Euro crisis

hello everyone

as i am typing this eurchf had hit another all time historical low at 1.32800. i know many ppl dun realli bother abt it. everyone heard abt the greece debt default but who cares? rite? anyway so far away who bother? sigh.. haizzz i also wish i can dun bother lo. i cannot bo chap coz i am holding a lot of long posistions on the eur. in just 2 weeks euro had broke the previous historical low at 1.43004 and had drop a whopping 1000 pips to now 1.32800. this is almost 50% drop in value in just 1 month. this is realli crazy shit! and if eurchf keep droping like shit. my project lobo can really say bye bye already. haha ok enough of my headache. now lets talk a bit about why and wat happen to currency devalue.

ok we all know greece is in trouble. their streets are on protest and riots, civil servant paid cut. many ppl saying its going to spread to spain and french just raise their retirement age. when a countries people is in mass protest, you know the problem is very serious. now all these countires are using the currency EURO.
i dun realli know why currency devalue when a country is in trouble, but all i know is tat thats the way they handle their problems. lets see a good example was the russia ruble during 1998 crisis.



The Russian financial crisis (also called "Ruble crisis") hit Russia on 17 August 1998. It was triggered by the Asian financial crisis, which started in July 1997. During the ensuing decline in world commodity prices, countries heavily dependent on the export of raw materials were among those most severely hit. Petroleum, natural gas, metals, and timber accounted for more than 80% of Russian exports, leaving the country vulnerable to swings in world prices. Oil was also a major source of government tax revenue


On August 13, 1998, the Russian stock, bond, and currency markets collapsed as a result of investor fears that the government would devalue the ruble, default on domestic debt, or both. Annual yields on ruble denominated bonds were more than 200 percent. The stock market had to be closed for 35 minutes as prices plummeted. When the market closed, it was down 65 percent with a small number of shares actually traded. From January to August the stock market had lost more than 75 percent of its value. The ruble lost 70% of its value against the USD. Russian inflation in 1998 reached 84 percent and welfare costs grew considerably. Many banks, including Inkombank, Oneximbank and Tokobank, were closed down as a result of the crisis


what happen next?




Recovery

Russia bounced back from the August 1998 financial crash with surprising speed. Much of the reason for the recovery is that world oil prices rapidly rose during 1999–2000 (just as falling energy prices on the world market helped to deepen Russia's financial troubles), Another reason is that domestic industries, such as food processing, had benefited from the devaluation.

imagine this situation in layman everyday lives. last time i go malaysia buy pirated DVD is only SGD $5 for one. now for example SGD drop so low until i need to pay $7 for 1 DVD at malaysia. i confirm wont go buy DVD so often because it had become more expensive due to SGD devalue. now in long term malaysia export to sg will reduce becoz everything is more expensive. so extreme devalue is not good for the econmony in the long run. so this crazy eurchf drop must stop soon. how soon? when i also dunno.

ok now lets talk abt another currency, the eurgbp. just abt 1 year ago during my ill fated project "K grid". the situation was almost smiliar to now. i was trading the eurgbp i was having lots of short positions, but the eurgbp keep going higher and higher. (realli bring back sad old memories). then i remember many analysis was saying tat the eur and gbp is going to be 1:1. and i remember reading that the british is not going to intervened. well eurgbp go high high until almost 0.9+++, just enough to give me more white hairs and wiped out my K grid account. now almost 1 year passed, go look back at where eurgbp is now?? it is droppping low to almot 0.8+++. if i were able to tong my account that time i would had be able to surived the crazy eurgbp back then....

another quick example is the recent ausnzd, it had broke the historical high just recently and i was also sweating in my pants. take a look at where is it now? dropping down lioa lo.




now with Project Lobo i was able to handle the DD much better but still i am also stress lo.... even thought i say i not stress i only bluff bluff 1 la.. how can be not stress? wah lau so much money leh i saved in 1 year eating grass how can not be heart pain and stress????????? even i am typing now i am stress... but after i type this i will feel much better . need a place to let go. after i cleared my mind i will be able to handle this eurchf crazy drop!! i am much better to handle this kinda DD now as compared to last year and i know what to do heheehehehe...... realli lucky i never greedy when eurchf was up, i almost tempted to go on back the trades, now think back realli lucky lucky. anyway wish me luck guys to go thru this eurchf bullshit!!!! this time i really need LUCK !!!!! arrggghh go back must fix the 4 leave clover and pray pray !!!!!!!! if i were to be realli make it as forex trader in future i will be going thru this many times so i cannot be stress or kan cheong i must be clam and ride thru the stormz!!!!!!!!

