Just before I go into the topic proper for today, let me just say I've been in Malaysia for the past 4 days and learnt some stuff from my Dad. And did some thinking on my own too. From my Dad:
1. Our Western counterparts in America, Britain and many other European nations, apparently, have access to more sophiscated investment tools than what we have in Asia, or at least in Singapore. While it is common to hear returns of an average of 5% to 8% per annum locally for mutual funds, the corresponding rate in the States is around 20%, according to my father.
2. Wanna know why MNCs choose to rent properties for their offices instead of buy the space when they expand abroad? And they do that despite the huge probability that the value of prime land appreciates over time, and the fact that they can well afford to buy properties. Odd isn't it? Here's my father's take on it. Corporations aren't interest in anything that doesn't give them 20% returns a year, or at least a similar benchmark rate of returns. Can they be assured of 20% increase in property value over the long run? Well, not quite. And even if it's possible in boom times like recent years, they still sustain huge costs in administation and loan burdens in owning such properties.
And my thoughts struck me the last of the trip. In some sense they are simply extensions of the earlier post on "luck"...but I do realise that life indeed works that way! The Chinese have this saying that goes "An army has to be fed for a thousand days, but would be deployed usefully in just but a day". Pretty poor translation there, but the main point is that all major successes are built over a long period of ardous effort. Another saying goes "the performance lasts 3 minutes, but it takes one 3 years to prepare for it". Again, this saying reflects that spirit of vast preparations required for a short period which people can judge and value your skills and abilities.
Which, come to think of it, is very reflective of life, even in modern times. A middle school (or secondary school, in local context) student would spend some 4 years preparing for just one examination to prove his/her worth in the world of academics, and even then this system is insufficient to judge his aptitude for knowledge. And all things work this way. We prepare in all ernesty to face the task when it comes. And all our efforts goes unrecognised without the test.We face the same end if our prepartions are insufficient or are not done in the right way.
And, it might shock some of you guys who hear this, it applies to dying. In fact, it's an epitomy of sorts. We prepare for death (if we ever do), but yet we can never know when it comes knocking on our doors. Which means we have to be constantly alert, and do full preparations while we are still alive and kicking. Not unlike life and its challenges. In fact, all our effort is directed in building networks, learning to be smart, acquiring knowledge and much more is a prelude to the test, which could be an unexpected situation that is thrown at us. We prove ourselves in the "3 minutes on stage" when we face our audience. Maybe our bosses, managers, relatives, friends, family etc.
So put in all your effort and be always on the alert for opportunities yeah!
I think I would talk about my reflections on the Spiderman 3 later, pretty tired now.
Sunday, 3 June 2007
Monday, 28 May 2007
Do you feel lucky?
Strictly speaking, lucky is not a very proper word to use. But...well...I'm not writing a grammatically correct essay here, am I? In any case, this little entry would somewhat be slightly philosophical, but I'm pretty sure it can be understood by everyone.
But first let me start with some events that occurred for the past 2 days. One, I sustained a fall and, according to the doc, some deep abrasions, due to my stupidity in rollerblading down a slope on the carpark road. A bit of a swollen wound there, but shouldn't be an issue in a week or so.
And, two, I watched the Beauty and the Geek show(on prompting from my gf), and was amazed how geeks can look so cool! Haha...makes me wonder if I can do any better. But I'm sure my gf and I will work something out.
Ok. To the subject proper. I was chatting with my friend(I honestly can't remember who it was) some days back and I was lamenting that the Cashflow game is pretty dependent on one's luck(as with any board game, since it's always an uncertainty with dices and such). And guess what? Instead of objecting to that statement and telling me we can still learn stuff from the game despite that problem, he told me it isn't a problem. In fact, to my friend, it's reality. We don't always have opportunities come along. And what the game requires us to do is to keep trying and lie low till the right opportunity strikes.
And then when "luck" is on your side, wala! One must take all action to take advantage of one's position and work quickly to advance in one's desired path and towards one's dream. On reflection, I noticed that during the game, I can accumulate huge sums of cash-in-hand because of just one deal when the opportunity strikes, but be struggling up till that point financially.
