Wolf Money(Lone Wolf Investor 3rd anniversary and introduction)
Welcome to the new investment year when everyone starts on a clean slate. If you have done well last year, give yourself a pat on the back, if you had not done so, there is no need to be despondent. Just dust yourself and carry on. I wish everyone a profitable year ahead. For those who are new to my blog, let me take this opportunity to welcome you. I hope you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it.
Let me make a formal introduction of myself and the purpose of my blog. Today is the third anniversary of Lone Wolf Investor. The blog was officially launched on the 10th of Jan 2021, at the height of the COVID 19 pandemic. During the pandemic, there was nothing much an individual could do besides exercising and watching tele. A few of my former clients came back to me after I left the stock brokering industry to sow the seeds on sharing my investment ideas. I thought why not start a blog to pen my thoughts on investments and my personal views on issues close to my heart. After 3 years and 390 articles, I find it amazing even to myself, I continue to write and share my views without any loss of enthusiasm.
The purpose of this blog is neither to promote a get-rich fast scheme nor to obtain personal fame. It is also not a silver bullet for any financial difficulties you may face in life. Mistakes will be made along your investment journey. We are after all humans, and human made human mistakes. Investments must be anchored by fundamental analysis. Your investments may grow very slowly initially, day by day, a little by little, eventually with the passage of time and the right attitude, a big snowball could one day be achieved. There is no finishing line in your investment race. One should go at a pace comfortable to yourself. It is not a race against your neighbours or your friends. I always have this to share with my former clients, if you start buying stocks at age 21, you will continue to buy stocks in your 70s. It is seriously that addictive to engage in stock market activity, precisely the same reason which kept Warren Buffett going. He loves it so much that he would not let the other fund managers have all the fun alone. Suffering a terminal loss is the only thing that throws a person off course prematurely.
The blog is my thank you to those friends and partners whom I share a common passion for value investing and it also double up as my investment journal for my son. I will be delighted if he could appreciate my thought process when he grows up. I hope this blog can act as your own conduit for change, to take charge of your own financial destiny, be the Captain of your own financial ship. No one care about your financial wellbeing more than yourself.
I realised very early the cruel reality of living poor. Home was a rental flat, barely a quarter size of a basketball court with 5 others. Life was tough, there was no extra money for toys, no birthday celebration and a restaurant meal was a rare treat on other's goodwill invitation to their wedding. I worked during school holidays if I want to afford extra stuff for myself, the notion of personal financial responsibility deeply entrenched in me very early on. The growing years shaped my desire to do well financially in life especially having seen the dark side of poverty. I vow never to step back into the abyss of financial austerity.
The solitary environment of doing guard duties during my National Service(NS) years help strengthen my thought process about money. That little voice in me constantly reminds me the need to improve my financial situation. Having good financial literacy is a start. For a good 2 years while serving my NS, I got hold of anything financial related to read, from books to newspapers. I glued myself to TV, watching CNA for the latest financial news during my duty breaks. Very few people must have remembered Channel News Asia was once a pure financial channel similar to Bloomberg TV. It was never easy to get a grasp with all those financial jargons since I had no prior financial knowledge. I am forever thankful to the Airforce Captain who had provided me with his used copies of financial newspapers during those monotonous day doing guard duty. The free read formed my foundation knowledge of the financial market. I have continue my love for reading ever since.
The naivety of my young self once had an idea “If I could squeeze out 0.000001% of the total stock market wealth, I could become a rich man”. In theory, that is true, doing it is the difficult part 😅. The first thing I did when I turned 21, one day after my birthday, legally old enough to open a stock brokering account, to put into practice what I learned from all those reading during NS. I remember the staff in charge of account opening at GK Goh Securities (Now CGS-CIMB Securities) asked, why am I interested in opening a trading account at such a young age? She seems concerned due to my youthfulness. My reply was crisp and clear : “ I want to make money”. She was kind enough to caution me about the downside risk of the stock market. I got the account opened without a limit. It was a cash account requiring a cash deposit upfront before I could buy any share. I put in a thousand dollars of my savings, which was all the money I could conjured out and got my investment journey going. I had some initial success in making low value gains, but I didn’t gain any traction in understanding the complexity of the stock market.
