Please allow me to introduce my humble blog and present to you my journey to financial freedom. I am very glad to have this blog to pen down my thoughts and share with you my investment journey. I hope that I can spread my knowledge to everyone, provide a fundamental ground for everyone to learn and a community to discuss and give opinions about investments. This blog purpose serves me as a guidance/reminder to my investment journey. Be it sweet or bitter investments I make, I hope to share my mistakes and my abilities. I, myself is currently in the process of learning too and hopefully the seniors out there are able to guide me and provide me with relevant opinions too. I am always willing to take in criticism and change myself for the better.
I shall begin with my post. 2013 will be my very first full year I experience as an stock investor. I started investing in the middle of 2012 through the introduction of my army friend. I am very appreciative for his doings and he has absolutely revolutionize my life. If not for him, I would not have known the existence of stock market nor I will be pursuing stock investments as my interest. I found enlightenment in life.
2013 is a very unpredictable year fueled by the news of FED "tapering" which made the market volatile and shaky. REITs were hugely affected which dipped because REITs will get squeezed on both their asset and liabilities due to lower valuation of their properties and increase interest rate for their borrowings respectively. The uncertainty of the tapering caused much unnecessary distress to the market until recently, US decided to cut buying of bonds from $85 billion to $75 billion. This made a rebound in STI as well as a recovery in the REITs sector. From what I understand, I believe the reason lies with the elimination of the tapering uncertainty and also this means that US economy is improving, where unemployment is decreasing. There will be further tapering in the coming year 2014 I believe.
I experienced the "Sell in May and go away" taboo. In fact, it happened again this year. I also witnessed the 3 infamous penny stock saga where they plummeted, losing nearly 90% of their value within a day. Though I did not invest in any of these 3 counters, it was definitely a nerve-wrecking experience to see the stock plunged like this. With little fundamentals of these 3 counters and the continual rising of stock price with no reason, it is no surprise that eventually the bubble will burst. It is not worthwhile to play with this kind of counter provided you can run away quick enough. I'm not sure how many people have been burned by this saga but it is really a pity to read an article regarding a retired fellow who parked his retirement funds into Blumont only to see his funds dropped to peanut value.
Overall, this year alone have taught me many invaluable lessons both positive and negative. I tasted sweet victory which made some capital gain over it. I paid tuition fee as well for my ignorance and rash decision. I hope that I will be able to learn from my mistake and not to repeat them. The most satisfying and gratifying achievement for me is to be able to come to this stage through dedication and perseverance. I self-learn everything on my own through reading books, websites, blogs, forums, analyst reports and watching videos. I started off reading from www.investopedia.com , where in fact, it is a good website for newbies to embark on their understanding of investments. They have a whole list of tutorial and it is certainly manageable for anyone to read. And of cause, I will not say I have mastered the skill of investing, but I roughly approach a better understanding of the market. I am fortunate too that I have not started my investments in a bearish or a financial crisis year which probably may deter and demoralise me for further investing. I am happy that I come this far but I am sure I got a lot more to learn too. I anticipate for a brighter future ahead and wish for a successful road to financial freedom for everyone.
I will update further on this blog as much as possible and update with regards to my portfolio.
Cheers!
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!
Little Boy
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