Ask HN: What's the best investment you've made?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12220180

by cmod • 10 years ago

47 76 10 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Public or private market — what's the best investment you've made? How sure were you when you made it that it would pan out as it has? How long did it take to pan out? And have your investments (number of investment, amount per investment) increased or decreased over the last ten years?

justinmares3• 10 years ago

Best investment (outside of investing in myself) was buying into Ethereum when they first announced it. In the 2-3 years since, that's been up nearly 50x.

xenihn• 10 years ago

I've only invested in two things outside of my 401k: Yahoo and Ethereum. Yahoo at $50, and Ethereum at $16. I am horrible at investing. I spent $200 on Yahoo and $40 on Ethereum, since I was just messing around, but damn do I feel discouraged.

justinmares3• 10 years ago

Investing in spaces you don't know or don't have strong hunches is difficult. I'd recommend just putting money in index funds unless you feel really, really strongly about an investment and/or have some special knowledge of the space or company.

Though, in the long run, losing $250 while getting your feet wet in investing isn't that bad.

Sorry_Rum_Ham• 10 years ago

Apparently Ethereum has dropped almost 22% in the last day. That's unreal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-seaman/bitcoin-and-ether...

justinmares3• 10 years ago

Yeah, still incredibly volatile.

guessmyname• 10 years ago

I am more curious to know how did this question is in the front page of the website with less than 10 points, in less than 5 minutes of posting, and zero comments (at least by the time I wrote this comment).

And just to answer the question, I am not a fan of investments, after three failures during the past years where I lost more than 50% of my money after making the bad decision to buy stock from three banks around seven years ago, then with all my patience I waited and waited to realize that the stock was going down by the hour, after five years I decided that I didn't want to lose more money and sold, and lost exactly 54% of my initial investment.

Way to start my adulthood eh? :D

exolymph• 10 years ago

Ask HN posts rise faster than links, I believe, but maybe dang can clarify.

Jtsummers3• 10 years ago

Also, other posts on the front page were stale. Most were over an hour old with, at the time I saw this one, only one other post under 1 hour.

bryanlarsen• 10 years ago

Stories quite regularly hit the front page with 3-5 points.

lewisl90292• 10 years ago

My first foray into the world of the stock market was very similar. My 10K initial investment turned into less than 5k in a matter of a few months as I tried and failed to pick earnings winners and time the market.

Lesson learned. It was a costly lesson but definitely not something I could easily forget.

Since then I've mostly been putting my money in cheap S&P 500 index funds and the only active trading I do is backed by cold-hard statistics through thoroughly backtested algorithms on Quantopian rather than my own ill-informed gut feelings.

And with this more disciplined approach, I have long since made back those initial losses. So I guess in the end everything worked itself out.

Clex• 10 years ago

Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1570/

Apreche• 10 years ago

401k + boring old index funds. I started putting in as much as I could since my first job out of college. Still not even 35, and have already seen plenty of returns. Will I be the only person in my generation to be able to afford to retire?

jaffa2145252• 10 years ago

You will not be the only one. Join the community at r/financialindependence

c0l0• 10 years ago

Probably my collection of Magic: The Gathering trading cards, if I were to sell them these days. ;)

The best investment that I actually converted to cash was AAPL that I bought in 2009, and sold in 2015.

greydius2• 10 years ago

I sold my collection years ago for about $1000 altogether. I started playing during 3rd Edition, had 4 of each dual land, a handful of older cards, and 4 of pretty much every card worth a damn from ice age until around when 7th edition came out. I doubt that $1000 came close to even breaking even on how much I spent on the game. However, if I still had those cards today, it would be a very different story. I never considered the cards an investment, though. I just liked playing the game at the time.

Bahamut• 10 years ago

I have a friend who dumped a lot of money into Apple just after the Enron scandal and held it there for a while - it turned out to be a great college fund for her son, as intended all along.

bflesch• 10 years ago

I'm neither a VC nor rich, but the best investment I have made in terms of raw return was into myself when I started my computer servicing business with a capital of three hundred bucks right after high school.

It is pretty straightforward to reach a six-figure profit in consulting over a couple of years, and I'd be glad if I could just "repeat" this performance with a larger amount of money.

An experienced VC once answered my question about why he is flying first class and visiting us lame fucks in a third-tier town in Europe for two days and how he could justify spending so much money on us. He said it doesn't matter if he flies first class or not because if their investments don't work out they run out of money anyways, and if they do work out they make so much money that everything else becomes irrelevant. This put some things in the startup world for me in perspective, and I am trying to be not too harsh and frugal with myself since then.

bbcbasic• 10 years ago

He is spending it on himself by the sounds of it.

lewisl90292• 10 years ago

It also sounds like it's not even his own money...

gwbas1c• 10 years ago

Index funds, mutual finds, ETFs, ect. Treat stock like vegas money.

The problem with stock is that it's very hard to beat the market, unless you work full time at researching what you invest in.

Be careful with real estate. What goes up will go down. Don't assume that "real estate always goes up" when no one can afford to buy a normal home with a normal salary.

greydius2• 10 years ago

A cheap state school computer science education. It paid for itself the first year I worked as a software developer.

elboru• 10 years ago

For me it was English lessons, when I was 16 my mom paid less than 200 dollars for a year of English lessons in a shitty English school, I didn't want to study English at the time and I was angry because she did it without asking me (teenage me was really dumb). My English may not be perfect, but that year of English lessons pays itself several times every single day with my salary.

davidw• 10 years ago

Learning to program.

GreenPlastic2• 10 years ago

Philadelphia 76ers to beat the Chicago Bulls a few years ago in the NBA playoffs. Payout was something like 11-1 and our model had implied probability at something like 45% for Philadelphia.

Made like 50k.

adt2bt• 10 years ago

Sounds to me like this wasn't your only bet of the year. How long have you been predicting NBA games (or other sports)?

fowkswe• 10 years ago

They never mention the ones they lost ;)

the_watcher2• 10 years ago

I won something like $1500 on the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl 2 years ago, but I don't consider gambling an investment (mentally, I treat it as purchasing entertainment rather than something with the chance of panning out). Also, $400 of that came from hitting the second quarter and final score squares.

korias• 10 years ago

Sounds like your model assigned a high probability to Derrick Rose tearing his ACL :)

GreenPlastic2• 10 years ago

If I remember correctly, it was a lockout shortened season with multiple back to back to backs, Thibs had a habit of playing his players too many minutes, and Rose was gimpy going in.

The real reason our model really liked Philly because they were one of the top teams in eFG% on defense, defReb% and off TOV%. Basically, they were dominant in several of the 4 factors that aren't obvious to most casual observers.

thejacenxpress• 10 years ago

Bought 150 shares of Apple in the late 90s (before it had a 7/1 split)

forgetsusername• 10 years ago

what's the best investment you've made?

Bought stocks in late 2009/early 2010 when everyone said the world was melting down. I think I got into SPY around ~115, and it's almost doubled since. I just wish I had more money at the time; my return isn't so sexy in absolute terms.

Mc_Big_G3• 10 years ago

Student loans. Total investment will end up being something like $200k with interest included. Lifetime value added to my income will easily reach $4 million. 20X+ return.

xutopia2• 10 years ago

How do you calculate this?

Mc_Big_G3• 10 years ago

Based on my past/present/projected salary minus a normal salary I would be able to earn without an engineering degree. I'm not saying it's a perfect calculation, but even if it's only $2 million, it's still a 10X return.

ysavir• 10 years ago

I'm assuming you mean that you loan out money to students? Otherwise, that's likely a skewed calculation.

Mc_Big_G3• 10 years ago

No, I mean my student loans. My salary is far above what I would earn without the degree. The day before I graduated, the best job I could get was a gas station attendant. The very next day I had an offer for an engineering position making 5x the hourly rate. Since then, my salary has quadrupled.

ryanfelton• 10 years ago

Fresh out of college, putting as much as allowed in my 401k.

8note• 10 years ago

I did a computer science degree. it's taken about 2 years from when I started it to pay off in spades

randomdata2• 10 years ago

Best investment: Started farming just before the commodities boom.

Worst investment: Still am farming after the commodities bust. Luckily I enjoy it.

Jtsummers3• 10 years ago

How did you get into farming? I have, and am considering, access to a family farm that presently just breaks even on farm income (poor wheat yield, but also some portion rented out for cattle), but makes a profit off of oil. I've contemplated learning and moving into the industry, also as a way to get out of the city (however small the one I'm in presently may be).

randomdata2• 10 years ago

I grew up on a farm, so I had some involvement my whole life. The first year of my own business, I rented everything, and have slowly started growing from there.

