Year 2018 Review: Let It Rot

Year 2018 is like a dormant year in stock market for me. I bought one stock and sold one partially in Q1. That's all.

It seems like most investors do not have a great 2018, I am not an exception, my portfolio lost 28.8% which is pretty bad.

I guess most people already sensed that 2018 may not be a good year. That's why I didn't plan to buy any stock in 2018, since I didn't really have the time and energy to do so.

The mistake I did was I didn't sell, and just kept all the shares under the pillow. Perhaps I did't expect it to be that bad at that time.

Table below shows the stocks that I held throughout year 2018. ALL of their share prices declined in year 2018 except Scientex.

The gain/loss calculation above does not include dividends received. So if dividends are included, BAuto is another stock which gain slightly in year 2018.

KESM, Inari, Leon Fuat, Hevea & Prolexus all declined substantially. Hevea is the stock which used to have >100% paper gain but it has now become loss-making. The only consolation is that I don't hold a lot of Hevea shares.

Inari which has bonus issue in 2018, also dropped more than 30%.

KESM which dived from RM22.50 to RM7.50 hit me quite hard. Fortunately the one and only stock that I sold partially in 2018 was KESM.

I sold almost half of my KESM shares at RM20 in early 2018. If not, my loss will be much more. I should have sold all in hindsight.

Besides, Stock X also dropped a lot in that year, almost 30%.

Like I mentioned earlier, don't know why I still managed to buy one stock in early 2018 even though I planned not to do so. This particular stock turns out to be my worst investment so far.

This stock is DAYA. This is more like an "opportunistic" buy for me. Daya is nothing close to a fundamentally sound company, just planned to hit and run.

Daya suffered heavy loss due to some impairment loss and I bought in anticipation of better results after disposal of all those loss-making assets in O&G.

Another reason I bought Daya was because of its construction arm, who was building IKEA Batu Kawan at that time. I saw with my eyes that its construction was ongoing.

Furthermore, Daya was also being awarded a few contracts in early 2018, including construction of a 10-storey new Penang KPJ Specialist Center building.

Its balance sheet and cash flow even though not good, it didn't look that bad to me frankly. The truth that it later defaulted bank loan repayment really came as a shock.

So, I must have overlooked something and it just showed that I'm not that good in reading financial report. Still lots to learn.

Anyway I still hold Daya until today even though it might be delisted soon. The price already fell until mother also can't recognize, so I'll just leave it as to buy some hope but prepare for the worst.

In conclusion, the main reason for loss in 2018 is not because I bought Daya, it's because I'm not good at selling shares, as always. When will I get it fixed?

Casual Way of Blogging

For me, having a blog is good to record my investment journey, but to maintain it is not that easy. I see that there are quite a lot of blogs which I used to visit have become inactive now, though some might have changed platform to FB or others.

Looking back at my blog content since 2011, I can see how my investment style and mentality changed. To tell the truth, I feel embarrassed by some of the articles I wrote.

From now onward, I don't think I have the time and energy to write like before. Previously I used to do thorough research on a company and write it down in this blog.

Of course I still need to do some studies before I commit to invest in any stocks, but probably not as "detailed" as before. At least this is my current situation after being out of stock market for some time.

Last time when I planned to write about a company in a more comprehensive way, I need to spend many hours searching, reading and taking down notes. Then to arrange and transfer all of the notes into this blog, it probably takes 2-3 times more the time required to do research.

Thus, writing an article is rather time consuming. I can use this time to study more companies actually.

To keep on publishing posts in this blog, I probably will write in a more casual way. Readers should not expect it to be the same as previous years.

Hopefully, I can continue to do monthly review on my portfolio performance like I used to do, as this will make me more disciplined.

Lastly, please bear with me that I'm not going to answer all questions directed to me in this blog.

It's Been Two Years...

It's been 2 years since I last wrote something in this blog. Yes, basically this blog has been abandoned.

I have been, temporarily I would say, out of stock market investment because of other commitment.

I didn't follow market news, I seldom look the the share price, and I rarely read any financial reports or annual reports even from the companies that I hold.

During the year of 2017 which was the time when I started to spend most of my time away from stock market, I just bought 3 stocks: Jaks, Prolexus & Stock X, and took profit on quite a few.

In 2018, which was my least active year in stock market, I still managed to buy one stock which proved to be the worst investment so far.

After CNY of 2019, I started to have a little bit of interest to be more involved in stock market. However, I found it quite hard to do so and didn't know how to start. I was lazy to read business news and study financial reports. It seems like I've got not enough time, or may be the interest was not strong enough.

I tried to revive this Bursa Dummy blog, but didn't know what to write. 

As we stepped into 2020, I suddenly got the interest to know how my portfolio has performed exactly in 2019, as I guess that it should be good.

So I spent a lot of time calculating my portfolio value at the end of each month from Jan 2018 to Dec 2019, including finding out all the dividends I received, which was quite painstaking.

Finally I got the results. Year 2018 was very bad as expected. You can see yourself from the stocks that I hold at the end of Dec 2017, and find out how much each and every stock has fallen apart, especially KESM.

Year 2019 was a good year with positive return, even though it is not as high as previous years.

In the next few days, I will write briefly on my portfolio return in both 2018 & 2019.

Yes! At least I have something more to write in this blog.

My Portfolio Dec17

Summary for December 2017

My Portfolio @ End of Dec17