可能是理科生的缘故,也可能是因为出生在商业氛围相对重的江浙一带,我好像挺喜欢投资理财。小时候就喜欢存钱。我爸经常和我说小时候丢了自己的存折急得哇哇哭的事情。我记得自己不停寻找这件事。那时候,我爸妈不知道我有在存钱,更不知道我存折丢了。我爸的一个朋友捡到了存折。看是我的名字,就给了我爸。我爸看我那两天确实在找什么东西,心情低落的样子。于是开口问我,是不是在找存折?我嚎啕大哭。丢失存折之后的手足无措,以为存折丢了钱也没了的害怕,所有的情绪都在我爸问我那一刻爆发。即使到现在还是,对我来说,没有存款很没有安全感。因为喜欢理财,尝试过的投资方式也比较多,包括存款,基金,债券,股票,房地产,虚拟货币,NFT等。每一类都可以写篇文章,这里我想大概说说自己的理财成长经历。
小时候开始的存钱,是我最初的理财方式。我想大多数人应该都是从储蓄开始的。平时的零花钱,早餐钱如果剩下来就会放储蓄罐。储蓄罐差不多满了就拿去银行存。我记得小时候我存在了中国邮政储蓄银行,存折是红色的本本。存钱这种唯一的理财方式一直维持到大学毕业。现在回想,如果大学选修一些经济系的课程,可能会更早些开始接触其它的理财方式,可惜没有。所以直到工作以后,我才开始新的理财方式 – 炒股。
一般人可能会先接触基金,然后为了追求更高的收益率进入股市。我不是。我记得当时是我的第一份工作。有个技术员同事是加拿大人,他给我推荐了一只加拿大能源公司的股票。他研究跟踪这只股票好久了,因为当时的热点是美国加拿大之间的石油管道计划。在这支股票上,我运气挺不错,买了之后确实涨了挺多,买卖点都很好。但因为刚接触,我买的少。所以最后大概赚了一个奢侈品包包。在这同时,有个同学推荐给我另一只股票,我也买入了。这只股票是在美国上市的中国公司股票。在这只股票上,我是亏损的,而且是亏90%的那种, 因为我买入之后一直没看。当我看到账面亏损的时候,那股票已经退市了。现在回看,那时候的自己几乎犯遍了股票投资的所有的错误。比如,听从小道消息炒股;公司基本面不了解就直接买入;买入之后完全没有止损的观念。赚钱的那只股票也纯粹是跌了等着它涨上来。赚了只是因为运气好。
现在回看当时的经历不能算是真正炒股,而是随意进行了一笔买卖,没有真想做这件事。后来的自己,才真正开始炒股,也在这条路上慢慢有了自己的操作原则和体系,当然犯的错也还是很多,以后再具体讲。
这次接触股票之后,我没有再买别的股票,而是又回到了定期存款的方式。2014年,我换了一份工作。这份工作提供401K账户的福利。为了合理配置401K里面的资金,我开始接触基金和债券。计划里可供选择的基金种类很多,我大概按照账户里建议的风险程度选了中等风险的指数基金,把资金按9比1的比例购买了共同基金和债券。共同基金中,美国基金和国际基金的比例为7比2.
2016年,周围朋友好多都开始买房,我也开始有了这个想法。因为每个月的房租差不多是房贷的月供,与其付房租,慢慢拥有自己的小屋似乎是更好的选择。美国买房的首付不高,一般房子首付要求是20%。当然,如果符合一些条件,比如首套自住房DPA(Down Payment Assistance),甚至只用交5%的首付,房贷利率也会很优惠。于是就这样,我成了有房一族。之后,每个月的工资除了还房贷,还会买基金,剩下一些生活。
因为偶像马斯克,我一直有关注特斯拉股票。2019年,特斯拉股价还处在低点,我决定买入特斯拉。当时和小伙伴开玩笑说,换特斯拉车就靠它的股票了。就这样,我重新进入了股市。特斯拉让我赚到了一些钱。只是我没有长期持有。如果持有更久一点,我的收益确实可以买几辆特斯拉了。卖出之后的股价发展完全超出了我的想象,就没敢再买入了。
2020年,疫情肆虐,我回国待了一段时间。这期间,我开始购买之前看中的处在低点的其他几只美股。同时因为医疗白酒版块涨幅显著,我也开始买入国内的基金和股票,进入了A股市场。至于bitcoin,从2019年初开始陆陆续续一直听周围的朋友说。身边也有买入的小伙伴。只是它的价格让我觉得这并非投资,和赌博无两样。但2020年有段时间,比特币价格急剧下滑,这时候我买入了人生第一枚比特币,纯粹是体验一下。
2021年,非同质化代币(Non Fungible Token)开始燃爆。在大拍卖行和NFT交易平台,NFT都卖出了史高价。怀着好奇和体验的心情,我也买入了一枚。但我购买虚拟货币和NFT都不算投资,只是想要体验一下交易虚拟货币的感觉。我认为自己不具备投资这两个类别的能力。
这就是我理财的大致成长过程。到目前为止,我还是一名新鲜的理财人,投资者,散户。回看这几年,自己在不断摸索中学习总结了很多。投资和其他职业一样,也需要不断积累经验。同时对其他领域的知识储备也有一定要求。之后的理财类文章,我希望和大家具体聊聊一些投资的中美差异,以及让自己印象深刻的操作,记录自己的成长。
You cried so hard that it felt like you have held it back for days.
