Rainbow on FI

Technology is fast changing standards and making waves - even for sports. Human chase technology to chase human.  A decade ago, we couldn't seek the kind of perfection that we seek now. All thanks (or no thanks) to technology. -- We are also seeing how technology advancement impact the trading scene through algorithmic trading . Developed markets are moving faster and at higher volume.  How to keep pace with machines? *Sweat* For retail investors who have no access to sophisticated trading machines, we shall rely on our own voodoo acumen, own poison concoctions tactics and /or *eh hem* investor idols?    (>.<) *** Check out my  Blog Archives here  for previous posts

I was paper-mopping (with those dust wipe sheet) the floor in my room and was too lazy to move my mini tea table out of my way, thinking that I would just watch out. As expected, in my haste, my mop handle knocked against the table edge and overturned my drinking cup. Non-chalently, I took the cup to the sink to wash. In the midst of washing, the cup handle came off and I cut my finger on the ceramic.  What bad luck! I should have been more careful. Right. These are the things that happen when we lose focus. When we know what we are  supposed to do but didn't do OR went ahead to do what we know we were  not suppose d to do.  Then we attribute it all to bad luck. Somehow somewhere, there will a little voice that urges us to just 'try our luck'. I guess that's why casino earns big bucks. Let's hope all the bad luck moments end in 2018. Count my blessing, it's just a minor cut.  :) ---- iShare emerging market has just

I have been caught up with work, social activities, my favourite Korean shows and reading / trying out fluffy trading stuff lately. Guilty of not blogging enough, as it can be difficult to create unique topic to blog when my focus is on digesting new information that others have put up and... there isn't much hype to talk about lately. Just a wrap up for the year - 1. Started a new 'old job' I have mentioned somewhere in my earlier post that after about 2 years of venture in an SME, I have rejoined one of my old companies this year (a large-size local enterprise which coincidentally had a major haul over this year when I rejoined).  There were no lack of challenges due to the haul over and I have to flex more muscles on operational management than ever. At one point in time my unit is basically supported by interns and I felt like I am running a training school (thanks goodness they are all really wonderful kids). Despite the crises, I felt happier somehow

What have I been busy with? I guess picture says a thousand words. I have been reading up about candlesticks lately. What an art! It can be combined with trend-lines and momentum indicators like Stochastic or MACD to give buy/sell signals. The chart I marked above did not have inclusion of momentum indicators for the sake of simplicity. Candlesticks are remarkable tool for identifying reversal points . It is an indicator of which side of the fence has more people standing (bull vs bear supporters). As with any kind of indicator, it will not give sure-win 100% as sometimes patterns do fail. Nevertheless, these possible reversal points (candlestick patterns) can be alert us to observe and confirm the price action that may follow. A summarized version of important bullish / bearish reversal patterns here. Besides the normal candlestick, there's also volume candlestick . Two points to note below: "The volume is depicted by the width of the candle

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/11/15/wells-fargo-even-a-whiff-of-progress-in-trade-talks-will-spark-rally.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/11/12/stocks-slammed-and-traders-are-betting-it-could-get-a-lot-worse.html Don''t we choose to hear what we want to hear? See what we want to see? Good news or Bad news alike. The latest buzz word is G20 . Stay peeled! “If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.” ― Mark Twain *** Check out my  Blog Archives here  for previous posts

My school fees are due. In the month of October, my trading account took a dent as Mr market got volatile and swung in highly unpredictable manners. The swings were rough enough to send those who are not nimble enough or not patient enough (yes both, even though they seem contradictory) flying off their seats in all directions. Even VXX has now broken its trend. No more trend to ride. :( Lesson 1)  When Stop loss = Sure loss Should close position for the day and NOT just set a stop loss for next day when the market is mad volatile and gapping is rampant. Even though my (limit) stop loss is set exactly at my bought price, I still can get forced stop out with the gap difference at a much lower price the next day when market opens. Conclusion? My stop loss is practically useless. Then Jedi warrior SMOL reminded me that each time frame has their own stop-loss rule. I am probably not so sure of my 'time frame' and thus set all the wrong stop loss points. And must rem

