Great questions mate, let's see if we can't give you some answers.
As there are many experience investor here, I hope you can shed some lights with me on some thoughts that I have.
Firstly, when you just started investment, how much capital do you invest? (5k, 10k, 50k or certain percentage?)
secondly, if let say there is a financial crisis, will you still hold your stock (wait till it recover for blue chips)? or sell it?
Thirdly, when do you sell your shares?
1) I only had a couple thousand bucks when I started, but the thing I didn't have was knowledge. This is the sort of thing that you only really learn the hard way. Put a few thousand dollars into an ETF; watch it go up a bit; and get comfortable with investing regularly.
2) I buy more. I've still got some SPY that I bought for seventy bucks a share in the depths of March 2009.
3) I sell when I need the money (so, when I retire), or when I do my yearly rebalancing.
(Before anyone asks "what's rebalancing?" - rebalancing is when you look at your portfolio each year, and sell or buy stocks to bring your portfolio's percentages back to where they originally were. This is a great idea, because it disciplines you to sell things that have done well; that methodical process of selling the winners and reinvesting them in less-well-performing asset classes adds 1-2% per year to your returns.)
know that the odds are against u
most ppl lose money
Rubbish. There's no particular trick to making money: the only thing you need to do is remember the "and hold" part of buy and hold. The one thing that will lose you money, guaranteed, is chopping and changing your investment plan just because you're not invested in whatever's hot at the moment.
If you just methodically buy and hold, and don't panic during the downturns (this is the hard part), you'll end up doing well.
I just went down to apply for the CDP account and trading account which will be activate 10 days later. I saw the commission and it stated $25. I was wondering if the new scheme roll out (100 shares per lot), will it affect the commission rate? if not, it will be like super bo hua leh
A lot of people have been asking this, but the answer is "nobody's going to change their commissions". The lot sizes are set by SGX, but the commission amounts are set by the brokers; the two don't have any particular connection.
Also: try Stanchart! No minimum commissions is a hell of a big saving, especially when you only have a small amount to invest: if you're doing $5k into one stock, the Poems $25 minimum is 0.5% of your nut. That's a lot!
Let's be friends.
