Athena Trader

I don't blog much these days but December has always been an interesting month for me as I love X'mas save for the rain in Singapore. I'm usually in a good mood due to the festivity especially if I'm overseas soaking in the X'mas lights, enjoying the good food and happily shopping in the cold. I reflect on how I have spent the year and hope that next year would be better. Because no matter how good this year has been, you always want the next year to be better and that's human nature I guess. 2015 has been a particularly challenging year for me in all aspects of my life and I'm glad 2016 is almost here! While I think that trading in 2015 was really difficult for me as I made the transition from investor to trader, I can only work on myself such that 2016 would end on a positive note. Whatever Mr Market throws at me, I've gotta be ready to decide and then act upon it.  But I've not forgotten my investor roots and intend to park some money in ...

I wish Doctors will give positive and realistic advice...if not I rather get the realistic than the positive advice. At least that way I get to prepare myself mentally for what may happen. But I guess Doctors can't do that when they have never gone though the procedure themselves or gotten sick that way before. It's very much like trading and investing if you think about it. For a small time retail trader and investor, we have different resources and pain threshold so when we talk to the professionals, we think that they can give us positive and realistic advice. The truth is, unless they have gone through the path of being a small time retail trader and investor and come out tops, they could try to understand what you are going through but will never experience the pain that is hurting you everyday. Simply because your mind, body and soul reacts to the pain differently from others. They have been hardened by numerous battles, scars aplenty to show their time spent in war ...

I've not blogged for a while because I've been busy with other stuff and nothing came to mind and since this is not a job, I don't see why I've to push out articles for the sake of it. The year is coming to a close so I thought of reviewing how the stocks that I blogged about performed thus far and for simplicity, I'll just take the stock's closing price on the day that I wrote about them (as close as possible) and last Friday's price.                     Then             Now ASX BAL           A$2.80           A$12.64 IVC            A$13.26         A$11.80 SGX C09            S$10.21           S$7.16 C31            S$3.53             S$3.23 U14           ...

If you have read the news lately, you would have heard of Trikomsel restructuring their bonds and this post is to spread the word that they are looking for their fellow bondholders to contact them at trikomselbonds@yahoo.com as strength is in numbers for a case like this.  The bondholders are likely to be accredited investors such as private banking clients with the banks in Singapore or maybe fund houses or institutions etc thus it came as quite a shock initially as this is the first time in 6 years that a SGD denominated bond is seeking a restructure of its bonds which could mean a few things such as no more coupons till the maturity date, extension of maturity tenor, haircut and of course the dreaded loss of principal.  According to Tradehaven where I read this news, Trikomsel held a meeting with their bondholders today, which could mean the private banks who act as custodians of the bonds and maybe some individual retail bondholders who have this bond registered u...

I've been fiddling with my investment portfolio recently which saw me selling off some of my SG holdings. Some dough has been placed into SSB and we decided to give the Perennial Real Estate Holdings retail bond a miss since we have some exposure to them. I'm trying to figure out whether I can shorten my trading timeframe from a few days to just a day and maybe even intra-day which I target to do in a few years time.  I've also been testing out my new trading strategy and so far the picks have been right such that I can exit the next day with a nice profit. I think I'll continue to put this on trial before I officially start as "churning" my trades with just a one day time frame works nicely for me. It's not that swing trading doesn't work for me but sometimes I do get kinda caught in trying to short and long or long and short the same stock which usually takes more than the couple of days if I want to maximise my profits. It would require me ...

According to ACCICB, he only read 1 TA book and learnt the rest online and he told me that this book is the only book I will need to read. A reader left a comment long ago that he wanted to know what book it was, therefore this post is for that purpose and after this post I don't think I have any more posts I should write but haven't! That book seems to be rather hard to buy given that it's so old as it was passed down by ACCICB's dad. The book is  Martin Pring on Market Momentum  and I wouldn't say its a beginner's book since it does expect you to have some basic knowledge of TA. Although I'm a super fast reader, I took a long time to read this book. It's as if I want to digest it slowly, understand it, apply it to live charts of those companies on my watch list etc. I think it was also not a good first book to read if you are clueless about TA. For a beginner, I would recommend Steve Nison's Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques which is ...