My trading motto is "Be clear on my trade set-up and risk-reward, AND find out the catalyst for current stock price movements". Finding out the catalyst, as what I have mentioned earlier, is keeping up with market news. When we talk about managing risk and using a risk-reward ratio , it is about HOW MUCH WE GAIN when we are right and HOW MUCH WE LOSE when we are wrong .  First learn how not to lose, instead of how to win. Then we perform all that TA magic to find out if the ratio is satisfactory for us to enter a trade. To control how much we lose when we are wrong, we need to have a stop loss or trailing stop loss in place.  Read: Lessons on Stop Loss

I am only at the second chapter into Napoleon Hill's 'Think and Grow Rich', the contents are so impactful that it took me into my reflective mode almost right away. "Desire" is a key word which appeared many times from the very first chapter and it resonated strongly with me as I recalled my childhood. I am born to Singaporeans and not born with a golden spoon, I think not even a silver spoon. I am born to a below-average family with my father working in a blue-collar job and my mother a homemaker. Life was simple and just enough. I roughly remembered there were times the family was trying to make ends meet through my parents' conversations. In my primary school days, my pocket money was $1 a day. Most of my clothes and books were hand-me-down from my cousins and I owned no big ticket gadget (watch was my priciest gadget). My first computer and printer were also hand-me-down from my cousin when I required them in secondary school. In primary school, I woul

There was a recent blog post by Seth Godin that describes value from a marketer's perspective. Similarly, high value cannot be extrapolated from low price when investing. The lower the price of a stock, the harder it is to find value. I define what is 'low price' by looking at the price of a stock with respect to say other stocks within the same sector in the same time period. There is often a reason for every low price - especially if the price stays persistently low for years. It could be due to no growth or slow growth of the business, it could be due to a lack in profitability, it could be due to high liabilities or simply a lack of business moat. Just like an item on sale, it is either that it is not durable, expiring or not in high demand. We all know that a gem won't stay cheap for long right?

When a company initiates buyback of its own shares, the news is often received in a positive light - that the company deemed its current market share price as undervalued. Understanding the implications of share buyback of companies would help us make better investment decisions, as we seek to delve deeper behind the action and how it changes the face values of the various metrics. Does the company genuinely think that its share price is under-valued?  Does the company believe in its future earnings and growth such that it would rather invest in itself rather than invest elsewhere or pay down debts with the spare cash?  Or does the move spell alternate motives?

The typical image of a warrior that comes to mind is a strong, glam-armorous, sabre-wielding figure. Successful warriors need to train hard (maybe have good mentors too). They need ample resources (for good weaponry and defences). They need the brawns and the brains. Not everyone have the aptitude and grit to become a warrior, even if one claims to have the 'warrior spirit'. When we liken entrepreneurs to warriors - strong, glam-armorous, sabre-wielding... we didn't know that the path to successful entrepreneurship is actually  like this .  . . . Not glamorous at all, right? They have to work harder than the farmers. They have to be more prudent than the monks. And risk getting killed in the battlefield. After many rounds in the battlefield (where many warriors throw up their white flags), we have the successful, lucky, rare, talented ones who eventually wow the world, leave behind a legacy and retire early. Here's some Singapore war

No matter how I look at it, the trade war still didn't dent the market enough. We are currently still riding the secular bull market from 2011/2012. Those who have accumulated by DCA would be very happy. Especially on the US index. Those who have been preparing for a bear market to kick in since a few years ago, have they given up or let their guards down already? STI - source: Yahoo Finance chart VOO - source: Yahoo Finance chart STI's volatility was largely attributed to the swings in financial sector's stock prices as they constituted a whooping 38.4% in the STI based on caps, although telcos also played a part. The telcos are now left with only Singtel after Starhub dropped out of the list, contributing 8.3% and the Jardine group of stocks contributing roughly 11%. (Data up to date) S&P 500, on the other hand, are heavily weighted on tech stocks. The tech stocks made up more than a quarter of the S&P 500 at 25.78%. Financial is the second-l

