I started my investing journey in 2007 directly with stocks, without much reading or thinking about business, etc. It was purely based on news channels and business newspapers. Then came 2008, which was an eye-opener for me. I took that as a learning experience and realized that randomness is not going to work.

I had two options: either completely exit investing or take it full-time and study hard.

Since I had a full-time job in IT, I took a third approach and decided to work on my job skills to fetch a better salary compared to the job market. This allowed me to have more free cash in hand to invest. Simultaneously, I started studying investing and moved all my stock investments to Mutual funds, including large cap and ELSS.
This gradual transition helped me get into almost full-time investing over time.

My investing journey summary:
Year	 Investment Approach Outcome/Portfolio Allocation 
2007-2008	Reckless news-based equity investing	Lost ~ 30% of PF.
2008-2009	Tried trading	lost ~ 50% of PF. Realized trading not suitable, took break from direct equity investing and trading
2009-2013	Large cap and ELSS mutual funds, no direct equity	Transitioned to safer investments, focused on large-cap and ELSS MFs
2013-2015	Nifty 50 stocks,+focused MFs on mid and small caps	Moved Large Cap MFS to Nifty 50 stocks Minus All power, direct road infra, cement, metal and gov stocks
2016-2020	Direct equity from Nifty 250 + only small cap MFs	Further refined stock selection and removed duplicate stocks from same industry and sectors.
2021	Exited due to personal health reasons caused by Covid.	 
2022+	Two portfolio 1) ~40% in a diversified portfolio including large and mid-cap stocks, and 15% in NYSE FAANG+ stocks. 2) ~45% in small and micro-cap stocks, along with mid and small-cap ETFs.

My investment approach and mantra is very basic and simple and that is

1. Avoid IPOs, Debts, govs orgs, and specific sectors like cement, direct infra, metal, mining, agriculture, veterinary, and most pharmas (except APIs and CDMO), and Auto OEMs.
2. Invest in NYSE FAANG+ for AI & Innovation and liquidity.
3. For liquidity and a 12% annual return, focus on companies like HDFC, ICICI, Kotak, RIL, TCS, HCL, ITC, HUL, ASIAN Paints,Titan, Bajaj Finserv .
4. For alpha, prefer market caps ranging from appx 200 cr to 12000 cr, focusing on Finance, Consumption (FMCG, QSR, Diagnostics, aspirational consumption), IT+, Engineering, APIs, Specialty chemical, and Auto Ancillaries. Uses a pick and shovel model based on good TAM, ROE, ROCE, and net block.

I’ve pursued a graded, gradual approach to investing over a span of 17 years. While I’m pleased with the outcome. I believe this could have been achieved within 3 to 5 years. However, various factors such as limited access to quality information, job commitments, family obligations, and a conservative risk appetite played a role.