Stock Market Plunge

Haven't been updating this site due to my "busyness".

Anyway, this is a post on the realisation that I have made quite a number of investment mistakes, hence probably burnt my backside badly this time round.

What Benjamin Graham mentioned was true. When Mr. Market is on a emotional roller coaster ride, you can demand a price for the stock, and it will eventually reach. Indeed, the prices of many stocks have reached my target price. But, I have little bullets left to buy!

What happened first was that I went into the market too early. Too impatient. Thinking I knew a lot when I'm only just a newbie. Did I have a reason for buying? Not really for a few of the stocks. Probably the only reason I can come up with is greed.

Then the stock market plunged further. Shit. Caught. And then a bear rally came. My thoughts were: "Oh, I'm going to miss the boat!". In I went with more savings to average down. And right after that, it dropped further.

So now, my portfolio loss is at 38.4%.

As of today, my portfolio:

Stock	Average Price Bought	Current Price	Gain / Loss(%)	No. of lots
Breadtalk	0.37	0.3	-18.92%	5
Capitaland	2.26	1.93	-14.60%	3
CoscoCorp	2.67	0.705	-73.60%	2
China HongXing	0.175	0.065	-62.21%	68
DBS	8.26	6.9	-16.46%	1
Darco	0.07	0.045	-35.71%	60
SPH	3.65	2.38	-34.79%	6

Total Cost

$60026

Total Current Value	$37000
Total Gain/Loss	-$23026
Overall Portfolio Gain/Loss	-38.36%

Then after doing so many things, I finally realised the fundamentals of wealth. Cashflow. It is more important to have a net flow of cash into your pocket than increasing the value of assets (or in this case, the value of the stocks). For example, I can buy SPH at 3.65, and with a current loss of ~35%. However, the dividends will still be coming in. I will still have cash to ride out this crisis. No matter the value of the stock, as long as the company remains afloat, the cashflow will still be positive for me. The value of dividend stocks really stands out in a recession like this by improving your cashflow.

My main worry now is with China HongXing. Originally backed by 16 cents SGD per share, prices has fallen to unprecendented levels due to fears of accounting frauds. However, if the accounting is proven to be correct, the expected value I have calculated is around 40 cents.

Expensive lesson learned:
1) I have to learn to be more patient in this game of investment.
2) Have a better reason for investing into the company.
3) Experience really counts.

"Experience comes primarily from Failure, and Success without experience is luck."
"Good judgement comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgement."