Everybody loses money in the market. EVERYBODY!

Just for Thinking ...

But, I tell you who doesn't lose money in the market. There are two groups of people who don't lose money in the market.

No 1: You turn to daily newspaper ads on investment and trading courses.You will find them. Some will admit that they have lost money; but after going up to the high mountain somewhere, the Mountain God or Goddess have imparted to them some magical powers or weapons that they no longer lose money in the market. They can slaughter the Demons of the market at their will and they have set up altars for you to worship them by parting some of your hard earned money of course and not by mere token donations. Respect, respect, respect hor!

No 2: You often hear them at forums, cboxes, and in the cyber space, the Hoalian royal patron of KopiTIAM and BreadTALK. Lose money TIAM TIAM. Make money TALK TALK.

Track, measure and report it as it is

Why it is so difficult to do it?

It is our human nature to Hoalian and quite difficult to overcome losing face mentality. Especially, when Asian common folks wisdom is we hate to lose face and Teochew got licence to Hoalian? I heard it from my Teochew parents. True or not?

But, once we come to term and accept the truth and reality of the market that everybody loses money in the market; nobody can escape from it. We should be able to track, measure and report as it is since we have accepted losing money is part of the game.

For measuring, we should use XIRR to measure the long-term performance of our portfolio (stocks and cash holding) over market cycles and use ROC to measure the performance of our stocks pick.

Numbers seldom lie unless it is a fraud!