I’m coming back to this “investment mistake” I classified a couple of years ago. Was it really a mistake after all? It depends on the horizon… 
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I have plenty of material for this thread; it’s nice to look back on these when, for example, Intel makes a bit of a run.
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A bit over 1.5 years since my last Nokia post, the value hasn’t just been realized—it has exploded. This post goes into the “investment mistakes” section because when the stock price rose to around €7, I hit the sell button, and big time. I felt that the valuation had drifted too far from the business fundamentals. Now, for the first time in 7 years, I’m without any kind of Nokia position, and I bet the stock will take off like a rocket every day now.
It’s absolutely great for Finland, Nokia, and many retail investors. For me, this is mainly a miserable reminder that maybe I should just focus on long-term fund investing after all 
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In 2004, I owned Apple with a 5% weighting, Microsoft and Nvidia with a 1% weighting; the largest investment from Finland was Finnair with a 5% weighting. Apple’s current value would be over 10 million; I held it for a few years. That’s why I don’t feel like killing my Nokia position now (weighting over 18%), although a big success here is by no means certain yet..
I wonder if the moral of the story is: buy tech and hold forever?
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I noticed today that AMD has gone up quite nicely recently. I sold mine at the beginning of the year at a price of just over 200 USD 
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Congratulations on the €7 selling price. I gave up much earlier myself. You can beat yourself up if, in hindsight, you feel that you should have understood something more at the time of the sale. But if it’s just a matter of not being able to predict the future, there’s no point in worrying about it.
And it’s indeed great that many Finnish investors’ portfolios are now growing at a rapid pace. Including Solidium’s portfolio.
PS. I consider buying Martela to be my worst investment mistake ever. Those shares (laput) were, of course, sold ages ago, and in terms of euros, it wasn’t my biggest loss ever, but in that investment, I can see in hindsight that I fell for “herd mentality.”
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A massive and expensive mistake not to have listened to the analyses and posts by user Clark_kent regarding Faron and Optomed!
Those who know, know!
Edit: fixed a typo
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Some of the group might add Intellego to this list as well 
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Panic selling! Then it shot up hard. That money was reinvested 10 minutes later into bag-holding stocks just as the prices had risen. Today, I’m tasting the bitter pill.
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I’m posting this in this thread now because I made a mistake years ago by not following Masse’s advice. As an example, let’s look at the trading activity of two company CEOs.
Case 1: Solteq
In August 2021, Solteq’s then-CEO sold shares worth a total of 1.8 million euros. Some of the sales were conducted through a company called Aidacom Partners.
Here are the releases regarding the transactions:
https://www.inderes.fi/releases/solteq-oyj-johdon-liiketoimet-9
In hindsight, the timing of the sale turned out to be brilliant, as the share price was at its peak.
The forum sentiment regarding the sale was somewhat mixed. A few picks:
User Jorma_Peras laments the sale, noting that it sends an unpleasantly contradictory signal to the market.
On the other hand, user Gadus points out that the stock has been stagnant for over 10 years, and he would sell in that situation himself. He also mentions that there can be a thousand reasons for selling, but usually only one for buying. That specific post has 18 likes:
Generally speaking, the sentiment regarding the sale was quite neutral. User Sijoitusseppo commented as follows:
In an Inderes YouTube video: “Solteq Q3’21: A Bump in a Good Year,” analyst Joni Grönqvist asks about the share sale:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=zmW_rETFQZQ
The explanations seemed to satisfy and calm the market at the time. On the forum, people even talked about the CEO’s “smile index.” The CEO’s reassuring smile calmed investors. Everything was fine.
In the end, the smile didn’t provide much warmth, as the share price has collapsed 95% from its peak. An investor would have been well-advised to mirror the CEO.
Case 2: Optomed
In the summer of 2021, Optomed’s share price hovered at levels even above 18 euros.
CEO Seppo Kopsala started his selling program earlier in 2021:
In January, 127k shares at approx. 7 euros.
https://news.cision.com/fi/optomed-oyj/r/optomed-oyj—johdon-liiketoimet,c3266251
In May, 325k shares at a price of 13.5 euros.
https://www.kauppalehti.fi/porssitiedotteet/a/e20834df-45a7-4f80-b900-188d9ee5bfe6
The market didn’t care much about the sales, and the stock still managed to climb wildly from 13.5 → 18e levels.
The sale sparked some discussion on the forum.
Some participants understood the sale, while others brushed it off.
A special mention to Masse, who guided younger investors:
Soon, Kauppalehti published a story that reassured both the forum (25 likes) and investors:
Unfortunately, in the Inderes Q2/2021 interview, no questions were asked about the share sales:
Ultimately, Kopsala didn’t stay on board with a large sum for very long, as in 2024 he sold 65% of his shares:
https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/a/00208e07-927f-4357-8cb4-f51c89559e68
In hindsight, the sale proved to be excellent. Optomed had just received FDA clearance and the share price jumped for the first time in a long while to the approx. 7 euro level. In this situation, an investor should have even mirrored the actions of the former CEO, as the price was then at its highest levels in years and has since dropped nearly 80%.
Summa summarum: I believe Masse’s advice is golden, and in the future, I intend to follow it better than I have before.
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