The 15 biggest investment blunders that undermine your return: from buying additional bleeders to herd behavior

The biggest enemy of the investor? That’s you. Greed, fear, impatience and overconfidence can lead to irrational and therefore risky decisions. These are the 15 biggest investment blunders. And that’s how you avoid them.

1. Invest with money you can’t afford to miss

The first question to ask yourself when considering investing is: can I afford it? Recent research by Nibud shows that a quarter of Dutch people who have less than 2,000 euros in savings in the bank invest. Also of the people who say it is difficult to make ends meet, a fifth say they are active on the stock exchange.

That’s risky. It can be quite haunting on the stock market. Therefore, only invest with money that you can afford to lose, so that you do not have to sell your investments at an unfavorable time in an emergency.

Nibud recommends first creating a buffer to absorb unforeseen setbacks. If you also have more savings, you can invest with this.

In addition, use as a rule of thumb that you take money that you need within five to seven years from the table and do not invest with it. In the event of a stock market crash, it can sometimes take years before the stock market has recovered.