Rainbow on FI

An update Current share price: $6.10 Stellar earnings no longer stellar... but getting "staler"? (consolation, at least 18's results are better than 17.) One of the big culprits of my 2015 portfolio massacre. I must have been quite stupid to buy it again at $6.82 last year. Now must wait long long for it to slowly recover...

Don't succumb to the Monday blues.   - Andre Gide  Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. - David Mahoney  Trust your hopes, not your fears. - George F. Tilton  Success is never final and failure never fatal. It's courage that counts. -------------------------------------------------------- To achieve something, we just need three steps: 1) Set your goal 2) Plan your actions 3) Do it Sometimes along the way when we are tired, think of something that can motivate us and push us along. When we are afraid, summon our courage but be prepared to face the worse. Else have a contingency plan. Don't be overly pessimistic but also don't be overly optimistic in life. Balance is the keyword. Keep trying. Try and fail, but move on with a lesson. Try not and we'll never k...

This book is totally to my style and I finished reading the book in just a few days. Sean did a good job of putting Buffett's (dry) investing principles into layman terms by mean of a story. This makes it easy to read and is pretty entertaining. The story talks about a young man befriending a mysterious old man at a jetty and getting to learn about value investing from this folk (whom you guessed, is the imaginary Mr Buffett).  If you have the slightest inkling about what is value-investing, this book serves as a refresher of all the concepts or reinforced them for your better memory. There are key notes in a grey section at the back of each chapter, which are the author's notes about each concept. The book is published in year 2012. With that in mind, we can compare how those businesses that he penned in the book have changed over the years and see if the 'prediction' of their future values still holds true. The coca cola case study was good to illu...

Maybe it is innate that many shopaholics cannot resist anything that looks pretty on the shelves or has a discount tag on it. Besides earning money and making money work hard for us (our income stream), controlling our expenses and saving up are just as important (limit cash outflow). Here are eight quick tips when you shop and some to help you overcome your buying impulses - Wait... Be patient Signing up for 'membership' has its perks, even if you don't frequent the stores much. Cos retailers would send you SMS / email notifications on their promotions every so often (if you opt for it) that the Great Singapore Sales seems almost obsolete. If it's not something desperately and urgently needed, it doesn't hurt to test some patience and see if we can get our trophy at a fraction of the usual price during sale. It is also a kind of delayed gratification technique because that urge to buy would have perhaps gone away or you would have forgotten what you fancy the ...

It's time for Chinese New Year spring cleaning again. Whenever such occasion comes, my void deck's lift landing would be filled with an unsightly mess of household items and furniture thrown out by the residents. The variety ranged from plants, stationery, dining chairs, tv consoles, to even Phua Chu Kang's boots (yup the yellow ones)! Even though many of these household items were worn and dirty, a number still seemed to be in working condition. When I looked at these items, uncontrollably, images of the third world countries suddenly flashed in my mind- where people stay in makeshift huts, children have no shoes to wear and families do not even have chairs or cushion to sit in at home. Singapore is a city of abundance indeed but also a place of much waste. Looking around us, material wastes don't only come from households. At the workplaces, we are also generating tons of stuff that go into the trash bin daily (possibly more than what we threw out from o...

Time to read some news again to understand the driving factors behind the roller coaster since end of 2018, and the ride is still rolling. Dow tumbles more than 600 points on Apple plunge, rising fears of an economic slowdown China economy endures bad start to 2019 as private data highlights weakening manufacturing sector China confirms ‘proactive and constructive’ US trade talks in Beijing next week Dow jumps more than 700 points, propelled by Powell’s comments and a blowout jobs report Dow closes up more than 700 points after blockbuster job report and Fed rate fears ease Let's see the different "rides", all about as bumpy... VOO QQQ BABA Matching each headline with each 1-day candle and look at the share price movements (in %), it felt like some over-reaction isn't it? Whoever that caught up late with the news would be like a deer stunned by a car's headlight. I am just making some wild guesses here - that...

The Year 2018 in Review: A Mountain of Question Marks Why 2019 could be very good for stocks, after worst year in a decade Key Events for Investors to Watch in 2019 Dow closes higher on New Year's Eve, but suffers biggest annual decline since 2008 ----------- We don't know what 2019 will bring for us but we should keep ourselves well-prepared, whether be it for the bull (war chest for fire) or the bear (get ready to short or move assets into defensive sectors).  I ended my last trade of 2018 with a measly +$6 (my pair trade was overly in sync). My 2019 trading objective is simply not to make the same disastrous mistakes that I have made this year. I won't attribute them to bad luck because I define bad luck as 'unfortunate events that happened beyond my control' . To avoid over-trading and getting 'addicted' to always be in a position, I have decided to use less of margin in my strategy now on, unless the risk-reward is really rea...