STI Market Direction April 02, 2011

Here I am back again after struggling for about 10 days to rebuild my computer after its graphic card gave way. I was trying to restore from Dell Datasafe backup utility and it screwed up because it did not cater for video card crash situation. I ended losing my data.
OK. Let's get back to the main topic.
Last 2 weeks, the market showed strength and seemed to have forgotten about the Japanese nuclear crisis. It seems that the market has discounted all the bad news and bounced back aggressively. Now the STI is just sitting below the resistance line which also coincides with the down trend line's top.
So, next week will be deciding factor to see if it will continue to move up. 2 weeks ago, we were waiting for to see if the market will continue its down trend. It ended up bouncing back strongly forming a double bottom. But the market did not break the neck line of the double bottom. It closed just short of that. This gives us a hanging situation. Anything can happen over the weekend.

From the look of it, the market favors bull. So far, the sentiment seems positive and volume has increased. US released more positive data last week. All these macro economic factors pointing to more bulls.

Trade Summary for month ended March 31, 2011

This is a bad month. There has been panic selling due to Japan Nuclear Crisis.

Trades Since 01-03-2011	Qty.	Buy	Sell	Gain/Loss	Fees	NetProfit	Tot Profit	% ROI	Bought	Sold
Capitaland	5000	3.3200	3.350	150.00	116.87	33.13	33.13	0.20%	02/03/2011	07/03/2011
Noble	5000	2.2000	2.060	-700.00	74.64	-774.64	-774.64	-7.04%	02/03/2011	10/03/2011
Gallant	30000	0.3850	0.360	-750.00	78.32	-828.32	-828.32	-7.17%	02/03/2011	11/03/2011
MIDAS	10000	0.7650	0.675	-900.00	60.82	-960.82	-960.82	-12.56%	04/03/2011	16/03/2011
LeaderEnv	40000	0.2450	0.235	-400.00	67.28	-467.28	-467.28	-4.77%	09/03/2011	28/03/2011

Incurred a net loss of S$-5071.56.
However, there are some unrealized profits in there. So, the actual loss is not that severe. But then, we will only count the profit after they are realized. In fact, I made picked up some counters during the down period (as can be seen in the portfolio standing), taking this opportunity to switch from S-Chips to blue chips.

The main reason for such poor performance was panic selling. This is something to be avoided at all cost next time. In fact, there should be bargain hunting during major sell offs.

So, how did the portfolio stand against STI index as benchmark?

Overall, the STI index advanced over 3.5% but my portfolio remained at the same level. No advances nor retreat.
In that sense, my portfolio lags the index by 3.5% on March 2011 alone.
This is one of the problem with too active trading.

Panic selling is actually not wrong with panic selling. At least it protects yourself from the carnage of massive sell down. When there is major crash, the first part is selling. Followed by buying. I think I need to do better in the second part. That is buying after major sell off. The table below shows the actual numbers of the performance.

Month Ended	Total Value	Equity Value	Cash Value	Vested	Chg	Port Perf	STI val
28/02/2010	88,241.76	29,100.00	59,141.76	33.0%			2750
31/03/2010	81,884.82	37,210.00	44,674.82	45.4%	-7.2%	-7.2%	2887
30/04/2010	89,801.52	30,650.00	59,151.52	34.1%	9.7%	1.8%	2975
31/05/2010	81,884.82	37,210.00	44,674.82	45.4%	-8.8%	-7.2%	2753
30/06/2010	84,523.72	24,650.00	59,873.72	29.2%	3.2%	-4.2%	2836
31/07/2010	86,770.52	70,610.00	16,160.52	81.4%	2.7%	-1.7%	2988
31/08/2010	84,503.39	55,450.00	29,053.39	65.6%	-2.6%	-4.2%	2753
30/09/2010	89,778.20	47,150.00	42,628.20	52.5%	6.2%	1.7%	3098
31/10/2010	94,407.07	69,550.00	24,857.07	73.7%	5.2%	7.0%	3143
30/11/2010	95,045.95	60,200.00	34,845.95	63.3%	0.7%	7.7%	3145
31/12/2010	107,021.21	98,120.00	8,901.21	91.7%	12.6%	21.3%	3212
31/01/2011	104,898.73	78,760.00	26,138.73	75.1%	-2.0%	18.9%	3180
28/02/2011	104,988.58	18,350.00	86,638.58	17.5%	0.1%	19.0%	3011
31/03/2011	104,999.09	67,770.00	37,229.09	64.5%	0.0%	19.0%	3106

There has been some buying up during March as well. The current position including those bought today are as follows:

Stock Name Cash Holdings	Total Qty	Wgt Ave Price $	Last Done Price $	Unrealised P/L	Reason for Entry
Capitaland	5,000	3.130	3.300	850.00	Buy on panic sale
ComfortDelgro	5,000	1.540	1.570	150.00	MACD Cross Over
HL Asia	5,000	2.840	2.830	-50.00	Breakout double bottom
Rotary Engg	10,000	0.960	0.965	50.00	Breakout double bottom
SinoGrandness	20,000	0.470	0.550	1,600.00	Stochastic Over Sold
StraitsAsiaRes	5,000	2.440	2.550	550.00	Major Trend/Correction
Wilmar	2,000	5.040	5.470	860.00	Value/Panic Sale

March 2011 is trading month characterized by the Japan Earth Quake, Tsunami & Nuclear Crisis and the political unrest in North Africa and Middle East. Given such a negative backdrop, the stock market hardly fell. Not to mention crash. This somehow indicates the bullish sentiment. As such, I tried to take opportunity to buy into some counters that has dipped.

Moving forward, there is also a conscious effort from my part to focus more on blue chips and large cap stocks from Singapore and avoid China based S-Chips. Only selected S-Chips will be traded and for short term basis. There has been too many accounting scandals involving these companies.

I hope I will do better this month.