Guess what? My father ever taught me that philosophy(well, very practical philosophy) through this chinese principle. To the traditional Chinese philosophical scholars, they would recognise that in various texts, the triple treasures in the universe is identified as "Heaven", "Earth" and "Human". (Pronounced Tian, Di and Ren in Chinese).
A further expansion of the 3 words would be "Tian Shi", "Di Li", "Ren He". Sounds confusing? Haha, not meant to be yeah. So here's a simple explanation.
"Tian Shi" refers to the element of timing. And it is coupled with "Heaven" because it is pretty true (at least to me) that alot of things we do and encounter are preordained. After all, we can't quite control what occurs to us even if we can take control of how we spend our time on earth yeah?) And we can never know which is the most opportune time for us to make the right decisions.
"Di Li" denotes geography. This refers to being at the right place for events to happen to catapult us in the direction of our life purpose's fulfilment. Again , here we see that we can't control where we are, or rather, whether we are in the right place for such events to occur.
"Ren He" speaks of orderly and harmonious human relationships. But, to my father, it also denotes human effort. And this is absolutely necessary, whether it is relationships or effort, for success to happen.
Oh, and if I haven't mentioned, this is actually a philosophy of success. The key idea is that of the 3 elements, humans, to a great extent, often only have control over the last element. But yet, it is required for all 3 to concur before success can come. For a project to work out, or an aim be fulfilled, the right timing, correct geography, and full effort are all required. Yet, we can only control the last.
So what's the lesson? Should we second guess when the timing and our location be right to act? If we can't control or predict when and where the wind of opportunities come from and arrive, shouldn't we do our utmost to make sure we always have fully exploit our position by maximising our effort and building networks?
So, we can expect that with maximum effort, we could and will still fail. But beyond that, when finally we have our taste of success with the confluence of all 3 elements, then we begin to exert our influence over the first 2 elements. Well, to be honest, I still need to figure out this point and it's validity.
Well, guys, for now, put in your best efforts yeah! You never know when the other 2 elements surface to help you in your quest for your deepest desires.
PS, I disabled the screening for posting of comments. So do try again and post as much you would wish to!
But first let me start with some events that occurred for the past 2 days. One, I sustained a fall and, according to the doc, some deep abrasions, due to my stupidity in rollerblading down a slope on the carpark road. A bit of a swollen wound there, but shouldn't be an issue in a week or so.
And, two, I watched the Beauty and the Geek show(on prompting from my gf), and was amazed how geeks can look so cool! Haha...makes me wonder if I can do any better. But I'm sure my gf and I will work something out.
Ok. To the subject proper. I was chatting with my friend(I honestly can't remember who it was) some days back and I was lamenting that the Cashflow game is pretty dependent on one's luck(as with any board game, since it's always an uncertainty with dices and such). And guess what? Instead of objecting to that statement and telling me we can still learn stuff from the game despite that problem, he told me it isn't a problem. In fact, to my friend, it's reality. We don't always have opportunities come along. And what the game requires us to do is to keep trying and lie low till the right opportunity strikes.
And then when "luck" is on your side, wala! One must take all action to take advantage of one's position and work quickly to advance in one's desired path and towards one's dream. On reflection, I noticed that during the game, I can accumulate huge sums of cash-in-hand because of just one deal when the opportunity strikes, but be struggling up till that point financially.
Guess what? My father ever taught me that philosophy(well, very practical philosophy) through this chinese principle. To the traditional Chinese philosophical scholars, they would recognise that in various texts, the triple treasures in the universe is identified as "Heaven", "Earth" and "Human". (Pronounced Tian, Di and Ren in Chinese).
A further expansion of the 3 words would be "Tian Shi", "Di Li", "Ren He". Sounds confusing? Haha, not meant to be yeah. So here's a simple explanation.
"Tian Shi" refers to the element of timing. And it is coupled with "Heaven" because it is pretty true (at least to me) that alot of things we do and encounter are preordained. After all, we can't quite control what occurs to us even if we can take control of how we spend our time on earth yeah?) And we can never know which is the most opportune time for us to make the right decisions.
