Monthly Report: January 2018

Monthly Report: January 2018

January has been the best month in my trading career to date. Bullish market, stocks ceilings here and there, hype due to third telco speculations. A lot of good trades happened this month. Most traders I'm following really earned a lot on this bull run, including myself.

Last December, I purged my account to zero then took some rest in trading for the last 2 weeks of 2017. Then on Jan 03, I reset my account with 100,000 buying power. I traded and recorded all my trades.

So here's the result of my trading in January. I'm a little bit close to my target Year-to-date which is to attain DYM or Double-your-money. I hope I could earn that within the first 3 months of the year. I could've earned more if not for my mistakes and poor decisions. Ms. Market has been good to me. I hope she won't get tired of me.

(Off topic)
I also received the good news that I'm being promoted to 2nd Officer. By March I would start working as 2nd Officer on board. I feel that 2018 would be the best year for me, both in trading and career. Thank you Lord.

I will protect my capital no matter what. (repeat 1000 times)

The Final Countdown

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

721 days from now (09 Jan 2018), I will leave my career and trade full time. 

I'm challenging myself today to prepare for this one big step, to retire from my career as a Seafarer, to get out of my comfort zone. I would dedicate this year (2018) in studying. Focusing on trading consistently, following boss Zeefreaks.

The results of my trading in 2017 hit me really hard. That was my wake up call. I almost wiped out my portfolio. I gave in my hard-earned money to Ms. Market because of my negligence. I admit it. I traded without a system, without conviction. I traded without knowing the reason WHY? Why am I trading everyday, monitoring the market as early as 2:30 in the morning due to time difference. When I learned about boss Zee and his ZFT family, I realized a lot. I acknowledged my mistakes. The tuition has been paid.

Now, I challenge myself to become like them. To be profitable and consistent with my trades. I would focus on learning. My objective is not the rewards, but the consistency on my trades. Hopefully at the end of this year I would learn a lot. And for 2019, I would be testing if I'm really capable of going full time.

First on my bucket list for this year is The Rift: Live (Singapore). I'm so excited to meet boss Zeefreaks and some of the ZFT members. See you there!

The Purge: Protecting the Capital

As the year ends in 20 days, I clicked the "Purge" button. 2017 might be the year I would never forget. It's the year I chose to become a trader. The year that I wiped out mostly of my portfolio. As I close this year, my YTD is -73%. Yes, you see it right. I lost 73%. I lost twice of my monthly salary because of my ignorance in trading.

Maybe trading is not for me. Maybe Ms. Market hates me. I was wrong. I traded thinking only about the reward. I was blinded by the green port snaps. I suffered from the common disorder called "FOMO". I traded without a purpose. I traded without a system. I traded without a single bullet.

At first I thought that if I copy other trader's strategy, I would get the same results. I was completely wrong.

Few days/weeks ago, I watched some videos and FB lives by lodi Cosmos Kairos. He shared to us the proper way of back testing and developing our own system. Thank you for sharing sir.

He was wiped out before, also lodi Kidlat and my crush Celeste. Those wipe outs led them to strive harder and focus on improving their trading system. Now I feel motivated. If they can stand up after stumbling down, I could too.

What I'm going to do now is read again boss Zeefreaks' blog and learn his trading setups. And then do the back testing. And finally come up with my own complete trading system.

If I could complete it until the year end, I would restart again with 100,000 pesos portfolio. I would apply and execute what is in my trading system.

My objective now is not the profits, but consistency. I want to achieve consistency on my trades.

I'm also looking forward to learn more on the next "The Rift Live" in Singapore next March. See you guys there.

Let see if 2018 is my year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Fear: Loss Aversion

Loss Aversion

As defined in Wikipedia, "loss aversion refers to people's tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains. Some studies have suggested that losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains."

Emotions strongly affect our decision making. May it be in trading, or any decisions in our everyday life. As a result, we end up making wrong decisions and regret it.

Yesterday, 20 Nov 2017, I bought PXP near EOD at 9.70. I already had my trading plan (copied Sirius Lee's Momentum trade). Cut loss point at 9.50, Target Price at 10.33-10.83 (5-10% trade objective). Everything was set.

Today, 21 Nov 2017, it gapped up on opening and reached 10.26. My position is already green.

