“Right now, there are so many deals. I think the stock market is the only place where people run from discounts.”
@ Garry Singh
I'm 27 years old and I'm working as a chef and living in Christchurch.
What is your background story? When did you first start trading/ investing?
Basically, beginning of this year, I was looking for a platform where I can day trade. I'm more into day trading. I do like long-term investments as well, but I do believe in day trading as well.
I'm very new to day trading. I wish I was in this field ages ago. Like in 2013 I came to New Zealand, and I wish I knew these things before, but I think there is still room to grow in this period.
I also have longer investments, but not on Tiger Brokers, through other brokers.
I follow YouTube influencers, like what they do, I do, and it was working fine till last month. This month, July didn't work out the way I thought, regarding returns. I think it's part of the game. It's not like we can't expect to make money every day and I think in this game you have to lose to win.
Where did you hear about Tiger Trade?
So, I was searching day trading and things like that on Google, and then I saw a Tiger Trade advertisement on my Facebook, I think. And I download the app and then I went from there. I quite like it. Initially, I found it a bit difficult to understand because when you have no background in trading, you don't know about stocks, but I think it's pretty good. So far, so good.
The cool thing about Tiger Brokers is the fees, like the currency conversion and the trade fees are affordable compared to other brokerages, which is practical if you want to make day-to-day trades.
What is your Tiger portfolio size?
I put it in at the beginning of this year, just to check how it works. And then I invested more and I made USD 10,000, after that. Then I started trading with that $10,000.
What are some of the companies or stocks that you're investing in at the moment?
So, I have my long-term, such as Facebook and financials such as JP Morgan, and I also have Chinese stocks. I used to have Alibaba before, but now I have NIO so it's diversifying. It's not like only one stock. I do have New Zealand stocks as well, but my main focus is US stocks.
I used to have companies before, like Vale. I used to have that, but I got out before it crashed. So, I bought that company at about 16, I think, and I went out at about 20. I think I'm okay with those things. I'm not expecting huge, like huge profits from these kinds of companies.
Other stocks are Sofi and another one is Inmode (INMD), I think this is a very fundamentally strong company and very oversold at the moment.
What is your investment style or strategy?
So, for day trading I do check my YouTube guides. I'm following ‘Everything Money’, the other one is ‘Ricky Gutierez’ and one more is ‘Money Investing’. So, these are my main three.
For my long-term portfolio, I check company fundamentals, like how strong their balance sheet and everything is, like how much debt they have and how many shares are on standing there. If any company is doing the share delusion, which is not good, I just avoid those kinds of companies or any hyped company. Hyped companies are good for day trading, I think. And I look at their P/E ratio for my long-term investments.
For day trading, that is more like technical. If it's like, let's say it's an all-time high, I just avoided it and if it's like making a previous high, I avoid it. Yeah. So technical analysis, it's a little bit tricky sometimes it's not 100%. It really depends on the news as well. Sometimes if the news is very bad and it doesn't matter what technicals are good or bad, it will crash.
We can't say like, oh, day trading will make you really rich or whatever, but you have to be careful. It can make you some money, but it can blow your account as well. And I think it is happening right now with me. I'm mentally prepared for these things from day one.
How are your returns now?
I think I am down about 30% on my Tiger Trade account.
If you could go back to when you were younger, what would you tell yourself about investing?
I wish when I was 18-19, I knew to just focus on long-term companies like long-term investments. I would say pick stocks that have great balance sheets, good companies, and all the products you're using, let's say you are using iPhone and if you think people will keep using Apple and their products keep going, choose those companies. I think investing is important.
And if you think your stocks are going down and you get in a panic and you're thinking ‘oh, I'm losing my money’, then patience is the only key and you should stick with these strong companies.
Invest every fortnight or even month, like a small portion of whatever you’re getting, and it will be a benefit within ten years. I wish I did this.
Let's say I invested in Tesla in 2016, let's say I had 1000 shares at that time. Right now, I would have $1 million for doing what nothing is, but for that, you need to have patience as well. I do not encourage day trading. I would still stick to long-term plans and stick with good companies with a long-term horizon.
What stocks or options are you watching right now? Why?
Right now, there are so many deals. I think the stock market is the only place where people run from discounts. There are heaps of discounts like Nvidia or AMD or in JD.com or Alibaba that are in the Chinese market, things like that.
Right now, I'm more focusing on the dollar cost average because I bought Facebook at $200 and now it's about $150. But I'm just waiting for these numbers, the GDP numbers coming on the 28th of July. If it's coming again the next day, it means the US is officially in a recession and if we go into a recession, I'm expecting more pain to come. So, I'm waiting for more crashes, to be honest, I'm okay with that. I think for my long-term portfolio, I feel happy when the stock goes down so I can buy more at cheap prices. At the same time, when day trading goes down, then I don't feel that's what I did.
