, and one of my repeated investment mistakes during that time. I let my fear override my logic while listening to someone lacking the right investment temperament I want to model. There are other layers to analyze, but this is a pretty big learning experience for me that tends to provide regular reminders. How? Just look at Apple now.