Secrets of Investing Success

You are welcome to comment on the advice given to the reader by the 4 experts - Leong Sze Hian, Winstorn, Musicwhiz and Robert Stone in today\'s article www.nextinsight.net/content/view/1917/60/ Do u agree? Disagree? Have more insights to share? Have you been a winner? Why do people lose money? How do you make money? Are stocks treacherous? Can you ever become a millioinaire on stock investing? Can you quit your job and live off the stock dividends?

This is taken from a recent post in my blog: In an article in Investor\'s Business Daily on 7 Jan 09, Alan R. Elliot wrote: \"One of the most common mistakes among investors young and old: never bothering to learn to read charts. Yet the price and volume action shown on charts is a critical tool.\" The long and short of TA is to determine resistance and supports as the basic idea is that we should sell at resistance and buy at supports. This is in conjunction with trend analysis. For example, if the trend is up, everytime the price falls to support, generally, it\'s good to accumulate. Then, we want to look out for chart patterns which might hint of trend continuation or a trend reversal. In TA, it is always important to seek confirmation in the following session after a signal, either bearish or bullish, manifests itself. I know of people who have paid thousands of dollars to take up courses in TA and I can\'t possibly do justice to the subject here with a short post. In the same article, Alan went on further to say that \"other investors suffer from the opposite weakness: not knowing how to analyze fundamentals. That is, they don\'t know what to make of sales, earnings, margins and other financial data. So, if there are areas of financial reporting you haven\'t gotten your arms around, make 2010 the year you master them.\" If a person bought some stock without any knowledge of fundamental analysis (FA), he could make some money depending on TA as he trades the psychology of the market. If a person has no knowledge of TA, he could also make some money gunning for undervalued stocks. If a person has no knowledge of either, he is going in with 100% risk. If a person has knowledge of both TA and FA, his risk is not 0% but it is much reduced. What about depending on professional analysts, you may ask? My answer is to do your own research. This gives you confidence in your decision and allows you to hold with conviction. If an analyst says \"BUY\", use that as a starting point and go look through past financial reports and announcements made by the company. Compare with peers in the same sector. Look at the macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions. Consider financial or any other trends which might have an impact. Then, decide if the company is fundamentally sound and if the prospects are good. If you have a green light, use TA to determine a fair entry point. I must have mentioned this a few times before and it sounds really quite simple. Of course, it\'s not. It entails some hard work. So, if you have yet to learn FA and/or TA, it\'s time to hit the books or to take up some relevant courses.

There must be dozens of paths to investing success. Some make $ from trading within weeks/months. Others, from buying & holding for years. They all must share at least one common thread - these people have many years of experience. You can\'t start off and make good money in the first year. Everything takes time, and then you develop your own instincts and knowledge - and you are ready to ride a multi-yeare bull. My good friends started out happy to make a few hundred, a few thousand. After more than 10 years of experience, they now invest to make tens or hundreds of thousands of $ by identifying good companies and holding them until they become multi-baggers.

Hi, i could not agreed more with the comments. Investors should do more research themselves and keep track of what owners or major shareholders are doing. I\'m just wondering why Dr.Ng from Oceanus is selling large chunks of his shares??? It will do small retail investors like us to find out more and learn before becoming fodder for big boys.

at301273: you are mistaken. Dr Ng sold only 10 m shares. He still owns 681.8 m shares. His 10 m shares that were sold made up 5% of the 200 m TDRs. Oceanus is in a super high-growth phase, which is why it is raising funds regularly and raising concern among shareholders. Yes, there are risks from trying to rocket up but if Oceanus pulls it off, this stock will be a multi-bagger in the next 1 or two years. And to keep faith with the topic of this thread, I wish to add that identifying and owning for the long term businesses that are ambitious, scalable and driven by a chairman/CEO who is intelligent - that\'s a secret to investing success. :laugh:

I\'ve never known anyone who made money consistenly using charts and graphs, or by plotting movements of share prices. This is no matter what kind of \"research\" was carried out or what other people may think. Of course, the majority of people still believe this is possible, which is why people keep on trying. The way to build sustainable wealth is to invest for the long-term in good, well-run companies with solid fundamentals, and to gain through dividends and capital gains over time. Just my 2-cents.