Peter Lynch, former manager of the Fidelity Magellan Fund and one of the most respected investors of the 20th century, once confessed that his greatest investing error was selling successful stocks too early.
What Happened: An X user shared an extract from the 2017 Forbes India Collectors Edition, in which Lynch described a surprising phone call he received decades earlier.
"My daughter picks up the phone and says, ‘It's Mr. Buffett on the line,'" Lynch wrote. "And I pick up the phone and I hear, ‘This is Warren Buffett from Omaha, Nebraska.'"
Lynch said Warren Buffett was calling to ask permission to quote a line from his book "One Up On Wall Street" in his year-end shareholder letter.
The quote Buffett wanted? "Selling your winners and holding your losers is like cutting the flowers and watering the weeds."
"That one line he picked up in my whole book has been the greatest mistake," Lynch admitted.
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Why It's Important: According to Celebrity Net Worth, Lynch currently has a net worth of around $450 million. Buffett, on the other hand, is ranked fourth on Bloomberg's Billionaire Index with a net worth of $167 billion.
Lynch isn't the only prominent figure to reflect on missed gains from selling too early. Several high-profile investors and tech leaders have voiced similar regrets.
Bill Gates once called Microsoft Corporation's MSFT decision to sell its early stake in Apple Inc. AAPL "foolish."
In 1997, Microsoft invested $150 million in the struggling rival, acquiring roughly 5% of the company. By 2003, it had exited the position for around $550 million—a sizable return at the time, but a fraction of what that stake would be worth today.
Masayoshi Son, founder of SoftBank Group SFTBF SFTBY, also admitted to a major misstep in unloading shares of chipmaker Nvidia Corporation NVDA. Son sold SoftBank's stake after a modest gain, missing out on the stock's meteoric rise in the AI boom.
Even in the crypto world, David Schwartz, chief technology officer at Ripple, revealed he sold 40,000 Ethereum ETH/USD at just $1.05 each, netting around $40,000 to buy solar panels. At today's prices, that decision cost him millions.
Schwartz has since called the move one of his biggest financial regrets.
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