Sounds very simple isn’t it? But it won’t be easy to do that.

I am currently reading a book, “Deemer on Technical Analysis” by Walter Deemer.

He said this, “When the time comes to buy, you won’t want to”.

It’s very easy now for you to say that you will scoop all the stocks when prices hit rock bottom, because you are now in “normal” state.

But when the time really comes for you to take action and click “buy”, most probably the market will be at extreme pessimistic state. The news will be so negative that you will feel like it’s end of the world and the market will never ever recover.

The FEAR, The PANIC will take control of you.

Don’t cheat yourself. Go back to Oct 2011. When STI plunged to 2520, how do you feel?

Do you dare to buy? Everything is so damn negative. Mind you, this is just a “correction” and not a real market crash yet.

When the time really comes, I doubt most people (maybe including me) would have the courage to buy.

Buying IPO and intending to sell on the first day of trading is like playing BIG-SMALL in casino.
It’s not trading and it’s pure speculating
Always punting on penny counters is speculating too.

Calculate your risk per trade.
Don’t whack so many positions at the same time especially if it’s correlated. One down all down.

Don’t get too excited if you take profit and don’t get too upset if you cut loss.
You need to handle your emotions.

Don’t be always too eager to take little profit. Your 3 wins will not be able to cover 1 loss.

Trading is supposed to be as boring as possible –  if you have a system in place.
If you are looking for excitement,  please go to casino.

The problem is nothing new: Europe Sovereign Debt Crisis

YES… still the same old problem.

Personally, I feel the debt crisis is simply not enough to crash the market.

Do you really think those Wall Street traders cannot  anticipate all these Greece, Spain, Portugal debt issues in advance?

By the time you read the news and react to it, you are too late already.

So, after many days of selling in the markets, and if only now  you are thinking of selling your stocks… too late.

I can guarantee that when you “cut loss”, most likely price will reverse back up again.

Then when price goes up, you feel like you are missing out, you go and chase… you get trapped again because you bought at the highest and price start to fall again.

The cycle repeats… again and again and again.

“I am a long term/market cycle investor, what should I do?”

If you are into longer term investing… you need to form  your own view and have the conviction to stick to it.

Do you think the market is gonna be bullish or bearish within  the next 6 months, 1 year, 2 years etc?

If you think it’s bullish, then hold on to your stocks and forget all these “noise” in the market.

You cannot be emotional when your stock price just drop a bit  and you are scared like hell.

Because when you enter, be it for short term trading or long term investment, you should already know your “stop loss” or threshold level you can take.

My view is still remains the same: Bullish  (at least till end of 2012)

This is my personal view. I could be wrong. If you are bearish, I respect your view. This is what makes the market interesting.

Since I maintain my bullish stance, every sell-off is an opportunity for me to go long for my short term swing trade.

Do you realize that I seldom talk about those good FA stocks that I buy-and-hold? I mostly talk about short term trading.

That is because I am already invested in those companies which I feel is undervalued. Once I am vested in it, there is nothing much for me to do.

I just buy and hold on those good FA stocks. I don’t really  care about the fluctuation.

So, all in all, I am looking for opportunity to long. There are counters which I am already vested in it. I will buy on dips as long as I maintain my bullish view.

My trading sifu, Kelvin Han from V3Go Academy, will be giving 2 free talks. If you wish to attend, you can register through the link here:
http://www.v3go.com/signup/

There are also many other talks (free and paid) at the Invest Fair, so I suggest you visit the site and check it out yourself:
http://sg.invest-fair.com/

Come and have a chat with me (if you see me at the V3Go booth) if you are attending the event!

But over time, you will realize they are not as good as you think.

Be careful who you trust.

What goes around comes around.

If you would like to receive such content from me (trading, investing, resources, reports etc), please opt-in with your name and email address on the right hand side of my blog.

Well, I won’t spam you to death. Don’t worry, just good information. 

I am not any investing/trading  expert or guru. Basically just sharing what I know and what I have gone through during the past 1 year.

Fantastic full-house crowd of  about 110 people. The responses were very positive after our sharing ended and many of the fellow graduates thank us for the sharing and said that they learned a lot during the session. I am glad the whole session went smoothly and able to provide good information for them.

Here are some of the photos taken during the session:

Gave a 2-hour talk on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to Jaz Lai’s students at SMU on 6th Feb. There were about 60 people and it was the first time that I public speak to such a big crowd. I was so nervous and was trembling before the talk began! You can ask Jaz! Haha. After started speaking, the nervousness disappeared and I began to deliver my presentation confidently.

I shared a lot of tips and resources on SEO during the presentation and I was glad that the crowd enjoyed my presentation and received a lot of positive feedbacks.

Here are some feedbacks I received:

“Thank you for taking time to share with us on how SEO works last evening. I have definitely learnt a great deal from your session.”

“Thank you for your interesting lecture on seo. It was indeed insightful.”

“Alex, you did you great job!”

My best compliment? It’s this:

“I learned so much more in your 2-hr talk compared to the marketer xyz’s paid workshop”

It was a good public speaking experience for me and I am happy that my information I shared is of value to them!

After the correction in December, it seems like gold is heading up again once more. Price now is already above the 200-day moving average.

Gold has broken through the resistance trend line as show in the chart (click for bigger view). I am using ichimoku clouds to aid me once more. 4 reasons why gold is turning bullish again (solely my opinion).

1. Breakout from the trendline

2. Chikou span broke through cloud (to give confidence that it’s a not fake breakout)

3. Kumo Twist (future sentiment is turning bullish)

4. Price is above cloud

I am long gold now. Expect to test resistance at about 1,756 region.

The information above is just my personal opinion. I could be wrong and I am always wrong. 

STI rallied and the counter hit 1.16. So, I sold half of my positions and take some profits. The very next day, price shoot up even higher and went as high as 1.205. But towards the closing there were selling pressure and a very long upper shadow shooting star candle had formed. By the way, a shooting star candlestick is a bearish reversal signal.

So I thought to myself, “The selling is coming in, I will just cover the rest of my position and take profits”, thus I sold the rest at 1.18 and was quite happy about it.

BUT… the next 2 days, the market continued to be extreme bullish and the counter went to 1.285 at closing!

I have a friend who is also vested in this same counter as me and we had a casual sms chat about our trades. He said he regretted selling a tad too early because price just “chiong” all the way up.

On the other hand, I realized that I did not have this “regret” feeling at all.

Yes, price went up a lot more and should I hold on to the position, I would have made more money. But I think that what I did was right and I stick to my plan. Who knows after the shooting star, the next day price gap down? Nobody knows what will happen to the market.

In a way, I feel I am now better at managing my emotion. No “regret”… I already have an entry price, stop loss and profit taking level in mind before I enter the trade. So, I am glad I followed my plan. If the price just continue to go up, so be it! There will always be an opportunity to trade again. Now I don’t chase the price. Trading also train me to be more patient to wait for the right opportunity to appear.

As cliché as it sounds, trading is indeed all about psychology and learning how to control your emotions. I can’t say I am very good at it now, but I think I am progressing and getting better in controlling my emotion when it comes to trading.