I admire people who put themselves through tremendous odds as well as go through what outsiders view as hell to do what they love to do. Everytime I admire a painting or a sculpture or any piece of art, I can only think of how obsessive the creator was but really when you are doing it you don't think it's being obsessive but more of being in the moment and being fully absorbed. In fact, you don't even find it tiring or boring but instead you are energized and excited and just want to reach perfection. Which is why most masters paint the same famous artwork more than once before the final piece is selected. In trading, there's no visible end product to be shown and everyday is a test of many things...your emotions, your mind, your conviction, your capital and the list goes on. Although as time goes by, for me, the effect is lesser and I'm less affected by the changing numbers. Sometimes, you may find yourself thinking at the back of your head even when you are j...

With the recent market volatility, ACCICB who trades the Chinese market told me that he missed buying a stock by a cent which went up 7% the next day. It was a clear morning star reversal pattern and in the last minute the prices just went sky high. This is the tough part when you don't have live prices on screen...at least that's how it affects me for another market.  Both of us concur that it was a clear buy and it was one of the few bright spots in the otherwise sea of red in the Chinese market. This just goes to show how difficult it can be to trade in such a market when you were never ever a pro before so it's like going against the odds which can be mightily satisfying when you do get it right. Provided that you still have the stomach to continue without going bonkers and without losing all your capital.  I do see a lot of worm holes forming over the past few weeks in the charts. Worm holes which was a term coined by ACCICB are basically stocks that are tradi...

I remembered the first time I shorted a stock. That was two months into my full time trading journey and funnily it was done out of frustration of not knowing how to short when I'm seeing red everywhere. I searched online for a while but it seems nobody was telling me how to go about shorting a stock so I just had to do it for myself.  I thought that ACCICB would be the first to short and then I can learn from him how to do it properly but it seems this time I was the garang one as I took a loss on the long position and shorted it instead since I can't hold both short and long positions in IB. The trade ended well and I took a small profit.  My only mistake was that when I closed my short position, I should have long the stock again as it went up. But being a first timer and not knowing what buttons to press to close the short position, I was fumbling but happy that it ended well. That was the start of my shorting career and it seems to sit well on me since gravit...

There was once whereby ACCICB was saved by a penny as he placed a trade in the last few minutes but didn't get it because he was a penny short. The next day, the stock crashed which would have be disastrous as he was going to buy long.  Both of us were looking at the same stock but that night about twenty minutes before market was going to close, I told him that I'm tired from the morning's market and am going to call it a day. I decided to not buy anything although there were 3 stocks I was interested to long, one of which was the same one he was looking at.  Naturally the market crashed that day and the stocks I wanted to short was spot on although I didn't pull the trigger since that time I was still new to shorting. It was more like a blanket market crash with very few bright spots in the market so it was not skill but more like the gravity of the market is just overpowering the fundamentals of the company. Whether now is the right time to go in, I think ...

During earnings season, I often have to ask myself whether I want to play the earnings game. There are times whereby earnings is good but the stock price crashed although it could also go up. Basically there is a 50% chance of either one happening and sometimes it can completely reverse the prevailing trend as well as the overall market sentiment to be one of the few bright sparks in the market. There are times whereby I refrained myself and times where I go in with guns blazing. So far, I've had it both ways which means I'm neither a genius nor an idiot thus earnings day is an important consideration for me. Especially if today's the day to go in and tomorrow is earnings day. If it's a week later, it could be a maybe and if it's a month away, that's pretty far away so it's a go for me. There was once a stock that I own which reported its earnings and somehow Google Finance didn't pick up the date so it was my mistake as I should have checked it t...

When ACCICB and I plan to go away on a holiday, we have to try to time it such that at least one of the markets are closed on some days or such that we have to close or reduce our open positions before we leave. This means that we may have to either hope and pray nothing goes wrong or slow down our buying activities in the days leading to the holiday or simply work while on holiday. So far, we've done all 3 in its various combinations but my preference is to close all or reduce open positions since I do want to enjoy my holiday. Then when we are back, we can start again which sometimes takes time due to jet lag, lack of opportunities etc so going on holiday takes on a whole new meaning. In the past, when we are on holiday I take note of companies that could be worth investing in and I've made some $$$ that way so I call it a win win situation! It's like a scouting trip of some sort. Now I tend to look at the time and try to find a place with free Wifi so that I can...

