Corona has changed some things for me.
After it hit and the markets tanked, I stopped any active trading. I didn't know what is going to happen and for how long the markets will be down. It reminded me on the market dip when we had Ebola scare. But it was magnified at least 10 times.
After the Ebola scare the markets recovered quickly. The same with the Corona but it took longer and the dip was larger. The similarities are: people are scared about an infectious agent but the infrastructures are not damaged.
After I stopped the trading activities, I became busy at work.
Sometimes I watch the Russian billionaire's Igor Rybakov YouTube channel. He mentioned that when he was scared during the 2008 crisis an older guy told him, that this will pass too. But during those down times it is good to prepare for the time when everything will pick up again. Because it will.
That is what I did. Starting February-March our workload went down at least 50% and in some weeks it was down 75%.
During those weeks I used the free time to validate a bunch of new immunostains and also designed and implemented a new training system for new residents, a kind of a "boot camp" for the first two weeks when they start. I also started a new audit program for billing. When the work picked up, we had the quality improvement in resident training, a new billing audit and we had a bunch of new stains to use.
While I was busy doing all this work related stuff I watched the market less and less. Whenever I did, it felt stressful. Somehow I didn't want to have the same fast paced stress every day like when I was trading every day. And when the marked turned, I didn't participate much anymore.
An additional factor in this loss of interest was the fact that I was getting closer to the "magic number", the amount I calculated I need to stop worrying. I am getting closer to that number and the closer I get to it, the less I worry.
It feels like that I don't need to stress that much anymore for a little bit that is left, especially that I have still at least 10 years of working before retirement. I can see that I will reach it.
So my investing shifted to using mainly index funds and dividend stocks.
In 2020 there is almost no active trading anymore. I only did it in January. After that it was mainly dividends. You can see it on the graph, the January is at above $15,000, the rest is not going much over $5,000 a month, depending on when the dividends are paid.
The total cash flow from investments (mostly dividends) in 2020 was $52,895 (compared to the last year at $143,241, mostly active).
That brings me down to the level 1 of my "Cash flow challenge" - "Floating".
But somehow I like floating right now. It is less work. Considering that the difference between $143,241 and $52,895 is $90,346. Those $90,346 is taxed at the highest tax rate available and leaves me with about half of that. I am OK with having less daily stress and forgo on additional about $45,000 a year when I am getting closer to may goal anyway.
Below is my cash flow per month and the S&P 500 performance for 2020.
my cash flow
S&P500 returns in %
At the time of this update it is June 2021 and Corona fears are subsiding.
I decided to stay with index funds and dividend stocks.
The investing turned into passive income for me now.
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