Having people to give advice has been huge. If I were to do it again, I would want ensure I have that in place beforehand, be it family members or otherwise. The developer part of me is so used to being able to find all the answers online, but a lot of the farming knowledge is simply passed through the generations.

byandyphillips• 10 years ago

Using my own money to attend conferences when my company didn't have a budget. I think spending money on your education/self improvement is the best thing you can invest in.

ryanSrich2• 10 years ago

Tesla at ~$30/share.

Jtsummers3• 10 years ago

Slightly under. I'd been watching it and the price dropped from ~35 to ~28. I had the extra cash in my brokerage account, so I bought in. Did not expect that return.

ryanSrich2• 10 years ago

Yeah it's been pretty crazy. At the time I was considering Nokia over Tesla...glad I made the right choice.

TheLarch• 10 years ago

I've made several great investments, including one that is currently paying out over $6,000/mo. However, these payments are made to someone else, because I always, always sell early. The markets are a painful place to come to know oneself.

I do have one tried and true piece of advice: invest in index mutual funds over managed ones. Their "average" return routinely outperforms most actively managed mutual funds. Worst case, you haven't paid a lot of management fees to the person who has lost money for you. (This is less true than in the past because traders now arbitrage against index funds. Nimble traders exploit the fact that index funds are mandated to buy certain positions.)

Don't use stockbrokers. If they really knew what they claim to know then they'd be fabulously wealthy without your help.

Burton Malkiel's Random Walk Down Wall Street is a good read.

jontas• 10 years ago

I don't remember the exact numbers but in 2013 I bought some tesla calls planning to sell them in a few weeks and hopefully make a few bucks. I forgot to sell them and when the contract expired they were in the money (TSLA had gone up almost 300%). Etrade bought the shares on margin on my behalf, and when I next logged into my account I was first shocked to see I owed Etrade about $16,000 and then amazed to see that I owned about $50k worth of tesla shares (on a maybe $1000 investment, I don't remember what the premiums were at the time).

So the short answer to your question is, dumb luck and sheer stupidity.

jackcosgrove2• 10 years ago

An apartment building in a gentrifying neighborhood. I was pretty sure it would pan out, since it's within walking distance of a train stop and had attractive early 20th century architecture. It's still panning out, as my equity keeps growing. The mortgage will be paid off in 13 years.

I have not been able to buy another income property since then as I had to buy a home for myself in the intervening time.

The biggest takeaway from the experience for me is that you should not buy a home for yourself, then rebuild savings for several years and subsequently buy an income property. Buy the income property first, and then let the tenants carry the mortgage. I doubt I would have bought another property if I had bought my home first.

nitrogen• 10 years ago

Do you manage it yourself, hire a manager, or contract with a management company? The effort of dealing with maintenance and bad tenants seems like a big turnoff, and acting as HR for a management staff almost as bad.

jackcosgrove2• 10 years ago

I manage it myself. It's less than a part-time job, maybe several hours a month on average.

xutopia2• 10 years ago

The best investment I made in terms of money? Married my wife. Having a life partner that understands money and makes sure I didn't make stupid money decisions is the best investment. It pays off in so many ways.

jaffa2145252• 10 years ago

Wow, this is an interesting definition of investment. I've always considered my wife to be a blessing, but you are right -- a good wife is a great investment as well.

ar4s2• 10 years ago

I've thought about it like this for the last couple of years: Finding a good partner is the most important decision you can make. After all of the promotions and successful business deals/ventures, if you fail to do so, chances are you'll lose ~50%. Easier said than done though.

tomcam2• 10 years ago

Bought a domain name for $5,000 and sold for $350,000. Bought another domain name for $10, sold for $45,000

cmod• 10 years ago

Amazing. Care to share the names?

tomcam2• 10 years ago

First one: NDA'd. Second one: chijia.com

bgnm2000• 10 years ago

Side projects as an investment of time (and learning). I know this is not really answering the question, but side projects have always gotten me my next job (moreso than any current place of employment) because they are a living portfolio and very easy to point to. In addition to showing I can ship a product. I credit side projects with nearly tripling my salary in just under 5 years.

allendoerfer• 10 years ago

Have bought an expensive domain name for my business.

