Investing and Taking on BIG Risks

ReallyLost on 03/05/2026 - 20:23

Has anyone made bank taking on huge risk while investing? Talking about ASX or any other share market? We often see things like afterpay that list for cents and get taken over for huge sums…..for me i have managed to own a few but none that have made life changing money like 10m plus as i never had much money invested

The following ones have made me decent money but i never held for life changing sums….

What have you missed by selling early and what have you continued to hodl and made huge sums?

PLS at $1
MSFT at $60
CBA $50
AMD $7
WA1 $5

Financial Investment

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  • tenpercent on 03/05/2026 - 21:17
    +26

    I bought Woolies carrots at $1/kg. Now they're $2.4/kg.
    Kicking myself I didn't invest in more.
    Still it's a crunchy, juicy return.

    • Hangryuman on 05/05/2026 - 15:01

      'Kicking myself"

      never mind, Donkey !

      sounds like you needed more stick to get to a 14 carrot future

    • ksum006 on 05/05/2026 - 17:24

      This community never misses 😂

  • Dollar General on 03/05/2026 - 21:02
    +22

    I’m on Trump’s chat group where he tells us when to buy or sell prior to his announcements. I shout him a top up spray tan in exchange

    • Caped Baldy on 03/05/2026 - 23:36
      +5

      Me too. I gave him one of those mini squeeze on tomato sauce packets. The silly goose sprayed it over his ear and face at an election rally.

    • SBOB on 03/05/2026 - 22:28
      +4

      I shout him a top up spray tan in exchange

      So he's pasty white from the waist down?

    • Hangryuman on 05/05/2026 - 14:59

      'I’m on Trump’s chat group'

      then you'll come up Trumps every time … until 'don't drop the soap!'😧 time … 🤭

  • McMaferMur on 03/05/2026 - 20:48
    +8

    Investing especially the smart investment has no risk (long term).

    Quick profit, Picking stock, picking timing, day trading, blackjack at casino = those are high risk borderline gambling.

    • OZBargainer in SA on 04/05/2026 - 08:36
      +4

      I get the impression that we'd have less stock market volatility without these nervous short term investors.

      • Hangryuman on 05/05/2026 - 14:47
        +1

        I believe professional traders with big investment firms use AI and algorithms to trigger high speed buy/sell cover/short options based on thousands of a second time differences across the Atlantic London and New York markets - one reason Trump was interested in Greenland - mid-way between the two …

  • MS Paint on 03/05/2026 - 21:02
    +6

    A savyy at economics high school friend told me to buy CBA shares for about $6 in the early 90s. I ignored his advise. I regret that decision most days.

    • sammm on 04/05/2026 - 09:46

      Unfortunately, when CBA came onthe marjet i couldnt affird $5or $10 a share

    • Craze on 04/05/2026 - 16:05

      Similar story: a work colleague recommended to buy AAPL shares in 2012, citing that it's still very undervalued. Still regret not taking action to this day (I had just started working and had limited financial ability)

      • cainen on 05/05/2026 - 10:31
        +1

        Your colleague most likely sold out with 20% profit or something thinking he was clever so don't feel too bad about it. Not many people can actually hold on to something for so long that they end up with the huge returns you see on the charts.

  • Onemoredeal on 03/05/2026 - 21:18
    +6

    What about the people who loaded up on long life milk before the price rise

    • Clear on 03/05/2026 - 22:02
      +3

      Time to buy up the 1kg bags of UHT powder. If you follow the directions you'll get 7 litres out of it for $1.50 per litre. Dilute it more for bigger savings!

  • radicalvin on 04/05/2026 - 11:53
    +5

    I know someone who got lucky investing in Afterpay and ended up retiring after that. The funny thing is he suddenly became an expert and got interviewed by Livewire markets. Literally like interviewing a random lottery winner and their advice is, "you got to be in it to win it" lol

  • djones145 on 03/05/2026 - 21:19
    +3

    randwick race 5 horse 10
    place 100k on it
    sure win
    paying 100 to 1
    freeeeeee money

  • Chewy2221 on 04/05/2026 - 09:35
    +3

    Monash IVF have had 2 takeover offers in recent months & have rejected both. Currently trading at less than those offers. Not financial advice

    • tenpercent on 04/05/2026 - 19:28

      2 takeover offers in recent months & have rejected both

      That's just the foreplay to get them to come up with a better offer.

