A lot of things to be thankful for

I've been slowly realizing the extent of blessings I've received the past couple of weeks. God is really good. I have been saying "Hay buhay" a lot of times during those dark days. But I shouldn't have been doing that. What I should have been saying was "Thank you Lord for the blessings". I was blinded by the bad things that happened to me (ok, the one major bad thing that happened), which overshadowed the good things that I actually have. And now I have a clearer view to those things. And I'll list them down as a show of gratitude.

1. Family
I am very blessed to have a family who cares so much for me. My mom, especially who even went to HK with me just to help me unwind. Who texted me "gisingin mo lang ako kapag kailangan mo ng kausap". My sister who told me bluntly to "Move on! ano ka ba!". LOL!

2. Friends
I really don't know how my friends ( you know who you are ) put up with me during the dark days. Kahit paulit ulit na at sirang plaka na sinasabi ko, at sinasabi nila, they're still there! I can't believe how much they cared! The nice thing about all these is that I've rekindled so many friendships over the past weeks. I now have weekly get together with the bruhas, and now I even revived my friendship with my high school buddies and made me feel extra special again. For the past years, my life revolved around work, home, and him. And I've missed out so much! And now, I'm loving this life!

3. Finances
Ok, so I have to admit that one of my outlets was to spend spend spend. And now that I think about it, I've very thankful that God has provided me with so much, if not, I wouldn't have been able to sustain my spending spree! And not just that, I've recently got some nice winnings in the stock market, and not to mention that I have some new investments that's giving me a pretty reasonable return every month. Not bad at all! So let's continue to spend! haha

4. Gym
The gym has been my haven for the past couple of weeks. So maybe my attendance to the gym has slowed down a bit, but definitely the gym has helped me get through a lot of things. When I'm feeling sad, I just go to the gym, workout, and I'm fine after wards. Not only was it a good outlet, but it made me more confident about myself! Hitting two birds with one stone!

5. Work
I hated work so bad. I regretted accepting this job, going to Canada, you name it. Everything about it I hated. I wanted to bring back time if I could. I always thought, things would've been different. But you know what, it may have been different, but I wouldn't have experienced and grown as much had I not experienced what I experienced with this job. Unfortunately, a major part of us got lost somewhere during the process but we're already here now, it happened, and we cannot turn back the time. I was going to change things, I told him that, he knew that, but I guess he didn't want to risk any longer. So here I am, took me a while to love what I'm doing again, but I'm slowly getting there.

How can you not be thankful for this job? When I was down in the dumps, I asked for some time off. Talked to my team lead, she told me to go on vacation the following week at once, for two weeks. Then talked to my manager and told me to go, fix up whatever the personal issue was, and then if I need another week or so, let him know. How can you not be thankful for this job?

And after wards, around end of July, they made me team lead. Well it's a admin job, but it's still experience! How can you leave this job now?? Everything tells me to stay put!

So much things to be thankful for... everyday. I learned to appreciate so much in life.

This diagram pretty much simplifies what I felt the past weeks.


I think I'm towards the bottom already. Happy emotions na ako these days eh. :)

yehey!

Yahoo! Made nice profit today sa stock market! :)
After a long time, I'm back!

MER shares - sold!

Finally some good news on the financial side. We were finally able to sold off our MER shares with a nice profit at hand. Took a while to get it up to the price that we wanted it but after almost holding on it for over a year or so, and after getting a couple of stock dividends, finally we sold the shares at 106 a piece.

It's a nice profit considering the MER share was down to 60 at one point (or even lower perhaps? As I have not been monitoring the stock market ever since "recession" came into place).

Thanks to Pangilinan, Ang, Lopez and whoever's fighting over buying Meralco. This catfight was indeed advantageous to investors (well, at that point in time anyway). The stock will eventually correct after this whole issue calms down.

ouch

I can't bear to watch financial market these days.
And I haven't checked my portfolio for a couple of weeks now... and won't be doing so for quite a while.