"Di Li" denotes geography. This refers to being at the right place for events to happen to catapult us in the direction of our life purpose's fulfilment. Again , here we see that we can't control where we are, or rather, whether we are in the right place for such events to occur.
"Ren He" speaks of orderly and harmonious human relationships. But, to my father, it also denotes human effort. And this is absolutely necessary, whether it is relationships or effort, for success to happen.
Oh, and if I haven't mentioned, this is actually a philosophy of success. The key idea is that of the 3 elements, humans, to a great extent, often only have control over the last element. But yet, it is required for all 3 to concur before success can come. For a project to work out, or an aim be fulfilled, the right timing, correct geography, and full effort are all required. Yet, we can only control the last.
So what's the lesson? Should we second guess when the timing and our location be right to act? If we can't control or predict when and where the wind of opportunities come from and arrive, shouldn't we do our utmost to make sure we always have fully exploit our position by maximising our effort and building networks?
So, we can expect that with maximum effort, we could and will still fail. But beyond that, when finally we have our taste of success with the confluence of all 3 elements, then we begin to exert our influence over the first 2 elements. Well, to be honest, I still need to figure out this point and it's validity.
Well, guys, for now, put in your best efforts yeah! You never know when the other 2 elements surface to help you in your quest for your deepest desires.
PS, I disabled the screening for posting of comments. So do try again and post as much you would wish to!
Thursday, 24 May 2007
A successful trade
Hey guys, just an update on a recent trade that I did yesterday. I believe many people should have made some cash out of the same opportunity. But here's the basic details.
This first graph is a 15min one. And basically I longed the currency close to the bottom of the that steep climb you see there. The entire movement is about 160 pips, stretched over several hours. BUT, as any and every trader knows, you would have set a stop loss and target profit. In this case I took profit at 50pips.
But that wasn't the reason why I entered the trade, the parabolic dots had no influence on me in this trade. But if you guys would care to look at the 4hour chart, it would be easily to realise that the GBP/USD pair has been on a downward trend for the past 2 weeks or so. So according to the channel, the pair was at the lower end of the band, which under usual circumstances, are an excellent place to buy to gain from a northward movement of the currency.
This first graph is a 15min one. And basically I longed the currency close to the bottom of the that steep climb you see there. The entire movement is about 160 pips, stretched over several hours. BUT, as any and every trader knows, you would have set a stop loss and target profit. In this case I took profit at 50pips.
But that wasn't the reason why I entered the trade, the parabolic dots had no influence on me in this trade. But if you guys would care to look at the 4hour chart, it would be easily to realise that the GBP/USD pair has been on a downward trend for the past 2 weeks or so. So according to the channel, the pair was at the lower end of the band, which under usual circumstances, are an excellent place to buy to gain from a northward movement of the currency.
But I guess that's still not enough, so here you can see, on the daily graph, the stachostics actually crossed over the day before the huge move upwards.
At the same time, the pair (if you enlarge the daily graph you'll see it) broke thru the mid term MA in red, which means it has gone back into the long term direction of GBP strengthening/USD depreciating as indicated by the long term MA in blue.
So I hope that's not too difficult to identify? Right? No problem, we all can do it and earn something from this interesting market.
PS. I'm in for a long swing trade for the pair, but it's losing right now. But I've set the stop loss and wait for the retracement action to subside, then I can see some profits.
Wednesday, 23 May 2007
Numerous Updates
Well...I've no idea where to start. First of all, many thanks to my readers for giving me increasing support. In fact, the stats show thatyou guys are reading an average of 2 pages when you visit my blog! Well, it's a good jump from the average of 1.something before this. But you guys aren't numbers on the report! I appreciate the feedback, both on- and offline, regarding my blog. But...please...use the comments section alright? Let's develop some sort of communication flow here.
Ok. Investment updates. My "high risk" investment in a duo who uses a system to gain from international horse betting have scaled down their expected profit margin from 50% to 20%. Accompanied with that, they took in more investments, and would be using a more conservative strategy next month onwards. So their strategy is to pay investors first(20%), build reserve funds, pay themselves, and then distribute bonuses. And so the estimate is a week to accomplish each task. Pretty good idea actually, except that the accumulation of reserves would take more than a week I think. And I totally agree with fund managers paying themselves, but not at the expense of investors. Obviously, we can't have fund managers of losing funds who continue paying themselves substantial amounts, and adding to the fund's negative returns right?