2010 We make our own destiny

hello everyone

its been a very long time since i update this blog, so you think my project lobo is gone? well almost gone. it was almost 1/2 dead when the market went crazy and quite a few pairs breaking historical high and low. i also thought my project lobo is going to die, but hey it is still hanging in strong. this shows that even such a extreme historical incident still is unable to get rid of me haha , project lobo is realli solid zai zai. gave me even more confident that it will let me archive my dreams and goals.



well almost 1/2 a year gone now, so many things had happened and this is a good time to review. i cant drive lancer, never talk to my father, got hair burnt, got to take MRT and bus, maybe might not get job contract renewal, and project lobo almost dead. i really think that this year is a bad year coz everyone say this year is monkey fang tai sui and i never go pray pray this year. vyu thought i was going to crumpled and go down, but she is wrong! i wont allow any of these to affect me in any way. i stayed calm and plan how to over come all these obstecle step by step and eventually i overcome all these hic cups like as if they werent there in the first place. all these are nothing to bring me down. watched Prince of Persia over the weekend and i realli like one of Dastan quote " We make our own destiny"




mmmm.... as u know the market went crazy and my account was almost dead. i accumulated hugh negetive swaps and my account was heavy in draw down. i got to keep my mind off project lobo and i dun wan to think abt it coz all these will create stress and white hairs. so i got a new hobby, i bought a 4 1/2 year old Kia Picanto. at first this small car realli cmi, the interior stinks and got cockroaches, super dirty and drive like shit. after getting it i got to change everything and clean it up and now i love this cute little blue cookie monster with hamster teeth. seriously in sg where car is a liability, there is nothing to gain but only lost. my picanto cost only 2k to drive a year. realli cheap and affordable, and its not a bad car too, even mark webber likes it ok. gettting my own car there is realli a lot of posion tats wat they call, lots of cool stuffs to add and change my car, now i know why ppl all crazy abt cars. but hey dun play play ok anything that is related to automotive is really very expensive ok. just some cheap crap metal or plastic can sell for almost $100 ok. now u know y ppl that play cars must be very rich, or very poor LOL. i also kana a bit of car posion la but lucky i got my super neow neow inner power to stop all these car posion. ok last few mods and i am going to stop liao *promised* hehee. i love my cute picanto with hamster teeth!



ok now lets talk a bit abt my 2010 plan. happy to clear almost all the huge negative swap accumulated and now at least project lobo 1/2 is trading. what goes up will come down and what goes down will come up. i cant get my account to the target amount liao confirm. so now all i hope for this year is to change my account to classic and swap free.if i can archive this i will be very happy already. wish me luck!!!!

2010 New year New goals

Happy new year everyone

Its 2010, hope it will be a great year for everybody. 2009 pass by so fast and i am still waiting for my security clearance for my job. almost doing nothing and get paid for almost a year. everyday just go swim and tennis and reading and cycyling. feel realli shiok like retired. LOL



fail to plan and you plan to fail

The start of the year is always a good time to plan and set short term goals for the year. Last year 2009 my goal was to up my account to MM, i did not manage to but i was close, still i was happy abt wat i had archieved. it wasnt easy to survive one whole year eating grass and dun spend much money. i thought i can do it but i cant haha, tink i spent some money buying tennis stuffs, short trips, PSP, eating, etc

NEW year new plan new short term goals for 2010. Simple goals. This year my plan is to get my account to MMMM. and to wait for a right time to change my account from micro to classic and swap free. hope i will be able to archive this goal this year. i will be very happy if i can do it.

wish me luck guys! take care everybody!

The End of 2009

Hello everyone


It is almost the end of 2009 and in the next few days we will welcome 2010. Merry xmas and happy new year to everyone. hope everyone enjoy their holidays and spent some good time with loves ones and family. Since i started to trade, i had neglected all my friends, family, become super anti social and seldom meet anyone for a long time.

some of my friends starting to know that i am doing some sort of investment. but its very hard for me to explain or even teach them. becoz they are not looking at things from my perpective and they dunno wat i really mean when i say something. and i can sense some ego and they are not ready.

some questions my purpose of a blog, it is just personal and private journal of my thoughts and feelings and notes. pls understand that i am not doing this for profit, publicity, sales, networking, setting of a fund, etc. close friends that know me know that i am very low profile and i just wish to live my live everyday slacking around and doing nothing. i everyday just like to wear t shirt, shorts and crocs. and i never comb my hair.


I had recently attended my buddy wedding. it was really tiring to be brother, wake up so early and run so many places and got to eat disgusting stuffs. but SRG are all steady boys and we had great fun and my brothers all can drink so well. i cant drink so i can only be the AV boy. at the end seeing my friend so happy married, it was all worthwhile.

Project Lobo is almost 1 year old. This 1 year i feel past by so quickly, lots had happened to me. shift office, retrenched, started new job, etc.

All these events doesnt really means anything to me as i had already expected to be retrenched and employee day job doesnt mean anything to me now. I dun say such things to hao lian or brag or sound cool or act zai. everyone got different goals and dreams. This is just my plan and my goal to archive. pls understand all this is all just a means to an end for me.

Since letting Project Lobo running last year Dec, i had seldom touch it. i am just letting it run. during this 1 year i had read a lot but i dun chiong to read now, i just slowly take my time to read. i had gain more knowledge and more confidence as a result of further researches and studies. i enjoy myself everyday, playing tennis, swimming, cycling, reading. finally i am free to catch up with all my friends. to watch movies, to go Jurong bird park, night safari, Zoo, KL watch tennis. i almost feel like semi retired!

