The share prices has been on a steady decline since last Friday and it looks like it won't be relenting anytime soon. Sadly, all my investment are affected as well. Only the Prudential investment link managed to stave off a major drop in value thus far, but partly that's because there's only 3 funds in there and invested value is small.
The ILP with GE are greatly affected with a drop of between 2-3K in value as compared to the month of May. Sharpest drop I've seen since October 2010.
Showing posts with label investment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label investment. Show all posts
22 June, 2011
25 May, 2011
take stock - an investment journey
It is now the middle of the year. Sad to say, overall, have yet to see any profits. The online platform portfolio is seeing a -2.6% as of this month. The funds are equity funds and categorized into USD, Asia, Malaysia and Europe.
USD fund price decreased while its currency value has gone up a little due to the Europe debt crisis. Likewise, on a good month, it has seen the unit trust price going up but the currency was at its lowest. In other words, it does not bode well...
To hedge against the volatility, there are money placed in dividend generating fund. At least, this can defray the fund management costs and whatever ongoing fees. Currently, dividend paying fund is my favourite because at least it is seeing positive value!
How about the stock market? After 3 months of dabbling, lesson learnt, need to have bigger capital and need to buy more lots if per unit price is less than a dollar. Now, the stocks portfolio has 5 lots in 3 different stocks (excluding the written off infamous company share that was purchased at 47 sens and now valued at 15 sens....) but its current price are lower than buy price. The max price difference is currently at -8%.
As for GE insurance linked unit trusts, it saw about $800 decrease in value as of this month. Best month this year was in February. Hope the market turns for the better by this year end!
USD fund price decreased while its currency value has gone up a little due to the Europe debt crisis. Likewise, on a good month, it has seen the unit trust price going up but the currency was at its lowest. In other words, it does not bode well...
To hedge against the volatility, there are money placed in dividend generating fund. At least, this can defray the fund management costs and whatever ongoing fees. Currently, dividend paying fund is my favourite because at least it is seeing positive value!
How about the stock market? After 3 months of dabbling, lesson learnt, need to have bigger capital and need to buy more lots if per unit price is less than a dollar. Now, the stocks portfolio has 5 lots in 3 different stocks (excluding the written off infamous company share that was purchased at 47 sens and now valued at 15 sens....) but its current price are lower than buy price. The max price difference is currently at -8%.
As for GE insurance linked unit trusts, it saw about $800 decrease in value as of this month. Best month this year was in February. Hope the market turns for the better by this year end!
03 March, 2011
world of buying and selling, and then some...
After deliberating for ages, finally bought the first 2 lots of stocks. First attempt on Monday was not successful, because bid was too low (just like 5 cents difference from sell price). Yesterday, it got through like super duper fast. But that's because the bid was on par with sell price. At closing, it went down 10 cents. Hmm...
Nowadays I do see a lot of those pop-up stalls appearing in the mall to allow people to open their trading accounts. I'm using POEMS. The appeal of stock trading to the masses, in my opinion, is just like gambling. I'm sure there are people who do not really care whether the counter that they are buying is in which industry or whether there is growth etc etc. In theory, for counters with a lot of movement (aka, somewhat equal buying and selling), let's say a person enters the market and buys at price A (which say, is on par with current sell price). Then when price A rises to A+B, then that person will do a sell. If there's another person who has the same mentality as this person, then that person will buy-in and hope to sell at B+C price. Momentum buying, they say. Others call it, the Greater Fool Theory.
Investing is pretty much related to psychology, the experts had warned. And yes, it wreaks havoc on your emotions as well. Some fundamentals are required. As a newbie, I was quite intimidated by the complexity of the trading tools. Then, comes decision to make the 'right' pickings. This can be done via publicly available information about the company, forecast etc. Then comes to target setting. How much I want to make? 10 percent? 20 percent? But humans are bound to be greedy, and this target could well turn out as a moving one. Which, may not be good for mental health in the long run. I can imagine if I set a target of say, 10 percent, and when it hits, and if I decided not to sell because greedy and thinks it may rise further. But if the price drops 20 percent right after that decision and remain stagnant of x amount of time, then who is to blame but self?
Let's see what is achievable in this year. Hope to see some positive results from the increased effort in managing own finances.
Nowadays I do see a lot of those pop-up stalls appearing in the mall to allow people to open their trading accounts. I'm using POEMS. The appeal of stock trading to the masses, in my opinion, is just like gambling. I'm sure there are people who do not really care whether the counter that they are buying is in which industry or whether there is growth etc etc. In theory, for counters with a lot of movement (aka, somewhat equal buying and selling), let's say a person enters the market and buys at price A (which say, is on par with current sell price). Then when price A rises to A+B, then that person will do a sell. If there's another person who has the same mentality as this person, then that person will buy-in and hope to sell at B+C price. Momentum buying, they say. Others call it, the Greater Fool Theory.
