Monday, September 22, 2014

You Know You're a Newbie in Stock Investing/Trading When:



  • You get so excited with 1% gain.

  • You get so bummed with .5% loss.

  • You now consider Warren Buffet as "the" rockstar. You  post qoutes said by him in your Facebook wall all day errday.


  • A month after you officially invest in the stock market, you want to tell every single soul ( including your pet cat) how awesome the stock market is.



  • When you buy your first ever stock, you then post and brag about it in your social networking site/s, "Hell,yah! I just bought 20 shares of SM stocks!"

  • When that certain stock goes up, you tend to brag about it, "Yes! the stocks  I bought yesterday are now valued at PHP 12 per share."


  • When you made your first official "sell", you post it in your wall again, " I sold my SM stocks. I made a profit! I told you stock market is awesome." To you, you sound like so "sikat" and so intelligent! But to others, they are probably rolling their eyes!


  • When your portfolio is going down, you tend to panic and blurt how you feel about it through posting it, of course, on your Facebook wall, "Oh,no! My portfolio is all bloody and is now taking a nosedive. The economy is going nowhere. The end of us!". By the way, -1% loss is not really a nosedive, and you haven't really lost anything unless of course you already sold it at a loss. But then, you remember Warren Buffett's words, " Be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful". That will calm you down.

  • At the mention of the word "investing", you tend to hold your head a little higher, coz you feel so awesome than 99% of Filipinos who doesn't  invest.

  • You now feel the need to "give back" and  do some personal finance advocacy thing. You want to pass the personal finance awakening torch to the 99% of the population who doesn't invest. You feel like you are the missing link on the whole personal finance movement. You want to be the change and bring the change.


No offense to those who consider this post "spot on". Been there, done that. I used to do things that were mentioned above. Looking back, I just shake my head and roll my eyes on how silly it was, especially on that posting statuses on Facebook. I just cringed! Facepalm!

Can you add something on the list? Katuwaan lang! :)


 

5 comments:

  1. Guilty on that second item from last...call it preaching but I've been bugging my mother who is near retirement to invest her savings. Not on the stock market, mind you it's too risky for her...but at least on a money market fund with bigger interest rate than TD.i guess I'll just have to get rich from investing so I can set a good example.

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    1. Ai, my mama too. She actually had a windfall 2 years or so ago. I took 50k and invested it for her. If I come home na, I would totally transfer it na with her name in it so she will get inspired seeing her investment go up.

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  2. I agree with you that most newbies tend to be that ecstatic about their first investments and I could understand them because they're part of the 0.5% that do invest in stocks. Not all people are into stock investing, and not everybody is really willing to understand it.

    But stock investing indeed needs a lot of homework, and is not for everybody. I'm particularly cautious now and rethinking my strategy. We're all ecstatic now because we're riding the bull market. But what if things go differently?

    I'm also thinking about the possibility that our brokerage firms might go broke in case we enter the bear market and everybody starts cashing in. I'm aware that we'll retain our stocks, but there are 2 points to consider:
    1. It will not take a short time for PSE to facilitate the transfer of our account to another broker.
    2. The cash in our account is not insured.

    Just as we are ecstatic, I suggest that we should be equally cautious about stock investing. Overall, I think that currently the market is overvalued, and entering now can be risky. For the other readers here in Pinasforgood, please feel free to also click my name to check out my blog. I would appreciate your feedback.

    Thanks a lot Maria! Great post!

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    Replies
    1. Hey Valyuinvestor,

      Thanks for your input. I appreciate it. For the longest time, I was thinking of spliting my stocks into two stock brokerage accounts. I tried opening one in BPITrade, but sadly, they are pain in the ass to deal with and I gave up on them. I was thinking that maybe when I come for good na, that's the time I'll be able to open the second stock brokerage account. Just in case one go kapoot, at least I have the other one.

      It's all about risk, right? And how you manage them, I guess. I have been selling and taking some profits as I noticed that I have been holding on to my stocks like a crazy woman. I have analysis-paralysis problem going on in my head and it's hard for me to let go of stock that has doubled already.

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  3. When you are excited to track the dividends, profit, loss (not so much) and any data you can think of with Excel or any spreadsheet.

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