I started serious Investing Journey in Jan 2000 to create wealth through long-term investing and short-term trading; but as from April 2013 my Journey in Investing has changed to create Retirement Income for Life till 85 years old in 2041 for two persons over market cycles of Bull and Bear.

Since 2017 after retiring from full-time job as employee; I am moving towards Investing Nirvana - Freehold Investment Income for Life investing strategy where 100% of investment income from portfolio investment is cashed out to support household expenses i.e. not a single cent of re-investing!

It is 57% (2017 to Aug 2022) to the Land of Investing Nirvana - Freehold Income for Life!


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This blog is authored by an old multi-bagger blue chips stock picker uncle from HDB heartland!

"The market is not your mother. It consists of tough men and women who look for ways to take money away from you instead of pouring milk into your mouth." - Dr. Alexander Elder

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Sunday 8 August 2010

Every Bull and Bear market may impact you differently. Beware!

Someone said  "I'd prefer to view the viability of any method through at least 1 bull and bear market cycle, rather than number of years."
"Keke, what i meant in Singaporean terms was "I've been through 1 bull, 1 bear, then still unscathed. So i qualify to come and hao lian around :)"

Beware! The next few bull and bear markets may impact each of us differently depending on where we are in the stage of investing life cycle i.e. our level of financial resources, financial commitment, size of portfolio and size of investing account. So the experience of encountering the earlier and later bull and bear markets can be different and impact may also be different. The experience of earlier bull and bear may not be directly transferable to the management of expectation of future bull and bear markets.
 
Let me share my own experience on the two great STI Bear markets:
  1. During 1997/98 Asian Financial crisis STI dropped -68.0%
  2. During 2008/09 US sub-prime crisis STI dropped  -62.4%
The Great Bear of 1997/98 didn't really hurt me much. I didn't personally feel that it was a Great Bear even though  STI has dropped -68.0%; but I have witnessed some relatives' lives almost  destroyed by their investment losses.

At that time, I have smaller account size for investing and with a smaller portfolio in the stock market the financial losses was smaller too so not too much financial impact. And also at that time, there was no online trading and we have to trade through brokers. It was not easy for small retail investors to trade frequently through brokers. Since I couldn't trade more even if I have wanted and the number of positions in the market was indirectly capped.

But, in the last Great Bear 2008/09, my account size and portfolio was so much bigger than in 1997/98 so  the financial losses caused by the last bear was much bigger. Furthermore with the availability of online trading, I could trade whenever I wanted and that has resulted in having too many positions in the market and escalate the losses further.

In conclusion

When our investing account is smaller we lose small. When we lose small it may be not too difficult to replace the loss by saving harder e.g. when we lose $30K we can replace it by saving harder.

When our investing account is much bigger we may lose big and replacing a big loss through mere saving may be very tough e.g. when we lose $300K do we think it is easy to replace $300K loss by just saving alone?

When we were younger at early 30s or late 20s losing $30K during 2008/9 Great Bear may not be big deal; but when we are older at late 40s or early 50s losing $300K at the next Great Bear may be living hell to some of us as we may be wondering how to fund our kids future university education and our own retirement.

So the impact we may feel in the future bear and bull markets may be different can be quite obvious depending where we are in our investing life cycle and stages of life.

3 comments:

  1. Hey, that's my comment! I enjoyed reading this article. How long have you been investing/trading?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Can't really recall when? Probably few years after working and followed colleagues into the stock market.

    Serious detailed recording and performance tracking only starting from 2001.

    http://createwealth8888.blogspot.com/2009/07/your-most-important-asset-is-yourself.html

    CreateWealth8888 said: "I already realized it one day in 2001? after reading the book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" that I need to be successful in my active investing in Singapore stocks only so as to free from the "bondage" of employment and that is the reason why I am blogging here."

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeap. Every market cycle will affect us differently. I don't want to miss the next market cycle as it will be most important cycle for me to prove myself that I can really invest. Ha ha!

    ReplyDelete

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