Investing is pretty much related to psychology, the experts had warned. And yes, it wreaks havoc on your emotions as well. Some fundamentals are required. As a newbie, I was quite intimidated by the complexity of the trading tools. Then, comes decision to make the 'right' pickings. This can be done via publicly available information about the company, forecast etc. Then comes to target setting. How much I want to make? 10 percent? 20 percent? But humans are bound to be greedy, and this target could well turn out as a moving one. Which, may not be good for mental health in the long run. I can imagine if I set a target of say, 10 percent, and when it hits, and if I decided not to sell because greedy and thinks it may rise further. But if the price drops 20 percent right after that decision and remain stagnant of x amount of time, then who is to blame but self?
Let's see what is achievable in this year. Hope to see some positive results from the increased effort in managing own finances.
25 October, 2010
rule of 72
Call me suaku, but really, I've never heard of this 'Rule of 72' till recently. Here's how it works. Take the number 72 and divide it with an annual rate of return (say the interest given by the bank) and you get, roughly, the number of years it takes to double your initial investment. If the returns are negative value, then that's the time taken to halve your money.
For example, let's say we keep $10,000 inside the bank account. The interest rate is roughly 0.10%. So 72/0.10%, so roughly, in about 720 years time the money will double to $20,000. Not forgetting, the inflation rate is not costed in yet. One thing to note that if the rate of return is higher, then the accuracy of this rule may differ, and hence, there is another calculation called 'Future Value'.
If I want to double my money in say 5 years time, I would need to look at any investment instrument that can give an annual return rate of about 14% and above.
It's been about 11 years since I've started working, and by right, I should've accumulated quite a bit of money, right? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The problem with some people, is that we do not like to manage our own finances. Sounds funny? But it is a reality. Looking back, I'm still glad I started investing little by little via ILPs. It's really a lazy person's way because with just $100 a month, not only I get some insurance protection, it also put aside some bit into unit trusts. I subscribe to time cost averaging theory, and if have the money, then can do the value cost averaging as well.
But of course along the way, I was quite dumb to surrender my first policy (which should be worth about $10K or more if I had stayed invested) based on ill-advise from another agent (from rival company). Then, I happened to buy some unit trusts funds during the peak of the bull run in 2007, and watched the investment dwindled subsequently.
I am still learning, and of course, stocks and shares are very very intimidating at this moment. Hahaa, probably it is a learned response (though I cannot remember from where nor what!). I always had this fear that instead of buying 1 lot (1000 units), I may key in 1000 lots! Foolish, but yeah.. that's me.
So, if you're still planning on doing nothing... at the very least, start of a regular savings plan (say $100) into unit trust that pays dividends. For any working adults that has a monthly income of say $2.5K, $100 is just like what.. 4% of your income? Not even a pinch. And because it's giro'ed off the bank account, you won't even feel it. After 5 years, you would've saved $6K and received all the dividends. If there's a price difference, say you buy in at an average cost of $1.2 and after 5 years, say the price per unit is say $1.4, then that's profit as well.
Happy investing!
For example, let's say we keep $10,000 inside the bank account. The interest rate is roughly 0.10%. So 72/0.10%, so roughly, in about 720 years time the money will double to $20,000. Not forgetting, the inflation rate is not costed in yet. One thing to note that if the rate of return is higher, then the accuracy of this rule may differ, and hence, there is another calculation called 'Future Value'.
If I want to double my money in say 5 years time, I would need to look at any investment instrument that can give an annual return rate of about 14% and above.
It's been about 11 years since I've started working, and by right, I should've accumulated quite a bit of money, right? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The problem with some people, is that we do not like to manage our own finances. Sounds funny? But it is a reality. Looking back, I'm still glad I started investing little by little via ILPs. It's really a lazy person's way because with just $100 a month, not only I get some insurance protection, it also put aside some bit into unit trusts. I subscribe to time cost averaging theory, and if have the money, then can do the value cost averaging as well.
But of course along the way, I was quite dumb to surrender my first policy (which should be worth about $10K or more if I had stayed invested) based on ill-advise from another agent (from rival company). Then, I happened to buy some unit trusts funds during the peak of the bull run in 2007, and watched the investment dwindled subsequently.
I am still learning, and of course, stocks and shares are very very intimidating at this moment. Hahaa, probably it is a learned response (though I cannot remember from where nor what!). I always had this fear that instead of buying 1 lot (1000 units), I may key in 1000 lots! Foolish, but yeah.. that's me.
So, if you're still planning on doing nothing... at the very least, start of a regular savings plan (say $100) into unit trust that pays dividends. For any working adults that has a monthly income of say $2.5K, $100 is just like what.. 4% of your income? Not even a pinch. And because it's giro'ed off the bank account, you won't even feel it. After 5 years, you would've saved $6K and received all the dividends. If there's a price difference, say you buy in at an average cost of $1.2 and after 5 years, say the price per unit is say $1.4, then that's profit as well.
Happy investing!
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