Restarted My Trading Journey Again and Again and Again

End of last year, 28 Dec 2015, I got a poke from SMOL in his article Urgh! I'm so mainstream... seducing me to join 'Jedi' trading warriors because of a very simple and convincing reason 'the Girls prefer traders!'. I already have a wife and 2 daughters. Guess they will love me more :)

Just a little history of my trading experience. I remembered I started trading much earlier when I was twenties and just started work. I was a rather high risk , adventurous, 'nothing to lose' kind of guy who try all kinds of things. I signed up for $3k course from a trainer from Australia, joined Zulutrade to follow signals, learn from my brother who also signed up with a local SG trader. Altogether, 3 failed attempts. What do you expect, I was young then haha. Now still young if compared to a elderly :)

So with my 'never say die' attitude, like a cockroach, I started looking through some of my old haunt such as forex factory and babypips forums looking for the 'holy grail' again.

I ran into some new guy and new information, so I took out $5k and kick start my trading journey again. Hopefully this time round, I can make it as a consistently profitable trader. Well, you never know until you tried. And forget about using demo accounts as you will not bother or care and much more learn from your trading experience if you use demo accounts. Of course, that's my opinion :)

If you are interested in trading and if you asked me again how should you start. Well, do not do what I just did previously. Save that $3k and use it as your trading capital. There's plenty of free information and friendly traders who will teach and discuss charts through videos and blogging. Here's what I recommend to learn from these forums but be careful as some of the members have commercial interest:
www.forexfactory.com
www.babypips.com

Lastly, I highly recommend this SG young chap Rayner Teo:
http://www.tradingwithrayner.com/
Rayner Teo is an independent trader, private equity fund manager, and founder of TradingwithRayner.
He's been voted — the Top 5 most helpful traders on Twitter, with more than 15,000 traders reading his blog every month.

So far I am making good progress with this attempt and will share my successful or failed trade setups so that I can remember and learn from it. More like a AAR (After Action Review). Just hope I can continue blogging about my trading experience, if you find that I slowly, silently disappear into the wilderness. It means that its another failed attempt. Anyway I need to 'limit my losses and let my profits run' and trade at least 100 times to confirm whether the method I am using will make me a consistently profitable trader. Its the same for long term investment, it takes time and learning from experience.

Wish me luck!

Jan 2016 Portfolio

Entering 2016, STI was greeted by a big bang, downwards that is. Yes, the market plunge down deep and managed to recover by a bit near to the month end of Jan 2016. My portfolio was dragged down by at least 5% just by this month alone. It was painful and like watching the market keep going down with no U-turning. Jan is an important month of a year and usually set the tone for the year. Looks like its depressing for the rest of the year.

This month I added ST Engineering into my portfolio.
STE was rather resilient and a defensive stock. I should expect market to go lower abit and hopefully buying into defensive stocks will help cushioned the bearish market. I will continue to buy into the market. This time will be focusing more on the blue chips since its rare for them to be available at the current price level.

STI vs my portfolio

My portfolio is still hovering in the negative region :( but good news is that I beat STI at least a consolation prize :)

Period	STI	My Portfolio (Realised)	Verdict
Jan 2016	-20.78%	-15.15%	I win

Total 21 stocks in portfolio



Dividend
This month I received dividends from Ascendas Reit.



Checkout my Dividend history

Dividend Stock Tracker
I keep track of good SGX dividend stocks such as 10 years consistent SGX dividend stocks, REITs, Business Trusts, etc with real time information update. Checkout the link below:
Checkout my Dividend Tracker

Ronald Read: US Secret Millionaire With US$8 Million Fortune

This is not a new article but was published last year in CNBC. Now maybe a good time to bring out a motivational story to remind our long term investors that market volatility is quite expected in stock investment. Instead, we should take this opportunity to collect our 'dream' dividend stocks. Things should turn for the better in time. If you are feeling down or depressed, fear not, the rain will stop, dark cloud will clear and we shall see rainbow and sunshine shinning on us again :)

How about if I tell you that you just need to work as a gas station attendant and a janitor and you will end up as a millionaire when you retired?

That's how Ronald Read did it
1. Invest in a small basket of 6 dividend blue chips. Ronald invested in a list of major U.S. companies. They include AT&T (NYSE:T), Bank of America (BAC), CVS (CVS), Deere (DE), GE (GE), and General Motors (GM).

2. Live till ripe old age to allow your investment to compound and multiply. He lived up to 92 years old.

3. Stay invested and contribute roughly $300 a month for 65 years, assuming an eight percent rate of return. Its not a big sum of money right?

4. Frugal. Lead a very simple life, he often was seen wearing an old cap, a jacket with safety pin as the zip was not working. No car and just a small house.

