Sharing my experience ::... Niversphere

This article is in response of this article that was posted online I found on the link below. 20-year-old Lydia Khan mentioned that at under-21 it gives her some form of headstart. It did surface some personal experience that I want to share.

When I was still in junior college studying for my 'A' levels. My bank account is often found to be below the current cut-off at $500. Back then, there was no such penalty for administrative charges. The dark blue POSB book even had the words
"Guaranteed by the Government" in gold below. In fact, it was so bad, I might even had just $1 dollar in the account at times. I have a doting mother who gave me small top-ups to make the account look more decent.

I came from a very traditional family where my parents probably watched too many TV dramas where people in TV boxes often commit suicide because of gambling or stock market mistakes or possibly a combination of both. I am surprised myself why I was not "brain-washed" but I am always an independent thinker which strong views on many issues. Had it been, I definitely would not be writing this blog entry now. My favourite drama series remains 大时代 which featured stock trading as a background story. "有很多人玩股票， 但又有多少人真正懂股票是设么。”one of many favourite quotes I remembered from the show.

Straight after I left college and was waiting for enlistment to the army, I worked full time at NTUC as a storehand. For the uninitiated, storehand's responsibilities involved moving the roll cages from the loading bay to the store room and from the store you replenish all the stuff on to the shelves. I worked there full time and even had a month's free training from them. So you can say I am a qualified storehand. Hahaha. Anyway the pay check then was like SG$600 after minus the CPF contribution. For the first time in my young life had I seen my account breached the 4 digit mark. That really kicked off the savings habit. See here. I am very stingy or thrify with my expenses cause I was not working at all. The most regretful piece of electronics I bought was the Motorola Startec X which caused me a cool thousand dollars. Very hard to imagine that in the years to come, phones costing half or less comes with 2MP cameras. A thousand dollars now would probably get you the lastest smartphone WIFI enabled phone on the market. I took that painful lesson very seriously. Any mistake you make can be painful.


I guessed I am lucky, seriously lucky not to lose my pants then. Back then no one tells me how you can make your money work harder for you and whats the proper way. I lost my way and placed soccer bets every other day when I was in the army. Things turned wrong when people turned to you for soccer tips. Gamblers develop amnesia better than anyone. They are optimist in a way cause they only remember their winnings and not their losses. I confess I made a bit of money from these activities but i credit it to me being kiasi and kiasu and not losing my mind placing huge bets. In fact my bets dont go above SG$500 in a single day ever. But seriously, gambling is just a mindless game where no amount of analysis can get you the winning. Now i only place small bets or no bets at all(i am trying). Cause you have to be very clear in your mind that investing and gambling involves different mindsets and mentality. Once you are confused, the TV drama could really be reality TV then. Now soccer betting is nothing really than a conversation starter, probably due to the "notorious" repututation I built up myself. Hahaha.

My first involvement in investing was when my secondary school friend, Benny started working as an independent financial advisor for a company in Raffles Place. He sold me the idea of making my money work harder for me. For a long while I was interested in this idea but I was lost. As per all FA they show you charts and sell you the idea of being financially independent. Definitely nice to be financially independent but I am still very far from it. I was this young phunk back then, and got hooked on. The surcharges were high and set me back by a few hundred before I even got 1 cent from it. All the downside risk is on you. I started collected monthly review reports in pdf. I printed them out filed them nicely in a folder. Does anyone do this to a analyst report which changed words as fast as they breathe? But seriously, there was nothing much mentioned in these reports just occasionally they will mention they add this onto the portfolio or dropped this company. Nothing much behind the reason why. There was the management fees that were involved if the trust did performed well enough annually or even when they dont do well. Craps. This initial investment did perform fantastically well and outperformed my expectations on them but I terminated nonetheless cause I feel out of control of my own finance. I wanted more control and liquidity on my hands and not because I was greedy for profits. One rather annoying problem of buying any kind of plans from your friends is they change jobs or company throughout their career. So I always find myself tagged with this another guy and received email/snail mail notifications about this change from the company. So much for friends ya. I always managed a smile when I see similar scenario at starbucks and macdonalds. Except now they carry lightweight laptops and not plastic folders with printouts.

Real investing in shares started off with this good friend of mine, Savvy Poh(which as a sign of gratitude is called Niversphere ::.. The Savvy Investor, now you know) which I met in University. He started me off on the idea of value investing and even offered me access to a paid investment forum. He helped me opened my first trading account and CDP. He is really such a nice guy and is open to my questions freely. He shared with me unselfishly all his knowledge on investing. I remembered asking him through the phone one damn stupid question when I entered a trade 10000 is 10000 lots or 10000 shares. Of cause there is never too stupid question to ask, only the dumb smart aleck dont ask questions. I am always open to people asking me simple terms like CD, dividend payout, PE ratio and EPS etc. Of cause the parallels end there between me and him as I got involved into heavy reading from the investment greats books and gaining market experience. Refining my investment philosophy as time progresses and of cause I do make investing mistakes. Companies like automated touchstone(ATM) when I was sold onto the idea of ATM machines. Not researching enough and investing out of competence has a price to pay when I did further research on it and realise how much of a "gem" I thought I discovered. I was lucky to escape with some significantly decreased capital I had. If you dont really know much about a company but is sold on the idea by someone, you might still profit but its definitely luck and not by your own merit. That would be then no difference to gambling. How long can you escape from this ? Get yourself properly educated in investing, do it right and do it correctly. Nothing comes easily, and considerable efforts and time I had put in. People like to envy successful people but they never fancy the hard work that they had sacrificed. If you put in the same or double hard work they had put into , you have a higher chance of being successful yourself. Of course success is relative. I am working on it still, hard work, hard work, a long journey still awaits me. Be a long term winner and not a short term winner.


To conclude. Investing in stocks early does not give you a real headstart, but investing in your mind before investing gives you the winner's edge!


News excerpted from http://sg.news.yahoo.com/061213/5/singapore246981.html

New website, seminars to teach students financial investments

SINGAPORE: Students can soon learn to trade in stocks and shares, and make real money in the process.
A competition organised by the three local universities - NUS, NTU and SMU - aims to do just that.

Opening next week, it involves trading mock shares with the best traders and winning cash prizes.

Not everybody knows how to trade in stocks and shares.

So a series of seminars have been organised to educate students on how to invest their money.

The students have three seminars to get to grips with the basics.

After the seminars finish next week, the students will be given $100,000 in virtual money to trade in four weeks.

The most successful traders can earn prize money ranging from $300 to $2,000.

Some 1,200 students from junior colleges and the universities have signed up for the seminars.

20-year-old Lydia Khan, an Accountancy undergraduate at SMU, said: "I'm under 21 and I think most of the other people here (in the seminars) are under 21 too. So this is something to get us started before we turn 21. It kind of gives you a head start."

Which is exactly the point of the competition - to give new investors some practical financial advice.

Lim Swee Say, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, said: "This is a good starting point because by the time they have to learn the painful lesson of (losing) real money in the real stock exchange, for some of them, it can become too late or too painful. The problem is many of the naive investors adopt the concept of speculation. They thought they can outsmart Mr Market all the time."

So the organisers hope that once the competition finishes, the students will come out better equipped to invest in the financial markets. - CNA/ir