It's been slightly over a month since I started out on my Jedi journey. Here are my previous 2 trade-related posts - Pair trading adventure I & not-so-pretty Pair trading adventure  II . It has been a fruitful month as overall I have made some gains - contrary to what I have expected of having to pay 'school fee'. Research and charting has been time-consuming and could only take place quite late after work (US market opens at 9.30pm). There were many times when I "analysed till paralyzed" and ended up just sitting on the sideline. I do mostly swing trades and closing my positions within a few days. As my positions were pretty small, my commissions & fees combined were a substantial portion (%) deducted from my gains. Broker is indeed the big winner regardless of whether we win or lose. To so-call maximize my commission (and be more cost-effective), there are 3 possible ways: 1) Enter fewer but bigger positions in strong trend (which means I have to

Alibaba's Jack Ma to unveil succession plan next week, remain chairman Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/jack-ma-retire-alibaba-founder-new-york-times-10696942 Alibaba Reveals Bigger Threats Than Trade War I am currently back to my 'unorthodox' pair-trading with Alibaba (BABA) and Weibo (WB). Had a short wild ride on Tilray couple of days back. It's almost like smoking the last puff of a cigar before it crumbles - not talking about a value stock here, but an over-valued stock. My homework for the coming week is to consolidate some of my learning into a workable system and try to do some math. I realised that my total trading commission is a bit out of proportion versus my gain. As mentioned, CFD trade commission is a whooping $9.90 per trade and that is without factoring in the daily financing cost yet. Long positions have a higher daily financing interest than short. Despite that, I understand that we cannot correlate commissions and

I burnt my finger on a punt trade (which did not originate from a pair trade set up). Ouch! A $100 lesson learnt - don't directional trade without doing homework and sleep on it. My current pair trade is on two strongly correlated (>0.8) stocks. It's fun to watch my how my trades are hatching daily and the tug-o-war. The two buddies looks like they are parting paths soon after a strong break out (upward) the day before. I hope they would play out nicely per my expectation e.g. don't pull a DNA helix pattern on me. I think this one needs some patience due to relatively low volatility of the counters. In pair trade, we can either trade a convergence or trade a divergence. Although trading a divergence gives more uncertainty because if the divergence don't go far in the planned direction, then there will be little trade gain. After I started trading on NASDAQ and NYSE stocks, I realised how 'cool' the SG market is compared to the US market. Over there it&#

It's been an exciting week doing more pair trading in the US stocks market and milking little gains from the market (I won't wear a bigger hat than my head even on margin). The most volatile counter played, no doubt, is Alibaba and I am out of it. Just look at the long long candle yesterday, woah.... Invincible, no other counter can be its pair now. I know in one of my earlier posts I mentioned why I won't invest in oversea market  - but now I ate my words? That is because three of the deterring factors are no longer bothering me (that much). First, the commission - my trade commissions for US stocks are lower than my buying of local stocks using Vickers. Second, custody fees - my position are not long term, so I am not sure how much custody fee would I be charged, however it is quite negligible (0.12% P.A). Third, foreign exchange spread - I am trading using account dominated in USD so I don't have to pay any fx spread for every trade executed (that's until when

Chart from SAXO. Not sure why got 2 thick black lines. My trading account has gained 6% since start of August. My value-investor friends thought that trading is a risky affair. Yes I don't deny it's risky, therefore I am 'risking' only a small portion of my portfolio to do trades for fun and some side income. As much as I need to diversify my portfolio, I feel I should diversify my skills too. I cannot be too quick to attribute my gains to trading skill at this point, it could be beginner's luck for all I know. Besides doing TA and trade set-up, one thing I find very important in trading is the discipline in execution. When it's time to close, it's time to close - regardless of gain or loss . Begin with the end in mind. For those who are interested to find out more about trading, check out my recommended resources here. Watching the news could be as important, if not more important, than watching the price movements. (Price movements are often r