Out of the US$8 million fortune, US$6 million was donated to a local library and hospital in his home town

2015 Year End Portfolio Review

Its the end of 2015, let's see how close am I to my target :) I started building my portfolio in Oct 2014. This is a full year of 2015 results.

STI vs my portfolio:

My portfolio got hit by China stock market crash, oil crisis and Fed rate hike effect around Jul 2015 and STI has been a downtrend for the rest of the year. It was a tough year where we see the beginning of the bear market. At the end of 2015, there was still no recovery in sight although there was a relief rally during Oct 2015 but things havent changed much as we were still in the bear market.

Portfolio by stocks:

I am currently still in the process of diversifying my portfolio such that they should not exceed more than 5% of my total portfolio. I am still looking out for more high dividend stocks to buy so that I will be more diversified. I have 21 stocks with me now and will be targeting to reach more than 30 of them.

Portfolio by sector:

In the sector diversification, I am quite max up with the Capital Markets sector. I also bought in quite a number of shares in the Industrial conglomerates which consists of Keppel Corp and Sembcorp Ind, it is now about 17%. Still got room to load up a bit more during this sector weakness :) Probably not more than 20% for each sector of the other stocks.

Checkout my portfolio → portfolio

Target:

Target	Targetted Portfolio size	Targetted Monthly dividends	Period	Yearly CON	Dividends Reinvested
1st target	$85,000	$495	2015	$30,000	$5,900

My 1st target is to invest up to $85,000 and receive monthly dividend up to $495 per month. I think I already met my 1st target!
I have invested $123k and expected to receive monthly dividend of about $570 :)

Checkout my target → target

Dividend:

Total dividend is $6,800+
Dividend per month is $570

Checkout my dividend → Dividends

Portfolio Analysis:
My worst performer is Noble(-40%) Grrr. Not sure if I am unlucky or what. Bought it when I thought it was low enough and there were many institutions buying it at that time :(

My best performer so far is Ascendas Reit (6%). This was bought quite recently when it was heavily sold down, but glad that there was a recovery after that.

Overall, my portfolio ends negative in 2015. No thanks to all the many reasons for causing the stock market to go downhill.

At end of 2015, I already invested close to $123,000 and receive monthly dividend of $570. This is very close to my projection of my expected annual dividend of this current portfolio, I should be getting around $7000 which is about $580 per month. So I should have met my 1st year target! Yea! I will continue to follow my strategy of allocating $5000 each month to buy high dividend stocks and march towards my 2nd target which is ...

Target	Targetted Portfolio size	Targetted Monthly dividends	Period	Yearly CON	Dividends Reinvested
1st target	$85,000	$495	2015	$30,000	$5,900
2nd target	$120,000	$700	2016	$30,000	$8,400
3rd target	$161,000	$920	2017	$30,000	$11,000
4th target	$213,000	$1200	2018	$30,000	$14,900
5th target	$257,000	$1500	2019	$30,000	$18,000
6th target	$320,000	$1800	2020	$30,000	$22,400
7th target	$372,000	$2100	2021	$30,000	$26,000
8th target	$428,000	$2490	2022	$30,000	$29,900
9th target	$487,000	$2800	2023	$30,000	$34,100
Final target	$551,000	$3200	2024	$30,000	$38,500

My 2nd target is to invest upto $120,000 and collect a monthly dividend of $700. Hmm, I have already invested $123,000 in 2015, so I have already met my 2nd target. Which means that I am will ahead of my plan! Hooray! The reason why collected lesser dividend is because some of the stocks bought in 2015 I didnt received the full dividend. 2016 I should see higher dividend around $700. This doesnt mean I will stop investing, I will still try to space out my investment and continue to be well ahead of my targetted plan. Hopefully I can reach my financial independence earlier :)

Checkout my strategy → Strategy

Dividend Stock Tracker
I keep track of good SGX dividend stocks such as 10 years consistent SGX dividend stocks, REITs, Business Trusts, etc with real time information update. Checkout the link below:
Checkout my Dividend Tracker

Dec 2015 Portfolio

DEC 2015 was rather quiet with the long weekends and festive seasons. There wasn't much activity on the market. But market tend to recover abit after much selldown in the early part of the month. Looking at the charts, it seems like some blue chips like SIA Eng is making a slight recovery and all pointing to a good start in 2016. Let see what we have on Monday :)

This month I added Sembcorp Marine into my portfolio.
I finally added Sembcorp Marine into my portfolio after watching it going down down down for a while. I guess it should be right to get some now. This blue chip will be here for the long term and understand it will be reporting a loss quarter soon but it should be able to weathered out this oil and gas crisis with ease. Right now it is trading at low PE of 8.9. Pretty low already.

