Mistakes are practice shots. To succeed, make more mistakes.

First, a correction. In yesterday’s post I stated that individual stock buying or selling is a zero-sum game. An economist/investment banker member pointed out that this statement is incorrect. In a zero-sum game, for every winner, there is a loser. In any stock transaction, the buyer wants to get income and or growth, and the seller might want the money to buy groceries and pay the rent or invest elsewhere. Both are getting what they want.

Individual option buying or selling is a true zero-sum game. For every winner, there is a loser.

Today, I would like to draw attention to investment mistakes. Everybody, including seasoned, successful investors, makes them.

Mistakes are practice shots. To succeed, make more mistakes.

But make them in your “fun” portfolio. That portfolio should be between 5% to 10% of your investments, depending on your risk tolerance. Further, you don’t even need one.

Like the majority of actively managed portfolios, “fun” portfolios rarely equal the simple act of investing in an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the S&P 500. So, what about them?