When I say I want to be good at spending money, you guys probably think that I am on my way to be a money-splurging tai-tai. As far as my tai-tai dream goes, it stays... as a dream. Most people define 'spending money' here simply as an act of buying material things. However, in my opinion, 'spending money' can be defined more broadly than that. How good is one at spending money, I am talking about how prudent one is in exchanging his money for value . It can be exchanging for material things (act of consumption which is what most people define it as), gaining an experience (travel, setting up a business, volunteer projects etc), getting an education, accumulating investment assets or even lending. Recalled this post  Time or Money II  that I wrote a couple of years back? Credit: STIL on Unsplash

After watching the clip, which character best describes you in investing / trading? The 'asset-rich' but not very smart crocoduck The resourceful white sheep? "Fluffy and trying to be carnivorous." Or... the matrix frog "Watch my agility - huat huat huat huat!" See the part 1 video here  4Ds market rules in a crash As the Chinese saying goes "知己知彼，百战百胜" . It means that in order to win you must recognize what are your edge over others - such as what do you know but others don't know, what skills do you possess which others don't have, what's your investing temperament, what tools / assets do you have and how adept are you in using them. 

As though every streak of good luck must come with some streak of bad luck, a big fat cockroach came flying into my room as I closed my trade position on a gain last night. SAXO's platform is pretty sophisticated its functions and quite user-friendly. There are all kinds of orders that traders could enter, and they have a buffet of security types for trading (CFD, Options, ETF, forex and much more) on the platform. I opened a small position as a test-water trade to see how I can execute CFD and monitor it. I made a mistake by shorting only 10 shares of the CFD stock initially without realizing that the commission for CFD trades is USD9.99  (which means I need a dollar drop to break-even... eyes 'tak' stamps TT). I had a trading plan in mind but got to admit that it is not perfect and my execution was far from well done.

Every beginning of the month I will log on to my CDP account online to download the E-statement and that's more environmentally-friendly than before, when CDP used to send paper statements. The online portal also allows you to keep track of your security holdings easily (if you don't already have a portfolio list on stocks cafe, yahoo finance, excel sheet etc) through 'My Portfolio' page. By inputting the prices at which you bought the shares, you could see the profit/loss in the right-most column. With the information, it will also give you a breakdown of your portfolio, something like what is shown in the screenshot below. I find this particularly useful for a quick overview of how well-balanced and diversified is my securities portfolio. If you find your 'By Products' pie chart is monotonous or highly skewed to one colour, you may be running a concentration risk and it could be time to consider doing some portfolio re-balancing or diversification. How your

What have I been up to this month?

Approaching its 3-year low. Still watching as downtrend is intact. -- Update 19/07/18 With the recent price reversal, I have decided to entered a small position today at $0.74. My target buy price was below $7 but it was a fleeting 1 day encounter which I missed. Next on my watch list: YZJ *** Check out my  Blog Archives  here for previous posts

梁文福改篇之前的《太多太多》，逗趣巧妙地唱出了新加坡人们的感想和心酸。 ***

This book is not just another book teaching you how you should be investing your money in the financial world. Mark's concepts are at a whole new level beyond that, which strongly attracted me to continue flipping the pages. I considered it one of my favourite inspirational books. It is also available from the NLB. I would say it is a good sequential read to Rich Dad, Poor Dad. While the book Rich Dad showed us the importance of financial literacy and getting out of the rat race, Investing with Purpose gives us ideas on how we could execute it. With stories of his own journey from an early retrenchment 'victim' to becoming a multi-business owner and mentor, Mark emphasized on maximizing the utility of finite resources (time, money, skills, network etc) to materialize investment and entrepreneurial plans. He talked about the tangibles and the intangibles ROI where 'investments' in life are not all about money. The context he wrote in is pretty easy to understa

