- I also purchased a few hundred shares of TBT which is an ETF that shorts US treasuries and should pump if interest rates go up (and I don't think interest rates will diminish significantly or into negative territory) so I believe I have some downside protection. At worst that money is stagnate, but it's a small portion of my overall portfolio.
Good news! I was correct and TBT is now at $35 from ~<=$21 when I posted the above.
Bad news! It took about 1.5 years for the Fed to do the right thing, and I saw the price hit $15 during that time. When the Fed finally started to do the right thing, I had lost all hope and cashed out just above break-even.
Worse news! The Fed then finally *acted* correctly and increased interest rates about two weeks later.
I have achieved nothing in life, and I thought this would be my break: something to look back on and say, "Gee, I may be a worthless loser, but at least I understand Keynesian 101." But I chickened out and sold. Does anyone have advice for how to not kill oneself when faced with the reality that they will never accomplish anything in life and are also a dumb dumb to top it off?
@DiscoverJupiter, re the bolded part: yes, I very much have advice. Don't kill yourself today. (Tomorrow? It's a new day; repeat the process, don't kill yourself that day. I did that for about 90 days in a row and am very very very glad of it. It was unimaginably hard at times but turned out very worthwhile. Duration varies widely, don't measure yourself, just know you can make it through and you won't feel this way forever.)
Hopefully the bolded part was just dramatic chat and my response was just silly over-literal buzzkill. But as someone who did seriously consider suicide, lost a cousin to a short walk off a tall cliff, and has friends who've struggled with the issue, the depressed language sounded worrisome. If you are ever tempted by such a thing for real, call a suicide hotline immediately. Don't mess around with your mental health! There are people out there who want to help you, and it's very wise to let them.
At the risk of continuing to be a literalist, your phrasing sounds like you have very strong emotions about this, perhaps dangerously so. I don't mean that in a blaming way or a way that implies you're doing something wrong; I mean that if you feel like you sound, you're in a rough time emotionally and deserve to have relief from such a struggle, which may seem like a rather hopeless one. I can guarantee you that you do feel anything like I suppose, I've felt somewhat similar things and can assure that your situation is better than it feels no matter what your investment record. As time passes, especially if you let skilled and caring people help you with the emotional weather inside, you will find that the external things like investment results lessen in their weight and you will be able to handle life regardless of how particular events turn out.
Similarly, even if you cannot see any significant accomplishments, be aware that you deserve to live a happy life anyway. I don't mean that you are supposed to grin like someone in a beer ad and if you're not then you're a failure, I mean that it's possible to live without agony inside and have a daily experience that includes a modicum of peace for parts of the day; that, not grinning idiocy, is what I mean by happy. (Though grinning is fine, I do it sometimes.) If you were not raised in the idea that you are worth more than your accomplishments, this may sound impossible, but it's an ability that is almost certainly buried inside you and can be brought out if you give yourself time, allow people to help you, and so on. You may in addition find that there are accomplishments, either past ones you forgot or future ones you cannot anticipate yet, but hang on for the future happiness (intermittent peace, at least) without requiring yourself to be an accomplishment machine.
One thing you can read about in between talking with people is "catastrophic thinking." Google brings lots of articles this one linked below. Maybe they can help you shift from overgeneralizing from one investment result. As someone said already, lots of people had a correct investment analysis but lost money in the implemtation process. That's what happens to most investors using most strategies, after all; in investing, most of us fail routinely at almost anything that requires timing or complex actions - which means most investing strategies. Investors are usually smart people, but investing almost invariably includes numerous failures as part of the process.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320844
