How to decide when to sell stocks?

KLCI closed at 1439 this week, 5% lower than earlier week. I have regretted that I did not sell GAMUDA at earlier week, it was at 28% profit but now down to 16%. You know! I have been telling myself to sell at 20% profit, so far this approach is not followed consistently. With Vietnam project worth RM10 billion and RM12 billion double tracking rail project, I thought GAMUDA share will go up further and I should sell at >30 profit..too bad, this week market selling pressure emerged with fear of US in recession.

What should I do now? sell or wait? What is the consistent way to make money from stock market?

For now, I will try to keep my approach to sell at 20% profit....don't be greedy. Also, I will close my monthly account with 5% ROI, if possible. Monthly closing account appeared to be effective as I must sell profitable shares on hand. It helps me to achieve 22% ROI in 2007.

KLCI breaches 1,500 points

The Edge Singapore quoted "While the US, Europe and Singapore markets still down from their highs of late 2007, you'd think that 1H08 is shaping up to be sobering phase. But guess which two markets are hitting new highs? Malaysia and India markets"

KLCI closed at 1,516 last week, up 37% over the past year. I think it is the result of the talk of election is just round the corner and the traditional pre-Chinese New Year rallies.

MRCB gained 19% to 3.04 and AnnJoo rose by 17% to 3.36 from my previous post. With high oil price, and likely recession in the US, I think it is still a volatile market, so fasten your seat belt and enjoy this short term rally.

Stock Watch List - January

High oil price, housing slump, credit crunch, and now to the end of the week, unemployment rate has hit a 2 year high of 5%. It looks like recession in US is in the card.

What should you expect? Volatility

Volatility is not all bad. It generates positive and negative returns. Its important to have a emotionless, well research approach and pick fundamentally healthy stocks. It is not easy job, you need to spend considerable time to read articles, company financial reports, analyst reports, news, magazines, etc.

My watch list for this month is;
1. MRCB (2.50, KLSE). Election is around the corner with expectation of new project awards.
2. AnnJoo Resource (2.88, KLSE). Anticipation of construction boom and expanding economy. 8.7 PE with Div Yield of 5.8%.
3. Starbuck (18.11, DOW). Share fell due to cost, consumer spending and increased competition from the likes of Mcdonald's and Dunkin Donut. Its 52 week range 18.00 - 36.61. Most probably, it will go down further but its brand still stick and trustworthy among consumers. Be patient and watch the stock closely for a turnaround.

Happy investing

The Pursuit of Happyness

I watched 2 movies "Evan Almighty" and "The Pursuit of Happyness" during Christmas & New Year Holiday. Both were excellence movies but I would like to mention The Pursuit of Happyness. When it comes to determination and persistence, this movie says it all! If you think you have terrible life and financial situation is really really bad, watch this movie! It will put thing in perspective.

The Pursuit of Happyness, is based on the astounding true story of a homeless, single father. Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is a single father who insists on raising his five-year-old son (Jaden Smith) while he struggles to make ends meet. Even when Chris found an intern position at stock brokerage firm, it pays no money. Forced to live in shelter, enduring hardship and difficulties as he goes through the program, Chris makes his dream came true.

My New Year Resolution 2008

2008 will be a year of making more money and giving back to society. I want to double the profit making from stock markets from 22% to 44% and I want to be a volunteer and blood donors (if eligible). I have clocked 4 volunteer hours in 2007, I believe I can do more in 2008.

What?
- Achieve 44% ROI from stock markets
- Learn to make money online
- Be a competence communicator
- Be an active volunteer by spending > 10 volunteer hours
- Be a blood donor for 1st time (if i am eligible)

How?
- Engage new technique to generate more money from stock markets and spend minimum 1 hour/day to do research and learn new technique.
- Spend 5-6 hours per week on generating quality content for my blog
- Complete 10 assignment from competence communicator manual
- Actively participate in helping hands activities organized by company
- Attend volunteer orientation to get better understanding on the journey to volunteering and type of volunteering opportunity out there
- Donate blood 2 times (March & September)

To achieve all these goals, I must stay healthy, physically fit and happy throughout the coming 365 days. Of course, I will continue to exercise 3 times a week and recently, I signed up 10 session fitness programme starting 4th January. To stay positive and happy, I will be friend with positive peoples and read lot of self improvement and motivational books and charge my body with positive currents. Lastly, I want to spend more quality time with my family, I want them to know I love them and that whatever we do together is important and special.

Wishing you and your loved ones a very happy and fantastic 2008

Toastmasters Club - Speak More in Learning Environment (SMILE)

It is a quite day in the office, so I can take the opportunity to publish new post today. I thought I should share my personal experience with Toastmasters Club.
For those who don't know me, I am the quite one who sits in the back and never volunteer for presentations or speeches. In the office, I don't like to talk either, I like actions (thats why it is so boring today) but, I find it difficult to survive in this corporate world, if I focus on tasks or actions alone, somehow I need to express my thought and feeling in professional manner at all levels.
I was lucky that a trainer from the presentation and communication skill course recommended me to continue improving my presentation skill by attending Toastmasters Club at the end of the course. I remembered when I saw myself on the video recorded by the trainer, it was really really horrible (wrong posture, bad eye contact not sure why I always look at my shoe, so many ah, eh, etc...). I don't think I can convenience the audiences.
From that day onwards, I decided to go ahead to search for Toastmasters club in my neighborhood. Officially, I joined a Toastmasters club on Feb 8th 2004. Frankly, I find it very hard to go to the meeting fortnightly, most importantly, I find it so embarrass to foul myself in front of members, therefore, I have not been very active at the beginning. I took my sweet time to prepare my projects and avoid attend meeting.
But now, when I looked back, I must said that it has an excellent 10 series of projects with specific objectives for beginner and depending on the club, the meeting is full of fun, learning new thing and meeting new peoples. By the way, I still have problem with table topic, sometime my mind goes blank, cannot think fast and speak within the given 2 mins, but I know that every attempt that I made either table topic or prepared speeches, I will learn and I know I will learn, speak more in the positive learning environment. Do take a look at this website, Toastmasters International and consider to join as a member.

Forex Loss: What A Disappointment !!!

With the news that Yahoo President bought 47,000 shares of Yahoo! stock at $23.60 in August and most importantly, I have faith with new CEO Jerry Yang is back to run the company. It worked at Apple and Dell, I think it works at Yahoo! too. So, I decided to buy some YHOO's shares. It was the second stock that I owned since I made a debut in US stock market in August 2007.
I was really happy as YHOO's share price soared to a record high of $34.08 toward the end of October, that was 43% profit. Unfortunately, it did not last long as the share price declined a week later and kept declining until I sold it at $25.23 with 5.99% profit. Not a bad investment though until I received a credit note stated that I made a loss from the investment. What A Disappointment! Yes, I forgot to consider Forex into account (-6.02%). Luckily, it was not a big amount.
Lesson learned from this incident; I created new field for exchange rate in the excel sheet and I will learn value investing technique for US stock market. Happy investing
Wish you all a very Merry Christmas