Will be keeping my remaining money in the banks for now.
My stock investments (given that I wasn't able to sell) will now be a long term hold for now. Nothing much we can do about it. ipits ipits!

back to the market

Dow ended up around 300 points up for the past two trading days, thus, we're hoping for a big rally for the PSE this coming Wednesday when we open again after the long two day holiday. I'm really hoping my stocks rally up so as I can sell one of them when I get it to reach its TP, which is just slightly above my buying price. It's a bit down right now, and so I'm really hoping to really sell it soon. I've had two opportunities to sell it for the past weeks, and well, greed struck, and my target price didn't get hit. So this time around, I lowered my TP and hopefully, before year ends, I get to sell it, so as I can have cash ready for a good stock buy I've been wanting to acquire for quite a while (it's currently at bargain price!!!).

For the next year, I vow to be more careful with my stock market trades. I've had a couple of "ipits" and well, it wasn't a good feeling to keep on waiting for it to go up. So, the next time, I really really have to stick to me cut-loss strategy (I did this once, and it really got me a great deal after selling my losing stocks!).

Can't wait for next year. Hoping for more money to play! More money to save, and of course, more money to earn!

Equity Fund - Christmas gift to my parents

As a Christmas gift to my parents, I've decided to open an equity fund account for them. I made the initial deposit for them, and vowed that when I have extra money, I'll add some more to this fund. Of course, they should do their part as well to add money once in a while to the fund. After all, this is for their future.

This will be a first for them as they really don't know much about investing in the market. My mom's quite jittery as she's more conscious about the value of the investment, as compared to my dad, who's investor profile suggests that he is willing to go through the ups and downs of the market, for as long as in the long run, you still make a hefty profit.

Whatever difference in their investor profiles are, I'm really happy to be able to do something for them, educate them about investing, and of course, preparing them for the future ahead. After all, they're starting around 30 years later, compared to me. This will be a scary ride, which hopefully, will bear its fruits for the years to come.

sold

After holding MEG for around 2.5 months, I finally sold it at 4.4 yesterday. I have a TP for MEG at 5 pesos per share but decided to sell it off as I'm not really comfortable with the state of the market for now. I'll be coming in again once I see a good bargain, or maybe I'd go and try testing out the gold-related and driven stocks for now, like PX for example. I will still monitor the market, and hopefully, will be able to get in the best time possible.

As they say, you buy low, then sell high.

In the green!

After one and and a half month of being in the red zone, my lone property stock has finally pushed forward to the profit side for my portfolio!

TP has been reached! For now, simply continuing the profit run.

Gaining momentum

Finally, after the sub prime crisis, the PSE is now getting back up on its feet. With the DJ gaining record highs again last night, today will most definitely be an awesome day. Looks like my 9:30 am to 12 noon will be a very busy 2 and a half hours once again!

Yesterday, looks like MEG had a breakout reaching a high of 3.9 and closing at 3.85 with lots of foreign buying. At one time, there were 10M at selling side, and after refresh, the 10M disappeared just like that! I checked and saw that JP bought a whole bunch. By 3.75... Phil equity was practically eating the sellers!

To catch up, I bought my shares of GEO to try to buy and average down on my MEG. However, as luck would have it, my bids didn't get hit.

And now, looks like GEO's gonna be mighty fine today. We'll see if we can get back in.

Hoping for a really really good trading day today.

Yesterday's review.

I was expecting a big jump at yesterday's PSE session. Market was up around 70 points, by the end of the session, however, I was expecting, or probably hoping for a bigger jump.

Early minutes of the session, my property stock soared, but ended just 0.15 up by the end of the session. At least it went up, considering it has been sliding down for the past week.

My overall portfolio is still down though, I'm still hoping for a nice really by the end of year.

Hoping for a PSE rally today!

Feds cuts rates by half a point!

DJ was up 300+ points, which just means the Philippine stock market will make a bull run today. If I had loads of cash, I would've bought a lot of stocks yesterday or the past weeks. Unfortunately, given the small money I have (including the money stuck on some lagging stocks), I wasn't able to buy some good stocks. I guess the only consolation for me then is that my laggard stocks will hopefully ease up, to my break even level (if not, at least close to it anyway).