  • Hangryuman on 05/05/2026 - 14:45
    +2

    Not a massive payoff, but milady bought into the CBA share float - 'Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) listed on the ASX on September 12, 1991, with an initial public offer (IPO) price of $5.40 per share. The shares closed at $6.46 on their first day of trading. As of early May 2026, the share price has grown significantly to over $170, reflecting decades of growth and market leadership'

    I didn't buy at the float - then saw it go up - and bought in later at $53 in Jan 2008, $42 in Feb '08, and $73 in Sep 2015.

    Using my calculator for $172/$5 (y.root.x button) 35 (for 35 years), milady is looking at about 32x or about 10%pa average. My best $172/42 or about 4x in 18 years is about 8%pa

    Most folks claiming stratospheric returns may be in category of gambling - not telling us about how much more they lost, but bragging to everyone about the ones they 'WON!'

  • dtc on 03/05/2026 - 20:56
    +1

    Best option is to borrow and then buy a diversified ETF. Or gla geared ETF

    Buying spec stocks is just gambling- you probably have better odds doing red/black

    I’ve had a couple of 10X stocks but they were just pure luck. And a few minus 90% stocks (and one in liquidation). This is just play money to hasn’t changed my life

    • tenpercent on 03/05/2026 - 21:10
      +8

      Borrow to buy geared ETF? So it's geared twice?

      • dtc on 04/05/2026 - 13:30

        if you want more gearing then yes. For various reasons a 2X gearing ETF using borrowed money is better than a 5X geared ETF

        • Joku on 05/05/2026 - 08:52
          +9

          Surprise surprise we're back to double gearing recommendations late in a bull run.

          It's stupid ass strategies like this that send people broke and end up making the wider population think that the stock market is too risky, because when news reports on these situations going sour and it gets parroted around the BBQ etc, the story tends to get muddled by ignorance and poor reporting to the point that the average individual concludes that it was the stock markets fault and its just a scary place to invest, rather than recognise that the fault is just with the greedy investor that chooses to use a niche high risk strategy, and/or greedy advisers who flog these strategies to clients where the client is arguably still somewhat greedy but often a more complex mix of being innocently ignorant and gullible also rather than outright greed.

          I grew up in a town that was heavily effected by the Storm Financial saga. In Storm's case the double leveraging came in the form of aggressively pushing clients to redraw / re-mortgage their home and then put that towards a margin loan to buy their Storm labelled fund. The fund was basically just a wrapper fund for Storm to take more fees, I believe it was just an index fund which was managed by one of the major index fund providers (Vanguard I think). So there was nothing wrong with the underlying assets, just too much leverage blew up in their face. Many Storm clients ended up losing a lot of money, with some clients being forced to sell their homes.

          Of course you can double gear with less risk than the possibility of losing your house, and if you want to take that kind of risk then fine you do you, just always ensure you're comfortable with the worst case scenario being that you walk away with the leveraged asset value being completely wiped out and most if not all the outstanding debt still remaining.

          "If you're smart, you don't need it [debt], and if you're dumb, you shouldn't use it." - Warren Buffett

          • ReallyLost on 05/05/2026 - 10:12
            -2

            @Joku: When you say "late bull run" how do you determine this?

            The way i look at it is no one knows if its early bull run , late bull run or depression or recession.

            I think no one on the planet knows what comes next some gamble and get it right by luck and others don't.

            The best thing is probably DCA and chill

            If you knew what is happening next you would be richest person on the planet

            • Hangryuman on 05/05/2026 - 14:56
              -1

              @ReallyLost: 'When you say "late bull run" how do you determine this?'

              I track my investments monthly - they were going great but topped out in Dec 2025 and have fallen since - lots of discussion about Warren Buffett just retired after converting something like US$368B to cash. Why? To wait for an expected crash, then buy more stocks at fire-sale prices.

