My first entry in this series was about my 401k, which you can check out here.

Shortly after starting my career a friend told me about a stock trading app called Robinhood. This was Summer 2015. As I have detailed previously, I had no education in investing, but I knew the general concept was to "Buy Low, Sell High". How hard could it be?

After the recommendation from my friend, I downloaded Robinhood and put some money in my account. Now what stocks to pick...?

I found my 2015 1099 from Robinhood, so I have some details on what I bought. I remember some of my decision making process and will detail as best as I can:

$F - I was working in the Automotive industry and had heard Ford $F was re-introducing the Bronco. Genius! This was going to skyrocket $F stock! So I bought some. 10 shares at $14.22, $142.20 total.

$CEIX - I am a huge Pittsburgh sports, and especially Pittsburgh Penguins, fan. At the time they played at the Consol Energy Center. If a company can sponsor naming rights to an arena, they must be a good company, right? And it is the arena of my favorite team? I have to buy this stock! 10 shares at $7.73, $77.30 total.

$FEYE - I took investing advice from my mom on this one. She had told me that her boss had recently made an investment in this cybersecurity company. I thought the guy was pretty smart, so I bought some. 5 shares at $22.65, $113.25 total.

$AXAS - This one is a real head scratcher. Trying to think back to my psyche then, I think Abraxas was a player in shale drilling operations in Western Pennsylvania. I thought this was the future of energy, and bought some shares. 100 shares at $1.41, $141 total.

After I bought, I saw lots of volatility in the short term. I don't remember when I sold or for how much. All I remember was that Fireye plummeted and I was traumatized. Seeing the red and the straight line down was enough for me. Ford was not taking off like I anticipated, and the release of the Bronco was still years away.

Over the course of the next year, or so, I sold my positions (most at a loss) and ultimately closed my Robinhood account.

If I would have held those initial investments, they would be worth the following:

$F - $16.90 per share, $169 total, 19% gain

$CEIX - $33.80 per share, $338 total, 337% gain 🤯

$FEYE - Sold off part of its company and re-listed as $MNDT. 5 shares at $22.10, $110.50 total, 2% loss

$AXAS - $2.16 per share, $216 total, 53% gain

My takeaway from this period is that I was not ready for stock picking or as smart as I thought I was.

Additionally, looking back at if I would have held, I would have had some winners - emphasizing the importance of buy and hold.

This experiment scared me away from individual stocks for ~5 years. I realized that picking stocks was very difficult and not as simple as "Buy Low, Sell High".

I wanted to stay invested, but needed something that did not require me to pour hours and hours of research into my picks. What was that next move going to be? That, my friends, will be in my next post.

Thank you for following along and have a great weekend!

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