I was reading about futures contract and came across this term. Let's learn a new term today if you are as clueless as I am. \ Spot Price  refers to the current price in the marketplace at which a given asset such as a security, commodity or currency can be bought or sold for immediate delivery. [Read more:  Spot Price   https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/spotprice.asp#ixzz5JySqDbUL ]

They sound like opposing terms but can we have the best of both worlds? Answer is CAN... I am a believer of both concepts and Uncle8888's  Pillow Stocks Strategy . The whole process starts from (1) picking the right stocks (I am a lousy value investor, therefore I tend to pick 10-20 stocks from across the sectors instead of focusing on a few of supposedly good value ones), (2) protecting our capital by reaping the capital gains from the gems after some time even though we won't know for sure how long that will be, (3) staying vested at 'zero cost' to reap dividends (beauty of pillow stocks strategy). How much we reap, in terms of dividends and capital gains, depends on our  time vested in the market . On the contrary, we should be regularly weeding out the money-losing stocks (in my opinion, sell when the stop-loss price is hit even if the stock pays dividends) to invest in the money-making ones to ride the test of time. When investing in  the right stock

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/hyflux-singapore-court-supervision-faces-major-challenges-10260230 Let's see how things will pan out after reorganization for the once-star homegrown Hyflux. I kind of believe that the founder (Olivia Lum) would have the tenacity to pull through, given the way she 白手起家。 I am not vested in Hyflux. Just a thought that we must stay alert at all times in our investments and hope that the ones affected by the woes will see this as a lesson learnt. Staying alert means paying attention to new business ventures and the resulting debts/earning, as well as the impact on the company's cash-flow. (Keep your eyes peeled to any news.) So your alarm bell would ring somewhere before a price landslide goes to 10% and beyond. Even though as minority shareholders we have no means to control the business direction and its management, we cannot simply take our stake for granted and rest on our laurels. #my200thpost ***

Read also:  Thoughts about Financial Freedom part II There is an increasing number of blogs and courses these days talking about methodologies of investing in stocks, advocating financial independence or financial freedom (I am using the 2 terms interchangeably in this post, you could read more on their subtle differences here ). They advocated how good it is to reach the stage of FIRE (financially independent and retire early) in life, how one could achieve FI through investing (like bao jiak) and packaged it with methodologies which are often narrowly taught as "long-term investing in dividend-yielding stocks". The holy grail of reaching financial independence is not in its entirety about becoming a skilled (passive /value) stock investor. Those who are inspired by Robert Kiyosaki like to talk about portfolio and passive income by investing - forgetting that he wrote financial intelligence is a synergy of accounting, investing, marketing and law . That essentially poi

Round 1: Bought $1.57 Round 2: Bought $1.46 Sold all at  $1.84 in year 2013 Gain: $0.325  :) But its price rocketed in the years after. -.- Silly me has sold all. Round 3: Bought $2.02 Selling at _________ ?? ------------ Update 29/9/18: Current price at $2.43 What has changed - the Taxi landscape Uber has been bought over by Grab and as a result, Comfort Delgro has one less competitor. Grab is also offering less of a promo for rides these days and spent much marketing effort promoting other revenue streams through its GrabPay. In the latest unconsolidated financial report, C52's revenues see gain of SGD 941.1 million against SGD 893.1 million a year ago, attributable mainly to the improvement in the underlying businesses and contributions from new acquisitions with SGD 46.2 million. Cash from operating activities has increased. Profit after tax has reduced. Although oil price is back on the rise, I don't know how big an impact it will have on C52

Have I been aging gracefully? It's time for some reflections. 1. Learnt to appreciate work more, 敬业乐业 Having moved out of my comfort zone which I was so discontented with due to a lack of 'prospect', the past 2 years of 'venturing out' served as both a learning journey that opened my eyes up to entrepreneurship and a humbling experience which led my heart to 最初。I learnt to recognise that there is no so-called 'easy job', regardless of being worker or boss - there is only job you hold passion for or no passion for. To put a price tag on a job you hold no passion for (or no meaning to you) is pointless. More money does not translate to higher job satisfaction. It became clearer to me of what I want to do and what I can do as I go back to 最初。 Over years of working in various organizations, I have also recognized that in every work environment there's shits and barriers - some people just suck it in and overcome, some people will complain, some

