What I learn from market swings from January to March 2020?

March 19, 2020

Introduction

I am a Christian and I like to review what I learn from market crash in March 2020. As an investor, a baby investor starting again from May 2019, age 53, I went through so many emotions, and asked so many questions to myself, and I learned so many things about business, how to understand the business work, and discipline myself.

January 2020

I did not care about Chinese and corona virus at all. So I only spent a few times to talk to my young sister, less than 8 hours, but I could not anticipate that the virus is so easy to spread to the whole world. I should start to cut hours on business research, and learn basics of virus and people's health in January 2020.

Being a Christian, I understand that once I stop attending churches, somehow I was over confident and then went too far. I should understand that most of important is to care about myself health, others, relatives and others in the community.

I was so happy about market change from Nov. 2019 to early February 2020. I checked my five investment accounts, this was the first time I saw that I could invest VFV.TO $10,000 book value, and I was so glad to see the value went up 30%. I could not remember how many times I checked that unrealized gain.

I should spend some time to care about community, people in China. Specially they went through Chinese new year and virus was a very big issue.

I should understand that market change like 30% on SPX is not normal, and then I should understand how risky it was to stay highest after 10 year bull market.

February 2020

It is important to learn to control myself. No matter how big the market swing, I should not let it affect my emotion. I need to focus on my own life, health, exercise, and work, and practice of algorithm and data structure.

March 2020

I understand that it is so challenge for me to pay attention to allergy season, do not cough and having sneeze in this corona virus special, and also keep myself going as a software programmer. I do believe that it is better for me to learn how to invest, it takes so much time to learn, but it is better to compare to other risky investment, like a condo in British Columbia. It will take more time for me to manage a real estate property.

Right now, it is perfect position since market value is down 30%. I am going back to humble and learn more about business, see how each of them recover one by one. People are working hard, and make good things happen in the world.