Next, tuition. I just realised my schedule is packed, especially for June, during which my tuition with Miranda's brother would double. She's my girlfriend, if it hasn't been indicative in this blog as yet. And so, to track all this commitments and details of each lesson and homework I dole out and et cetera, I HAVE TO GET A ORGANISER! (well, that serves as a reminder to myself)
I'm beginning to feel strongly about acting in the position of a value-adding tutor. And I'm very happy that I am of assistance and able to help my students understand concepts better thru examples (and yes, I remember I'm supposed to develop a game). Have my doubt regarding one of my year 2 students though. She seems well-equipped for now. But that just means I have to build on that foundation and work with her other problems in interpretation of questions and answering skills.
Did I mention I'm going for the FASS(arts faculty) orientation camp? Sure hope I have a rolling gd time meeting and knowing people. And if possible, get closer to some as well. And, no, that doesn't mean towards girls only. But on a serious note, it'll be a challenge to me to develop my social skills, networks and habits. And at this point in time, it's still a tough nut to me. But I'm still positive I would have lotsa fun then!
Last but not least, congrats to Clarence for the successful trading months, and developing a good trading system which has been well-adopted by the pioneer students. I'm gonna go for the course, and I'm sure I'll gain alot from that. Though battling the urge to forget stop loss levels would still be an uphill battle!
Have a good weekend guys!
Ok. Investment updates. My "high risk" investment in a duo who uses a system to gain from international horse betting have scaled down their expected profit margin from 50% to 20%. Accompanied with that, they took in more investments, and would be using a more conservative strategy next month onwards. So their strategy is to pay investors first(20%), build reserve funds, pay themselves, and then distribute bonuses. And so the estimate is a week to accomplish each task. Pretty good idea actually, except that the accumulation of reserves would take more than a week I think. And I totally agree with fund managers paying themselves, but not at the expense of investors. Obviously, we can't have fund managers of losing funds who continue paying themselves substantial amounts, and adding to the fund's negative returns right?
Next, tuition. I just realised my schedule is packed, especially for June, during which my tuition with Miranda's brother would double. She's my girlfriend, if it hasn't been indicative in this blog as yet. And so, to track all this commitments and details of each lesson and homework I dole out and et cetera, I HAVE TO GET A ORGANISER! (well, that serves as a reminder to myself)
I'm beginning to feel strongly about acting in the position of a value-adding tutor. And I'm very happy that I am of assistance and able to help my students understand concepts better thru examples (and yes, I remember I'm supposed to develop a game). Have my doubt regarding one of my year 2 students though. She seems well-equipped for now. But that just means I have to build on that foundation and work with her other problems in interpretation of questions and answering skills.
Did I mention I'm going for the FASS(arts faculty) orientation camp? Sure hope I have a rolling gd time meeting and knowing people. And if possible, get closer to some as well. And, no, that doesn't mean towards girls only. But on a serious note, it'll be a challenge to me to develop my social skills, networks and habits. And at this point in time, it's still a tough nut to me. But I'm still positive I would have lotsa fun then!
Last but not least, congrats to Clarence for the successful trading months, and developing a good trading system which has been well-adopted by the pioneer students. I'm gonna go for the course, and I'm sure I'll gain alot from that. Though battling the urge to forget stop loss levels would still be an uphill battle!
Have a good weekend guys!
Monday, 21 May 2007
Meeting of the Forex Tripatite
Haha. We met on Saturday. And here I am talking about the meeting on a Tuesday morning. In any case, Firman, Eusof and I met up for a little chat of how we're doing and our approach and foreseeable future in the world of money.
So we had the usual talk. Firman's got a job that can potentially give him more than 2.5k a month. Of course, they expect lots of talant and hardwork from him. And it's a major international marine paint company that just started to venture into Singapore's shipping sector.
Eusof is, well, not very interested in going for any sort of training with any company. He has gone for a marketing company's training so far, and find it full of motivational crap. He's supposed to go for another company's one next. Apparently this company sells oilfield investment to the retail investors, with the minumum to invest as little as 20k.