I've gone off the grid for a while as I can't think of anything to write about. I've a couple of unwritten posts here and there but nothing compelling for me to publish. I also thought of changing my blog name since I'm morphing into more of a trader than an investor due to the change in my circumstances whereby cash flow takes precedence over profits. But somehow Googirl Trader does not sound catchy at all...so I'll just leave it be I guess. Building my Watchlist has been an interesting, tiring and seemingly endless task since I cover multiple markets plus having a switch from investing to trading style means a change in parameters as well. When I was investing, low volume is ok with me since I don't need much liquidity plus I'm holding on for a long period of time. But when I started trading I had to gun for stocks that are liquid so that my orders will get filled and the charts are more reflective of the prices. This became a filter for me when I lit...

Ever since I started investing + trading, I've adopted a few practices which I feel improved my performance. Here's a summary of what works for me: 1. Have a notebook to write your FA and TA notes. It can be digital if you prefer but for me I like to have it on paper and I wrote it down on my previous company's notebook as if to tell myself that this is a path of no return and I had indeed left for greener pastures.  2. Have a notebook to take down notes of your trades/investments, predictions etc. I write down the date and time of my purchase, include charts, pricing, reason for buying, stop loss and the emotions as I make the purchase or sale regardless of whether it is a paper trade or not. I review this notebook when my day is over to serve as a reminder of how the day went and what I should look out for in the days to come. I keep notebook 1 seperate from notebook 2 for easy reference.  3. Have an Excel file with a built in fees calculator for quick ch...

Besides the 'Hai'rami that I wrote about in my last post, ACCICB also came up with the Bollinger Bandit which has caused him much pain when he first started trading. I'm not trivializing TA by giving them such catchy names although it does seem to stick in the head much better it seems. The Bollinger Band is wonderful when your candlesticks are touching them when it's on the uptrend as it often mean that there's a possibility that the next day/days' candlestick would continue to rise given that the other oscillators are in agreement. The thing about oscillators is that by right you are supposed to have the majority of them in agreement before you pull the trigger. However when there's no clear majority, it becomes murky as to whether to pull the trigger or not. Sometimes we can take a small punt or we can just forgo it. There's no right or wrong with any decision you take, just have to make sure that you are right more often that you are wrong.  ...

ACCICB bought many stocks on a harami candlestick only to discover that it is actually a 'hai'rami when the stock went down further. Hai in mandarin means to inflict woe onto others thus you can see why I renamed the harami to 'hai'rami for ACCICB. Harami is a two Japanese candlestick pattern and it is a reversal pattern thus you can imagine ACCICB's reaction when he bought it on the downtrend but it went southwards or sideways instead of going up up and away. I won't go into the details of the harami pattern because there's much information out there so I shouldn't be singing the same tune. The best way to get better at TA is through practice I would say although some people I know may have a gift for TA. Its like they can see things that we can't! Especially with variations of harami patterns occurring in charts, it becomes an art to differentiate your harami from your 'hai'rami.  When I first started out on TA, I realised that if ...

I had some difficulty thinking of what to write in this post and as I read the posts of other bloggers, I thought that I should share about my Chinese beautician who is an excellent source of stock market ideas and everything from China.  Basically we talk about stocks almost all the time since she invests in purely Chinese stocks. Currently ACCICB covers Chinese stocks so I've been thinking of starting my research and who knows I may pick up some stocks along the way. Back when we both didn't know that the other invests/trade, we already get along since we bitch to each other about work and I find her rather similar to me in terms of personality. I admire her candor among other characteristics and over the space of many years, we have become rather close. I do worry when she wants to return back for good and as she will be going home for a month, she told me that she knows of this scheme in China which seems like a deal too good to be true except that it's tru...

One day I decided that I should start applying myself seriously and give TA a shot. I think I was tired of hearing ACCICB tell me how only TA matters and FA is just plain useless in trading. I wanted to figure out for myself which way is the best way everyday in every market. Plus I figured this would help me make better decisions without going through him and I was curious how good or bad I can be at TA.  I started by learning about candlesticks as it seemed pretty important and I believed that it would give an added dimension to decision making. To make myself realize how important this was, I took down notes in my old company notebook...kinda like a reminder of what was behind me and where I am now.  I literally stopped all buying decisions and concentrated on selling the remaining positions in my books. I guess I was just so absorbed in applying candlesticks as well as the other indicators along the way that I wanted to be absolutely sure before I start to buy aga...

