How do YOU define success?

When the market goes through weeks of treading water, trading within a range between buying targets and selling targets, I make a practice of looking at various statistics in my portfolio to prevent me from doing something stupid out of boredom.

Two of my favorite statistics are: (1) the percentage of my cash hoard that I’ve put to work since the beginning of the year and (2) the reduction of each of my positions’ cost bases from where I started the investment.

For instance, since the beginning of 2022, I have put 35.16% of the cash I had at the beginning of the year to work in the markets. Granted, my cash position is still more than 28% even at these levels – much higher than most financial advisers recommend – knowing that I’ve already put such a large amount of cash to work makes me feel like I didn’t miss the opportunities presented by the selloff, even if it has seen its bottom (which, mind you, most analysts don’t believe and forecast that the market will make lower lows before this bear market is through with us).

As for cost bases, I always track the current and original cost basis for each of my positions. As always, you can see those statistics in the chart of my positions above. Even when looking at the position’s biggest loser, Coinbase (COIN), I can help reduce some of the pain of being down so much by knowing I at least reduced my per-share cost -48.52% from my initial starting price of $412.47 to my current per-share cost at $212.34. Granted, I’m still down a fortune from that point, the reduction of the cost basis is a sign of success in my investing strategy of Buying in Stages, in my opinion.

How do you define success? When it comes to bear markets and down years, I think having a variety of ways to show yourself the progress you’re making will help alleviate at least some of the anxiety of seeing investments do the opposite of their intended goal as they go down in value instead of up.