First Post: I traded forex and day-traded stocks for 10 years. Here is why I quit and went all-in on value investing.
From getting wiped out by a black swan to paying thousands in fees—why value investing is the only way I sleep soundly at night.
Let’s be honest. If you are here looking for hot stock tips, technical indicators, or macro predictions, you are in the wrong place.
I am a professional accountant, a history buff, and I’ve been burning my fingers in the stock and forex markets for over a decade. After trying almost every strategy out there, I finally stripped everything down to the essentials. My portfolio is highly concentrated. I own a maximum of 4 stocks at any single point in time. Period.
This Substack is just my public diary. I’m going to document exactly how I continue to snowball my wealth over the coming years. If you want to see how a professional accountant filters out the noise and makes high-conviction bets, welcome aboard.
Before settling on value investing, I spent years trying to beat the market through forex and stock day trading. I didn’t quit those markets because I lost interest; I quit because the math just didn’t make sense.
Here is exactly why I walked away:
Why I quit Forex (The Leverage Trap): Leverage sounds amazing until it acts against you just once. If it does, your entire portfolio is gone. That’s exactly what happened to me back in 2015 when the Swiss National Bank unexpectedly removed the CHF exchange rate floor. In a matter of minutes, a single black swan wiped me out completely. I realized I’m not playing a game where one unpredictable event can reset my life savings to zero.
Why I quit Day Trading (The Asymmetric Loss): Day trading stocks drained my energy, and more importantly, my capital. Two things broke me:
The Fees: Transaction fees add up to a very material amount over time. When you calculate the drag, you realize you’re playing a rigged coin-flip. It’s a game where if it’s heads, you win $1, but if it’s tails, you lose $2 after accounting for fees. The asymmetry is completely stacked against you.
The Madness: Daily price moves are almost purely based on speculative buys and sells. It’s noise. I decided I am absolutely not going to bet my hard-earned money on how crazy people decide to behave on any given day.
So, why value investing? Because after looking at thousands of financial statements, I concluded this is the absolute safest way to build sustainable wealth.
I don’t use leverage, and I don’t count on how foolish other people are to make money. Instead, I look at stocks as real businesses. If I can buy an incredible business with a massive margin of safety—ideally trading way below its intrinsic value—I dont’ give a shit what the broader market does tomorrow.
Running a 4-stock portfolio means I have to say “no” to almost everything. But when you find something truly asymmetric, you don’t diversify, you concentrate.
Look, I know how stressful investing can be. The anxiety of watching tickers all day, the fear of getting margin called, and the frustration of realizing your profits were eaten up by your broker—I’ve been there, and I’ve paid my tuition fees to the market.
I chose value investing not just for the returns, but for peace of mind. I want to build wealth safely and deliberately.
In this space, I am going to share my actual framework, my thought process, and even my mistakes. No filters, no institutional jargon. Just real numbers and real thinking.
My next post will be about how I actually screen thousands of global stocks down to a maximum of 4 high-conviction names.
If you’re tired of the noise and want to see how the compounding journey actually works, hit subscribe.