I spent more time calculating fees than actually trading

Watching the numbers crawl toward zero

I remember sitting in my room last Tuesday, staring at the screen, trying to figure out if I was actually making any money or if I was just donating it to the brokerage firm. I had spent the better part of the afternoon looking at the trading fees for different platforms. It’s funny because everyone tells you to look at the big picture, but when you’re staring at a commission rate that eats into your tiny dividend, the big picture feels less important than the twenty-dollar bill you just watched evaporate. I started with a platform that advertised zero fees, but after digging through the fine print, I realized there were ‘custody fees’ and ‘settlement fees’ that only appeared once you actually made a move. It’s a bit like buying a plane ticket where the price doubles the moment you click checkout.

The endless rabbit hole of ETFs

I thought buying an ETF was supposed to be the simple route. You pick a ticker, you hold it, you wait. But then you realize there’s an expense ratio, and then another fee for the exchange rate conversion, and if you’re using a standard account, the 15.4% dividend tax hits you right when you sell. I read somewhere—maybe one of those thick books like the one by Yeom Seung-hwan about mastering ETFs—that you have to watch out for the tax efficiency of the account type. I’m still not entirely sure if I did it right. I have a retirement account sitting there, and I’m constantly checking if the management fees on that are higher than just buying the underlying asset directly. Sometimes I think I’m just overcomplicating things to feel like I’m doing something productive.

Why I gave up on the Python automation idea

For a week, I was obsessed with the idea of writing a Python script to automate my trades. I saw a few people talking about it online, suggesting that if you could pull the data directly from the exchange, you could avoid manual errors. I spent three nights trying to get the API keys from a major broker. By the time I actually got the connection established, I realized I didn’t actually have a strategy to code. It was just a way to make myself feel like a professional investor. In the end, the script just sat there, and I went back to clicking the ‘buy’ button manually. It was probably safer that way, but I still feel like I wasted a lot of coffee and time staring at lines of code that didn’t help my portfolio grow a single cent.

The reality of selling and the tax man

Selling is always the part that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. When you sell, it’s not just about the profit; it’s about what the government is going to take out before the money even hits your bank account. I tried to calculate my total return on a couple of US stocks I bought through a local app, and after accounting for the brokerage fee and the currency exchange spread, the ‘gain’ I thought I had was almost completely wiped out. I honestly wonder if it’s worth the stress of watching the market every morning. Some days I think about just leaving the money in a high-yield savings account and forgetting about the ticker symbols entirely. It wouldn’t make me rich, but at least I wouldn’t be questioning every transaction fee like it’s a personal insult from the firm.