What’s the most unexpected 'plot twist' you’ve experienced as an investor?

Thank you to all the readers who participated in this Free Stuff Friday survey and shared their plot twist investing story. I’m going to share some of the (anonymized) responses that I received. As usual, no names or identifying info! 

My most unexpected investing "plot twist":

• Investing in REITs for the short term

• Trading with leverage

• All my shares in PSE turned red due to the pandemic

• PLDT stock plunge in 2023 :-( 

• The invasion of Russia to Ukraine. The PSEi has never reached that high ever since

• The delisting of CAL before it could announce dividends

• The US bank run in 2023 that decimated the VC markets and took down the US banking market

• ABS-CBN franchise non-renewal. A lot of people thought it was a bluff only

• When I made more money investing during COVID than when the economy was stable

• Buying every IPO in the past few years except REDC, the IPO that actually made investors some money :( 

• Learning that “doing nothing” is part of a successful investing strategy

• Putting the remainder of my Coins.ph balance into BTC only to have it go up nearly 6000%

• My investing evolution from “Index Fund Guy” to “Dividend Stocks”

• The fact that crony stocks didn’t get picked up as expected

• Natural disasters

• I bought EMI shares in 2021 as a joke because I was having a tough time and drinking lots of their product to cope. Fast-forward to 2024: their market price is now double the price I paid!

• The optimistic outlook during the IPOs only to be decimated at the opening of the market

• When the tender offer comes in way below my long-term accumulation average price

• As a noobie investor, receiving dividends (by accident) for the first time opened my eyes

MB bottom-line: As a long-term investor, some of my best results have come from “happy accidents” where I was able to realize massive gains due to some event or trend lifting my stock that I had no idea would happen. It’s a constant battle for me to remind myself that these gains were not due to some inherent skill on my part, but are usually the result of some stupid Butterfly Effect type sequence of events that somehow stacked together to keep me in the stock just long enough to “hit” that lucky pump. I really got a kick out of reading these plot twists (especially that EMI one: way to convert a vice into a virtue!). It’s healthy to remember how random investing can be sometimes. For better or for worse.

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