Celebrating Failure

1. This past semester has been very difficult, and I have experienced several failures. However, my greatest failure this semester was my trading decisions in my portfolio. For several years, I have traded stocks, bonds, and crypto currency to make extra money. Prior to this year I had never experienced a major loss due to my diversification and diligent trade techniques. Unfortunately, after making a significant return on my investment from Bitcoin last year, I invested into Apple heavily. To my dismay, this quarter has been very poor for Apple stock holders. Lack of interest in the new Iphone and slowing sales have tanked the stock price. Over the course of a few week, I lost a significant portion of what I had invested.

2. Experiencing a large loss like this was very disheartening and made me consider stopping any trading. However, I had to understand that major losses happen to even the biggest investment firms in the world. I learned that diversification is always important and that markets are closely related. For example, oil prices affect the energy market, but they also influence markets that depend on shipping products or use a large amount of power. This loss has made me even more cautious as an investor in terms of investing in things I fully understand.

3. Failure is a very hard thing to go through, but everyone experiences failure at some point in their life. Failure does not define who we are or what we can become. Instead, the way in which we respond to failure defines who we are and what we can become. Personally, I used to take failure poorly and try to forget about it. This led me to making the same mistakes that I had previously. This class has taught me that taking risks is a good thing and failure will help you grow as a person!