My Blogging's Journey

If you look at the very first post of this blog, the date is 25th May 2011. So it has been 3 years + 3 months since I started this blog.

It is neither a too long nor too short period of time.

Looking back at those old posts, I can see how I grow as a person and an investor. This is part of the reason I keep this blog alive - to keep the old memories within the unlimited internet space.

Similar to most bloggers I guess, I started well with one post in a day or two. However, later it became one to two posts a month. 

I was just sharing my view and my research in a very casual way. I do not promote this blog anywhere even until today.

Initially readers mainly found this site through internet search engines, but now there are links from other blogs & forums. I'd like to thanks all of them as it is a great honour to have their recognition.

As I was more interested in property investment in the "early days", I wrote more about property.

This blog was almost dead in the end of 2012, when I was busy renovating and moving into my new house.

After settling in my new home in Jan 2013, I found that most of my money was stuck in a few losing stocks, as I have sold those winning stocks to pay for the renovation.

For the first 4 months of 2013, I didn't really return to the stock market because I had no excess cash to buy more. I needed to serve the credit card installment etc at the same time.

I felt something was terribly wrong with my stock portfolio. So I decided to sell all the stocks except Tambun Indah. This has later proved to be an important decision for me.

The loss suffered from selling these losing stocks almost wiped out all my previous gain in stock market. I have learnt the painful way that reluctance to cut loss early is deadly.

With the remaining cash, I decided to restart my engine in stock market as property price has gone beyond my buying ability.

However, my stock analysis skill was still the same like the old days, basically I looked only at the revenue, net profit and part of the balance sheet (cash & borrowings). If I have a good "feel" to it, then it is a "Buy".

So my first buy after the restart was actually also a mistake in my opinion, in which I bought Tropicana. As a result, I sold it later at a loss 11 months later.

Nevertheless, I learned new things along the way, from other financial blogs, books and websites. I learned to set buy & sell criteria, and the most important thing of all, to be more disciplined.

Fortunate enough for me, other stocks that I invested in after Tropicana perform decently well until today.

To enable myself to be more disciplined in stock market investment, I decided to share my stock portfolio in this blog from Oct13 onward, so that I know that other people are watching & scrutinizing me.

I have to buy and sell for good reasons.

I also make it a routine to summarize my portfolio return at the end of each month and also share the review of the quarterly financial result of the stocks I own, so that I can decide from there my own target price, and whether to keep, add or sell.

I don't want to bring readers to "Holland" so normally I don't share in this blog as soon as I do a buy or sell transaction. Please be reminded again that readers should invest at their own risk and I will not be responsible for their gain or loss.

I'm sure that some readers may not like what I write, especially when I "talk bad" about certain stocks. I try to avoid that but the purpose of this personal blog is to share my thought, which can be positive or negative.

I think almost every investment bloggers will experience "attacks" at some point of time. Investment involves money & money is a very sensitive thing.

Someone may think that I try to influence readers to buy or sell certain stocks. Someone may also think that I am arrogant by posting my investment return or discussing my success stories. Well, I have no power to control other people's mind.

In term of stock selection, I try to eliminate the temptation for short term gain from contra & short term trading. I only choose those stocks that I think I can hold for longer term, which is at least one year.

I just use the simplest PE valuation method to valuate a stock. Though I don't directly use the discounted cash flow and discounted dividend model, I do actually consider a stock's cash flow, dividend, exceptional gain & loss before I decide to buy it.

To be honest I still haven't learnt enough about other valuation methods but I will do so in the future.

I believe that my stock investment strategy and stock valuation method will continue to change over time, hopefully to a more mature and better one.

I hope this blog, which will record all my investment stories from good to bad, from happy to sad, can last until my retirement, be it 10 years, or 20 years from now.