Year end reflections for 2019

Few more days to mark the end of year 2019. To sum it up for all of the long investors, it is a good bull run year and Santa Christmas very unlike last year's snow storm. For the nth time, market is unpredictable.

No fancy blog post title for this as usual, not too creative here. The purpose is just to reflect - am I a better person today than yesterday? 

There's no point in comparing our achievements to others' because each us have different starting points, end points and pace in our life journey.


1. Personal growth

  • I have managed to brush up on my cooking skills although still at quite basic level to confess. Compared to a few years back when I can't even crack an egg properly, now I can do a fairly decent sunny side up.

  • I have gotten lazy in my language learning and hasn't progressed beyond saying time in Korean.

  • I have learnt that smooth leather can be repainted with leather acrylic paint. Instead of throwing away my totally usable leather wallet which has grossly discoloured, I bought some leather paint from online for only $20+ to give it a DIY refurbishing. It took 3 days of painting / drying, with 3 layers. Totally worth it.

  • I have seriously and diligently learnt the magic of make up, thanks to YouTube. So... I have tried to put on make up more frequently (don't take putting on concealer and foundation lightly, even drawing eye brows is an art!). I believe I am getting more adept at it and due to my propensity for lateness, I have learnt to do make up in less than 15 minutes. Ask me about the brushes now I can differentiate by looking and tell you what each of them are for. I am still trying to brush up on highlighting and shading skills.

  • I am also practicing mindfulness bit by bit. It's the best thing I have ever learnt this year. Read more about it in my post here. I find it really useful in times of stress to "put our minds away from anxious self talks and just FOCUS on the moment when we feel stress from a problem. RECOGNISE what we are feeling so that we can embrace it and then come to terms with it".

    I wish I knew about the practice of mindfulness in my younger days. It may sound simple but not simple at all.

My next year resolutions are to focus only on things that I can control - sleep earlier, exercise more and procrastinate less. If you are a procrastinator, you might want to watch the short TED video below.



2. Relationship


I regret there wasn't much of a growth in my relationship quotient this year. 

It has been pretty status quo with family, friends and colleagues. However, something different this year is I have got a new-found group of bacherolette friends and created a little BFF chat (haha it's like good o' school days).

They would say I am picky as none of my dates this year progressed beyond couple of casual meals. Somehow I was put off by certain ethics and behaviors of the guys and concluded that I wasn't going to compromise on them. 

How should I put it exactly? 

Perhaps the closest analogy is the choosing of perfume. 

Perfume shopping is something personal and complex. When we shop for perfumes, we don't simply pick the nicest looking bottle and settle for it. We want a scent that we like and suit us. 

As we try them on, some scent could be too strong, some too sweet, and some too boring. Some we simply get put off on the first smallest sniff (like it's poison) and some we do not like it particularly at first but after spraying on our skin we fell in love with it as time goes by.

To find the one with chemistry, we need the right base note, middle note, top note of a perfume. These translate to values, beliefs, abilities, interests and even sense of humour.

What significance do they play?


Values and beliefs - This is the base note that will stay on the skin for a very very long time and may not even come off after a shower. If the values and beliefs are very different between two individuals in a relationship, then there's bound to be much frictions. This includes religious view, definition of filial piety, integrity, ethics - which would translate into how one behaves and responds.


Abilities, knowledge and interests - I would classify them under the perfume middle note. They form the bulk silage of a perfume. 

Abilities must synergize and be of similar level, even though we could be looking at different abilities here. Like in role-playing games, we would want a healer and an attacker leveling up together because they synergize with one another, we wouldn't pair a level 1 healer with a level 10 attacker because a beginner healer is not going to heal the attacker fast enough for hard battles. 

Interests would ensure common topics to chat about. Perhaps >30% match of interests would be good enough.


Sense of humour and romance  - This is the top note. It doesn't last very long but would give the perfume its first impression. Once in a while, we got to spritz the perfume again to inhale the refreshment of its top spicy notes before things sink back to boredom


Ok I better stop here and leave you to go perfume shopping yourself. Oh and FYI, don't spray too much perfume / cologne on a date. It gives an impression that you are trying to cover something hmm.