This year i noticed a considerable change in me as compare to my first year of trading. when i am a newibie i like to brag and hao lian and angry when ppl look down on me, now I dun feel the need to prove or brag to anyone abt wat i know or do. it feels like a normal job i do everyday. i think i had finally break out of stage 2 of trading, and i am going on to stage 3 now. i cant progress fast now, at this later stage, it is very slow and i will need at least another 2-4 years more to get to next stage. but i am very happy now, things are looking good and i can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.



As promised i will now show a statement from the account of vyu which i had managed for her for the past 1 year. She is the only person that had always believed in me. She listened to all my testing, theories, nonsense, bullshit, scolding, etc. LOL so funny she always trusted me all these time even when i am constantly losing for the first year. without her i might not be trading now or even dare to have such a crazy dream. She had changed my dream, goals, life. and now i given her 26% net profit gained for her account after 1 year. here is the link to her statement.

http://257fx.blogspot.com/2009/01/trade-journel.html

Lastly i wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Good health to everyone. Happy 2010!

Risk Management

hello everyone

today Mr Lobo is going talk about Risk Management. as i had said in a eariler post, risk management is the most important in trading. It is not about the trading system, the various indicators or trading methods, the news, market condidtion, timing, insider tips, etc. It is risk management. remember what i said becoz this is really really important. this is the main difference btw a novice and a old bird, the difference btw losing and winning consistently.

ok now you know how important risk management is in trading. dun say i never share some advice. today now i am going to show you how i manage my trading risk. listen carefully coz this is surely going to help you. dun forget to treat me kopi when u
win some money.



Diversification (finance)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It is the spreading out investments to reduce risks. Because the fluctuations of a single security have less impact on a diverse portfolio, diversification minimizes the risk from any one investment.

There is no secret in reducing risk, the only way to reduce risk is thru Diversification. when i talk abt Diversification i dun mean to invest in 101 all different stuffs. overly Diversification you wont lose much, but you also wont win much too. all you need is 2-3 different investments that is preferbely not linked in any way. i myself only diversify with 2 instruments max. because we are unable to predict or foresee any up or down movement, we need to diversify into 2 or more so
that any single excessive negative movement will only affect us with minimal impact.



ok below here is all the various risk in which i will lose money.
There are

1. Broker Default Risk
2. Account based currency risk
3. Currency Swap Risk
4. Trading System Risk



Broker Default Risk
Probability: Low
Impact:Huge
Plan: To open accounts with 2 different broker. even if in the event that 1 broker fails, i will only be losing 50% of my capital.
Target to complete: 3-4 years

let me first talk abt Broker Default Risk. This is the risk in which the broker that you put all your money is Defaulted. All the money that you had put in the broker is gone too. even though the chances of this happening is quite low, but broker defaults still do happen, eg Swiss Crown Forex recently. we can try to prevent this by doing research and read up before we decide to put our money in a overseas broker. the broker must be regulated, segregated account, dun have too much complains and not too many dirty tricks. if we ever notice that our broker is behaving strangely, withdrawal late, price shading, etc then we should close our account immediatly.



Account based currency risk
Probability: Low
Impact: High
Plan: To have my second broker account in a different currency.
Target to complete: 3-4 years

This is the risk in which the currency you put in the broker depreciate. for example my account is USD, if USD deprecicate then i will lose money when i convert them back to SGD during withdrawal. even though the USDSGD rate is pretty stable. even during US sub prime crisis the exchange rate for USDSGD is still at least 1.3++. the recent lowest was during 2008 was 1.34++. what we can do to prevent being affected badly by USDSGD rate is to build my 2nd broker account in another currecny, most likely EUR as EUR is the second largest currecny in the world. EUr is offen said to be anti USD, this is becoz when USD go down EUR go up. by having both currency account, we can minimise our negative explosure to unpreditable currecny rate movement.



Currency Swap Risk
Probability: High
Impact:Low
Plan: For older trades that has a large negative swap, i will need to change the take profit manually to make sure that the take profit will completely compensate for the swap. Target to complete: Done, TP changed for older trades. Currency Swap Risk is the risk in which the negative swap is more then the profits when the trade is closed, this results in a overall negative losing trade. Currency Swap Risk is calculate from the difference of the national interests rates. it can be positive or negative. it is very hard to have a strategy based on swaps as the interests rates can change very often. some of the trades in which i hold for a long time, more then a year will be expose to this risk. but all we need to do is to increase the target profit from 50 pips to 70pips or even 100 pips, so that the trade will be closed at a profit.



Trading System Risk
Probability: Medium
Impact:High
Target to complete: entire range in 1-2 years, entire range plus another 50% buffer in 3-4 years.

