I've been investing in the Nigerian stock market since my university days. I like taking a risk because life itself is a risk and a gamble. If you don't agree what then will you call a situation where nothing is certain, not even life itself. You see someone today the next day they are no more.
Hence my conclusion that whether we like it or not, life is a gamble, a bet and nothing more.
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Business is a gamble. I perceive crypto trading as gambling too. I mean, buying low and selling high when you are not certain that prices will eventually go high couldnt be anything else but gambling.
My investment in cryptocurrency started in 2020 (yes I started late),
when I invested sixty thousand naira (which is about $144) and within 3 hours my investment increased by 50%, I was so happy that I started borrowing huge amounts of money from friends and family to buy more coins. I borrowed close to a million naira ($2,500), I invested everything including my small savings and behold, within two days, the prices of those coins started going down, I panicked and sold off my investment at a loss. I paid off all the debit after 8 months because that incident brought my finances to square one.
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It's the same thing with my stock market investment. I used my school fee to buy some stock that was priced low compared to the company's fundamental in the market. With the advice of my stockbroker, I bought a huge amount of the shares with the hope of gaining some money in a few weeks, unfortunately for me, the shares continued to go downward.
Same thing with sports betting(yes I do sports betting sometimes too for fun) when am winning I tend to think as am invisible to the bookies. I tend to bet a higher amount of money compared to the previous amount I used to bet the first game. but in the end, I end up losing everything.
In all of these, I want us to learn one on two things about fear and greed when it comes to investment and in fact when it comes to life situations.
Whenever you want to invest in any business, especially in crypto, invest long term, never see it as a quick rich platform or avenue where you will put in one dollar and expect to gain two dollars the next hour. that will bring about anxiety which will make you continue making mistakes.
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When it comes to crypto investment be calm, stay fearless, be patient, put money that you know you can do without for a long period to bring gain for you, Because in investments like stocks and crypto, what goes up must come down and what goes down must come up, it's just like a roller coaster. It can be frustrating to see those chart go close to our predictions only to have it fall just a tiny winy counts away.
When prices go down, they must come up and so we wait. The point is we shouldn't allow greed to take the best part of us, we should learn to stay disciplined and humble when we are winning and stay focused when we are losing.
Sports betting is even more volatile. The gist is to bet responsibly. Use monies that when we lost, it doesn't affect our abilities to continue carrying out our financial obligations.
There is no need to be afraid of anything, what we should be weary of is fear itself. Do let me know your thoughts on this and thanks for reading.