Lost in Space

Hey Scott,

I am a new investor swept up in a crazy world of shares and crypto (and insane house prices). I put $5,000 in the share market using the Spaceship app, and then the market crashed! Now whenever I look at my portfolio I feel queasy and want to pull it all out. Is Spaceship worth the hype, or have I thrown away my savings? And is my gut feeling to pull it out and invest in an ETF right, or should I hold on through this ‘bear market’?

Alison

Hi Alison,

Let’s you and I jump in the DeLorean and go back in time.

This time last year you were probably suffering major FOMO hearing your friends boasting about how much fast money they were making betting on Dogecoin, hot stocks and NFT-ape jpegs.

So you looked at all the investing apps and chose the one that had delivered the highest short-term returns, Spaceship. The reason it shot the lights out was because it was investing in red-hot growth stocks that investors seemingly couldn’t get enough of.

And then … investors changed their minds, sending growth stocks deep into the red. This year Apple is down 18%, as is Amazon (-35%), Tesla (-40%), Facebook’s Meta (-53%), and Netflix (-70%).

This explains why Spaceship’s flagship portfolio is down 35%.

Yet what you want to know is: where does it go next?

Honestly, I have no idea. I totally suck at market forecasts (as does every other human). And that’s why I don’t forecast. Instead, I invest in index funds that own shares in business across a range of industries. They really are set-and-forget investments, and when you combine them with low fees on many of these apps they’re great.

Scott.