Personal Finance: PSEi 8000: Push Mo Yan! - My Takeaways

As mentioned in my previous post, I was able to attend BPI's annual conference earlier today. I almost backed out but glad that I still attended. 

My takeaways:

• The stock market is not a one time thing. If you really want to be a stock market investor, you should invest time and effort to learn and practice it until it becomes a part of your system.
• Different strokes for different folks. Each of the speakers have different stock market strategies. There is no one strategy that works for everyone. It took them time and effort to build their own strategies until they got the right mix for it.
• A newbie investor may be overwhelmed to listen to all of them all at the same time because of the different points of view. So again, it all boils down to investing time and effort to learn the stock market if you want to go this route.
• I realized that I am more excited with stock trading. I should devote more time in studying that and find a way to try it.
• Like in everything else, planning is crucial. You have to have an entry and exit strategies, and what's next after exiting in one or more stocks.
• There are a lot of people who are willing to share their knowledge for free. Learn from them. But don't depend on them to make decisions for you. They won't and you shouldn't ask them to decide for you in the first place, so do your homework. Sabi nga nila lagi, aral muna bago invest. 
• I wish they have sessions like this several times a year. From what I know, this is just an annual event. It's worth what I paid for.
• Money is not everything but money is a tool that would empower you to do the things that are important to you. So to have such resources, it is important to know how to make money work for you.

Cheers to everyone who are taking the time to learn about personal finance, especially to the newbies like me :). May we all find that strategy that is best suited with our lifestyle and personal advocacies.

Personal Finance: PSEi 8000: Push Mo Yan!

What better way to spend a school-free Saturday (prof has prior engagement, hence no classes today) than to attend a seminar on stock market. I learned about the event from a friend who has a friend with a BPI Trade account. I think it is exclusive to BPI Trade account holders so I emailed the organizer first to check if a) they accept walk-ins and b) non-BPI trade account holders. Luckily, it was yes for both, however, we were required to open an BPI Trade account, which I really didn't mind because it has already been part of my plan to open one. 

The conference is titled PSEi 8000: Push Mo Yan! They had four guest speakers, each discussing specific topics. 

Some points I remember from each speaker:

Sir Marvin Germo

• The market will not go up forever so it is important to have a plan
• Build your skills, build your strategies, change as needed, refine if not working and do this repeatedly over a period of time
• Make trading and investing based on your lifestyle
• Leave emotions out of the door
• Create a checklist of the parameters of the stocks you want to buy and use this checklist to trim down the stock list before you start buying
• More time should be spent on pre-work while execution only minutes
• Profit is made when you have conviction. You have conviction when you have confidence. You have confidence when you did all your pre-work!
• Trade with an end goal in mind
• Follow where the cash is. Capitalize where people spend their money on
• Timing is everything

His book, Stock Smarts Stock Investing Made Easy, was also available so I was able to grab one. I'll probably read this during commutes to work.

He also has a blog, which I came across when I was searching for references on personal finance.

Sir Mike Oyson

• The party is still on-going at 11 PM (meaning it is still an uptrend in the stock market) but parties don't last forever because earnings will drive performance
• Investing is not a science but an art because Psychology comes into play
• Global flows will dominate market movements in the next 12 months
• Take note of the push (global) and pull (local) factors 
• The stock market is not really correlated to GDP but more correlated with the US market
• We need more domestic investors to drive the PH market. Right now, it is still driven by foreigners
• For long term investors, just be in the market
• For short term investors, easy money has been made but there is still some money left
• Differentiate the company and the stock (he mentioned about liking some companies but not their stocks because it is just too expensive)
• Choose entry points
• It is not about getting it right. It is how much money you put in the stock market when you are right.
• SWAN - sleep well at night
• Distinguish money for investing and trading
• Do not be a battered investor. Know when to get out
• Know what you own
• Learn and practice

Sir Tony Herbosa

• Trading is not just about percentage gains. You have to think out of the box and not linear.
• Trading is an art form-all about intuition, gut feel, instincts, inspiration
• The game is poker, not blackjack
• Bagger strategy: position trading to the max
• Entry strategies: should have a starting point
• His most striking question: When the stock price of some companies were on an upward trend, what did you do?

He had slides about the waves. He also had some slides about the stocks he is or he has invested in. He was generous in sharing his buy and sell transactions.

Sir Tony is the man behind Traders Apprentice Pilipinas FB group, and more of a trader than an investor. 

