The Inevitable Mistakes of Investing — Lessons from Buffett, Lynch, and Soros | by Sangdon | Oct, 2025
1. The Legends’ Confessions
Peter Lynch: “How Dumb Was I”
Peter Lynch, the legendary manager of Fidelity’s Magellan Fund, delivered an annual return of 29.2% over 13 years.
In a 2023 CNBC interview, he admitted:
“Apple was not that hard to understand. I mean, how dumb was I?”
In the early 2000s, when his daughter bought an iPod, Lynch immediately recognized that Apple was making huge margins. But he didn’t buy the stock. He made the same mistake with Nvidia.
Even more painful? Selling Home Depot and Dunkin’ Donuts far too early. Both stocks rose more than 50-fold after he sold.
One of his sayings became so famous that even Warren Buffett quoted it:
“Selling your winners and holding your losers is like cutting the flowers and watering the weeds.”
Ironically, Lynch himself cut some of his greatest winners far too soon.
George Soros: The $1 Billion Lesson
They once called him “the man who broke the Bank of England.” In 1992, Soros famously shorted the British pound and made $1 billion in profit.
But in 2016, the story flipped.
After Donald Trump’s election victory, Soros was convinced the market would collapse. He built massive short positions. The result? A $1 billion loss.
The market didn’t crash. It actually went up 6%.
And yet, this is exactly why he remains a legend.
Despite losing $1 billion in 2016, Soros’s fund still ended the year up 5%.
As he once said:
“I’m only rich because I know when I’m wrong.”
He admitted the mistake immediately, closed the position, limited the damage — and then made it back elsewhere.
Warren Buffett: A Battle with Time
In 2014, Warren Buffett invested in the British supermarket chain Tesco.
When accounting fraud was uncovered, the stock plunged 44%.
In a CNBC interview, he admitted:
“I made a huge mistake on Tesco.”
The loss? Roughly $1 billion.
But during the same period, Buffett made $15 billion from his acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.
His bigger mistake, however, came decades earlier.
In 1969, convinced the market was overheated, Buffett shut down his investment partnership.
He was too early. The market kept climbing until 1973.
Directionally, he was right — the oil shock of 1973 eventually hit.
But his timing was four years ahead of reality.
John Bogle: Betraying His Own Philosophy
Founder of Vanguard. Father of the index fund. His philosophy was simple:
“Don’t time the market.”
And yet in 2000, he tried to time it himself.
Convinced that the dot-com bubble was unsustainable, he cut his equity exposure.
The result? He was right about the crash of 2000–2002 — but he missed the bull market of 2003–2007.
Bogle had violated the very principle he had taught the world.
