As a novice trader during the dotcom days, used to short Tech...

As a novice trader during the dotcom days, used to short Tech stocks thinking that they were over priced and over valued. Tech stock prices kept going up and ended up covering my shorts. A few weeks later, shorted them again and same thing happened. Covered my shorts as prices kept on soaring even higher. This happened a couple of times more and finally decided to buy Tech stocks and turned bullish in December 1999. The payoff in early 2000 was looking great but then the Dotcom crash happened. The end result was not so great as trading losses were huge and nearly wiped me out. Kept wondering for many years, what the payoff would have been if stayed bearish on Tech stocks and did not alter my course in December 1999.

Made another mistake during GFC when share prices were getting hammered badly. Bought shares in some wonderful companies at amazingly low prices with the intent to hold on to them forever but ended up selling them for small profits. These and many other mistakes made over the past 30 odd years have been ingrained on to my subconscious mind and it has made me stubborn which is actually one of the most important quality you need to become a long term value investor.

On days like today when you witness panic selling, you are meant to go all in and buy shares in quality companies. Westpac has been oversold and it is trading way below its intrinsic value so bought some more Westpac shares this morning at $13.62, $13.72, $13.78, $13.90 and $14.06