Plan: as of now my DD is never above 50% on my current balance, so there is no need to increase. i know that is still not enough. when i am build my account to the size in which i will withdraw monthly, i will need to have at least a balance to cover the entire range. I will most likely implement this when i had switch to a classic account next year. and of coz in future the best is have another 50% more balance to buffer if i had the extra cash. it is always good to have more to buffer the DD.



ok everyone. this is my risk mangement in a nutshell. for every biz all you need is to take care of all the down size, and you will be left only with the upside. as you can see i got pretty much everything covered up nicely. so now i am only left with the profits in my accounts. hehe how do i know? becoz my accounts and the account i manage for my friend have zero losses for the whole year 2009. hehehe

Famous Traders

Hello everyone

I was at the library over the long weekends, i borrowed this book "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator". This book is like the classic must read for all traders. This book was written in early 1900s about jesse livermore, one of the best trader during that time. Some of the stuffs written in the book still holds even till today.maybe some will say that the market had not change as it is build on men fear and hope and greed. but i would think that it is the way to cheat the everyday joe's money is still the same. Brokers earns from customers losses. in the book the bucket shops calls the customers "Suckers"

a quote from jesse livermore
True suckers thought they can actually beat the game by winning consistently, the reality was that they lost everything in a short time and never came back to a market that they never understood in the first place" A sad truth, many ppl are blind by their ego and tink they "know" what they are doing. It is very hard to get out of the grey area unless you are able to accept the truth and with a open mind.




ok lets talk more abt jesse livermore, ok since he is such a great trader that had won millions. he should be living in luxury and leading a good life rite? WRONG! Livermore gained and lost several multi-million dollar fortunes. It was never disclosed to anyone what happened to the great fortune he had made in the crash of 1929, but he had lost it all. On November 28, 1940, Livermore shot and killed himself.



now lets talk about other famous speculators. the most famous currency speculator is of coz George Soros, "the man who broke the Bank of England".George Soros will always be remembered for his almost $2 billion profits made when he shorted the British Pound. But not too many seem to recall George Sosros's horrific 60%+ losses in his funds when he was caught in the 1987 crash! In fact, Soros even admits that he is rarely more than half right!



ok now guys you heard of the "turtle traders"?. In 1983, Richard Dennis and Bill Eckhardt pondered the idea of whether being a great trader was a nature skills or whether it could be taught. Dennis believed that one could be trained while Eckhardt thought it was an innate skill. In order to settle this bet. Richard Dennis and Bill Eckhardt recruited 21 men and 2 women with little trading experience and taught them a trading system that made Dennis and Eckhardt famous in the industry. When his experiment ended five years later, his Turtles reportedly had earned an aggregate profit of $175 million.

now everyone must think that Richard Dennis must be a great trader ? WRONG again. Dennis managed pools of capital for others in the markets for a while, but withdrew from such management in the spring of 1988 after his clients suffered heavy losses. In the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987, he reportedly lost $10 million, with a total of $50 million reportedly lost in 1987-88. He also managed funds for some time in the mid and late 1990s, closing these operations after losses in the summer of 2000.



another trader call Nicolas Darvas wrote the book "How I Made 2,000,000 in the Stock Market". In the book he describe a Box system based on support/resistent. even though he is trained as a economist in school, he is a professional dancer. New York Attorney General had 'thrown the book' at Darvas charging that his story was 'unqualifiedly false' and that it could find 'ascertainable' profits of only $216,000. Did he continue to trade? No. Later, He went on to explore other fields, the fashion industry,theatrical producing, real estate are just a few. His method is now known as "classic" and wont work in current times. you can try it out yourself if you dont believe hehe.



Here are some more quotes from famous traders/investors

In this business if you're good, you're right six times out of ten. You're never going to be right nine times out of ten.
Peter Lynch

Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble... to give way to hope, fear and greed.
Benjamin Graham

The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios.. The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market.
George Soros

Before this century is over, the Dow Jones Industrial Average will probably be over one million versus around 10,000 now. So for the long-term, the outlook is tremendously bullish if you buy stocks blindly to keep for a century.
John Templeton

Even famous investor guru warren buffet does have huge losses. Both Alan Greenspan and ben bernanke belives that nobody can profits from the markets constantly. Referring to Alan Greenspan's famous remark about the "irrational exuberance" of the market, "Traders think, ‘No one can beat the market — but I can,'" Will i suffer the same fate as the "famous traders"? I hope not! wish me luck guys !!!!

Flexible Exchange Rates

Hello
today me going to copy and paste again from economics textbook
it is ok if you dun understand wat i am saying, becoz even i myself also dun understand LOL.warning going to boring. doesnt matters anyway coz i got no readers, seems like everyone are more interested in gary or gutter blog.

Currently almost all the major currecncy is mostly on dirty float regime. today i am going to talk abt the pro and cons of flexible exchange rates.

Pros
Better adjustments.
flexible exchange rates provide a less painful adjusting to trade imbalance than fixed exchange rates. for example, a deficit with flexible rates will only cause a decline in the foreign exchange value of the currency, but for a fixed rates there will be a recession to reduce income or prices. For political and social reasons, it may be impractical to reduce local currency wages, so instead it is better to lower the value of the national currency. not to mention lowering currency also results in
cheaper exports.

Better Confidence
Flexible exchange rates precent a country from having large deficits, there will be more condidence in the country and the international financial system

Better Liquidity
do not require central banks to hold foreign exchange reserves since there is no need to intervene in the foreign exchange market. insifficient liquidity does not exist with turely flexible rates, and competitive devalieations to have large stocks
of reverves will not take place.

