My First Post

Investing and Trading the Markets has been one of the toughest endeavor I ever taken.

My journey started almost 4 years ago when I decided at long last that I needed to do something with the wealth I have accumulated and start managing my personal finances.

Naturally, that took on the form of investing and I chose to invest in equities as a start. My plan was to invest a lump sum of about $30,000 into various shares of listed companies. My aim was for dividends and capital gains. I took the advice of my broker who gave me a plan of a several companies that could be good for buying, mainly companies in SGX. There were a few times initially when I took profit on capital gains while for the most part, I held onto my investment despite the fact that their shares prices may changed in trend. I did not appreciate trends or any technical analysis at all and I felt somewhat happy to collect the puny amounts of dividends that some companies gave when business started to go down.

My view has always been to LONG stocks and hold on tight to my seat as if I was riding a roller coaster. For most novice, I am sure we have all heard of Warren Buffet and sometimes we take his words too literally.  It was the same for me and I held unto losing positions and average them down when I felt appropriate. There were successes and also failures on this approach. My fundamental analysis and view of market was also weak and I looked superficially into numbers like PE, Revenue Trend, Cash Flow, Dividend History and backed by some crystal ball like prediction of the industry. I also signed up for 2 years worth of online articles to see how 'financial experts' look at the market. I did learnt something but I felt that for the most part when I bought shares, I was kind of like going in with my fingers crossed.

Besides being financially painful due to losses from my lack of expertise and experience, I realized that investing actually took a mental and emotional toll on me. That was when I realize that there is a whole psychological element when participating in these markets. 

Fast forward 4 years, into what is now the first 8-9 months of COVID19, I would say that despite gaining some grip on my finances and being more used to the volatility of the markets, investing and trying to actual trade the market successfully is still a long long journey ahead for me. Till date, I have invested / traded (when I say traded meaning I took a shorter view on the shares I bought) a total of about $200,000 and collected $11,000 worth of dividends. Guess what, I failed miserably. As of this post, I am still holding onto 1000 shares of OCBC shares, with a 30% loss and OVERALL loss of $1500-$2000. All my profits and dividends were whipped out clean.

I have since liquidated all my other holdings pre COVID19 market crash and have since put that money into a property.

This blog is to capture my personal journey into investing and trading the markets.

Till the next post, may the market be with You!

Best Regards

The Discretionary Trader