said my dad
It may be because I’m good with numbers, or that I was from Jiangsu and Zhejiang area in China where business gene is deeply rooted, I like investing. I like to save money when I was a kid. My dad often tells me the anecdote that how hard I cried after I lost my passbook when I was a kid in primary school. I remember keeping looking for my passbook for about two days and feeling frustrated. My parents didn’t know I was saving back then. Neither did they know I lost my passbook. One of my dad’s friends found it (It was a small town). He saw my name on the passbook and gave it to my dad. Dad noticed me keep looking for something and being in a low mood. He asked me if I was looking for the passbook. I remember me burst into tears. I was too little to know what to do after losing a deposit certificate, and worried that loss of the passbook would mean the loss of my saving. Till now, I feel very insecure without a saving, even though I have tried many investment methods, including savings, funds, bonds, stocks, real estate, cryptocurrency, NFTs, etc. I can keep talking regarding each category. Let me first start by telling my overall financial growth experience.
As I mentioned previously, saving was my initial investment method just like most people. It was usually the pocket money or my breakfast budget that I saved to put in my piggy bank. When the piggy bank got full, I would deposit the money into the bank. I used to save with the Postal Savings Bank of China, and its passbook was a red pamphlet. Saving had always been my only investment method until I graduated from college. Looking back now, I realize that if I had took some courses in Economics, I would have tried other investment methods sooner. It wasn’t until I started to work did I come upon another way of investment – stock trading.
People usually invest in funds first, and then move into the stock market for higher investment return. That is not my case. I remember I was doing my first job then. One of my colleagues was a Canadian. He recommended me a Canadian company stock. He had been studying the stock for quite some time. The Keystone XL pipeline project, in which the company was directly involved in, was a hot theme back then. I got lucky on this stock. I had great entry and exit price points. It went a lot down eventually, but I made money. However I didn’t buy much as I was just starting to trade stocks. I think my profit was more or less a Chanel bag. Around the same time, one of my old classmates recommended me another stock. It was a complete nightmare. I lost about 90% of my total. Luckily, I bought even less. To be honest, I never checked its price until after it got delisted. Looking back, I made all kinds of mistakes as a new stock trader. I bought into stocks on rumors. I bought companies I knew nothing about. I never had any idea of stopping loss. All I did was buying something, and waited its price to go up. Lucky me. It did.
Honestly, I would not consider that trading experience as my real entry into the stock market. It was like a random buy. I didn’t do it like I mean to do it. It is not until later do I gradually establish my principle and system for trading. Surely I make more mistakes as well. I’ll elaborate them in future posts.
I was away from the stock market for some time after that random experience. Saving became my only investment again. I changed my job in 2014. That job offered 401K plan as part of the benefit package. I started to buy funds and bonds to allocate the money in my 401K plan. That was the first time I looked into mutual funds and bonds. I picked several index funds according to my risk tolerance, making the fund and bond ratio 9 to1 with 7 in domestic funds versus 2 in international funds.
In 2016, friends around me started to buy houses, and that made me think about it as well. The loan amount was about my monthly rent. Surely I would prefer a house of my own if I had to pay that money each month. Buying houses in the U.S. is a little different with in China. The down payment is normally 20%, and can be lower to 5% if the buyer qualifies for DPA. Mortgage rate is also lower. Therefore, I bought a house. After that, my salary would go into mortgage, mutual funds and daily expenses.
I always kept an eye on Tesla stock because of Elon Musk. In 2019, I decided to buy in some shares. I joked with my friends that I would change my car to Tesla with money made from the stock. Just like that, I went back into the stock market again. This time, for real. I did make money from Teals stocks, but I sold it early. I would really be able to buy several tesla with the profit if I had held it longer. However, its price went up so fast after I sold it that I dared not buy it back.
In 2020, the pandemic was raging. The stock market crashed. I bought in several U.S. stocks that I fancied before. They were at the lowest price range. I later returned to China for some time, during which I began to invest in the Chinese stock market – the A-share market. Also I bought my first and only Bitcoin in my life. I had been hearing friends talk about bitcoin since the beginning of 2019. Some of them had been trading it for quite some time. However, bitcoin’s price fluctuation thwarted me. It was not a fit investment for me, and it felt more like gambling. However, there was a time in 2020 when the price of Bitcoin dropped sharply. And I thought that would be a good time to have a taste of it.
In 2021, NFT (Non Fungible Token) exploded out of the year. In auctions and NFT trading platforms, non-fungible tokens (NFT) have been sold at historically high prices. Out of curiosity, I also bought one (see blow). But I don’t consider my purchase of either bitcoin or NFT an investment. Instead, I just wanted to experience the trading. I don’t think I am capable of investing in these two categories.
So far this has been my personal growth in investing. I am still a beginner and newbie investor, though I’ve learned quite a lot. Like many other professions, investing requires practices and improves through mistakes. In future financial articles, I would like to elaborate more on the differences of investments in U.S. and China. That will also serve as my investment diary.