Gains from Freer Trade
tariffs and restrictions are needed when there is deficits with fixed exchange rates. flexible rates avoid the need for these regulations, which are costly to enfore. gains from trade and international investment can be enjoy

Avoid Peso Problem
during 1980s, Mexico fought to keep peso fixed to the USD. to discourage investors from withdrawing funds from mexico, mexico maintain high interests rates. These high rates were the consequence of fixed exchange rates and stifled invesment and job creations. the problem of high interest rates due to delayed devaluation with fixed exchange rates became know as peso problem

Increased independence of policy
Maintaining a fixed exchange rates can force a country to follow the same economics policy as its major trading partners. for example if Canadian were fixed to USD, a deficit in the US will means a surplus in Canada, upwards presure in CANADA and forcing canada to sell canadian dollars and hence increae the canadian money supply.



Here are some arguments against flexible exchange rates

if exports and importers do not know the future exchange rates, they will stick to local markets. this means less international tradeing and overseas investment.

to counter this argument
- flexible rates do not fluctuate wilding, fixed rates do change, often dramatically.
- even if flexible rates are more volatile than fixed exchange rates, there are serval inexpensive ways of avoiding unexpected changes.

under flexible exchange rates, speulators will cause wide swings. these swings are the results of hot money in response to news.
to cause destablization, speculators will have to buy when its high make it go higher and sell when its low to make it lower. this means to buy high and sell low which is a sure recipe for losses.

speculations with fixed rates is destabilizing and profitable. with fixed rates speculators know which direction the rate will move.

Market Efficiency

hello everyone

ok nowadays Mr Lobo seldom talk cock already. makes my blog so boring. i always talk like that i am like a ah beng economist. economics is so boring, i also hate to read those economic text books. i only flip thru them very fast, or i just read certain chapters that interest me only. i only read at night, great for bedtime stories.
today i am not going to talk cock again but also something not so boring la. today mr lobo is going to talk about market efficiency.
does anyone knows what is market efficiency? i always though that market efficiency has only one defination

1st defination
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/market-efficiency.html
Measure of the availability (to all participants in a market) of the information that provides maximum opportunities to buyers and sellers to effect transactions with minimum transaction costs.

in layman terms, what this means is that for any buyer, there is a seller. buyers and sellers are easily match and transactions can take place easily without any problems or delay.


but as i read more economics bullshit, i realised that market efficiency seems to have another defination. although the words used are the same, but now the meaning is different.

2nd defination
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/101502.asp

market efficiency - formulated by Eugene Fama in 1970, suggests that at any given time, prices fully reflect all available information on a particular stock and/or market. Thus, no investor has an advantage in predicting a return on a stock price because no one has access to information not already available to everyone else
as prices respond only to information available in the market, and, because all market participants are able to access to the same information, no one will have the ability to out-profit anyone else.

In efficient markets, prices become not predictable but random, so no investment pattern can be discerned. A planned approach to investment, therefore, cannot be successful.

Furthermore, the hypothesis argues that an investor who outperforms the market does so not out of skill but out of luck. EMH followers say this is due to the laws of probability: at any given time in a market with a large number of investors, some will outperform while other will remain average

ok again in layman terms, what this means is that the market is unpreditable and random and nobody can have an advantage in beating the market. and nobody can win the market consistently and if someone can do that, it is not becoz of skill but pure luck. sometimes you read good news on the internet or papers, but you cant take advantage of it. you go check the prices and the STI had already moved up. this is why sometimes you hear ppl say "the market had already priced in the news" in my view, this sentence is bullshit.



mmmmmmm... if nobody can beat the market consistently, then how does unti trusts funds manager and trading guru and trading trainers making a living?? strange ...... think about it. its not though trading the market then.

ok lo like this, then no need to go learn technical or fundemantal analysis or any bullshit. no need to go read any fincianl report or biz times or news or prepare for upcoming events. YEAH so shiok!

If you never failed, you never lived.

My Failed list
T** stock trading course - CHEATED, 3K wasted
trade SGX stocks - LOSE
short CFD - LOSE
T** US options course - NEVER TRIED after going thru - CHEATED, 2K wasted
Forex T** course - CHEATED, 2K wasted
backtested and tried 101 systems from FF - LOSE
SNDW - think i can predict, crazy joker ... LOSE
Dunno system using Saxo - LOSE 4-5 times in a row using martigale strategy
PID - 5K USD Account gone less then a month
K Grid - Never even start LOSE.
GW - 2K Euro account gone in 3 weeks

FAILED
1. Lost both money and my mind,
2. more white hair and a big tummy
3. fell sick often
4. father looks down on me
5. loner coz friends said i am crazy and talking cock and i will never make it
6. wasted 2 years of my time
7. Retrenched from job
8. friends and colleagues laugh at me being miser, got no money for holidays, a new computer, no money to eat restaurant or buy new clothes

Anyone still interested in trading? LOL

A little about me Part 1

hello everyone

almost 1 year with my Project Lobo and i must say that it is really doing very well. soon i will put up a 1 year past year trade statement from one of the account i manage for my friend.

before i talk about project lobo, let me talk a little about my history first ok.

it was around mid 2007. I had been working at infor for about 6 months. the salary was not bad and i am a si bei neow person. i mange to save some extra money in my bank.

was trying to do something with the money as it is just lying in my bank doing nothing. Its too little for property but i feel there should be a better way of growing my money or doing something rather then leaving it inside the bank. Thomas ang told me abt blue chips, insurance and unit trusts. he talk to me abt economics. at that time i was like "WOW this guy is so knowledable. and i am so impress by him" He talked to me about Boeing aircrafts and US/China polictics. WOW so steady!