But there's one problem. A problem every trader hates the most. SLOW INTERNET! Most of the readers probably didn't know yet, I'm a Seafarer onboard a ship transporting chemical cargoes around Europe. And yes, we do have internet. But sometimes it's so slow depending on the heading of our ship. My charts doesn't load. I could not monitor the movement of this stock. Buying & Selling orders will take a lifetime before it will be posted. Cutting losses would be hard on this strong momentum stock.

So that fueled my fear of losing. That fear of turning my green port to red. Loss Aversion. I was filled up with emotions, at the same time cursing the internet in russian language. "Cyka blyat!"

As the stock goes down below 10.00, I sold my position at 9.95, closed my trading platform, and then went back to sleep. It's only past 3am here, 7 hours difference from PH.

The supposed to be 11% gain becomes only 1% gain. 😂 That's how Loss Aversion hit me. But anyway, every loss will only be considered a loss if you don't learn from it.

Lesson for today: Follow your system. Execute according to your trading plan to avoid emotions interfere your decision making. We have missed today's trade, but there will always be another opportunity. And when that opportunity comes, apply everything you have learned today.

PS: I posted this late, because of no internet.

The Tale of a Sailor

The Tale of the Sailor, the Son, and the Trader

Once upon a time, there was a kid named "Red" (not my real name lol). His parents work in the office, two elder sisters with small age gap in between. He's quite lucky to grow up with a complete family. Nothing much to complain about except for his Mom being so strict and nagging all the time.

On his first birthday, Red happily enjoyed his birthday party. He was wearing a sailor's uniform as a costume. His father also studied to become a seafarer. His parents dreamt of him becoming a Captain when he gets old.

His childhood was okay. He's doing great at school. His favorite subject is Math. He hated English and Reading. While he was doing 90%+ on Math, he got 73% in Reading. Quite a shame, but luckily he was able to get back up to 75% passing that awful subject. He was even a Sudoku Master when he was on 4th year highschool. The first ever Sudoku Master at school since it is the first time they conducted that competition. His class adviser got surprised that he won and bringing home the bacon to his section.

When he was 16, He entered the Maritime Academy bringing a luggage full of hope. Hoping that someday he'll become a seafarer, fulfilling his parents dreams for him. That was a quite hard challenge for him. That was the first time he got separated with his family for some months. But his dreams made the obstacles easier. Under the heat of the sun, with his hands being burned by the hot cement floor while doing push-ups, there's one thing that he keeps on telling himself, you can do it. He became a Dean's Lister for some semesters. After some time he was able to join a ship and do his ojt. In 2013, he graduated from college. He left the Academy surpassing all those obstacles.

Mid 2014, he completed the requirements and took the board exam. He passed it with 80% average. "Chamba", he says. He's now a licensed Officer-in-Charge of Navigational Watch. Two bars now on his shoulder board for 3rd Officer and 2nd Officer Rank. 2 bars to go and he'll be able to fulfill his dream of becoming a Captain.

2015 came and he was promoted to 3rd Officer. He's now officially a working professional. He was quite surprised that from his allowance of 25k as a Deck Cadet, it jumped to 150k, his very first salary. Earning 6-digits a month overwhelmed him. He bought a lot of things, gadgets, watches, mobile phones and tablets.

His money easily got depleted. In 2016, he learned about the stock market. He invested his salary hoping for earning a lot of money. But until now, his investment is still negative.

He is impatient, being an investor is not his genre. He traded and traded and traded but without a plan. With very little knowledge. That made him lose quite a lot of money.

On early 2017, he attended the InvestaSummit. He was amazed. That's the first time he learned about different strategies in trading.

Today, he is studying a lot. Following Zeefreaks, MoneyGrowers, Kidlat, and Sirius Lee. Dissecting their trades and learning their strategies. He hopes that one day will come, his trades will be consistent like them.

He has another dream now. And that is to become a successful and consistent trader. And someday, after he fulfill his #CareerGoals of becoming a Captain, he will be able to retire early as a seafarer and be a full-time trader.

So help me God. 1,2,3,cut.

Excalibur: Dream High

What is my Dream?

"A goal without a plan is just a mere wish."

