Trade Summary April 2011

Here is a summary of my portfolio performance against the ST Index. Over the last 3 months, the STI has grown about 5% but my portfolio has only gone up by 0.7%. This is significantly lower.
The reason for the poor performance was due to the selling done in March 2011. This was done after observing the selling rules of seeing 3 black consecutive candles. Unfortunately, after selling the stocks move aggressively up. Resulting is difference of about about $3,965 of lost opportunities. Which translates into about 3.8%. Looking at this year's performance alone, I am lagging by about 0.3%. Due to the wrong moves in March and April. See table below for details.

Month Ended	Total Value	Equity Value	Cash Value	Vested	Chg	Port Perf	STI val	STI Perf
31/12/2010	107,021.21	98,120.00	8,901.21	91.7%	12.6%	21.3%	3212	16.8%
31/01/2011	104,898.73	78,760.00	26,138.73	75.1%	-2.0%	18.9%	3180	15.6%
28/02/2011	104,988.58	18,350.00	86,638.58	17.5%	0.1%	19.0%	3011	9.5%
31/03/2011	104,999.09	67,770.00	37,229.09	64.5%	0.0%	19.0%	3106	12.9%
30/04/2011	105,604.51	24,650.00	80,954.51	23.3%	0.6%	19.7%	3179	15.6%

Looking at the cause behind the lag in performance, I will have to review my selling strategy. I need to consider some additional factors before deciding to sell.

Trades Since 01-01-2011	Qty.	Buy	Sell	Gain/Loss	Fees	NetProfit	Tot Profit	% ROI	Bought	Sold
Wilmar	4000	5.2500	5.360	440.00	148.72	291.28	291.28	1.39%	18/03/2011	06/04/2011
StraitsAsia	5000	2.4400	2.590	750.00	88.13	661.87	661.87	5.43%	17/03/2011	15/04/2011
HL Asia	5000	2.8400	2.820	-100.00	99.17	-199.17	-199.17	-1.40%	01/04/2011	15/04/2011
SinoGrandness	20000	0.4700	0.555	1,700.00	71.84	1,628.16	1,628.16	17.32%	07/03/2011	18/04/2011
Rotary	5000	0.9600	0.990	150.00	58.46	91.54	91.54	1.91%	01/04/2011	18/04/2011
Rotary	5000	0.9600	0.985	125.00	58.44	66.56	66.56	1.39%	01/04/2011	18/04/2011

Net Realized profit for April 2011: $2,540.24. Very bad compared to the losses in March 2011.

Well, it is quite demoralizing to see your stock shoot up immediately after you sell. This is frustrating but, I think given the market condition, I can't really fault my decision. We can't see the future. We can only base our decision on what we see in the present and past. It is certainly very inaccurate to use past information to make decision on the future. Unfortunately, this is how it can be done. No way out. Now that I am only 76% vested, I can't really expect good performance unless the market is going to drop by a few %? That was I was expecting actually.
So, I need to seriously improve my trend reading skill even more.

SGX Trading New Price Surge 2010-01-15

Security Name                 CLOSE Vol_K         SMA5C Value_K         C-1 Vol-1-K         Chg% Change Symbol  
ERATAT LIFESTYLE LIMITED 0.2650 12433.0000 0.2540 3294.7446 0.2500 4090.0000 6.0000 0.0150 FO8 
HISAKA HOLDINGS LTD.         0.5100 24062.0000 0.4910 12271.6201 0.4800 3034.0000 6.2500 0.0300 FV2 
RENEWABLE ENERGY ASIA GRP LTD 0.2450 20367.0000 0.2260 4989.9150 0.2200 1996.0000 11.3636 0.0250 5DW 
SM SUMMIT HOLDINGS LTD         0.1950 26818.0000 0.1450 5229.5098 0.1350 0.0000 44.4444 0.0600 S43

Of these counters, SM Summit is suspicious even though it has shown capability of sustaining prices. Its volume tends to be extremely thin and subject to easy manipulation.
HISAKA seems promising but its PB ratio is extremely high.
Renewable Energy is hot with a lot of promises but its track record was doing justice.
Eratat seems to be more reliable except that it is an S-Chip. Too many scandals among S-Chips had dampened their credibility.
Another counter which is CNA also shown price and volume surge 2 days ago. However, this counter is too thinly traded.

Forex Trading 2010-08-03

Here is a snapshot of the trading results. After 30th July 2010, I only managed to make 2 trades. The trading strategy is slightly different from earlier trades. Now I focus on taking position instead of scalping trades. First 2 trades were unsuccessful because the price never come to the point that I wanted. So, I canceled the orders.



The first trade taken was shorting USDJPY. This trade was taken based on Fibonacci. Unfortunately, there was statement released by BOJ talking about intervention. This cause the pair to move in the opposite direction. To avoid risk, I decided to cut the losses short.

The second trade was based on pre-ISM news. Based on the market expectation and the major trend, I long EURUSD and held the position over 2 days. It went through very well but a few points shy of the target. After reviewing the chart pattern, I decided to take profit. It may not revisit the point in short term but in the next few days, I believe it will be there again. So, I am monitoring this pair. Over 2 days, this resulted in over 120 pips of profit.

KepCorp - Short term trend

The short term trend of Kepcorp is down but today we witnessed a surge in price after correction lasted 2 days. However, it was not able to penetrate the upper bound of the downward trend line and it showed a pull-back. The 3 white candlestick showed that bearish reversal might be on the cards. Let's see how it plays out over the next few trading sessions. If it confirm push through upper trend line, then, higher highs might be possible.
Otherwise, falling back to the lower trend line will be the way to go.

Swing Trade - Kep Corp 20090623

Kep Corp Stop out on 23/06/2009 at 6.48. Counter closed at 6.45.

This is a test trade. It shows that using Candlestick is not a reliable swing trade tool. In any case, swing trading within 2-5 days time frame is not viable in SGX. (Refer to Getting Started in Swing Trading by Michael C Thomsett). It is extremely difficult to change small moves in SGX counter even with counters like Kep Corp which is a large cap stock with relatively high trading volumes. This is even more so for smaller cap stock with much less activity.

One key issue with index stock is the over market condition changes. Fund managers will sell down out of fear.

However, on the second day, the market shot up and KepCorp recover most of its loses and closed at 6.63 on 24/06/2009. Today, I am expecting KepCorp to go down slightly to around 6.58 - 6.60 range unless some positive news in the afternoon.

In general, short swing trades tends to be influenced by news and changes in overall market condition. This may not be a viable trading option for me because I don't want to spend too much time monitoring news and prices on screen. This is not practical.

The next method is to use Cyclical Trading Method. This is also doing Swing Trade but with a time horizon of 5 to 30 trading sessions. This method required bigger swing and will provide less trading opportunities. It means also taking bigger risk and expecting much larger profits. It may mean less than 5 trades per month on average. It also may mean following the overall market trend to trade. Some considered this as mid-term trading. For a start, I will use Stochastics combined with MACD for entry and exit signal.

Swing Trade Log - KepCorp 20090619

KepCorp - 20090629
Entry: 6.68
Stop: 6.50
Reason for entry:
1. Candlestick bullish sign
2. Hitting bottom of Bollinger Band
3. MACD histogram green
4. CCI sloping upwards from below

Premises: Possible bullish reversal after a series of correction.
Trade horizon: short term. (1-2 weeks)
Caution: This stock seems to establish a new mid term trend. The rally seems to have fizzle out of steam.
Need to monitor closely and exit trade whenever downside detected.