Hi I’m Julie, I am from Glen Arm, Maryland. I’m Head of Copywriting and Sales at MyWallSt. Prior to working at MyWallSt, I spent 7 years at
Hi I’m Julie, I am from Glen Arm, Maryland. I’m Head of Copywriting and Sales at MyWallSt.
Prior to working at MyWallSt, I spent 7 years at a brokerage firm working in both retail investing and institutional sales. I was also an actress for somewhere near a decade in Los Angeles. (Those two did coincide. I’m not that old!)
My Investing Experience
I started investing when I worked at the brokerage firm, because I was around it and exposed to it all day every day. I would occasionally find a stock I found interesting (like First Solar) and share it with the team I worked with. I remembered when they took some of my ideas seriously and recommended a few to their clients. When First Solar was a success, they were very appreciative for the tip and I felt very proud. I think that stoked my interest in picking stocks. I’ve always been more interested in individual stocks than ETFs or funds. I think I’ll forever be a novice. Whenever I’ve thought of myself as advanced, I usually make a move that humbles me and reminds me I’m still prone to mistakes.
My Investing Goal
I invest in stocks and real estate because my long-term goal is to build enough passive income to work on what I want when I want. I’d be happy to live in the same house I do now and drive the same car I have now as long as I can spend as much time gardening, reading, hiking and traveling as I want to. I’d also like to spend the bulk of my working hours running a non-profit instead of working to pay my own way. That would be my dream life and it becomes possible only when financial freedom is achieved.
Rewind
Looking ahead to a long-term investing goal of 20 years in the future, here’s also a look back at myself from 20 years ago in Paris. The girl in this photo didn’t own any stocks. But if I did, I’d be a lot further ahead now! No regrets, however. Everyone has their own timeline and finds their way in the end.
My Selling Regrets
Hmm, let me count how many times I have regretted a sale… Oh wait, I can’t. There are too many! Domino’s Pizza. Hawaiian Airlines. PayPal. I’ve learned to just not look anymore. But sometimes I can’t help but see a current share price in a news story and feel my heart sink that I missed out on those profits because I wanted to go back to cash or thought the stock was done growing. Live and learn. I also currently have regrets that I’m holding on to things that are way down. I still don’t understand when to cut my losses. I think most investors struggle with this forever.
My Investing Strategy
I just started dollar-cost-averaging. But it takes discipline. There will be any number of reasons that “today isn’t a good day” to put in that $500 or whatever. Like, “oh the market’s been on a streak lately, I’ll wait and see if it comes back down tomorrow.” So, discipline is the key to making it work. I think dollar cost averaging goes against human nature that way, but a lot of investing requires us to fight our humanness because it tends to be bad for our finances.