My First Investment

Chaos & Confusion & Crying

Jun 30, 2026

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m officially an investor.

Everyone clap.

I bought my first ever stock less than three weeks ago on the 11th of June.

Comcast ($CMCSA). 1 share @ $24.00.

After doing some research (albeit not nearly enough), I decided that the business had decent predictability, good economics, a fair moat and nice managers. But what was really attracting me to it was the fact that the business, on free cash flows of over $19 billion, was trading at just 4.5x earnings.

All my ideas about investing, all my beliefs and values went out the window when I saw that P/E. What a poser. I, by choice, did not practice what I preach. I ran a simple DCF, assuming complete decline, and I found that even if the business began to fall apart, I was able to make some good money.

I was Buffett in ‘65 and I’d just found the most incredible cigar butt.

As the days passed, I was still fairly confident, though I did begin to wonder if I’d done enough work. Then the share price fell even more to below $23. I bought half a share, unable to contain myself at the discount I was getting. It then fell even further to $22.60 and I brought my holdings to just over two full shares. I had invested $50. I was over the moon. Soon Comcast would prove all the naysayers wrong, start a rocket company and set up a new HQ on Venus.

The price stabilised then for a bit. I didn't look at it much as I wasn’t interested in buying any more of it anyway. $50 was enough for me, plus, I haven’t even been paid yet from my new job so I’m dead broke.

Cut to the morning of Monday 29th of June, I see the news:

I stared at my phone screen in utter confusion for about thirty seconds before realising the car behind me was breaking his horn trying to tell me that I had a green light.

What the hell just happened? I buy my first ever stock, a massive business at a very distressed price, and within less than three weeks the company announces one of the biggest restructuring plans in their entire history - a divorce. Typical.

I log onto my brokerage account to see how much money I’ve lost, but low and behold, I’m up 20%! Apparently the market absolutely hates Comcast as one gigantic mega-business, but loves the idea of that mega-business halving itself? I was learning a very valuable lesson: the market hates you and will gaslight and manipulate you worse than that girl off Tinder ever did.

Comcast, in its current state, jumps out at the value-loving investor like few other companies do right now. Despite significant debt, the business shows really nice predictability and solid financial strength as well as a shareholder-orientated management. Trading at 4.5x earnings (its lowest ratio in about eight years), the novice investor (me) can be forgiven for thinking they’ve found a goldmine.

My excitement at the prospect of owning such a “stellar” business at such a low price tag completely overruled the part of my brain that knew I hadn’t done nearly enough digging. Had I just spent another evening digging into the business instead of falling in love with the valuation, I would have discovered why the market was so pessimistic within minutes. But I didn’t. Instead, I went backwards.

Looking back now, the biggest mistake I made was investing in a business that wasn’t all that incredible. I’ve built my strategy and philosophy off the idea that the only businesses you want to own are elite ones in possession of gigantic moats and stellar financials. Comcast, by contrast, is seeing one of its major markets shrink, has essentially stalled in terms of sales growth and carries about $100 billion worth of debt.

I fell for the old rookie mistake: Instead of buying a great business at a fair price, I bought a fair company at a great price. That’s not really something you can hope to hold for 40 years. It’s something that will likely realise its value in the future and make you a nice short-term profit, but then you’re back to square one trying to find something else to invest in rather than having a lovely long-term compounder.

Munger would be so ashamed.

Comcast probably is undervalued and likely will survive this transitionary period in its history and overall it’ll probably all be fine. But at this moment in time, it’s not a wonderful business, it just has a wonderful price.

Had Comcast been priced fairly or above, the likelihood of me considering it as an investment simply from a business point of view would’ve been quite low. I think that says it all. I fell in love with the low price and forgot my fundamentals.

But now, I must learn from the mistake. I’ll leave the $50 invested and just forget about it. It’ll act as a reminder to never be such a fool again. I should feel confident about the business I own, not the price. Don’t lower your standards because the short-term gain looks comfy.

If Rule #1 is don’t lose money, then one of the very best things I can do to achieve that is learn from my mistakes. Hopefully one day that $50 will be $50,000 and I’ll make a far better choice.

The lesson is that it’s very easy to abandon your philosophy if the offer is good enough. But abandoning your philosophy is like dancing with the devil, and as the genius that is Immortal Technique once said: