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Comment by dboreham | Hacker News Reader

AMZN, hopefully?

My product tastes are pretty mainstream, nothing obscure. In the early days I liked Windows and Netware as I did a lot of consulting work with them and had good runs with them. I sat out the dotcom boom and bust as I was putting all my cash into my gigs. In the internet era I liked the business Saas'es (SFDC, N, HUBS, BOX) because I believe in and understand that industry. I was amazed by OSX the first time I tried it so bought Apple. I bought Amazon, Google and SIRI pretty early when I saw what heavy users of the products me and my family were. I was blown away by the first Tesla I saw and bought that. I like the latest fitbits so I just bought some of that, let's see what happens to that. I don't look at the price or financials on either the entrance or exit so on the negative side I sold Apple a few years ago and missed the last half of the run.

What criteria do you use to exit then? Do you track returns over time somehow? Would be really interesting to compare to Nasdaq or another relevant benchmark.

I exit when I either no longer love the product or see a replacement product I like better. I have my accounts at Fidelity and my 10 year RoR is 33% vs 9.78% for the S&P 500 (31% going back to 2003 when I consolidated accounts there).

What I like about the approach is that product is a leading indicator and can be judged by anyone. The financials and stock price seem to trail the product by 1-3 years on both the upside and downside.

BTW I fully agree with the original premise of the thread and think if you try actively trade on financials, timing etc. as a part timer you will get smoked by the pros, sooner or later.

Thanks, that's really interesting. I guess you mean RoI and those are yearly numbers? You've multiplied your money by 17? If so, those are some great bets, congratulations.

You’re saying you made an average yearly return of 33% for 10 years?

No, it's 33% return in 10 year period, so like 3,3% in a year in average.

If it was that it would be a 2.9% return per year and massively underperfom the S&P500.

Amazon was a scary ride during the dot com inmplosion. Rode that mofo from $120 to $12.

That sounds terrifying. Did you hang on for the ride back up, or did you get off at $12.

I got out between $30 and $40. I had a hard time reading the tea leaves on the Bezos reality distortion device. :)

On a positive note, the proceeds paid for my honeymoon and the balance went into Apple and Red Hat, both of which did good!

Proceeds? Going from $120 to $30 is not generally considered a profitable venture.

$30>$12!

The 90s were fun and a learning experience. I was working in the mall while going to school, feeling like a financial genius for day-trading at a DSL kiosk at lunch. Amazon was money lost, but also money gained!

I rolled a couple thousand dollars into many multiples of paper profit. I pulled some out occasionally and put it in savings bonds, thanks to the constant nagging of my grandparents, so everything I lost was money I never really had.

You said you went from $120 to $12 and then from there, back up to $30. I'm not sure how you do your math, but I can assure you that is a net loss of 75% and nothing more.

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