Wilbert Wynnberg – The Value of a Hedge Fund When an Oil Investment Goes Wrong

May 28, 2020

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Wilbert Wynnberg is an international speaker, award-winning author, and founder of the Think Act Prosper (TAP) Growth Conference.

Since 2015, Wilbert has touched the lives of over 100,000 people in more than 20 countries through his seminars, live programs, and award-winning book, THINK. ACT. PROSPER.: How Small Habits Can Lead to Massive Success.

“If you want to stay in the investment game for the long term, sometimes you just have to take a short break so that you can enjoy the game.”

Wilbert Wynnberg

Worst investment ever

Wilbert’s worst investment ever happened just a few weeks ago. As a prolific investor, Wilbert has been following the business cycles since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted. He’s been tracking a lot of different indicators, data, and the underlying numbers.

He felt that in 2018, a lot of things had kind of picked up, but there wasn’t any reason for him to go in and take any action, whether it be long or short. So he kept watching the market.

Ignoring Coronavirus

At the start of the year, when Coronavirus started hitting the news, Wilbert at first wasn’t paying much attention to it. He thought it was the US probably overplaying the whole situation. Wilbert decided not to do anything about it unless he had further confirmation.

Getting ready to beat the market

By February, it was almost inevitable that the market was going to be shaken up. Wilbert could foresee a bear market. And so he started raising money so that he could pounce on the market.

As he was raising money, Wilbert was also tracking things like insider trading, whether CEOs were buying or selling companies, what hedge funds were doing, and more. At that point, his research showed him that it was not the right time to buy equities and go into the stock market. So Wilbert waited it out.

Taking the market head-on

Eventually, Wilbert found out that with this virus and a high unemployment rate, governments will have to start printing money. So he began to look at commodities. Oil prices started coming down as well. Now Wilbert was very confident it was time to invest. At this point, he had raised a decent few million dollars.

Oil stocks seemed like a good option, or was it?

Brent oil was at about $25, and the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was at about $22. This was a two-decade low. However, everybody believed that oil, unlike Bitcoin, would never go to zero because people need it for everyday stuff.

So, Wilbert and his investment team were quite confident and stoked. They thought that this was going to be the trade of the lifetime.

So without much further ado, Wilbert entered the position and started buying oil stocks.

Falling flat on their faces

At some point, Wilbert received an alert saying that Saudi Arabia and Russia were going to cut oil production. So they started buying in. Little did they know that actually, it was just a tweet from President Donald Trump. Oil prices at the time were $22. Prices went up to $32 before coming back down.

By April 22nd, prices had plummeted and at some point were at a low of $8 while the oil futures contract went to negative 37 (Yes, people would actually pay you to take delivery on oil). Wilbert decided to count his losses and stopped investing in oil.

Lessons learned

Everybody is in it for themselves

Don’t ever think that there will be a time that you’re genuinely safe, and nothing terrible will happen to your investment. Always make sure you keep checking on how things are going. Everyone else is looking out for their interests.

You won’t get the whole picture

You’ll never understand everything, no matter how long you’ve been an investor. Be careful about overconfidence bias. The moment you feel that you’ve understood the game in and out, that you know every single ounce of the game, that’s when you have to double-check things.

Admit when you’re wrong

Most people refuse to admit that they might be wrong after choosing one investment over another. They think that the bad situation is going only to be temporary, so they just let it go unhedged.

Andrew’s takeaways

Behind every trade is a financial infrastructure

Don’t overlook the fact that there is a financial infrastructure behind every trade. When buying a stock or a derivative, keep in mind that there’s a whole infrastructure, and if that infrastructure falls apart, it’s over for everyone.

Do better research

When doing your research, go beyond the typical analysis. Break your research into two parts. Part one, your research on the opportunity, and then Part two is where you allow yourself to imagine what if your investment goes wrong. This removes the emotion out of the investment.

Actionable advice

If you are serious about trading and investing, record your journey. That is every single thing that you have done. When you start recording things you get to measure them, you get to see what went right and what went wrong. This allows you to be a better version of yourself in anything, just by doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

No. 1 goal for the next 12 months

For the next 12 months, Wilbert just wants to continue to build his fund so he can raise more money and keep sharing financial knowledge with people.

Parting words

“It’s a learning journey, so just don’t give up. Get into the right group, right environment, right people, and have a Never Say Die attitude.”