              I don't DCA (Dollar Cost Average for tax reasons - each separately purchased parcel needs to be tracked separately for capital gains tax purposes. ETFs have annual AMIT cost base adjustments.

              If you want to keep track of dozens of separate 12 purchases per year, enjoy. Not for me thanks. And those who quote Sharesight or Navexa, my browsing suggests it's not that easy.

              • tenpercent on 05/05/2026 - 22:55

                @Hangryuman: Buffet is almost always sitting on cash. It's the nature of his investments and his investing mindset.

        • tenpercent on 04/05/2026 - 19:01

          For various reasons a 2X gearing ETF using borrowed money is better than a 5X geared ETF

          What reasons? I'm genuinely interested.

          • ReallyLost on 05/05/2026 - 10:10

            @tenpercent: He is right though

            Check the etf SSO and QLD

            Both of those etfs use 2x leverage so not crazy high and they say 1.5x - 2x leverage is fine

            $50,000 on each of those etfs 10 years ago would have you sitting on around $1,300,000 in return. Not bad

          • dtc on 05/05/2026 - 17:57

            @tenpercent: due to 'volatility decay' a highly leveraged ETF has downsides over the long term

  • Clear on 03/05/2026 - 21:59
    +1

    XRO were a good share to get that many would regret. $6ish in 2012, $15ish in 2015 and jumps up to $180ish in 2025 before falling down to $80.

    • tenpercent on 03/05/2026 - 22:34

      Buy the dip?

      • Clear on 03/05/2026 - 22:43

        It would be a long term play. If they successfully penetrate the US market where Quickbooks dominate the market, then I'd expect it to go up again.

  • AustriaBargain on 04/05/2026 - 05:06
    +1

    Who could have predicted that AMD would become so integral to machine learning, you'd have to actually be in the sector to see it coming.

    • Some Random Guy on 04/05/2026 - 12:57

      AMD is one I'm kicking myself over. I was a kid so the most I could buy was one share (about 30 dollars at the time). Plus being a kid on etoro I didn't understand take profit and stop loss so it auto sold for like a dollar profit BRUH. Can only imagine the grin on whoever bought during the bulldozer/class action era and HODL'd their way to the AI boom.

  • Checkmate3023 on 04/05/2026 - 09:47
    +1

    head over to r/wallstreetbets

    https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/04/how-roaring-kittys-wealth-we…

    Never forget deepf*ckingvalue /roaringkitty and the greatest trade of all time

    in all seriousness money is made in Holding quality stocks/ETFs over the long period of time

    this isnt financial adice

  • kirt on 04/05/2026 - 13:53
    +1

    I'm a blue chip / dividends kinda guy, but I'm taking a punt on Frontier Energy (FHE), and have been dollar-cost-averaging in to them over the past 18 months.

    I have put in around $22k at an average of 20c a share, which is worth just under $30k today. I'm secretly hoping it will hit $2 a share once they start producing electricity in Oct 2027, at which point I will sell half and take a year off of work and travel :)

    My biggest percentage gain is Aussie Broadband - bought $2k worth at $1 a share (I wanted more, but ended up being allocated 2000 shares as part of their IPO), which are now worth around $10.5k.

    • ReallyLost on 04/05/2026 - 14:22
      +1

      Wow hope it goes $2 good bet

      • kirt on 04/05/2026 - 14:57

        Thanks ;)

    • tenpercent on 04/05/2026 - 19:32

      I'm taking a punt on Frontier Energy (FHE), and have been dollar-cost-averaging in to them over the past 18 months.

      Is that one of the penny stocks where the board keeps issuing themselves more and more shares to dilute the other owners.

      • kirt on 05/05/2026 - 11:18
        +1

        Not AFAIK - most share purchases from the board are on-market buys. Also, Frontier Energy have been very vocal about minimising / eliminating share dilution for the project financing, so yeah, I'm not concerned…

  • Wiadro on 03/05/2026 - 21:20

    Corsair in 2020

  • SlickMick on 04/05/2026 - 10:31

    That's the thing: who is willing to gamble a large sum on a speccy, but a small investment doesn't really make a difference if it does take off.
    My conclusion is that index-trackng ETFs is the way to go.

    But as for past mistakes and luck or lack thereof:

    I bought CSL for $30.66…. but sold for $34.27.
    I bought BCN for $0.025. It took years to get going - I saw so many people give up and sell out.
    I bought Breville at $5.92. That's been a a good company with steady growth, but nothing exceptional.

    I bought Virgin bonds and Corporate Travel when Covid hit. whoops.
    I paid $0.45 for MMR when I thought PEP11 was going to solve our gas shortage… still waiting for Morrison to go to jail and that project get running.
    Some jerk told me Buru Energy was sitting on the biggest oil deposit in WA (or something like that). I went it heavy at $0.375 and is my biggest regret.

    If it wasn't for BCN and BRG, my super would have gone backwards due to MMR and BRU.
    Those 2 would have been at least 20% of my portfolio until recently when I've been moving to A200 and BGBL which eventually will be 100%.

  • R0b on 04/05/2026 - 19:35

    Forget the ASX look at high yield stocks out of the US but do not get caught up in things like the yieldmax trap. Look at things that you know will do good still for a good portion of time in the future like gold. GDXW is a prime example. Weekly payer with decent payouts and steady NAV. If you can somehow find a broker that supports it CLM is a steady earner and with the rights offerings (again a broker that supports it) can work well I put some effort into trying to find a broker as an Australian that supports it but could not. My point is look outside the ASX if you want like changing gains something you can live off retire early ect. Hope this helps.

    • ReallyLost on 05/05/2026 - 09:25

      I will look at it, i was looking at Main Street Capital looks like a solid one with huge proven history

  • lunartemis on 05/05/2026 - 06:03

    A colleague bought $1000 worth of bitcoin when it was worth $4K and sold it at its peak

    • Tomhaigh1 on 05/05/2026 - 09:27
      +2

      Which peak?

      • lunartemis on 05/05/2026 - 17:06

        The one that went up to nearly $200KAUD

  • ForkSnorter on 05/05/2026 - 08:01

    Bought about $500 worth of dogecoin, price skyrocketed about 1000%, my holding went up to $5k. Stupidly didn't sell. Price went back down again. Held on for few years more. Price went back up again. Stupidly didn't sell again. Price went back down again almost immediately. Few years later, price went slightly up. Sold. Then right after selling, price skyrocketed. In the end, made almost nothing.

    That was my final crypto adventure. No more of that nonsense. The amount of time you have to put in and the risks you have to take to make money off it is not really worth it in my opinion.

    On the other hand, most share trading is substantially the same as crypto. You throw money in and hope for the best. Very few traders are actually interested in the company/product they invest in. They just hope other people buy in to push the price up. It is essentially gambling.

    • ReallyLost on 05/05/2026 - 09:25

      What about etfs? Why does the the government invest your super into etfs and expect you to retire with it? Is govt encouraging gambling?

      • ForkSnorter on 05/05/2026 - 10:01

        Most share trading behaves like gambling. It’s mostly just money changing hands between investors betting on price moves.

        ETFs are basically the same bet, just slower and broader: They spread that bet across the whole market and over a longer time frame and rely on markets continuing to rise over time.

        That works… unless you get something like a Great Depression scenario, where markets can stay crushed for years.

        • ReallyLost on 05/05/2026 - 10:03

          But saying that….every investment is a gamble including buying a house…with property you need valuer to value it up OR your neighbours selling for a higher price to increase value of your place….

          • ForkSnorter on 05/05/2026 - 10:27

            @ReallyLost: Nah, your house has an intrinsic value to you, in terms of giving you a place to live, a place to store your stuff, and sometimes even a place to potentially make things, grow food, or run a business.

            That intrinsic value may vary or change to a degree depending on how much you or other people value it. But it won't be reduced to nothing if the stock market crashes. On the contrary, its value relative to the share market or the broader economy may increase during a depression.

            It can be a risk if you borrow too much and are unable to pay that money back, but not really gambling.

