How to Deal With Regret After Missing a Big Stock

Q: What should I do when facing "How to Deal With Regret After Missing a Big Stock"?

Tormented by a stock you almost bought — regret affecting current decisions The regret of missing a big winner is one of the most psychologically painful experiences in investing. Watching a stock you considered buying -- or worse, one you owned and sold too early -- climb 500% or more creates a gnawing sense of failure that can distort your decision-making for years. Warren Buffett himself has openly discussed his biggest misses. He has said that his failure to buy Google and Amazon early on cost Berkshire billions in potential returns. But here is the critical lesson

What the Masters Would Say

The regret of missing a big winner is one of the most psychologically painful experiences in investing. Watching a stock you considered buying -- or worse, one you owned and sold too early -- climb 500% or more creates a gnawing sense of failure that can distort your decision-making for years.

Warren Buffett himself has openly discussed his biggest misses. He has said that his failure to buy Google and Amazon early on cost Berkshire billions in potential returns. But here is the critical lesson: Buffett does not let those misses change his investment process. He acknowledges them, learns from them, and moves on. He does not chase the next Google by abandoning his valuation discipline.

Charlie Munger frames this beautifully: "The world is not driven by greed. It is driven by envy." Seeing others profit from a stock you missed activates the same envy mechanism that Munger considers the most destructive emotion in markets. Envy-driven decisions -- buying a stock after it has already risen dramatically because you cannot stand watching others profit -- are among the costliest mistakes investors make.

Howard Marks teaches that there are two types of investment risk: the risk of losing money and the risk of missing opportunities. Most investors are so focused on the second type that they neglect the first, which leads them to chase overpriced stocks and eventually suffer the very losses they were trying to avoid.

Peter Lynch puts it in practical perspective: even the greatest investors miss more winners than they catch. Lynch himself owned over 1,000 stocks during his tenure at Magellan, and his extraordinary returns came from a relatively small number of them. The key was not catching every winner -- it was holding the winners he did catch for long enough to let them compound.

Benjamin Graham reminds us that the market offers new opportunities constantly. Missing one opportunity does not mean the game is over. The stock market is not a single at-bat -- it is an infinite series of pitches, and you only need to swing at the ones that are in your strike zone.

Here is a practical framework for managing missed-opportunity regret:

Your Action Plan

1. Accept that missing great stocks is inevitable and universal. Even Buffett, Lynch, and Munger have long lists of stocks they wish they had bought. This is a feature of investing, not a failure of your process.
2. Analyze why you missed the opportunity. Was it a failure of research (you did not look at it), analysis (you looked but assessed it incorrectly), or execution (you identified it correctly but failed to act)? Each type requires a different corrective action.
3. Never buy a stock you missed just because it has gone up. If the valuation is now stretched, buying is not correcting a past mistake -- it is making a new one.
4. Keep a forward-looking watch list of 10-15 companies you would buy at the right price. This channels your energy into future opportunities rather than past regrets.
5. Remember that the math of compounding means your future investment returns matter far more than any single missed opportunity. A 10% annual return over 30 years turns $100,000 into $1.7 million regardless of whether you caught any individual stock.

The Bottom Line

The best remedy for missed-opportunity regret is a disciplined process that will catch the next opportunity -- and there will always be a next one.

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Last Updated: 2026-02-12

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