False Breakout: $PRMX

I planned this trade together with $RWM. Unfortunately both of them happened to be false breakouts. The breakout occurred last October 11, 2017, when $PRMX closed at 7.00 breaking the resistance at 6.85. 

I planned my trade the next day by buying $PRMX at lease a little bit higher, ranging from 7.01-7.05 in order to confirm the breakout. I placed my target price at 7.5 and my stop loss at 6.41. The next day the price opened at 7.01 and I immediately entered and bought 600 shares of  $PRMX at 7.02. Unfortunately for me the bullish rally did not last long and it immediately decline below the 7.00 line. Even after the price drop below my stop loss price, I did not sell and hoped that the price will go up again. 

This trade did not go well for me, as of this day I did not exit the trade an has a potential loss of -10.8%.

A lesson for me on both $RWM and $PRMX is to stick to my trade plan and never be hopeful that my situation would reverse. It's better to cut my losses early than hope and become a forced investor.

False Breakout: $RWM

After coming across the blog of one of the best traders in Philippines, master "zeefreaks". I wanted to adopt his method to my trading. So I modified my technical indicators to the following: SMA 20, SMA 50, SMA 100, SMA 150, MACD. 

I was screening for stocks that broke out of it's previous resistance or near their resistance level and I watched several stocks. One of this stock is $RWM, who broke its resistance last October 2, 2017. The next day my entry strategy is that the price must open higher that the closing of the previous day (4.20) to confirm the breakout. The same really happened and I entered the trade by buying 1000 shares at 4.33. However, the odds were not in my favor when on the same date, $RWM closed at 4.05. 

Because I'm too emotional to exit the trade, I held to my position and waited for it to rise. Luckily, my opportunity came last October 11, 2017, $RWM's price ranged from 4.18-4.46. I could have exited the trade but I was optimistic that the next day the price would go up. I prepared my trading strategy the next day. My target price was 4.80 and my cut loss price is 4.39. However, I was too emotional to admit that I was wrong that I did not cut my losses despite the price dropping to my cut loss level.

Now, I am stuck at -7.73% and is still very emotional to cut my losses. I realized how important it is to live to your strategy faithfully, despite negative effect. In order to protect us from losing more, cutloss price is there to end it. Unfortunately I was unable to exit today from the trade because I was in court the whole day. Hopefully, monday would give me a better opportunity in the market.

September Trading: $FGEN

With the dividend hype of $TUGS still lingering inside my mind. I learned that $FGEN declared P 0.35 per share cash dividends with ex-date of October 5, 2017. So I bought 200 shares of $FGEN at 19.08 last September 29, 2017.

For the past few days the trend was going up up to 19.72. That was on October 4, 2017 or one day before the ex-div date. 

When the ex-div date happened I immediately sold all my shares at P 19.50 yielding P 41.51 gain. lol, (kyah! kyah! pembarya!) I have no idea if that was a good trade or a stupid one. I was afraid that I might lose money so I traded my position the moment I had the opportunity.

TUGS TUGS! TUGS TUGS!

So there was a disclosure coming from $TUGS, who by the way gave me a huge loss amounting to P 10,000.00 when I was still paper trading, last September 5, 2017. Stock divs daw 50%. The next day I bought 1000 shares of $TUGS at 2.68, even though I don't even understand how stock dividends work. (Hype pa more! Sakay pa more!)

When I was reading about stock dividends I was very confused. There's record date, ex-div date, pay date. Gosh! too much date, I can't handle it. But the one thing I learned about stock dividends, is that the only time you'll love the EX coming is the ex-div date. As explained by dividends.com:

"As of the ex-dividend date, buyers of this stock will no longer be entitled to receive the declared dividend and the stock is said to thereafter trade “ex-dividend” (without dividend). Before trading opens on the ex-dividend date, the exchange marks down the share price by the amount of the declared dividend."

I was particularly focused on this stock, I wanted to earn much on this trade, and there were uncertainties coming from the stock dividend declaration that I was preparing.

One day prior to the ex-div date, the stock went up nearing P 3.00 but I was still holding on, holding on the idea of us being together..... (insert beartbreak emoji here) The next day, my heart skipped a beat, the price was low, that I panicked. I read the effect of stock dividends and was able to process the same after several hours. So I decided to hold onto it based on my gut feeling and other persons on social media were also saying, "$TUGS road to 3 petot."  Long story short, I was caught in the hype again. 

After several days I sold $TUGS at 2.36 per share. My port is showing me, after deducting all fees, a loss of P 343.71. Until the present, I'm still holding on the idea that I will gain more from what I lost when I sold my shares. Today, October 13, 2017, is the day that the stock dividend is supposedly up for trading but my portfolio still has no $TUGS in it.

Second Stock Trade: $BRN

So much for my beginner's luck which is also miniscule compared to other traders who earn above 8% before exiting the trade. I experienced my first and not my last defeat when I traded $BRN. I bought 1000 shares of the latter at 1.22 last August 31, 2017 when after a long downtrend, the price opened above the previous close.

I did this despite the indicators telling me not to do so. What could go wrong right? 

Using my RSI, MACD and Moving averages I could see that it's still on a downtrend. the only positive thing that I could see is the RSI that is almost at the bottom, and as the indicators are telling me, I lost. I sold $BRN at 1.19. That folks is how I lost 58.53 in two days. Using my panic selling no jutsu.

First Stock Trade: $IMI

The very first trade that I did with my plankton-level port of Php 6,000.00 is to buy 200 shares of IMI for 14.74 last August 25, 2017.

During that time I was using the following setup in my trading: RSI, SMA 20, EMA 13, MACD.

I know during that time that the MACD has already converged and the rally has already started, but I was waiting for the activation of my account in Philstocks and I was not able to enter during the convergence of the MACD. 

My trading technique during that time was that bullish convergence of my MACD (12,26), an RSI of not over 70 and the SMA 20 below the  EMA 13. I was targeting a short-term bullish trend. I exited my trade at 15.3 yielding P 73.84 profit after fees. Not so great considering that I panicked when the price dropped for a day I sold everything the next day. As of writing this post IMI is already closed at 19.90. I could have gained P 900.00 pesos more or less.

My very first trade was scary, my hands were cold when I pressed the buy order button. I was constantly checking IMI to see if my trade is doing well.

Starting my trading journey

Step 1 to Stock Market a.k.a. (Burning Money)

When I was reviewing for the 2016 bar exams, I was hooked into the concept of trading in the stock market. Also, this the the sole reason why it took me 4 weeks to finish my Merchantile Law review. I was able to read ebooks and watch youtube videos on how to invest in the Philippine Stock Exchange. I was able to read about the famed "Peso-Cost Averaging" and technical and fundamental analysis. As one of the (still) newbie to the stock market, I was introduced after a series of videos to the COL Financial trading platform, but was still skeptical if that was the platform for me. 

Fast forward to 2017 after I passed the bar, (yay!) I then again tried to learn the tricks of the trade. Thanks to "Investagrams" I was able to do paper trading and blow up my port from 100,000.00 to 87,000.00 in a span of 1 month. Because of Investagrams I was able to apply certain trading techniques an understand how the market works (work-in-progess) and how it doesn't work in my favor.

August came and was finally decided to open my account. After researching other trading platforms I decided to go with Philstocks because first, the minimum amount required is P 5,000.00 and second, the mobile app is cool.

So that's how I started my trading journey.