            On the other hand, property can be a gamble if you treat it like one, i.e. buying up investment properties hoping they will increase in value.

            Investment properties will likely lose monetary value in the event of a massive crash because people likely won't have the money to buy them at the same price the investor paid. This happened in several countries during the GFC.

            • ReallyLost on 05/05/2026 - 11:00

              @ForkSnorter: But if you have a mortgage on your house it's not really your house until it's paid off, is that not the case and risk? Betting on staying fit and healthy to work 20 years to pay it off…

              • ForkSnorter on 05/05/2026 - 11:17

                @ReallyLost: Yeah unfortunately the property market and banking culture and society's expectations have evolved to encourage individuals to borrow insane amounts of money to buy property.

                Banks lend too readily and too much, this is partly why property prices have risen so much. The reason they do that is that the profits are higher, and the risk is lower for the bank than for the individual buyers.

                Personally I think people should save up most of the cost of a property and only borrow a small amount (if they absolutely have to). Banks should discourage borrowing too much.

                If this was more common, prices would be much more manageable and investors wouldn't be speculating like crazy, putting upwards pressure on prices.

                The people reaping the reward would be hard-working people with good employment potential, instead of risk-taking property investors.

  • gromit on 05/05/2026 - 11:30

    I spent every cent I had including a significant margin loan when Covid hit. I remember I was in the Aukland Qantas Club waiting for our flight back to Aus the day before the airports shutdown and I was madly running numbers and spending everything I had in my accounts leaving just enough to pay the bills. was stressful but it was a massive payoff.

    • ReallyLost on 05/05/2026 - 11:43

      How much did you buy and what did you buy? That would have been life changing with enough amount

      • gromit on 05/05/2026 - 13:57

        won't go into how much. But lots of NAB and various other blue chips, some smaller caps with the biggest winner being PPS which I bought at 0.33 and sold at $1.45, I wish I had been braver and put more into PPS as it was I only had $30k invested in them.

  • cashless on 05/05/2026 - 19:19

    Nice try ATO

    • ReallyLost on 05/05/2026 - 19:27
      +2

      I wish i was ATO would be amazing to browse the net be useless and get paid

    • SuperMid on 05/05/2026 - 21:50

      Nice try NATO

  • redfox1200 on 07/05/2026 - 09:30

    yes ASTS in the single digits. will be over $1000 a share by 2030.

    have recently started buying HOVR also which will be around $20 next year.

    • ReallyLost on 07/05/2026 - 09:32

      Yeah ASTS is crazy.

      • redfox1200 on 07/05/2026 - 09:33

        should be back at ATH in the next 2 months

        • ReallyLost on 07/05/2026 - 09:34

          What does HOVR do?

          • redfox1200 on 07/05/2026 - 09:38

            @ReallyLost: Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing (eVTOL). they have their full scale aircraft coming out at the end of the year. they are hybrid though, so electric for take off and landing, but fuel for flying. the CEO was in the military and made purchasing decisions, so he's built something that will be useful for the military as well as commercial. once the full scale aircraft comes out later this year the stock will probably re-rate from its current marketcap (100-150M) to 500M-1B.

            theres heaps of videos/interviews on reddit.

            • ReallyLost on 07/05/2026 - 10:13

              @redfox1200: Worth a $10,000 bet i guess…. for a chance to 20x it.

              • redfox1200 on 07/05/2026 - 10:24

                @ReallyLost: indeed. once they get certification in 2028-2030 and start shipping 200-300 per year the stock price should be somewhere between $50-150 mainly dependant on how much dulition they need between now and then.

                they will bring in about 130 million from warrants once the stock is over $18, and they have said they are trying to dilute as least as possible, with funding coming from gov/military/partnerships.

            • tenpercent on 07/05/2026 - 10:25

              @redfox1200: Every decade since the 80s there's been at least one story with videos about another startup with a working VTOL personal vehicle that's just awaiting regulatory approvals. For military use maybe, but even then I can't see it being useful for combat, therefore it would only be for transporting men and materiel and it would be niche situations where roads are inaccessible or take too long. Maybe search and rescue services could use it. But The Jetsons is a long way off, sorry.

