A word of caution

Hi all,

i see a lot of new investors/speculators on this stock and just wanted to take a minute to make sure they understand the current situation, as I went through a steep learning curve when entering the stock market at the end of the mining boom. I started investing around 2011/12 after earning my first money and seeing people left, right and centre making money of mining stocks. Obviously that timing wasn't ideal for a new starter and I copper some solid losses.

Most analyst notes (think some 85%) are bullish as that is one way to be correct more often then not (market will always go up in the long run) and it usually serves their purpose. Also on forums like hotcopper the majority of posts will be bullish (again, it serves most people to be bullish on a stock they are invested in).

Its easy to get caught up in posts that seem informed and have a sentiment of "there is only one way and it's up", reinforced by other posters. I've been caught with FOMO times before and bought into overvalued stocks only to loose most of the money invested. It has been a 8 year + journey to try and remove my emotions from investing and rely on underlying data or quantitative measures.

I will refrain from giving advice on whether you should invest in SZL or any other stock, but some of the comments I have seen scare me. (I.e. people suggesting they are sending their full allocation to the SPP in now, when you can wait and watch the market without any risk for another 2 weeks).

I urge any new investors who might have had incredible gains in the last few months, especially if you started investing after the crash, please be cautious. The gains we have seen are unlikely to repeat or continue. Without trying to be offensive to anyone, there is a good chance that your gains in the past few months are more influenced by the below than your investing genius (assuming you are relatively new to investing):
- You started investing around mid March
- You may be Gen Y and familiar with technology (companies), therefore you picked them as investments
- Large government handouts, which might have found the way into the market (huge number of new retail accounts to confirm this).

Please take a step back and go through this exercise: what if your portfolio dropped 20% by the end of the week? What if it dropped by 50%? How would you feel? Because this is certainly a possibility in the speculative sector. Even if the market dropped by 10%, it is likely that the speculative end (i.e. sezzle) will drop by 30% or more. Maybe it's time to secure some of your gains and celebrate how well you have done.

Well, this got a lot longer than I thought but I really hope it may stop a few people from getting burnt the way I did in the past.

All the best.