Now Eusof's direction is mainly to look for ways to boost his passive income. I suppose that makes sense, but I thought that can be done in one's free time, which means time apart from an official activity (like having a job, and tuition, for me). But pretty good direction there. After all, I'm also trying to make sure I can receive a sizeable sum of money that I don't have to work for during my varsity days and beyond.
And, of course, we talked about forex. And, putting aside the possibility that Firman wouldn't have time for forex trading with his involvement in a new job, we decided we should go into an experiment. The basic concept is this. Based on Firman's experience in poker strategies and my understanding of a winning horse-betting system, and Firman's current system of hedging, we decided to try out this system that would basically trade in cycles.
So we would start with a small percentage of our total tradeable volume. And based on our own sets of indicators of reversals and trends, we would trade using standard stop loss and target profits levels. So based on a fixed risk-reward ratio, and the doubling method of increasing our trade amount for any subsequent trade to include the profits of the previous losing trades as well, we would experiment to see if this system works its magic.
So now the next step would be to find out what's the target profit and stop loss level. Firman suggested we find out the historical minimum daily pip ranges and take 2 levels off that. 75% and 50%. And we'll take one each and see who comes out doing better.
Now that's a cool experiment. And I'll be going for a course in July.
Anyone cares to join me to make some money?
So we had the usual talk. Firman's got a job that can potentially give him more than 2.5k a month. Of course, they expect lots of talant and hardwork from him. And it's a major international marine paint company that just started to venture into Singapore's shipping sector.
Eusof is, well, not very interested in going for any sort of training with any company. He has gone for a marketing company's training so far, and find it full of motivational crap. He's supposed to go for another company's one next. Apparently this company sells oilfield investment to the retail investors, with the minumum to invest as little as 20k.
Now Eusof's direction is mainly to look for ways to boost his passive income. I suppose that makes sense, but I thought that can be done in one's free time, which means time apart from an official activity (like having a job, and tuition, for me). But pretty good direction there. After all, I'm also trying to make sure I can receive a sizeable sum of money that I don't have to work for during my varsity days and beyond.
And, of course, we talked about forex. And, putting aside the possibility that Firman wouldn't have time for forex trading with his involvement in a new job, we decided we should go into an experiment. The basic concept is this. Based on Firman's experience in poker strategies and my understanding of a winning horse-betting system, and Firman's current system of hedging, we decided to try out this system that would basically trade in cycles.
So we would start with a small percentage of our total tradeable volume. And based on our own sets of indicators of reversals and trends, we would trade using standard stop loss and target profits levels. So based on a fixed risk-reward ratio, and the doubling method of increasing our trade amount for any subsequent trade to include the profits of the previous losing trades as well, we would experiment to see if this system works its magic.
So now the next step would be to find out what's the target profit and stop loss level. Firman suggested we find out the historical minimum daily pip ranges and take 2 levels off that. 75% and 50%. And we'll take one each and see who comes out doing better.
Now that's a cool experiment. And I'll be going for a course in July.
Anyone cares to join me to make some money?
Now, who's the tutor?
It shouldn't be any surprise at all that I, and the rest of us, learn from people around us.
Confucius said that "When people walk in the company of 3, at least one is my teacher."
Well, I never quite figured why the number "three", but what I think he is trying to get at is the principle of learning from any and everyone around us. It also means we have no right and in no position to despise anyone or being around us.
Well...and here I am...giving tuition to one of my most hardworking and enthusiastic (maybe not towards economics) students...and she taught me a thing or two. Or more. Haha...and I thought I was supposed to be the tutor?
Anyway, I mentioned this issue before. Of changing my image. Of becoming more concerned about the way I look...and most importantly how I feel about myself. At my current stage, I can't say I know how to look and feel good but I don't choose to do it. At least not in the way I perceive.
"We (I) only live once." Her words. Not unheard of before. Basically a call to treasure and make full use of life. And living is...taking daily risks. It is in the willingness to take the chance to get to our destinies that we truly live our lives in full.
