No Sell = No Gain

While doing review on year 2018 & 2019, I wrote that my Hevea shares which was finally sold below my entry price, was once sitting on a paper gain of more than 100%.

The other stock which suffered similar fate is Leon Fuat. I just checked that it went up highest to 98.5sen in Jan18 before dropping to the level below my cost of 50.5sen in Dec 2018 (43.5sen now). However, it's still a bit short of registering 100% paper gain.

I used to record all the stocks with 100% paper gain. I search through this blog and found out that the last time I wrote about this was in My Portfolio Jan17.

"Notion becomes the 11th stock in my portfolio since mid-2013 to ever break 100% gain mark, after Tambun, Inari, Gtronic, Latitude, Geshen, HHGroup, Hevea, Scientex, AWC & KESM."

Out of these 11 stocks with so-called 100% paper gain, how many of them really achieve 100% realized gain?

Currently I still hold shares of Inari, Latitude, Scientex & Notion. Apart from Scientex which I hold tight, I have sold some shares of the other three.

I record all my previous completed buy/sell transaction in "History" page of this blog.

Tambun - 141%

Inari - haven't sold all shares but confirmed will be >100%

Gtronic - 98%

Latitude - haven't sold all shares, will be >100% if current price >RM2.20

Geshen - 195%

HHGroup - 105%

Hevea - 10%

Scientex - still holding, so far 245%

AWC - 173%

KESM - 210%

Notion - haven't sold all shares, will be >100% if current price >80sen 

So out of those 11 stocks, two (Gtronic & Hevea) have failed to registered >100% realized gain. 

In year 2019, two other stocks have breached 100% paper gain mark, they are Frontken & PPHB. However, if I do not sell, it is still possible to end up like Hevea, isn't it?

For me, to buy shares is easy, but it's always difficult to sell. Those who follow my blog long enough may notice this.

Gtronic is another one I can remember well where its share price rose to almost RM7 before I finally sold at RM4.27 (my cost RM2.43). After selling, the share price went up back to RM7... I sold when the price was so much below the peak. Same thing goes to Latitude & KESM as well.

I admit that I am somehow falling in love with the stocks I own because I feel like I own a great company and proud to be part of it. So I'm always reluctant to sell.

The first stock I bought was WCT. When I went to The Curve Mall I told my wife that I built this mall. When I watched Abu Dhabi F1 I felt like I built the track for those drivers to race.

This is a trap in stock market investment which I'm well aware of, and I tried to rectify it. One strategy I'm using is sell part of my shares until all remaining shares are "free".

I used this method in KESM and it backfired. I sold part of my holding at RM20 and already took home handsome realized gain much more than my cost at RM4.24.

I waited until the share price dropped to RM8.50 to sell the remaining shares. The RM11.50 "loss" on each share was quite enormous for me!

No one can always sell at the highest price, but something like my Hevea or LeonFB is just unacceptable. 

However, if I sell earlier, there may not be any stocks with 100% gain...

Year 2019 Review: Crawling Back

In early 2019, O&G sector seems to gain more attention. If I remember correctly, at that time Cold Eye wrote some articles encouraging investors to look into O&G stocks after being depressed for so long.

Though I didn't read a lot at that time, somehow I came across those articles and I agreed with him. So it brought back a bit of my desire to study and buy something in stock market.

I went through some of the O&G companies and short-listed 3 of them as potential buy: Armada, Dayang & Hibiscus.

During CNY gathering with friends, inevitably our conversation will touch a bit on stock market. When I mentioned about O&G stocks, most were not that interested.

Out of the 3 aforementioned O&G stocks, I actually bought one of them, you guess what, it's Hibiscus... sigh...

I bought Hibiscus mainly because I saw its cost per barrel of oil is so low below USD20, seems to have a good management team and debt free some more. At the same time I was worried about the debts of Armada & Dayang.

So there goes a chance to start 2019 with a bang...

Share price of Dayang at that time was around 70-80sen, now everyone knows that it is about RM2.60 after a famous investor goes onboard.

My Hibiscus shares were bought at RM1.05, so now at around 95sen it's suffering from paper loss.

Apart from Hibiscus, I did add 3 other new stocks in the first half of 2019, and another one towards the end of 2019.

Not long after CNY, after feeling bullish on the demand of those 7nm thing, I added Frontken into my portfolio at 96sen. This proves to be a good move.

Almost at the same time, I purchased DKSH after it has dropped so much from above RM4 probably because it raised a lot of debts to buy "SCS butter".

Personally I like this acquisition long term wise, so I just jumped in at RM2.50.

In May19, some packaging companies started to catch my attention. I tried to choose between Master-Pack & Public Packages. Finally I picked PPHB... may be I should get both...

At that time Master share price has started to move but still at around 80sen, now it is around RM2.50. Missed it just like Dayang.

My purchase price for PPHB is 56.5sen, so currently at RM1.22 it still breaks the 100% gain mark. A consolation prize.

Revenue Group was in my radar when news broke out that it is partnering with Lazada in July19. I observed it for some time and had a chance to grab it at RM1.50.

However, its PE ratio is uncomfortable to me, and I planned to wait until Q4 results. The Q4 result was good and later it declared bonus issue, so the share price shot up higher and I could only wave goodbye to it.

After missing out on Revenue, I manage to spot Kronologi Asia in Dec19 and decided to add it into my portfolio at 76sen.

Besides buying, I cleared all shares of Hevea, Complete & KESM in the first half of 2019, and sold some Inari shares in Oct 2019.

Hevea is a sad story for me. I bought its share in May15 at RM3.10 (adjusted to 77.5sen). Its share price went up to almost RM1.80 in 2016 & 2017 before I finally sold all in Mac19 at below my entry price at 65sen.

Wow, a 130% gain turned into loss just like that.

However, because of good dividends given out by Hevea throughout those 4 years, my investment in Hevea still generates 10% return.

On the same day I sold all Hevea shares, I also "reluctantly" sold all my remaining KESM shares at RM8.50. As my average entry price is RM4.42, and I sold some shares before at RM20, KESM has given me my best realized gain so far at 210%.

Complete Logistic which I bought at 76.5sen, is another stock that I sold all in 2 transaction. I sold half at RM1.18 in Feb17 and finally cleared all in May19 at 76sen. This translates into a gain of 27%.

You know what, within 2 months after I sold all Complete shares, the company unexpectedly announced an incredible 16sen of dividend! What the XX

When Inari staged a brief rally in Oct19, I sold some at RM2.02. This is the fourth time I sold Inari shares since acquiring them in mid 2013.

For my existing stocks, Latitude, Leonfb & Daya continue to decline in 2019 while Notion, Prolexus & Stock X registered good gain.

If I did almost nothing in 2019 like 2018, my portfolio performance might be flat or even may be in loss. Frontken & PPHB have certainly contributed to an overall positive return of 26.8% in year 2019.

I feel that this result is nothing to shout about since there are so so many stocks that go up so much in 2019.

That's my story in stock market in year 2019. I have too many stocks at this moment, 15 in total! My target is to have 8-10 stocks and this year should be the year to clean my portfolio.

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?