Ms. Salve Duplito

• Her topic is about value investing which is not popular but this is the strategy used by Warren Buffet.
• There is a difference between an investor and a speculator. An investor studies the company, while a speculator follows what the trends say.
• It is not all about the money. Money should be used as a tool to do more.
• Her advocacy is to help those who have lower levels of income be financially literate so they would also have the chance of making their lives better.

Ms. Salve is a resident financial adviser of the ANC show On the Money (which I regularly watch).

I emailed the organizers again to see if they can share to us the PowerPoint presentations they used today. I'll share more should they send it.

MTM Program: The Dilemma

The event: midterm exam for Technology Marketing and Commercialization

Scope: Chapters 1-9 of the reference book

Study strategies: 

• Read the book and the prof's presentation slides
• Write down notes (do not encode) for better memory retention
• Reduce sleeping hours to study longer

Next scenes: exam proper.

Prof lets us place our things in front, hands over the exam questions and gives the go signal that we can start.

Me: read the instructions, then the questions. Stared at it, read again, stared-read. Repeat for 10 minutes (or more). Take deep breaths while in my head I'm already screaming "anong sagot sa mga ito?". Heart starts to beat faster (because I don't know the freakin' answer to the questions!!!!). Me doing pep talk with myself to calm down as I try to recall the possible answers to the questions. Pampalubag loob. There were at least 2 questions that I'm sure of the answer. But, these are just 2 questions out of the 7 so it's not even 50% yet! 

After an hour: I was already tempted to submit my paper because what's the point? I don't know what else to write hahaha! But then, I stayed a little longer and tried harder to recall our other topics. 

After 2.5 hours: I give up. Time to stop pretending and submit hehe. 

After exam scenes with some classmates:

"Alam kong alam mo yung sagot sa #1 kasi part mo yun sa report. Wag mo nang sabihin please!"

"Buti na lang di ko na pinagpabukas pa ang exam kasi ganito rin lang pala! At least I did not prolong the agony."

"Ano yun????!!!! Anong mga sagot don???!!!"

"Ayaw ko na munang tignan notes ko!"

"Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha! Hahahahaha!" Yes, dinaan na lang sa tawa ang lahat. 

"Tara kain na tayo. Ni-look forward ko yung pagkain don eh!" (a classmate and I agreed to eat at some resto near our place after the exam)

On the way home, still thinking about the exam. Biglang bumulong ng "yamot, may wrong spelling pa ako!" Hahaha!

Syempre pag-uwi sa bahay, di ko matiis at chineck ko notes ko. Lahat ng sinagot ko after the first hour, sablay na hahaha! Siguro di na alam ni Sir kung iiling ba sya, tatawa, mayayamot o kakamot na lang ng ulo sa mga sagot ko hehehe.

So anyare? I don't know. Best effort yung pagrereview ko dito. Itong subject na ito ang pinaglaanan ko ng matagal sa pagrereview. It's just that there are so many concepts even in one chapter (so imagine all the 9 chapters) that it's hard to remember everything. Plus maybe, my note taking wasn't that effective still. Or maybe, I need to read the book a hundred more times to remember half of the concepts. Kung dito, ganito na, paano pa ang comprehensive exam! Waaaahhh!!!

The dilemma? Di man lang ata ako makaka-experience na ng kahit isang UNO sa grad school! Amp! :p

Huwell. On the flipside, at least the exam is over and I can sleep longer tonight! Time to move on to all the paper writing stuff!

P.s. Dear Sir, pwede po bang sa final exam, take home na lang parang nung R&D subject dati?  Pa-Christmas mo na sa amin hehehehe!

Salamat

Thank you Lord that I was able to get home safely tonight, at the comfort of a cab to boot. Thank you for the provision to do so. I did not even notice that it rained earlier to think that at my back in the office is a window. Kaya po siguro maraming mga pasahero pa rin akong nadaanang naghihintay ng jeep.

Thank you for the easy to prepare meals at home. Happy tummy after only a few minutes! Thank you for making me realize these things, despite the many heartaches brought about by work. I pray that I get the correct and expected results in my testing.

Thank you rin po pala for the yellow butterfly I saw this afternoon. I'd like to believe that it was my mom saying hi. Maybe, even now that she's gone, she still knows the pain I'm going through right now.

Lastly, please help me understand quickly all the things I'm reviewing for my exam. Gusto ko po talagang mag-exam na this Thursday. Amen.