It is quite often that ACCICB and I have the same stock in our books. Recently one of them was subjected to a takeover rumour which caused the price to skyrocket once market opened. As the news broke after market closed, I placed an order to sell my lot before market opened the next day and boy did it open strong! I was chided by ACCICB as to why I made such a rushed decision aka I should wait and see whether rumor is true or at least later so that maybe prices will go much higher etc. This was a stock that I held for slightly more than a month as I couldn't exit earlier as it fell slightly short of my exit price. Yes I simply ignored the indicators although back then it was primed to sell and pocket a small profit.  It was a company I was comfortable with, good dividend payer, well liked and covered by analysts, solid business model etc so I was in no hurry to exit except at my target. My philosophy was simple. The rumor was unconfirmed and has a 50% probability of being ...

ACCICB told me about eToro and I went to check it out as I was curious about it. eToro is a social network of sorts whereby you can copy traders/investors trades. It's like Seeking Alpha where crowd sourced is seen as being more accurate than individual analysis except that in eToro you get to make money if the traders/investors you follow are correct. I suspect that the traders/investors being followed are earning more $$$ from having their trades copied than the actual trading itself! There have been some unhappiness in the past about eToro's fees and the way they manage complaints and grouses. I'm happy with the brokers I'm using so while I did signed up with eToro, I didn't fund my account nor did I follow anybody. I guess it's a matter of me wanting to own my skills rather than following somebody who has the skills. It is based in Cyprus and currently allows trades in a few key markets such as NYSE, LSE etc so it's not as comprehensive as other bro...

I remembered the day when ACCICB told me that the time has come to learn how to short the market. I was like Woah exciting times that we live in indeed. He calls it being able to play both sides of the coin and was telling me how the charges are more expensive and has also updated his spreadsheet to include that function.  I was rather chilled when he told me about it as I foresaw that this would be just one more step in his journey from investor to trader. He compares it to jumping off the cliff and all I could say was Thank God it's a long way down. Let's just hope you can get your parachute to work and who knows you may sprout some wings and take off instead.  As with all new things, he started by paper trading first which was a constant refinement of techniques and mistakes being made and what not. Every market has its own peculiarities and since he covers so many, you can imagine how long he has been doing this. After much time, when he was confident enough he move...

A long time ago, I wrote about Million Dollar Traders  which I chanced upon on YouTube. It was rather interesting and a reader wrote in to ask for a review. I thought of going one step further and share what a FT retail trader does as well. I figured that a comparison is more fun than writing about a day in the life of a FT retail trader.  In Million Dollar Traders, a bunch of normal people learnt the ropes from an ex City trader and they start their day by reading the news to gather ideas for the trades they are going to place. Both ACCICB and I are self taught so there's no mentor so to speak to guide us. I'm not sure whether they learnt FA and TA or just TA but I apply both and ACCICB applies mainly TA.  What I do every morning is a little different from them as I go directly into Google Finance whereas ACCICB uses Marketwatch to look at the price charts, read a little news on how the U.S. markets ended last night to see its effect on JPY market when it o...

One of my teachers said the title of this blog post in one of the classes and it has stuck with me ever since. I find it very relevant given my current situation where I am basically valuing every company and I hope to God I'm not changing nothing, because Mr Market is constantly evolving so I'm also refining my ways with the passing of time. Which is funny since I'm self taught and my ways are different from ACCICB and yes we do argue about our ways but since he's still not 100% right each time, I prefer to do it my way which kind of pisses him off when I get it right. I was very tempted to use his way since it looked much easier but I think it didn't quite fit me. To me, many roads lead to riches so to choose a road that sits well with me and consistently allows me to make $$$ is the best way for me. Still, I think that I'm changing my viewpoints and investment style and one of them is by not telling ACCICB what trades I'm doing. There was once when I...

Recently, there has been some talk that the government could be easing off the property measures that were put in place to cool the market and that has seem to make the property counters move positively. ACCICB has been making some buys here and there so I thought of taking a look myself. This blog post was written weeks ago but I never got around to finishing it then ACCICB told me that he tried to buy Capitaland for trading but didn't get it and the next day there was a trading halt due to the issuance of the convertible bonds. I was surprised and we were wondering whether Capitaland will be privatized like Keppel Land but I guess it wouldn't be....? I did some research on 3 of the players, namely CapitaLand, CDL and UOL. Amongst the 3, I like CDL and UOL and will be giving CapitaLand a miss. Source: CapitaLand's website I wanted to buy CapitaLand as I felt that it provides the best coverage for all the different stakes it has in various companies such as Ca...

