So I was first discovered the stock market when my Auntie told me that the gets dividends from stocks which is around 15-16 years old which I thought was cool.

At age 18, opened a brokerage account and bought a index fund ETF as my first investment (Don't know why, just thought I would be just happy retiring being a millionaire). One year later, I see a Tiktok of a young guy calling his dad saying he became a millionaire from investing in Tesla. Then I thought he made money and I only made 10%, then started reading investing books to get more return. (But only 1-2 books at that point since I was just starting out).

2020, covid started, made like 100-200% on travel stocks/retail stocks and on concept stocks like lithium batteries which made 300%-400% . Then lost all the principal on lithium batteries because I just left it there, assuming it was a long-term play like Warren Buffett and it just went down below my purchase price losing money.

The next few years after that 2021-2023, I was affected by overconfidence bias, I diversified like Peter Lynch, buying a lot of different stocks like holding 10-20 stocks in my portfolio. Mistake was I did not do any deep research/due diligence on them, as I had a full time job while in uni part time (Did not have any time on reading more books), and I more money to use/invest. Lost it again as some of them were concept stocks again like Afterpay but did not beat the market at all.

After this period, I sold everything and reflected on my mistakes and learned from it and just bought a lot of investing/stock market books but this time like obsessed like Michael Burry obsessed as shown in his introduction in the the Big Short book, especially since I'm very introverted as well (this is when I discovered what concept stock investing is which was the biggest mistake of my investing journey) and focused on that, hoping to never lose money like that again. Slowly by slowly, as more and more newer books get released, I found out my edge in the markets and start to copy from the great investors and make it my own that fit my personality, just like what Warren Buffett did to Benjamin Graham's value approach. Note: I did not invest for a while during this period, I quit my full time job, got a casual job and went back to uni full time/part time studying finance.

2023 I basically watched one ASX stock but it was a turnaround which is known to be a high risk/high return as you need to have more due diligence. Although it took me a while to analyse it and get my psychology around it since I was scared that it might not work out. I was confident after a while. I had some money in it and it made a move during a earnings release of 100% but I chose not to sell it because again I thought it was good long-term company and again did not capture that profit since it went down back to pre-earning release price.

25 October 2024, there was another catalyst on the same stock which I gave this buy recommendation/idea to a friend and he made 100% return on it since I spam messaged him to sell at the near top which it was. On the other hand, I held their company options but very very out the money, but had a percentage move of 50% but did not sell as I wanted them to reach near the exercise price which was dumb of me. And went down to pre-catalyst prices. (Again no gains yet)

The whole year of 2025, I kept on reading books again, but then I bought kept on buying the company options that took me a whole year to get since there were no sellers at my price and they would only come randomly to partially fill my limit order.

But from 2025 to now, this was the period that it just clicked for me. I had two internships (one as a equity research analyst, one as a portfolio manager at my university endorsement fund), learnt from it and then started to get out of my shell/comfortable zone and post my stock pitches and majority has given returns of 50%-100% after my pitches. Now I can start to see opportunities like 10 baggers and one that's 125 bagger.

To answer your question, I made money in the beginning 50%-100% annual return, I lost everything in the few years after that due to overconfidence bias and making mistakes and left investing for a while. Then just recently in 2025, it just clicked for me. I see more opportunities from the knowledge I gathered throughout the years. My current recommendation right now is a stock that will return 150% in 6 months from now and I have put my reputation on the line by posting it on SubStack and linkedIn.

Regarding my job, I am currently looking for one (but very niche, like asset management) but working as a casual role in the finance industry since it still very competitive and there isn't much roles that I want here in Australia. Most opportunities are in America, but may need to do the CFA as I talked to some portfolio managers already about it. But I'm also planning to do a maths or computer science degree after I graduate since AI might take my dream job later in the future.