My first risk? To get my hair done by a proper hairstylist? And attempt to maintain a...intended hairstyle?
Well, I'll give it a try, and start living.
Confucius said that "When people walk in the company of 3, at least one is my teacher."
Well, I never quite figured why the number "three", but what I think he is trying to get at is the principle of learning from any and everyone around us. It also means we have no right and in no position to despise anyone or being around us.
Well...and here I am...giving tuition to one of my most hardworking and enthusiastic (maybe not towards economics) students...and she taught me a thing or two. Or more. Haha...and I thought I was supposed to be the tutor?
Anyway, I mentioned this issue before. Of changing my image. Of becoming more concerned about the way I look...and most importantly how I feel about myself. At my current stage, I can't say I know how to look and feel good but I don't choose to do it. At least not in the way I perceive.
"We (I) only live once." Her words. Not unheard of before. Basically a call to treasure and make full use of life. And living is...taking daily risks. It is in the willingness to take the chance to get to our destinies that we truly live our lives in full.
My first risk? To get my hair done by a proper hairstylist? And attempt to maintain a...intended hairstyle?
Well, I'll give it a try, and start living.
Sunday, 20 May 2007
Forex Preview Seminar
And, in a bid to write everything I experience and reflected since last friday, here's my second post for the day.
Basically I went to Apollo Centre and attended a forex preview seminar offered by FX:1, a forex-trading company. And they have an investment arm, as well, which is something new on the market. Claim to be MAS-regulated, but no way I can verify that. Nor did I bother. Well, it's honestly not a bad investment, with an approximate 4% returns MONTHLY. Again, I didn't ask it is compounded monthly or annually. But taking the bare minimum...it should be close to 50% interest a year. A very good investment as compared the standard options of Fixed Deposit, Bonds and what not.
But not to me. Maybe, just maybe, it would be a good option later. When I've excess cash, still wouldn't want that money doing lousy work at 3-5% a year. So I'll consider this, or similar, options by then. But for now, I'm willing to take the risk to earn some 20 to 50% a month, partially compounded. Those are supposed to get me more than 500 a month in passive income during my uni days. Possibly surpassing my income from tuition. But those are, at least in theory, supposed to stay in the investment account to make sure the growth of the fund is exponential.
The people were great though. I'm very certain they are all very successful people in whatever fields they are involved in. Especially this guy called Mario, now this guy can really sell by getting to the crux of the matter. Just too bad 3k is still pretty much to me and I've a cheapewr alternative which might not be any lousier.
Moreover, like I told those at the seminar, I think the problem is not so much the system but self discipline. After all, what good is the best instructional manual in the universe if you can't follow the guidelines right?
So that's my journey now. To explore and develop persistence and discipline and emotionless trading.
Basically I went to Apollo Centre and attended a forex preview seminar offered by FX:1, a forex-trading company. And they have an investment arm, as well, which is something new on the market. Claim to be MAS-regulated, but no way I can verify that. Nor did I bother. Well, it's honestly not a bad investment, with an approximate 4% returns MONTHLY. Again, I didn't ask it is compounded monthly or annually. But taking the bare minimum...it should be close to 50% interest a year. A very good investment as compared the standard options of Fixed Deposit, Bonds and what not.
But not to me. Maybe, just maybe, it would be a good option later. When I've excess cash, still wouldn't want that money doing lousy work at 3-5% a year. So I'll consider this, or similar, options by then. But for now, I'm willing to take the risk to earn some 20 to 50% a month, partially compounded. Those are supposed to get me more than 500 a month in passive income during my uni days. Possibly surpassing my income from tuition. But those are, at least in theory, supposed to stay in the investment account to make sure the growth of the fund is exponential.
The people were great though. I'm very certain they are all very successful people in whatever fields they are involved in. Especially this guy called Mario, now this guy can really sell by getting to the crux of the matter. Just too bad 3k is still pretty much to me and I've a cheapewr alternative which might not be any lousier.
Moreover, like I told those at the seminar, I think the problem is not so much the system but self discipline. After all, what good is the best instructional manual in the universe if you can't follow the guidelines right?
So that's my journey now. To explore and develop persistence and discipline and emotionless trading.
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