Originally Posted by crystalworks

First, super novice here. What platform are you using? We recently paid off almost all of our credit cards and have been saving so have been thinking of starting to "dabble" with disposable income. We'll see.

Nothing invested at current (beside managed 401k and rIRA). I don't really like the market much as I view it as legalized gambling. Which is fine, I have no problem with legalized gambling. You can do due diligence but at the end of the day the market is at the whim of public (and private) sentiment. I find it regularly moves on sentiment rather than results. Which can make you a lot of money if you move in and out. But in general, long term investment will always net you 10-20% over just about any reasonable time period depending on how aggressive you have it managed.

That said, I made money with AMD. My Dad would have really made a killing (he has a lot more working capital) if he hadn't gotten cold feet @ $19. Got him in at ~$12 (I don't ever pick individual stocks so it took awhile to convince him, I tried to get him in at $6/share), went up to $40 and back down to $19. He sold the position. Told him it was a mistake and he bought back in at double the shares when it got up to $30. I sold at $80. He's still in with a sell @ $100.

FWIW I also tried to get him to buy Tesla near the bottom (~April 2020 I guess) when they hit $300. THAT would have made him a ton. But he didn't want to buy 100 shares of it at that price. He likes to invest in 100 share increments. Also tried to get him into Apple at the bottom, but got the same result. He's doing well anyway. He's beating returns in his managed portfolio by multiples with his "play" portion.