What are the characteristics of your ideal stocks? For instance, if you had to choose right now, which U.S. stocks do you like best and why?
For long-term investment growth potential, for example, as people are running away from Facebook, they're saying the younger generation doesn't use Facebook and Facebook is a dead company. I don't think Facebook is going anywhere. I do believe in Meta. How would you feel without the internet? How do you feel without having these things around us? Same as Meta once we have it, I think it makes a huge difference. That's my opinion. I do believe in these companies. And I think companies like this have plenty of cash on their balance sheet. It's not going to go bankrupt; it doesn't matter what's happening out there. These are the things I look for in companies.
For new companies such as Nio (ADR), some people think it's a hype stock, but I think Tesla was once a new company as well. And the only thing these new companies need to do, they just need to strengthen their balance sheet and their fundamentals. To be honest, there is no guarantee for that they will grow in the future, but you just have to be patient with these things, I think. I wouldn't put all my cash into one company. It doesn't matter if it's new or sold or doesn't matter, like what they're doing. But if I like their management, I do have their management, like what they do, and I do check their background as well. Like what they're doing. Are they spending money or the company or they are just like, or I check like is any insider buying the companies as well? That's the main point. If insiders are buying the company, that means something is happening. Same as Sofi. Like the insider are buying the companies, they buy back the shares. So, it means they are confident with their company, and it can grow. I won't say it will grow. It can grow in the future.
Do you have any opinion on what's going to happen in the next few months on the global stock market?
My predictions always going wrong, especially in the last couple of weeks. So, before it was going well, but yeah, I'm just waiting for the earning seasons now and after that, we're going to have an FMOC meeting and announce we're doing 75 basis points or 50 basis points or even 100 basis points. And after that, the real test is going to be the GDP number. If we go into decline, there’s going to be more pain for sure. But I don't think we're going into recession this year. That's my opinion.
I think the employment numbers are strong and the producer price indexes. I don't think we are going into recession yet. But yeah, I'm not saying this is the bottom. We might have a bear market rally; we might go a little bit up and then again down. But the lower we go, it's good for our long-term investments.
Are there any memorable achievements that you have made in your investing journey? What did you learn from them?
With day trading,
Are there any mistakes you have made in your investing journey and what did you take from them?
One thing I learned about trading is, that do not deploy your cash all at once. That’s the worst mistake I did, and I won't do it again. I try to manage my emotions in this thing, but it's very hard to manage your emotions. And the other thing I realised in day trading, especially if you fear missing out, let's say I am trading $10,000 and I have already made $2,000 on one day. $2,000, that's a lot. And I keep my money there like the market is like oversold and I'm expecting next day to be same sometime. I did this mistake, I said I leave my money there. I thought it was going to keep going the next day and the next day you come back where you start. So, these are the things I still need to learn in regard to day trading. But if you are like a long-term investor, you don't care about what's happening day to day things, then I think I would still say don't put all your cash at once or don't put all the eggs in one tray, but you must invest, I would say in good companies.
That fear of missing out or if I sell it, this stock might go to an unexpected price. I think that was my worst mistake as well. So, people learn from their mistakes.
Greed. We just need to manage our greed. To be honest, there should be a plan. You should have your journal; you need to write down these things. You need to control your emotions, control your greed, especially and especially in these ratings. I'm not talking about the long term.
In day trading, let's say my goal is to make $500 which I made already and there are a few hours to close the market. And if I'm entering again like I’m overtrading myself, that's the mistake. So, I think over-trading is also a mistake. We just need to set goals, to be honest. Like once it hit, you finish, shut your laptop and deal with the other things.
The other problem is that US timing is totally different from our (New Zealand) timing. So, I bought some shares in pre-market and the next day I woke up early. And all my bank is like, what just happened? Like $1,000 minus, before pre-market, it was going up like $500. And when you wake up and you see like minus $1,000. I think the timing is the main problem.
Long-term investments are a fully different game. It's not like you check in day to day. If you think that Facebook is worth over $700, you don't need to worry about it. Even if it's going $100 tomorrow, I will buy more if it goes to $100 because I do believe in Facebook.
What’s your investment goal for the remainder of 2022?
I won't put more money into stocks until it (the stock market) will go down more. Like, let's say if we go into recession, it's just only ten or 20 more days left to know. Let's say if we go into recession and stock plunges more like 10%, or 15%, I will buy because these are the opportunities you won't get. But let's say if we didn't go into recession or stocks go to the sidelines, going up a little bit and down again, then I don't think I will buy more.
Sometimes you try to trade in a timely market, but that doesn't happen. But I think that's the whole point. You don't have a crystal ball to see what's going to happen.
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