Being a IT guy all my student and employee life. i realli dunno where or how to start. there is no one to teach or guide me. i got to learn everything on my own and i dunno where or how to start. started to read a few books on warren buffet and investing.



one of my friend vyu then intro me this good OTC lobang. she had work in that company before and say until zai zai sure win to invest before they IPO. i attended their OTC talks at philip security and it was very very very sales talk. i guess many ppl are blind by greed and they fall into their trap. i myself too was very tempted to invest 10k into it. but i think long and hard and i remember warren buffet said "never to touch anything that you dunno" so i did not invest in the OTC. wah i was damn heng lo coz this whole OTC is realli just a scam to cheat ppl money. u realli got to see with yr own eyes how ppl can cheat money. it is realli very cruel.

I did not invest in the OTC, but it did got me interested in investing/trading .....
I was not so lucky for the first year. It was very hard and I did lost money and more white hairs, wasted money in 3 trading course conducted by smooth talking cheaters and liars.

to be continue....

Risk

Hello boys and girls.

Today Mr Lobo is going to talk about RISK. why is the boardgame call risk? it is becoz you need to roll the dice everytime you attack/defend. rolling the dice is all abt luck, sometimes you win sometimes you lose.
it is becoz of this uncertainty of rolling dice that the boardgame is call RISK, becoz everytime you roll the dice there is a chance of losing.

Everytime i tell ppl i do forex trading, they will sure ask me not risky meh? or they think that i am a high risk taker? I am a very kia su kia si very low risk person, but to talk abt risk we must first understand risk. ok now boys and girls can anyone tell me what you all know about risk? ............... any good answers?

many people always says higher risk equals higher returns, and some ppl think abt risk management as dollars and cents. but if you cant define what is risk, you can never manage your risk or say anything is higher or lower risk.

Here are some dictionary definations of Risk from wiki.

The chance that an investment's actual return will be different than expected. This includes the possibility of losing some or all of the original investment

A fundamental idea in finance is the relationship between risk and return. The greater the amount of risk that an investor is willing to take on, the greater the potential return. The reason for this is that investors need to be compensated for taking on additional risk. 



For example, a U.S. Treasury bond is considered to be one of the safest investments and, when compared to a corporate bond, provides a lower rate of return. The reason for this is that a corporation is much more likely to go bankrupt than the U.S. government. Because the risk of investing in a corporate bond is higher, investors are offered a higher rate of return.

This seems to be the best explanation for risk and higher risk higher returns.

Based on pure paper explanation

Risk is probability of a event which result in a loss.

Risk management is reducing the probability of the event to happen or reduce the impact of the event

Now everyone aggre with what i said? ok now that we know the meaning of Risk and Risk management.

We are able to manage our risk better, But is it really true that stocks/bonds/funds are lower risk then commedities/futures/forex? many ppl assume forex/futures/commedities/speculate/trading is high risk and stocks/bond/bills/insurance/funds/unit trust is low risk.  take a look at the photos below, all of them are 1 year chart i taken yesterday 2 Sep 09.

STI

Gold

Google

US bond

Aberdene fund ( everyday see the adv on MRT, talk like so zai, 10% yearly still dare to sell this shit)

Oil

DBS

Dow

EURUSD

Are you able to tell which chart is without looking the names? nobody can! this is because they all look the same. 1 line moving up and down in random. If they all look the same and move the same, then how can anyone says which is higher or lower risk? they cant becoz they are all the same.

It also depends on the time you enter the market, if you buy at low and manage to sell at high. then you will tink its low risk, but how abt ppl that buy when high and now price fall so low. they will say this is for long term investment. and even if price had been moving up for the past few hours, doesnt mean that it will go up in the next minute. If price go down and you holding a long position you will say its high risk, but what if you holding a short position? you will say it is low risk.

most people only think they know wat they are doing but the fact is they dunno anything and they just assumed becoz everyone is saying or doing it. Sad to tell you the truth but if you dunno wat you are doing then you are GAMBLING! and yes gambling needs lots of luck. Hope i can given you a insight on what risk is excatly, i just hope you think more into managing risk because RISK is not that simple. it is also not just about losing money. think abt it. Good luck

The Pursuit of Happyness

The Pursuit of Happyness is my favourite movie. Very heart warming and motivational movie. Great acting and story line, i recommend everyone to watch it. This is the part where Will Smith tells his son to protect his dream.

Sounds very familiar to me as i had many friends i known saying to me that i am dreaming and i will never make it in FX trading. Even my own father looks down on me. Sometimes when i tell people i do forex trading, they tink i am just talking cock never take me seriously. maybe becoz i still "young" or i dun sounds "pro" enough. but anyway i also dun care la, i am not going to waste them trying to convince them i am serious in my trading and i am 100 times better then those newspaper fake "guru". They are all very skeptic abt any "no need to work also got money ideas", i dun blame them coz this is how i used to think too. must study and work hard in 9-5 job and climb the cooperate ladder and play office polictics games. they tink i doing online sales, MLM, online pimp. WTF!

i dun need to explain wat i am doing to anyone. They never see the results that i have, my plans to quit my job in 3-5 years and live off monthly pasive income from fx trading. I only need to prove to myself and i must make sure i do well and make my plans and dreams all come true in the next 3-5 years. i believe soon they will come asking me to teach or help them.