STI vs my portfolio

My portfolio is still hovering in the negative region :( but good news is that I beat STI at least a consolation prize :)

Period	STI	My Portfolio (Realised)	Verdict
Jan 2015	2.71%	3.21%	I win
Feb 2015	2.41%	2.16%	I lose
Mar 2015	3.31%	0.62%	I lose
Apr 2015	6.02%	4.18%	I lose
May 2015	3.31%	3.84%	I win
Jun 2015	0.90%	1.14%	I win
Jul 2015	-2.41%	-3.83%	I lose
Aug 2015	-10.54%	-9.07%	I win
Sep 2015	-14.16%	-9.34%	I win
Oct 2015	-8.43%	-4.48%	I win
Nov 2015	-12.05%	-8.57%	I win
Dec 2015	-11.14%	-8.26%	I win

Total 21 stocks in portfolio



Dividend
This month I received dividends from Lee Metal, UMS, Asian Pay TV Tr, SPH.



Checkout my Dividend history

Dividend Stock Tracker
I keep track of good SGX dividend stocks such as 10 years consistent SGX dividend stocks, REITs, Business Trusts, etc with real time information update. Checkout the link below:
Checkout my Dividend Tracker

Successful Investors Have No Regrets

VS

I chanced upon an article or book (cant remembered which one) titled 'Successful people have no regrets'. Though I didnt read the article but I sort of agree with this statement.

Let me give you an example, during time like this when market was weakened due to potential Fed's rate hike and China stock market crash or any other reasons. It's a good time to buy the market right? Some people will be procrastinating as to 'when' is the good time or best time to buy stocks?

They are worried that if they buy too early, the stock prices could dive deeper due to more incoming bad business news. They want to avoid this and want to sit out and wait for the best time to buy. But what happens if they wait for too long and the stock market suddenly perform a V shaped recovery and they missed the boat? Well, there isnt any best time to buy.

So, when is the best time to buy? The lowest point of the dip and just before the stock market recovers? Well, I am afraid nobody knows when it will be the lowest point till it happens! ie the market recovers and stock analyst will say 'There! thats the lowest point' when its already happened and thats in the past, gone, opportunity lost!

Many a times, you will hear someone with full of regrets and say things like 'Aiya! I missed the boat! The market recovered and I thought its going to drop further!' or you rather be a successful investor with no regrets who will stroke on his chest and say 'Heng ah! Luckily I nibbled and bought some shares when the price was low'

Though I dont considered myself to be a successful investor yet, still learning to be one :)

I gathered that to become a successful investor with no regrets, you buy bit by bit and space out your buys. Some average down when their stock prices fall by a certain margin, others buy consistently across different time frame eg monthly. That way, you will buy some shares when the price is low. Of course, it may not be the 'best' price but at least you bought your targeted stocks during bearish market opportunities like this.

This is just one solution to at least buy bits of shares when market is down and next time when the market recovers, you will be patting yourself on your shoulder and uttered silently that you have done a great job :)

This downturn, I am going to take advantage of this opportunity and definitely not going to be the one who say 'Sh*t! I missed the boat!'

Nov 2015 Portfolio

This month STI dip down abit after having a fantastic V shaped recovery in Oct 2015. This is quite expected as all goes up must come down for a while. Its quite common to see a retracement down a bit. Also in the month of Nov 2015, there were quite a few companies paying out dividends so its quite expected for STI to go down abit.

This month I added Keppel Reit into my portfolio.
Keppel Reit is trading at quite low price with a low PE of 7 and low PBR of 0.66. It has some solid portfolio of office towers in both Singapore and Australia. Big names such as Bugis Junction Towers, Marina Bay Financial Centre, One Raffles Quay and Ocean Financial Centre are all under its card.

STI vs my portfolio

My portfolio is still hovering in the negative region :( but good news is that I beat STI at least a consolation prize :)

Period	STI	My Portfolio (Realised)	Verdict
Jan 2015	2.71%	3.21%	I win
Feb 2015	2.41%	2.16%	I lose
Mar 2015	3.31%	0.62%	I lose
Apr 2015	6.02%	4.18%	I lose
May 2015	3.31%	3.84%	I win
Jun 2015	0.90%	1.14%	I win
Jul 2015	-2.41%	-3.83%	I lose
Aug 2015	-10.54%	-9.07%	I win
Sep 2015	-14.16%	-9.34%	I win
Oct 2015	-8.43%	-4.48%	I win
Nov 2015	-12.05%	-8.57%	I win

Total 20 stocks in portfolio



Dividend
This month I received dividends from SIA Engineering, Ascendas Reit, StarHub, Sabana Reit, Lippo Mall Tr.



Checkout my Dividend history

Dividend Stock Tracker
I keep track of good SGX dividend stocks such as 10 years consistent SGX dividend stocks, REITs, Business Trusts, etc with real time information update. Checkout the link below:
Checkout my Dividend Tracker