Practically speaking, I know we can never find a match of 100%, perhaps harder than finding a multi-bagger stock. Even with a perfect match, there is no guarantee that such will last forever; our characters and preferences may undergo subtle changes as we grow older. 

Then what's the key? I have no right to give the answer because my key is still lost in the ocean.

I have one good video to share below (for those who understands Chinese and it is actually applicable for both genders, despite the title) which might shed some light for singles.



If both parties in a relationship cannot 协同进化 then it is likely to become a failure. 
For good communication, we need to apply the principle of 即兴戏剧.

3. Investment


Counters sold this year:

Counter % gain Holding period
Yangzijiang  34% 4 mths
M1 14% 1 year 4 mths
Mapletree Logistics 42% 2 years 10 mths
Thaibev 14% 1 year
Thaibev 28% 10 mths
SGX 17% 9 mths
First Reit 2% 3 mths
UMS 36% 1 year 2 mths
Singtel 2% 2 years

--------------
Counters repurchased at lower price:

Yangzijiang
Singtel

--------------
Achievement unlocked: Didn't sell any counter at a loss. Yippee!
--------------
Realized gains: As above, I didn't count the average % and not revealing figures
--------------
Unrealized gains: 9.7%
--------------
SSB's interest rate is getting from bad to simply atrocious. No more buying of SSB for me until it can increase to above 2%  (which I think is highly unlikely given the current economical environment and low interest rate environment).


Summary of US security trades


I have bought many counters at gains, bought many counters at losses and what's the outcome? 

Zero gain/loss. 

I almost can't believe myself. My self-conceit and lack of discipline have given all my money gained back to Mr Market. And the US market have been hitting highs this year. What the...

So my new mantra is:

"If I can't make money with 1k, what makes me think I can make money with 10k?"

3Ms, must remind myself on position sizing and executing stop losses in a timely manner.  Not forgetting Words of essence from Jesse Livermore.


What gems have I thrown back into the ocean and missed their climb?
  • QQQ
  • Mastercard
  • Walt Disney
  • Monster Bev
  • Alibaba
  • Avenue Therapeutics

I can count myself lucky for not making a dent to my trading account compared to last year.

What made me throw away my gems?

Lack of patience and conviction. 

These are 2 very important traits that have failed many traders.

4. Expenses


Staple expenses stayed pretty much the same. Didn't get to go on any trip that require a 4-digit spending (regretfully).

Being lazy, I don't track all of my expenses except for the big-ticket items. However, I will document my account balances on excel monthly to have a rough idea of how much I have saved. Just like whether we want to take a cup half full or half empty, we can choose to look at how much we spend or how much we saved.




Wishing all a Happy New Year 2020! 


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Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: Contents of this blog are personal opinions and NOT financial advice to buy or sell any mentioned securities, commodities or assets.

Comments

  1. Just track big ticket items us good enough. Pareto principle tracking.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Uncle8888,

      True... The 20/80 rule.

      Delete
  2. Anyoung haseyo Rainbow girl!

    I'm more ohayō gozaimasu as J-pop was more my thing in the 80s ;)

    If someone in your group of bacherolette kakis has a fetish for bald 大叔, remember to jio OK?

    Coffee I buy!

    LOL!


    Stay sassy and pretty pretty always :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi SMOL,

      Anyoung! Thank you for your kind wishes. :)

      Hmm... not that I know of. Perhaps in future when some of us become 脱发大婶, the fetish would change for bald 大叔.
      Haha.

      Delete
  3. hi there, came across your blog and really liked how you did the yearly reflection section. Very real and transparent! Noticed you're holding onto RW0U. We recently published an article giving our thoughts on this particular stock, if you'd like to, feel free to check it out at theasiareport.com

    Hope it helps! =)

    ReplyDelete

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The contents of this blog are author's personal opinions and do not constitute advice to hold, buy or sell any securities, commodities or assets mentioned. I do not guarantee the accuracy and reliability of any information provided, and shall not be liable for any losses incurred from reading my posts or using the materials herein. This blog may contain affiliate links to external sites.