About Me

I would like to tell you a bit about myself, before I go further.

I'm not an expert in stock markets, as I'm just an average student, just like most of my friends who probably reading this blog. I've been trading real money for only about a month and half. So I'll say that I'm still a baby in this field.

But, even though I've only been trading for a month and half, I had been practising on how to trade by using paper money, for almost a year and half already. It's only after 1 year and 6 months of practise that I feel comfortable, and confidence to enter into stock market. So I would say, for those who are interested to trade stock market, I recommend that you practise for AT LEAST 6 months. DO NOT enter the stock market, unless you're feel confidence about your skills.

Another important thing is, find a good mentor. I was lucky that my father is a professional trader, so I learn a lot from him. But, I also have few other professionals as my mentor, one who will guide me if I made any foolish mistakes. Without mentor, you might not realize the mistake that you have made, and you might continue to repeat that mistakes. Mentor helps you to recognizes those mistakes, and work out from there. You mentor could be a book about stock trading, or a website from a professional trader that you admire. But I suggest you to find a real person, the one you could talk to face to face. How to find? Well, maybe your dealer or remisier, or maybe someone you know from any stock trading seminar that you've attended. If you have a friend trading stock market, maybe he can be your mentor, provided that he is a professional. If you want to find a mentor, I would suggest you to go to ChartNexus. Find and attend any seminar in your area, and try to get to know and be in touch with their speakers. Oh, I'm currently using Chart Nexus as my main tool in my trading activities. The software are free for you to download. Another excellent software is WinChart, but this one you have to pay.

Mentors will not tell you which counter to buy, as that is against their oath as a professional trader. They might give you an opinion in which counter or sectors that you might want to look at, and occasionally maybe give you a buying opinion. But when they give you buying opinion, it does not necessarily mean they will also buy that counter. Every professional trader have their own strategy, and they won't let anyone know. It seems that they also won't tell you which counter they bought, and how much capital they put in. So don't bother asking this to them.

We can place people who are in the stock market into 3 categories:

Fundamental Analyst (FA), Technical Analyst (TA), and 'Rojak' Analyst (RA).

Well, for FA, they believe in value investing. Warren Buffet is a fundamentalist. Usually FA are looking for long term invesment. They usually apply 'Buy and Hold' strategy. To be this guy, you need to have a HIGH level of patience, as it would take a long time to see your money in the stock market grow. They usually buy into companies that have excellent records. They usually don't buy speculative stocks.

TA guy, also called Chartist. As the name suggests, they believe that fundamental data can be deceiving, because financial reports are release by companies, so they can manipulate the reports, and they have the incentives to do that. But charts do not lie. It tells them what's actually happening with the companies that they are trading. Being able to read charts is like having an X-Ray vision, where there can view something that normal person cannot see.

RA, hmm.....I consider myself a RA guy. Why? Because, I choose stock with strong fundamentals. Companies with strong fundamentals have higher probability to be around for another 5 to 10 years time. They also are more able to ride any economic downturn , and get out from it without severe damage. So, by choosing only strong fundamental companies, I don't have to worry that the company might go bust in the short to medium term, or in case of economic downturn.

I use technical analysis, or chart, after I pick the counters that I'm interested to buy. If you're pure fundamentalist, your timing usually not really important. As long as the price is less than the value, FA guy will buy the stock. I use technical analysis because I think the timing is quite important. You don't want to buy a stock, just to find out that it only moves sideway for couple of days, or maybe even weeks. You want to buy at the right time, just before the counter start moving up, and exit at the right time, just before it start to go down again. I've experienced both situation, where I bought the stock, only to find out that the stock only move sideways for 6 weeks. I got pissed off, and I decided I closed my position after six weeks, and only made RM150. But I've also hit the jackpot in another counter, where I bought just at the start of rallies, and sold when the rallies came to the end. I've made 83% profits in just slightly more than a week. So you see, timing is quite important. I'll get more into this two counter in my future posting.

Most professional traders that I've met, told that this is the time if you want to get into the stock market. Most stocks have cheap valuation. Some become cheap because they are really not doing well. Some are just being driven by fear. Some people regret that they did not take the opportunity during 97/98 Asian Financial Crisis, where KLCI was at around 300 points. Now the opportunity has come again, so why don't we take this advantage. I'm not saying that we are at the bottom now. But we are at the process of bottoming. So while the market is in the process of finding the bottom, why don't we learn something about how to trade stock market, and get ready when the time comes.

That's all for today. For those who are just into the stock market, I wish you good luck. To those who are interested to learn, please contact me by dropping an email at ciahcra@gmail.com. Please note that I'm not a professional, so maybe sometimes I will not be able to answer your questions. If you want professional opinion, I strongly recommend that you attend any of ChartNexus seminar. Most of them are free.

Ciao