If I had a time machine ...

[twistsol]

I could go back and slap myself.

On November 17th 2003 I bought 1000 shares of AAPL at $21.02 and sold them for an 80% profit ten months later. Since then they’ve split and today would be worth 1 million. Needless to say, the investments I made after that haven’t done quite as well.

[leehljp]

I remember when they went down to just under $8.00 in '96 or so. I would love to go back to then. I almost bought some back then.

[jimmy0x52]

You gotta be happy with what you made at the time, and not look back. No one can see into the future. If an 80% return was good (and it certainly is) then don't beat yourself up too much about it.

One more thing to add - it's not necessairly smart to leave most of your stock invested in a single company so even if you had kept them longer, you'd likely still not own them 9 years later (unless you had a BUNCH in other stuff where that was a small piece )

[chopnhack]

LOL, seriously, I did the same and looked back when I bought them in '04, I still have the portfolio tracked and sure enough it was a 4 bagger, 1500% from my modest $23 share price. Had I left my money ride I would have been better today than if I hadn't sold out, however, most of the other stocks in the same portfolio didn't do as well, almost all of the gain was from Apple. You never know, I have come to the conclusion that for me its index investing with DRIP and forget it...

[Poobah]

A buddy of mine was going to plunk down 5k on a small networking company you probably never heard of in the 80s. Someone talked him out of it because this was still before Algore had invented the internet and nobody understood that kind of high tech voodoo yet. When he told me about this in 2002 it would have been worth over 50 million. Still can't figure out who this CISCO company is ... LOL

[dbhost]

I just wish I would have plopped a few grand into Apple stock before Steve Jobs came back.... Apple Macs back in the 90s were truly awful, at least compared to what they were supposed to be. Steve did a great job making obscene gobs of cash with that company...

[herb fellows]

If I had started a stock picking newsletter 30 years ago and had some followers, those people would be wealthy beyond all their dreams today!

Of course the concept of the newsletter would be to do the opposite of my suggestions...

[radhak]

I bought my first mac machine (the 'lamp' iMac) in July 2003. My B-i-L was intrigued about it, and the company. This was around the time the iPod had really caught on, and the 3rd gen iPod was released to great reception. I told him Apple was going to go places, and asked him to put some money in it. His sister (my wife) banned me from buying any stocks because (a) we had lost a bundle in the last market blowout couple of years before, and (b) she desperately wanted us to save up and buy a house after years of renting.

So he bought some serious shares while we waited then moved to SoFl and bought a house.

Today he has a profit of a quarter-million just from AAPL, while I am underwater in my mortgage. Thankfully he has enough sensitivity not to bring this topic up in our presence .

Of course, that iMac still works great!

[Mildoc]

Made the same mistake with Microsoft as soon as Windows 3 came out decades ago. With all their stock splits, would have been a multi-millionaire by now.

The Retrospectroscope is a great tool to make you feel like a do-do.

Back in the 50s my mom was offered 100 shares of IBM. Being a widow with 2 kids she could not take advantage of it. Oh well.

OTOH, bought 1000 Apple when the first Mac came out. Since I screwed up on MS, I held on. Living on the earnigs in retirement now!!!!!!!