              • redfox1200 on 07/05/2026 - 10:32

                @tenpercent: yes correct these will not be combat aircraft. the X7 would be for transporting a small team, rescue, or materials, emergency recovery/response.

                can fly further and faster than a helicopter, so what ever a helicopter can do today this can do better and cheaper.

                The X5 would be the drone version for other uses.

                they will be an OEM manufacturer, so don't need the capital that someone like JOBY needs.

                • tenpercent on 07/05/2026 - 11:08

                  @redfox1200: So their pitch is to take over the market for non-combat helicopters?

                  • redfox1200 on 07/05/2026 - 13:47

                    @tenpercent: heres a quick Ai pitch. but there are way more detailed interviews in the reddit group or probably on their website. i'm only invested in 3 stocks and this is one of them.

                    New Horizon Aircraft (NASDAQ: HOVR) is developing the Cavorite X7, a hybrid-electric 7-seat eVTOL that solves the core limitations holding back most competitors in advanced air mobility. While pure-electric designs are restricted to short urban hops with poor weather performance, the Cavorite’s patented fan-in-wing technology enables vertical takeoff and landing followed by high-speed conventional cruise, delivering 450 km/h top speed and 800 km range with superior bad-weather capability and up to 30% lower emissions. This practical, mission-first design positions it for high-value regional applications including medevac, remote community transport, and disaster response. With subscale prototype transition flights already successfully completed in 2025, full-scale assembly underway, and flight testing targeted for early 2027, the company maintains a strong ~$20 million cash runway through fiscal 2027. At a modest ~$105 million market cap trading around $2.30, HOVR offers investors a high-upside, differentiated bet on the eVTOL sector with a realistic path to certification and commercialization.

  • Benoffie on 03/05/2026 - 22:54
    -5

    Yes, and Ive sold against my better judgement (I have a risk adverse Hubby that could sell shares as a Panic Merchant…)

    I think the thing to remember isn't really what you buy or sell at (because there's CGT anyway) but rather the return via dividends.

    If you hold a share for say, 10 years and receive 10 solid dividends that either reduce or pay off the initial value, then at what point they get sold at almost becomes irrelevant.

    Even a loss is worthwhile if you are making gains elsewhere. Swings and roundabouts

    • Your Friend on 04/05/2026 - 07:48
      +1

      all this advice is so so bad
      - dividends are terrible in basically every case (yes incl. franked dividends) vs no dividends and just choosing when to sell
      - a loss is never worthwhile, you'd always prefer to not have a loss

      do you even think about what you write?

      • moar bargains on 04/05/2026 - 13:06
        +1
        • a loss is never worthwhile, you'd always prefer to not have a loss

        Unless you're renting out a house.

    • MS Paint on 04/05/2026 - 00:17

      *averse

  • wetsandwich on 04/05/2026 - 11:35
    -5

    I turned $20k into about $300k at the peak using US options during the covid money printer boom.
    Lost about half of that in the fallout after, but reigned it in and kept trading since without thinking I know everything (the main danger is thinking you can't lose and just start buying anything with a price).
    I think ETFs are for 85-95 IQ people who are too afraid to really learn anything. Sure, you can retire when you're 65, I'll do it when I'm 45.

    • BronzingStubble on 04/05/2026 - 12:26
      +7

      Oh dear. The arrogance of someone who hasn't seen a complete cycle.

    • ReallyLost on 04/05/2026 - 11:43

      How would you do it at 45? With what starting balance and individual stocks or etfs?

    • dtc on 04/05/2026 - 13:34

      multiple studies showing that market pickers do not beat the market over the long term (meaning 5years but even 3 years). These are the professionals. I'm glad to be lower IQ but able to read.

      • timuzhti on 05/05/2026 - 21:16

        Technically, it's not mathematically possible for the dollar-weighted average returns of actively managed investments to exceed that of all-market passive investments, because that average is what all-market passive investments invest in (i.e., the sum total of all active trades is the market). Of course, the professional active manager charges you fees, so it's still a good deal for them.

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