Almost 1/2 a year now, the account i managed for my friend VYU had a net returns of about 20%. I had expected more and its a bit slow but i am still very happy about Project Lobo results.

We have seen a fair amount of changes recently in the Forex market. Most have been regulatory and had caused many trading systems to be re-developed and re-engineered. The NFA had came out with 2 new trading rules that all US based brokers had to follow. There are no hedging and FIFO. Many people are upset about the new ruling as it will affect their trading methods. I myself will be affected too. But lucky for me broker is based in UK and so i am not affected by these two new rules.

Are these new rules needed? Are these new rules helping us traders? i seriously don't think so. Some old economist believe that nobody can make a consistent living out of trading, this is because proftiable trading methods are consider as a hitch or a problem or a bug. In which will be remove by banning such trading methods or restricting them using rules and regulations. FX is like a casino. Casino ban winning players from coming.

To the policy makers, wining and profiable traders are a headache for them. So when we think we know how to win, they will start to change the rules. I just hope i will be able to find a way out of this. Wish me luck. Hope i will do well.

Snake Oil Salesmen

Hello

ok today i am going to talk about "Get Rich Fast" trading courses. The theory to this kind of business model is very simple. You do not even need to be a profitable trader or have a profitable trading system.

In fact, so simple that you see many adverts in the papers nowadays, options, FX, stocks, etc etc.

1) Dress well
2) Look Rich and successful with a story
3) Promise the sky
4) Charge a high fee for the course
5) Get the students to open trading account with affiliated firms
6) Generate Introducing Broker fees from (5)

Income is generated from 4,5 and 6, especially 6 is a recurring income

Its true you can make money from either market going north or south.
So some of the students will go north, some south. 50% will make money.
Of these 50%, half of them will make money again.

Some of these will be made as "success stories" to attract more people to join, with the dream to be millionairs and get out of the rat race. The rest are probably too ashame to admit they lost money, nobody like to admit that they are losers.
They blame it to bad luck/time, or wonder if there is something wrong with themselves. Wondering if they broke some trading rules set by the trainers. There is easily 1001 rules, enough to fill a whole A4 size page with more rules being added each week. How not to break a rule? Of those who saw the light, there is nothing they can do, when they tried to warn others. They were sued and classified as negative losers or not serious traders.

Even those who initially made money will eventually lose, unless they found the holy grail to read the markets (less chance than kena Toto). I also know there is a sucker born every minute, which is why you see so many snake oil scammers adverts that do not comply to MAS laws and regulations, EVERYDAY.

Yes, you can make money in FX, options and stocks trading, but you have to be a broker or trainer or introducing broker and that is a very stressful and full time job.

Lastly, however promising it looks, do not part with your money for the course. I myself wanted to quit my job and took up the course, paying about $10K for them and investing a lot more, thought i can learn trading to get rich fast. Back then close friends tried to warn me but i ignore them. So experience was my best teacher.

Just like experience will be the best teacher for you the readers of my blog, as I can sense that you too will jump in.

Those who can, TRADE. Those who can't, TEACH. Those who don't know, get CONNED

Nobody will give or sell away the golden goose that lays the golden eggs

Hope this helps, and if you guys do it, may the year of the OX be kind to you.

Bye Infor, i miss you all !

Hello everyone

it's been so long i never update my blog. ppl are complaining to me, saying i never post any updates. after so much had happened to me during the past 1 month, March 2009. i should have lots of things to write about. so much thoughts running in my head - office merger, kana retrenched, added more money to Lobo, found a new job, etc. so many things happen to me at the same time, maybe i was too busy with infor office shift, or maybe i just dunno how and where to start or maybe i am trying to avoid everything. oh well sooner or later, one day i got to write them all here in my blog. Ok so now after so much bullshit, since i got nothing to do at SCS, feeling much better and clam now. let me just start with first event that happened to me.
Leaving Infor.......

March 2009:
i was preparing for Infor office merger from two offices, one at suntec and one at anson, we are going to shift both office to Clifford center on 27 March Fri night. preparing for the move and for the first time at infor, i was very busy, i need to do planning for IT equiments, pack my stuffs and server room rubbish, arrange for write off list and liases with other vendors.

27 March 6pm :
we powered down everyday and we being to move the servers. we had steve and sean fly over to help us and 3 guys from frontier force to come help us with the move. looking at the young guys from frontier force working reminds me of myself 3 years ago when i was their age, that time i still have the passion and fire for IT. Now i just want to slack and do nothing. They did a great job and work till late at night, i am never a late night person but i manage to hang on, and i did nothing much i just use eye power. they work hard till 4am and i felt like shit!

28 March Morning:
sat afternoon went back to suntec to move some things over. was like a zombie and did nothing much that day. went to JJ lin concert later that night, JJ was quite good better then what i expected from a local artist. gogo JJ !!