Previous post: http://rainbowcoin.blogspot.com/2018/02/watchlist-thaibev-y92.html Not wanting to catch a falling knife, I shall wait for the plunge to end and consolidation to set in before entering. --- Side notes: Maybank is now running a promotion for fresh funds fixed deposit at 1.65%. Finally increased. If you are not looking to touch your emergency money for a number of years, then SSB is an attractive option. It is giving 1.65% payout too on the first year.

This is a big concept book by Michael Mcqueen. It brought me through the equation of Momentum with brilliant explanations on each part of the formula and a number of case studies on famous companies like Sony, Lego, Facebook and Kodak. You will find the equation at the end of this blog post - after snippets of wisdom which I have lifted from the book (they are in italic, whereas my inputs are in non-italic). The momentum concept covered is not just for individuals (who are turning into couch potato or in status quo like myself), it is also useful for leaders who are looking to veer their sluggish companies in new directions (turnaround). Getting into momentum... You can't steer a parked car. When a car is stationary, you can turn the steering wheel as much as you like but it will have no effect/ However, when a car is in motion, even if it is going slowly or even in the completely wrong direction, you can always steer. While it is great to be inspired, don't make inspi

Investing is pretty much like taking a plunge. Swim or sink. I could rely on others to keep me afloat, for a while, but not forever. People can set different goals and pace for themselves (I don't need to be like everyone else). The end of a lap always seems very far away (as I am short-sighted, I can hardly see it) when I started out. With consistency and perseverance, I will eventually reach the other end. I swim in the style I am most comfortable and adept in. It may not be the fastest stroke but it should definitely be one that keeps me afloat and moving. Yeah, it's very much each to his own. Strength and stamina will determine how fast and how I you can go. Just like in investing, 3Ms is my strength and account size is my stamina. Lots of time and practice are needed to build both strength and stamina. Conserve energy if I want to do more laps. -- We can choose to swim in a peaceful swimming pool, we can choose to swim in the sea. We can choose to invest in bo

When we speak of making profits through stocks investing and trying not to lose money according to Buffet's rule, there is a part of the processes which we may overlook. That is - how good we are at minimizing opportunity costs in our investment journey. As we go along doing so, we should constantly seek to mitigate risks and identify market opportunities. Here are some ways which we could incur opportunity costs (from my retrospective checks as I evaluated my current portfolio performance): 1) Sitting on too much cash in a bull market run or waiting for a crash to happen before acting This is a total opposite of FOMO (fear of missing out). I can think of two possible reasons for sitting on cash - one predicts that a bear may strike soon (fear of losing) or one is not sure which stocks to buy. These cash on hand sort of erode away in value with inflation (ooh the scary term) as the bull market charges, losing out on capital gains and dividend yields. War chest under-util

"Operating profit was THB 2,794,794,000 compared with THB 7,172,763,000 a year ago. Net operating profit was THB 3,165,037,000 against THB 7,337,061,000 a year ago. Profit before income tax expense was THB 3,993,173,000 against THB 9,149,891,000 a year ago. Profit attributable to owners of the company was THB 2,911,892,000 against THB 7,714,855,000 a year ago. Basic and diluted earnings per share were THB 0.12 against THB 0.31 a year ago. Net cash from operating activities was THB 5,789,946,000 against THB 7,797,559,000 a year ago." First Quarter ended Dec 17 [Source: SGX] Price watch points as indicated above and I shall wait for the price drop to stabilize. In the meantime, I will do some reading about its earnings and how the company strategizes to overcome headwinds. *** Takeaway from its annual report 2017 (FYE Sep 17) Revenue 57% from spirits 30% from beer 9% from non-alcoholic beverage 4% from food Vision 2020 Growth We aim to solidify ThaiBev’s po