After my National Service stint, I was determined to do one better. What job would allow me to understand the financial market better? A job as a stockbroker ticked all the right boxes. It is a job where I can be close enough to the stock market and learn the rope of making money. Getting a license as a stockbroker was difficult. First, by passing all those difficult but necessary examinations, second, to fulfil a banker’s guarantee of $30,000 for a license application was a far higher mountain to climb for a broke young man who had just finished his NS. NS literally meant “No Saving”. I had to postpone my application by a year to work in a sales job for a Fortune 500 financial firm to raise the seed money required to start my career as a Trading Representative. Through God’s amazing grace, I was able to save that $30,000 within a year.
To be a stockbroker is everything but glamorous, it was nothing close to the Hollywood romanticism of the profession in the movie, Wolf of Wall Street. As a self-employed, I was basically on my own. I am the call centre, the customer relationship officer, the marketing department, the credit manager and sometimes as Dear Agony’s hotline for clients’ other problems when they need to pour their souls out. The pressure on your moral compass of losing your clients’ money far exceeds losing your own. I never advocate contra trading because friendship with my clients, now good friends, are worth much more than the commission. Statically, from a financial point, active trading doesn’t make the investors any richer or wiser, an overwhelming number of people lost money over a longer period(5-10 years) by trading frequently. Unfortunately our compensation as a broker came mostly from commissions. It was one of the reason why I left the industry to go independent. The pivot into value investing came after GFC. The conduit for change came after the morale and ego-busting losses during GFC. You can read about the story here. Fast-forward to today. I left the industry in late 2014 after more than a decade into my job, love the friendship and brotherhood of my old job but never the credit risks and lopsided compensation that were associated with it. One benefit of being a stockbroker especially in a group gathering, you will always get a question or two on the stock market after you introduced yourself as one. If you introduce yourself as an insurance agent, the crowd goes radio silent….haha. (My insurance friends, joking only. 🙏)
By doing the hard work of acquiring the necessary skills for value investing, the learning curve could be less steep. The liberty of having your fruit of labour at your disposal does improve the quality of life. It gives one a sense of freedom and the ability to do what you wish with less financial constraints. Having financial freedom free you up from the daily grinds, meeting, deadlines and the 8 to 5 routine. With a set of Coffee and Kaya Toast costing over $6 and the most basic Nissan starts at a staggering price tag of $145,000 including COE. A good understanding of the money game is an essential skill needed to survive in Singapore, The ability to understand the financial market well is akin to knowing jungle survival skills in a forest. Singapore is a nice place to live and to raise a family if one can manage the finances well but it can be a struggle for those who had none.
My investment journey is far from over. I hope to achieve greater heights, absorbing the best knowledge from like minded people like yourselves. I stay rooted to the ground for whatever little success I might have achieved, a miracle given by God. There are so many people I want to give thanks for their generosity in sharing their knowledge and experience, the path would have been more treacherous without their guidance.
This blog should not be a one-way communication. Readers are free to drop me an email to share your best idea on the stock market or for a chit chat over a cuppa. I will take a moment to read all your emails. I believe in growing Lone Wolf Investor into a community. I am sure there are plenty of smart investors around. If all the Lone Wolf Investors can come together, the group can be an effective hunting pack by sharing great ideas. No man is an island and great ideas are not mutually exclusive.
If you have not start on your financial voyage, the best time to start was yesterday and the second best time is now. I wish you all the best in your investment journey. May your journey be as interesting and fulfilling as mine. Be the stalwart of your own financial destiny. I hope to see you at my blog.
*This article is a tribute to my friend who passed on 4 years ago. His wisdom, his generosity and his brotherhood will always be remembered. His kindness towards everyone will always be an inspiration to me. God bless.
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Disclaimers
All investments is highly speculative in nature and involves substantial risk of loss. We encourage our reader to invest very carefully. We also encourage reader to get personal advice from your professional investment advisor and to make independent investigations before acting on information that we publish. Much of our information is derived directly from information published by companies or submitted to governmental agencies on which we believe are reliable but are without our independent verification. Therefore, we cannot assure you that the information is accurate or complete. We do not in any way whatsoever warrant or guarantee the success of any action you take in reliance on our statements. All information provided are for education only. Buyer beware,do you own due diligence.
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