Also the worst investment yet.

arielweisberg• 10 years ago

My career. Every move to drive my career forward that involved doing things that were hard and scary rather then doing the same thing familiar things indefinitely.

lazyjones• 10 years ago

My best investment was buying back shares from our VC investor after a few years, shortly before our startup took off. The investor lost interest in the Internet due to other failed investments (ca. 2002) and I was confident enough to pay off the price of the shares using my salary.

20years2• 10 years ago

Best investment I have made was investing in sending my younger brother to a 3 month rehab program. I have made business and real estate investments that have paid off well but none can compare to investing in my brother.

I was very unsure when I first made it. He is 1 1/2 years clean and doing extremely well. I don't think he would be with us today otherwise so I consider it an investment well made.

thisisforyou2• 10 years ago

Coding bootcamp. Paid itself off in <4 months.

20years2• 10 years ago

Very cool! What bootcamp?

thisisforyou2• 10 years ago

Prime Digital Academy in Minneapolis, MN. Luck played as much of a part as anything else. The tech scene here is very much an applicant's market, and I doubt I would have gotten as high a paying job, as quickly, in another city.

the_watcher2• 10 years ago

There are two that immediately come to mind for me. The first, and clear winner, was buying $200 of FB at ~$24, as I was currently running Facebook ads (which ultimately totalled $2M that year) that were wildly successful. It panned out extremely fast, as the rise in stock price had just begun when I purchased. I sold enough to break even when it tripled, sold a bit more around $100, and still have a bit.

The other one is somewhat tongue in cheek, but the ultimate ROI was essentially infinity. In 4th grade, I bought a pack of Pokemon cards. I got a Blastoise. I sold it to a classmate for $32. I then bought another pack. It contained a Blastoise.

EDIT: To clarify, I purchased that $200 in FB very early in my career, when it was a very major purchase. I own more than the original purchase now, as I bought more later, but I'm speaking solely about the original investment.

hkmurakami• 10 years ago

Shorting JPY when the LDP came back into power. I was dead certain that currency devaluation would be a major policy for them.

pbhowmic• 10 years ago

Apple in 2005. I was taking an investments class in community college and this was the investment decision I made as part of a homework assignment/project. Of course, sold too early to buy a house and ...

alasdair_• 10 years ago

Bought a two bedroom flat when I was nineteen in a notoriously bad part of town, that was right at the edge of a gentrifying wave (and within walking distance of university). Got a flatmate who paid my whole mortgage and 50% of the bills then sold it when I finished uni for 3x what it cost me after doing minor repairs and a bunch of cosmetic work.

sfbay• 10 years ago

Yet to make one.

bko• 10 years ago

Mining bitcoin before it's first big spike to about $30. I remember the most efficient 3d cards were selling at a 50% premium on ebay as they were very difficult to find.

This was followed shortly by my worst investment, keeping my bitcoin on mt gox.

Anyone involved in the law suit? Any estimates as to how much we can expect?

ar4s2• 10 years ago

Mark is out on bail... But I'm sure his inbox is full (if he's even allowed to use a computer at this point).

Your next best bet would be Jesse Powell of Kraken, I believe he's the one in charge of the bankruptcy.

Sorry for your losses.

acconrad• 10 years ago

I turned $1000 into $1800 in 15 min on an Apple WWDC options play. Not only did I make $800 I also learned to never mess with options again.

I turned $415k into $530k in 2 years from real estate from an insane booming market. Combine that with Brexit dropping interest rates to make for a rock-bottom refinance, and the mortgage is paid off via rent, so it's a passive income stream that has only expanded on it's profit margin since the refi.

I've also had a x10 startup exit but at small money ($3k -> $30k) but I'd consider that a net loss given how much time/reduced salary I put into it.

I think the key learning is diversification has won out - for every loss I've ever had, it was hedged against the multiple income/investment vehicles which have put me in the green over the last 7-8 years.

jonnyrockit• 10 years ago

The best investment I ever made was purchasing an old banged up Porsche 911T from a movie studio and keeping it garaged for nearly 13 years. I sold it for nearly 70 times the amount I bought it for.

onestone• 10 years ago

The Ethereum crowdsale. I sold a small part of that recently, at ~60x profit.

BrandoElFollito• 10 years ago

40€ invested in a bike helmet. I fell head first on a pointy rock wich broke the helmet (almost) open but my head was untouched. I left them a FB message and re-invested in the same model. By any length the best investment in my life. Other than that, continous self - education.

Ask HN: What's the best investment you've made?

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