29 March Morning:
it was a sunday and i came back again to clean up the mess in front of the server room. i saw Brenda, Adeline and stef, these ppl realli can work so hard even sunday also come back and unpack their stuffs, realli impressive work attitude. i can never work as hard and on the ball like them.

The move was very smooth. overall we did not encounter any major problems. and the move was a huge success. i did nothing much actually. most of the work is done by the others , i just help out here and there. walk ard see any users got problems or not.

April 3 2009 4pm:
it was the first week of the shift and it was a friday. i had "meeting" tea break with adeline and jeff. we were talking abt how food are cheaper at clifford as compared to suntec and we said next week mon we are going to try the cheap lasi lemak on 2nd floor golden shoe. of coz we did not get to eat there together, that day was my last day with infor. the day went normal and i was helping out with users and had some virus issues.

5.30pm:
i receviced a call from Jennie our HR telling me to go to her office. i dun suspect anything unusal i though something wrong with her computer. before i went in i saw KC was already sitting inside head down looking at the floor. i knew something was not right! "i am very sad to inform you ... blah blah blah, due to economics crisis blah blah blah..... " Jennie said to me. oh well. what can i say? "ok so how many months salary i get and when is my last day?" i was given 1 month and cash all my leaves, that day was my last day.

5.45pm
its getting late and i left her office and procced to pack my stuffs. my stuffs was pretty much all pack up since i just moved to this new office, the plastic cover on my chair is still there. nothing much to take anyway. i pack my personal stuffs. 2 years working on the Dell Latitude 410. i got a lot of rubbish and crap to copy to my portable HD. thanks KC for letting my keep the HD. KC seems to have no feelings but his eyes were reddish. while waiting for my files to finish copying, i had a nice and long 1 1/2 hour chat with KC. as we talk i can feel the sadness growing in me and my eyes starting to be red and watery. Kc is not a bad boss/person, even though sometimes we disagree on somethings and sometimes i got attitude problem, but we still work quite well together. kc gave me freedom, let me do my own things and dun micro manage me. i guess there are worst boss around, even though i always complain he kia si and play tai chi, but maybe i might miss KC.

3 April 730pm:
i finished copying my files, Adeline and Joel were still around. i can see Adeline was quite shocked and sad to see me leave, afterall we did join infor on the same day and had 2 years together in IT team. i know they are trying to console me, trying to make me feel better, but the more they say nice things then more sad i am. i really dunno what to say to them, the longer i am there the more watery my eyes are. i just wish to quickly leave INFOR and be alone. i quickly shook their hands and said goodbye. KC ecsorted me out. it was already dark ,sun had already set and i waited at the bus stop. i still remember i am blury walking to the bus stop, mind running around with thoughts and memories about infor. took lots of deep breath and sigh at myself. i looked around me and said to myself i wont be coming back here for a long time. i took some photos of new office and the buildings around just for memories. dunno why, had a sudden urge to drink Ribena. hoping something sweet will cheer me up.

I love INFOR, everyone is so nice and friendly. the nicest users i ever had. they treat me so nice, even the most "difficult people" like wendy and mei yoke and alex. they still treat me very good. i thought i can sign on at infor for another few years while i build my lobo account. but good times can never last and i am forced to leave infor.

i always hao lian to jeff that i not scare of being retrenched. and i already got my own plans. but when it really happened, i still feel sad and shock. during my first visit to clifford center, adeline told me that after aus merge office, 1 IT guy got retrenched. now it happened to me too. i was expecting it, afterall i almost everyday do nothing at infor for almost 1 year +. but i did not expect to be so fast and so sudden. maybe a few more months at clifford center when things settle down then they will get rid of me.

i missed waking up late at 830am reaching late and leaving on time, everyday do nothing just surf internet download wii and psp games, sleeping in the server room, after work go play kallang tennis wall, 4pm at firing range everyday with Jeff talking crap FGG, and OL / SYT / OUT from 0-10, "scanning" and slutty index and "deserados index", reading books at harris, shopping at carefour, my corn soup, tea almond ko song and kopi si siew tai, and doing the Lobo Lobo dance inside the lift!

oh well again, good times don't last.

Bye everyone at INFOR, i am sorry i did not have the chance to say farewell properly and shake everyone hands before i leave. many friends are concerened abt me and ask me how am i. i am so touched and grateful. Thanks everyone for being so nice to me during my time there. take care i miss you all!

that night i keep repeating this song "Suga Shikao - Manatsu No Yoru No Yume", this is the theme song from Death Note. it has a very sad and gloomy feel to it, this is excatly how i felt that night. i just listen to this song over and over again and just sit there, mind numb , dun wanna to think abt anything. dun worry i am only moody on that night, now i am ok already. Life still go on =) Enjoy everyone !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yChRazOx14s

i was trying to search for Infor logo on google and this is what i saw LOL




some pics i took for memories

My 1 week desk at Clifford Center, plastic still at my seat never take out yet



our New clifford office, just moved in with all the boxes around. who do we have here? Evelyn Low the invoice machine? so late still working?? stop talking on the phone and go home!



my fav place, everyday after lunch i will be here, read lots of books here
realli miss Suntec Harris!




after 2 years at Suntec Infor, its time to say Goodbye, i love this place!