To The Moon

“Buy the dip.” Three words, repeated endlessly in podcasts, Reddit threads, and trading chatter. It sounds simple. Elegant. Like wisdom carved into stone. Until the moment comes.

Recently, that moment arrived with Venture Global, Inc. (VG). I had been watching it like a hawk, thinking, $6.85—that’s my sweet spot. That’s where I pounce. My spreadsheets and research nodded approvingly. Fundamentals were okay. The company made sense. My brain said, You believe in this company, you’ve done the homework—just buy. And yet… when the price actually touched $6.85, my finger froze over the “Buy” button like it was holding a hot potato.

Venture Global, Inc. (VG)

My brain started arguing:

What if it goes lower? What if something newsy happens overnight? What if my cat walks on the keyboard and accidentally buys 10,000 shares?

In the end… I didn’t buy. And of course, the stock bounced. Last Friday it closed at $7.46, smugly proving my indecision. I could almost hear the market laughing.

Buying the dip is a psychological battlefield. First, there’s loss aversion, the brain’s way of screaming, Danger! Danger! louder than any whisper of opportunity. The pain of losing feels way stronger than the joy of gaining. Then comes regret aversion: the fear of buying too early, the fear of buying too late, the fear that even if you do everything “right,” the universe will still mess with you. Add overthinking, and suddenly a single drop in stock price spawns a thousand catastrophic “what if” scenarios.

It’s almost uncanny how the mind works. I could feel my neurons building entire boardrooms of imaginary analysts, each finding a reason not to click “Buy.” They were persuasive, ruthless, and somehow always right in the moment—even if they were wrong in the long run.

History doesn’t help. In 2009, after the market hit its lows, countless investors froze, afraid to touch the plummeting S&P 500—and missed one of the fastest rebounds in history. During the Great Depression, opportunistic bargains were everywhere, but fear paralyzed even the savviest minds. Buying the dip isn’t just tricky—it’s timelessly human.

There’s also the visceral terror of catching a falling knife. A dip feels dangerous. Numbers are no longer abstract—they’re threats. Even knowing the fundamentals are solid doesn’t stop the adrenal twinge when a price drops. I believed in VG. I trusted the company. But the moment to act? My brain found every excuse to hit “cancel.”

And yet… and yet… the market doesn’t wait. VG rebounded, silently mocking my hesitation. Watching it climb past $6.85, I felt the weird cocktail of relief and irritation that only investors know: I knew it mixed with why didn’t I just buy?!

Buying the dip is like wrestling a ghost. You think you’re in control. You think you understand the rules. Then the moment comes, and your fears, biases, and insecurities materialize like invisible arms, holding you back. Loss aversion, regret aversion, overthinking, fear—they all converge in a single, humiliating moment, and more often than not, the stock wins.

Still, there’s beauty in the struggle. I didn’t buy VG. But I learned something that no chart, trend line, or analyst report could teach me: the thrill isn’t just in catching the dip—it’s in facing the chaos of your own mind. In wrestling hesitation, recognizing your biases, and surviving the panic. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you miss. And sometimes, you just sit back and marvel at how absurdly human investing really is.

Maybe next time, my finger will click. Or maybe not. Either way, I’ll be ready to wrestle the dip again, heart pounding, brain scheming, and ego braced for impact. And that, more than any gain, is why this game never gets boring.