10 Most Stupid Investment Mistakes
by Ajibola Aries
The following are the 10 most stupid mistakes online investors make.
It needs to be noted that I emphasise the difference between online investments and offline investments, for in practical terms the same rules do not always apply to both.
This write-up is a subtle critique of unwise online investors and their mistakes. However, the way forward is also implied in it. Read on.
(1) Investing more than you can afford to lose.
This is perhaps the most common mistake that online investors make. Based on a calculation that they can make real big cash out of a particular program, they believe that the sacrifice of a very big deposit is worth it. However, the fact that an individual knows that he will suffer in order to make an investment shows that he cannot afford to lose the money invested if things should go wrong. Such an individual convinces himself that whatever sufferings he goes through today in order to reap such calculated high yield, the very huge returns will eventually make up for it. In online investment, experience has shown that in almost all cases, this has proven to be a big miscalculation.
(2) Biting more than you can chew (i.e. investing in too many programs).
Investing in high yield investments programs online require you to have what it takes in terms of knowledge and exposure, time, energy, vigilance as well as good equipment to properly monitor them. If you invest in so many programs all in the name of diversification and yet you are found wanting in these important requirements, you will be unable to properly keep track of your investments and the current trends in each, because being a good HYIP investor requires you to pay what is more or less special attention to each investment as often as possible. Even if you have what it takes to monitor your investments but your investments are so many, chances are that you will find it cumbersome. Don’t compare yourself with monitor sites that have so many programs on their list: to monitor is their job; they have the staff and equipment and they make very good money out of monitoring sites. An average individual does not have these advantages. Secondly, the vast majority of online investment programs are scams. The more the diversity of the programs you invest in, the higher your vulnerability to fall to scams. For example, if, for the sake of diversification you decided to invest in 10 programs, there is every likelihood that at the end of the day 7 or 8 out of the 10 will scam you.
(3) Planning long-time on an investment.
A lot of people assume that a program will keep paying them for years, and so they begin to make long-term projections on the basis of expected returns in the long run. Some even begin to think they can run families on HYIP. While such may be possible, it is grossly unwise and dangerous. When such programs crash before the time they expect (as it most likely will), they become highly rattled in their personal lives by such development. The fact is that programs that pay for years are very rare. The average HYIP lasts for between 2 months and a year or thereabout. It’s a stupid investor that will be thinking of profits he would have accumulated on a particular program in years to come.
(4) Early compounding.
Another very stupid thing to do is to immediately start ploughing back what should be the recovery of your Principal investment from a program, into the same program. This is a stupid step some investors make when they turn on the compounding function before they reach their BEP (Break Even Point).
(5) Joining very old programs.
Hyips are very often pyramid schemes; their strongest moments are usually at their beginnings, when they are just taking off from the ground; when they still have few patrons and investors and when they are still fresh with strong enthusiasm to attract more investors and to keep the ones they have already acquired. As time goes on diminishing returns begin to set in, not necessarily in their profits but most especially in the efficiency and enthusiasm with which they process payments to increasingly large numbers of investors. This is very true of programs that process payments manually – and the majority of Hyips operate this way. It is those who are really experienced in the industry who understand this to be one of the important reasons why most Hyips inevitably scam. The fact is that there is simply no way by which a manual paying program which started operations with about a hundred investors, can easily sustain such routine when the number of investors start running into thousands. That is a part of the reasons why at a point such programs start doing delayed and sluggish payments, and this usually precedes their decline and crash. An unwise investor, who thinks that the old age of a program necessarily means durability, may find himself in a fix after realising that he has joined a program that is already in decline. He may never even reach his B.E.P.
(6) Closing your eyes and waiting for one big periodic withdrawal(s).
This is similar to item 4 but in this case, the investor does NOT turn on the Compounding button; rather, he allows his profits to continue to gather in his Available For Withdrawal.
Some investors turn their attention away from their investments soon after they make their deposits, refusing to do daily or frequent withdrawals, all in order to avoid paying those meagre e-currency withdrawal fees and ensure that their profits will accumulate over time so that then they would eventually withdraw a very lump sum. There are two reasons why this is stupid. First, HYIPs are so unpredictable and dicey to the extent that it is very unwise to leave your money on a site in the hands of people who you don’t know, over a long period of time. Secondly, when fraudulent sites begin to scam investors, their first victims are usually people who have large withdrawals to process. Such investors are usually the first to start complaining that their payments are withheld.
(7) Not checking monitors and forums before investing.
Some people discover an attractive investment site and allow themselves to be taken over by the claims made by the site. It is a stupid investor who will believe that what an investment site says about itself is enough. There are so many sites that have already been blacklisted by monitors but which continue to remain online long afterwards. The trap set by such sites which are easily fallen into by such unwise investor(s) would have been escaped if such investors have checked monitors and forums before investing. It is a fact that many people invest online without caring about monitors and forums, either because they lack experience or because they don’t have time; whatever the reason, investing online without checking monitors and forums is a stupid thing to do.
(8) Not joining forums after investing.
Even if an investor had checked monitors and forums and had verified the status of a site before investing, if he fails to be up to date with information about his chosen program, that is another big mistake. Conditions change. And the best way to keep abreast of events is to join not just the forums owned by the investment program, but also related forums that are independent. There are many investors who did not join related forums but who are just contented with the fact that a program is paying. That is a stupid thing to do.
(9) Not taking security seriously.
Even if an investor puts his money into the best investment program but cares little or not at all about internet security, he is only being stupid. What’s the use of earning big from a reliable program only for the money to be stolen as a result of your carelessness? Security starts from the way an investor forms and protects his passwords, to the type of computer he uses (whether personal computer or public computer), to the type of antivirus he uses and how he uses it, e.t.c. Anyone who thinks any or some or all these are not important, is not qualified to be an online investor.
(10) Not diversifying.
An unwise investor will put all his eggs in one single basket. He will think that because he is convinced that a particular program is hot, that program is enough for him.
This is stupid thing to do in the HYIP world. I will round up by telling you that the person who introduced me to the HYIP industry many years ago believed only in Genius Funds; he invested only in Genius Funds and he felt that I should also limit myself to Genius Funds. And that was the major point of disagreement between us, because I went ahead to invest in a couple or so other programs. So when Genius Funds went down against all expectations, he was the most hard hit; he lost money and did not know where or how to start again. He quitted. On my own part, even though I also lost some money at that time, I was able to make up and continue with revenue from my surviving investments and I actually outlasted the person who introduced me to the HYIP industry.
Yet a stupid investor will not care a bit about this point.
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