Recently ACCICB and I have been thinking and looking around to purchase a new car. Our current Japanese car is 8 years old so it was a case of changing now or driving it till scrap in 2 years time. We were advised that changing our car next year would be pointless since there will be no value left in the car to do so. Given the astronomical COE prices in recent years, in fact, I think it has never or hardly dropped since our first car was bought in 2007 and if you use trend forecasting, it seems unlikely to drop in the next 2 years. Thus off we went to the Japanese and Korean car showrooms and test driving was indeed a tiring task. I guess it can be fun if you like cars which funnily ACCICB used to like but now doesn't care for it so much. That was because of an incident in the past that made him realise that family is more important than a physical object and if your family is in pain, no physical object will make you feel better. We finally narrowed the car to the car ...

Actually I don't know why people call the market Mr Market as it feels that the market behaves very much like a woman. Fickle minded, full of mood swings, is often irrational etc. Personally I love and hate Mr Market as it can make me feel like a genius or an idiot, sometimes both at the same time!  I love Mr Market as this is one of the ways to make $$$ using your own capabilities, unless you outsource this job to someone else, then this no longer applies to you. Basically it means no amount of ball sucking, politicking, scheming etc will make Mr Market go the way you want it to be. This is true for the average retail investor with nary a resource.  It also means it doesn't give a shit about your looks, height, race, religion, education, experience as all these are thrown out of the window as you face Mr Market on your own. It's a one to one fight so if you are a competitive person by nature, winning the match can really boost your self esteem. Naturally, you trai...

Recently there has been a lot of talk about financial independence and retiring early. FIRE for short it seems. I know plenty of people around me who have achieved FI but are not RE simply because they are not geared that way. They want to be mentally stimulated at their jobs or businesses and they continue everyday despite being able to tell their bosses to FO.  My ex boss who was retrenched from the bank when he was in his 40s could have RE years ago. He had a world class education from USA, worked in a big shot investment bank in USA and then came back to SG as his parents are here. His house was fully paid up, he had multiple investment properties but he was a man I respected for many reasons. He was highly intelligent but never stingy in mentoring me although he wasn't my mentor as my senior was supposed to do that instead. He was very frugal as he drives a second hand van, dresses simply and his wallet was falling apart but yet he doesn't change it at all. Yet, h...

Your Performance = Your Quality of Strategy x Your Quality of Implementation x Your Timing If you break it up, it could mean:  your Performance in $, %, whatever that makes you happy = your Fundamental Analysis of the Company's Strategy or your Trading Strategy  x your Technical Analysis in terms of execution  x  your Technical Analysis in terms of the entry and exit

ACCICB and I each have our own roles to play...he being the Eye and I being the Brain. Basically I would research on the stocks based on FA and he would decide on entry and exit based on TA. We also played around a little bit...with him using his brain or him using his brain + eye and the results are a mixed bag. I haven't used my eye much so I wouldn't know how well that would work out over the long term. So far it seems to be average and I seriously need to hone my eye but I wonder whether I would be confused or whether I would be making an informed decision. When he was messing around with the various combinations, I was busy using my brain since there's lots to cover just for one stock. Plus, I was also playing around with my own portfolio so that keeps me real busy.  He was fretting over how he can't seem to use his Brain + Eye since it keeps sending him conflicting messages. He may buy using Brain but sell using Eye and what not, so there were quite a l...

I've been sick over the past week so my half prepared post on investment theme is not complete yet as my brain can't seem to function very well when I'm down with flu. I'm still sick as I'm typing this so bear with me if I seem incoherent. However, being sick also gave me the impetus to just buy a counter on the day that it's earnings was released. I'm not sure whether I was thinking correctly but I did a small amount and intend to buy more when the price comes down. Somehow the earnings was good, dividends was good but I guess expectations were higher so it is currently below my buying price. Thus I placed another order to buy more but it didn't go down as much as I had hoped. I think ACCICB was telling me that I'm very brave to buy without knowing how the market would react.  For me, I've owned this counter before and made money from it so I'm comfortable with holding it for a period of time. I wished I was sick a little earlier as...