2018 Review

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2019!

First off, I managed to score quite good results in my SUSS studies, achieving 2 B and 1 A- for my first semester of post graduate studies (my previous semester was foundation bridging modules). I felt proud and victorious for 2 days until I checked with my study group pals & realized they scored even better, (A, A- & B+) and (2 B+ & 1A). My competitive spirit felt disappointed for next few days, even though my study pals revealed a few others whom did not do as well as me (2 C+ & 1 B) etc.

This reminds me of a Chinese quote 人心不足 蛇吞象 which translates to when the heart is not satisfied, a snake try to swallow an elephant. Greed and fear are 2 most cited emotions in financial markets, as I reflect more on trading I feel its important to maintain a happenstance & peaceful mind not matter what situations faced. Easy said than done... But for our mental wellness, its necessary to remind ourselves so.

Reflecting my trading in 2018, I am glad I managed to recover the loss over Midas where my arbitrage went wrong when the counter was suspended, resulting in $9,477 loss. I had another 3 big losses, between January to March 18 when I bought SingTel & had to cut loss suffering -$2,165.58 drawdown, this followed by double whammy when I bought Q&M Dental & YZJ Shipping in May but both failed, falling fast and furious resulting in YZJ loss of $1,955.08 and Q&M Dental -$2,1126.80.

On hindsight, it was an achievement in itself to recover from the above losses and I noticed I tried hard to limit my trade size and risk per trade to under $1K. This caused me to trade lesser than my usual trade size of $30K which seem to be better as I battle less in my mind over hold or cut loss.

Overall I managed to breakeven with a small 0.56% return aka $846.47 trading profit (this excludes the 0.8% interest that I received when my monies are not deployed in my trading account).

Q4	$1,241.38
Q4%	0.83%
Q3	$7,037.41
Q3%	4.69%
Q2	-$9,694.08
Q2%	-6.46%
Q2*	-$217.08	* (exclude Midas write off)
Q2%	-0.14%
Q1	$2,261.76
Q1%	1.51%
YTD	$846.47
	0.56%

I made a total of 61 trades, with my only position in UOB Kay Hian with 20,000shares at $1.18cost.

A = 30%+ of channel			22	37%	43%
B = 20%-30%			4	7%
C = 10%-20%			13	22%
D = 10% or less			5	8%	35%
F = Loss			16	27%
			60

I bought UOB Kay Hian as it hits 10years low, its major low was under 90cents during subprime crisis. Its largest shareholder Wee Ee Chao continues to buy its shares and the top 3 parties together held 71.27%

UOB 38.87% MD Wee Ee Chao 27.97% Deputy MD Tang Wee Loke 4.43% Total owned by related top 3 parties 71.27% Dividend yield is about 4.07% distributed once between April to May, ranging from 3.5c to 4.8c; 2018 4.8c, 2017 3.5c, 2016 4.5c, 2015 5c EPS ranged from low 7.28c in 2016 to high 19.25c in 2010. Trailing 12M Sep 18 10.73c, PE Ratio around 11x and Price/book 0.66x (from SGX Stockfacts).

The current stock market downtrend, catalyst by Fed interest rate rise & Trump's partial government shutdown is likely to fall for a few more weeks. Nonetheless, I see various bullish divergences developing & look forward to trade them. Hopefully I will be wise to hold some of them to maximize their longer term profit, instead of focusing too much on short term channels and miss the longer term uptrend ahead.

God bless you in your investments and trading!
Wish you (& myself too) a wiser & even more profitable year in 2019!