Rainbow on FI

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 ...