I always get this feeling of "damn, I should've sold early, cut loss, get in once the market stabilizes or has hit bottom". Then again, who wants to cut loss? But I guess that's a new strategy that I have to work on to prevent stuck stocks, and be able to take advantage of other opportunities that come by.

Regardless, no regrets. I'm still looking at a very very happy PSE market today!

Get Rich Slowly's "What if the Stock Market Makes You Nervous?" Article

Let me share to anyone reading my blog an article I stumbled upon regarding the stock market these days: What if the Stock Market Makes You Nervous?

Subprime woes

The recent subprime problems in the US has hit its toll in the Philippine market as well. The PSEi has been down too big, too fast, which is creating panic out of our investors.

Inquirer's Money Smarts explained this subprime issue quite clearly. Now I finally have an idea why this "subprime" terminology has caused so much pain to us investors, especially to small investors like me.

Currently, I'm stuck with a big purchase I recently made, before the whole subprime issue came into the picture. I wasn't able to cut loss at an earlier time, thus, the value of my portfolio has continually slipped for the past week. Since I'm already in a major negative position, I've decided to ride through this outrageous and volatile market, and look at this whole investment as a long term ordeal. After all, I still believe in the fundamentals of this company I've invested in. I'm still looking at a very good market run for the next few years. In case market continues to drop, or market recovery is very slow, I'd just wait it out. Good thing that what I've invested is pretty much extra extra money I have, which I won't be needing anytime soon (hopefully).

Good luck to us all!

IPO Resurgence

The continued IPO resurgence is taking a toll on the market. People are liquidating their stock position in order to buy these IPOs. IPOs are most likely instant profit for the investors. I remember when I bought the IPO of LOTO priced at 8.80 pesos, if I can remember right. Opening day it surged up to its ceiling of around 16 pesos! That's practically 100% increase in your investment.

But not all IPOs perform similarly. Take for instance the recent Aboitiz Power IPO. It closed flat on opening day, and then even went down further the next day.

But I think the GMA IPO, which will beging trading end of the month will make it big.

Daytrading!

Seeing an actively traded stock earlier during trading hours, it took me a while to actually gather up the courage, to sell some existing holdings of mine, at a commission loss, and try to ride up with the current trend. And I was able to do so.

I was observing the stock when its price was hovering around 0.64... and saw it go all the way up to 0.74. By the time it was hovering around 0.72, that was when I decided to sell my other holdings, and buy this one, hoping it would hit up.

And it did.

I was able to get in at 0.72, and sell during its intraday high of 0.75. Not bad. Around eight hundred to a thousand peso profit for the day. Not bad at all.

Moreover, the excitement was better. :) Every refresh of the sellers' and buyers' bid gave me chills!!!

I'm gonna try this one again next time, when another opportunity shows up! :)

Patience???

My patience is being tested...

My second liners are down even if they're fundamentally sound.

And my work life's shit.

Wtf?

The Start of Investing in the Stock Market

Last saturday, Chase and I decided to fix up our excel sheet to track down our stock investments. We're not big investors yet, but we're starting to get really interested in investing in the market.

I, personally, invest through my real life broker who works wonders for me. I know I'm a very small client, which is why I do not expect that my broker give me all the time and attention for my inquiries. Let's just say that for now, once he recommends, I research, and then push on with the transaction if I believe it's pretty good as well. This small task has done wonders for me, but credit definitely goes to my broker!

Of course, trading with a real life broker is awesome, but we also need to learn the ins and outs of trading. There's so much scientific knowledge to be learned from this experience, which is also the reason why I opted to sign up for an online account, so that I can have a real feel as to how to actually perform transactions, research, etc. And it's been a pretty good ride I should say.

So given this preparation that we are going through, we are slowly learning the ropes of investing our hard earned cash. Unfortunately for me, I'm quite cash strapped as of the moment due to my laptop purchase recently.

It's really nice that Chase's getting into it as well!