I've been trading for quite some time now. I was blinded by my dream of earning a lot of money. This dream led me to the opposite. I lost a lot. Roughly around 200k now. I feel so lost. I've been tracking my performance since April. It's completely a mess. I feel like giving up now thinking that trading is not for me.

I will take a rest from trading for now and focus on studying charts. I've started dissecting the trades of Sirius Lee from his blog. I was amazed with his trades actually. After this, I will also dissect Zeefreaks' and Akio's trades. Hopefully after that, I would learn their strategies and be able to apply it on my trading. I would study first until the year end and start all over on January.

I need motivation. Please cheer me up. Fighting!

PS. Here is Red Velvet's Irene giving me motivation 😁😍😂

The Legend of the Phoenix

Beware to all readers, this blog is made for my stock trading journey. Most of my future posts would contain only about stocks, charts, portfolio, etc.  

"Like the legend of the Phoenix, all ends with beginnings." (Get Lucky, Daft Punk)

I was inspired to start a blog because of the first two lines of this song. It feels like today, I'm at the end of my trading "career". Maybe I'm into trading but trading isn't into me, just like singing.

I've been in the market for 1 year and 3 months (since July 2016). I still consider myself as a NEWBIE. From the start I was so excited to trade. I attended a lot of seminars from my broker. I joined a lot of Facebook Groups, listened to the recommendations of the self-proclaimed "GURUs". Look at the charts posted by strangers. Listen to their hype.

For that 1 year and 3 months, I've been trading without purpose. When a stock flies, I trigger the buy button, all-in. I'm 24 that time, single, 50-80% of my salary goes to my Buying Power every month. I thought to myself, "I'm young, I'm a high risk trader. High Risk = High Reward." My thought was wrong. It became my habit though, to buy all-in 100% up to the last centavo possible.

Around April 2017, I traded MRC, all-in. That was my biggest earning 24% in a few days. Followed by APX when it gap upped to 2 pesos. I felt like a GENIUS. The feeling was superb. I said to myself, "you're getting rich, no need to study fundamental and technical analysis, etc., just buy hot stocks, all-in, then voila you will be a millionaire soon". That's when I started monitoring my performance, weekly and monthly.

Then the following months came. Up to this date, I never had a positive month. Recently, PXP is the hot stock. It reminded me of MRC last April. I bought all-in at a decent price. It came to a high and my position is gaining 30%. But at that time I was still asleep. I didn't hear my alarm. That was 3:30 AM, Central European Summer Time. I woke up 2 hours later and my stock is now only 13% gain. I sold it off. I gained a lot from PXP that month but lost it the earning to other losing stocks.

I've been posting a lot on my Facebook account about stocks, even though only 5 out of 900 of my friends can relate. One of my senior in college noticed it and sent me a message. He was our standard back then. A smart and a great leader. We talked about stocks, as usual. He's an investor, but also want to start trading. He has patience, he has knowledge. I was impatient and lazy. I had a book, The Trading Code by Jason Cam, for one year. I just finished reading it few days ago. I was too furious to earn, but too lazy to learn. He quoted a line from the book The Alchemist, "When lead loses its purpose, only then it will become gold". I was reading it that time, and it hit me hard. I asked myself, what is my purpose in life and in trading. Maybe I'm a lead losing its purpose. So I reset my mind, my portfolio. I set my goal which is to become a successful trader, not a "hit or miss, waiting for the luck, praying after the buy" kind of trader.

My one goal, to become a successful trader, starts today. I started with reading books about technical analysis. I'm researching on different kinds of trading set-ups. I'm fixing my trading system/strategy. I'm applying risk management to avoid sudden undecided trades. I'm changing my strategy now, so that the lead before, will now become gold. Today marks the end of the old newbie trader, and the beginning of the journey of the successful trader.

"Because when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."
-The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

I will leave my port snap here, for future reference.


Edit #1: 07 Nov 2017
I have sold off my Mutual funds as the PSEi hits new all time highs and focus now on trading. Good bye to the long term investor part of my self. Will focus now on trading breakouts.  I also added more buying power when I received my salary. Will do it again on December. And by the year end, I will reset my port to start anew on 2018. I need to close my 2017 trading performance (which is now -40% as of this writing) in order to reset my mind.