Back to basics

Have you ever encountered a broken gadget? Let's say your cellphone or laptop, if it hangs or does not work as expected, what do you do? In my experience, I try to close all applications and then restart. If this still does not work, reformat.

Well, it's similar to trading, I had too many inputs on my mind, did not have any rules, too much information, trying to execute everything and poof! Money lost.

Now what do you do after reformatting a computer? Install new Software(s), this time, you only install what you need to work. Greenfield as we call it.

As for me, I read several books, all of it are useful, however, they have basic techniques for all system and no advanced details for any specific. If you want to succeed, you need to focus on 1, and master it. And now, what will I do? I registered in a Fibonacci and Clouds training this coming August 20 hoping to learn as much as I can from Ichi Moku. This will be my focus now, I have read several books regarding this and know how to read the charts, but what I do not know is where to enter, and exit. This is what always kills my trade, too early entry, too early exit.

Even though I have failed, I will not quit. I am already halfway by being here. The goal is still far away, but you are closer now than you were yesterday.

Now I started trading again. Let's see what will happen. I will share also some food for thoughts I have bumped into the past week.

Another lesson I have learned is that there are no shortcuts. The people who are earning in stock market took years of experience and painful losses to master their crafts. And to learn it all without getting hit is impossible. 

Lets see if this trades are good trades. 

Happy investing!

PS: Bookaka provides free sentiments for starters.

First Lessons

First lessons?

Cut loss and trailing stops at specific percentages and do not be greedy. If you already know that it is the resistance, sell before it goes down again. I've learned this the hard way. I held this certain stock and I already know that it was the resistance and have 25% gain, but was too greedy to sell at 25%, I wanted to sell at 35% gain, then it did not hold, and my gains went down to 5%. 

Now, back to basics, I'm back to reading books, watching webinars about basic MA, EMA, Fibonacci, Ichimoku and Harmonics. What have I learned? to do it one step at a time. You cannot learn it all at the same time. 

Can I say that I am progressing? I can't.. Just like Jon Snow, I know nothing. I am guilty of FOMO and wanting to get revenge. Now I lost more. I still preserved some capital and for that I am thankful, although less, it can still work. Now I've exited all my positions, back to start. zero. nada.

For now that is all. I still need to remove my feelings when trading. Everything should be technical, do not get upset when you cut loss and do not be happy when you win. And it is not the case. I feel very down right now, and I am thankful to the blogs I'm reading, quoting this one from Celeste.. 

"Sometimes all we need is someone to believe in us when we don’t."

Will be reading about Ichimoku clouds and Harmonics. I will write again once I go back trading and when I come back, I will be more equipped.

How I got here?

Good day to all.

This is my first time creating a blog in my entire 30 years of existence.You might all be wondering, what is this about? Well, guess what? me too. 

This blog was created to show my past and current journey on financial freedom. Let me tell you a short story about my life and how I got here.

I was born in a mediocre family, we were not rich, but we are as I can say, blessed. Through my parents effort, we were able to live comfortably until I graduated college. Then in a stock traders term, a major pullback happened.

2009 - About a year after graduation, I was working in an IT outsourcing company, our house encountered a fire. Though it was not thoroughly turned into ashes, it made our lives harder. it was a 2-storey house but there was no roof in the 2nd floor. after this event, several bad chain of events happened. Apparently, our house was not insured and it will be foreclosed due to missed payments because my parents business were also in a bad shape, and we found ourselves in a lot of debt.

We sold the house and payed the debt in the bank, we transferred to an apartment and technically, we were back to zero.  Our lifestyle changed, and I believe this was a changing point in our lives.

Fast forward 2 years, I was able to find a higher paying job, (still in IT) with better experience and exposure, learned about stock market, (my then GF, now my wife was a subsriber of Bo Sanchez) and invested in the recommended stocks.

We followed the recommendation from TRC, and we had some gains. Technically, we never lost money but our gains after 2 years was not enough. 

2013 - we got married, and we used some of our gains to fund our wedding, of course on top of all of my savings.

2014 - IPO of DD, our daughter was born. we had a savings but we cannot invest in stocks because we needed to be liquid in case of any emergency.

I was also introduced to TAP by a colleague but I only followed the group, I did not read anything, nor invested.Now, going back to financial freedom, I do not want to give my daughter, the burden of being the insurance policy, of the parents.My story, as you can see, is not your rags to riches, but I think there are also some people like me, who encountered several challenges in life which will test your mental and spiritual and financial toughness.

2015 - we only followed TRC recommendation. MEG was a headache, It stayed at 4 pesos for 2 years. Still no interest from my side, I was hooked in a Car Club (I sold LED park lights) and Shoegame (buying and selling shoes)

2016 - (May) I opened a philstocks account to have a separate account with my wife (COL), asked for a little fund from our stocks and I am trying to become a trader. I followed some hypes from TAP, I gained and lost. I also read the Trading Code for basic trading knowledge, however I was not able to finish it. I tried searching for a reliable trading guide which brought me to start this blog.

And now, I am following the blog of Zeefreaks, and some of his students, taking down notes every night, applying it on my trades and hopefully, be selected in the next ZFT program.

I believe this is enough as an introduction, I will be posting lessons learned, several quotes/inspirations and some funny stuffs.

Regarding my blog name, as in any IT professional, it is always the technical name which was very hard to create, and it was the same issue I had in creating my blog.

I chose this because I love star wars, and I believe I am a learning student of the game (charts, stock market etc).

If you've reached this point, thank you for reading my story, I hope it entertained you and made you follow my blog. Thru this blog, I will document my failures and sucess.

Happy Investing!