A brief history 2 - Venturing into stocks

I started investing in stocks in Apr’ 2000.  I am interested in this alternative way to earn money.  Again, I know nothing of stocks but was amazed by the lack of price movement when I read good news about the company in papers.  I remembered mentioning to a friend that to win the game, it is more important to know the psychology of the mass than the earning of the company.

Thinking back now, that’s quite a good observation.  After reading up, I still feel that understanding the psychology of the mass is important.  Or should I say you can make use of opportunities which surfaces when the mass reacted in an irrational manner.

Being new to the game, I was excited and with little knowledge, I traded a lot.  Locking in small profits; selling when the price drops.  I simply go by my gut feelings, thinking that it has gone down a few days and it was at this price two weeks back, and place a bet that it will go up.  Looking back now, these were such irrational behavior.
Luck was on my side I guess.  My portfolio has been erratic instead of going down all the way, such that I only made a loss of $1000 by end of 2002.  A much better performance than my unit trusts.

I have also started investing my CPF in 2001.  Again, with little knowledge, I made a paper loss of $2000 in 2 years.

Still, I was a loss sheep, not knowing anything how to make a consistent profit.  In a way, I was lucky that I do not have much disposal income for me to speculate and I was discipline enough not to go into debt or use money that I need for my daily expenses to play.