Finally, year 2020 comes to an end.
Everyone in the world will remember it as a pandemic year. What have you learnt from this turbulent year?
To me, I'm grateful that so far I have not been negatively affected by this pandemic. My family and I are still in one piece and I still have my job.
Malaysia implemented its nationwide lockdown (MCO) on 18th Mac 2020. Surely it was a new experience for all Malaysians.
I still need to travel to work though, and I like the feeling of driving on roads without other vehicles.
At the same time, we had a scary stock market and oil price crash on top of the back door government change.
What have I done and what was in my mind at that time?
Those stocks sold include Inari, which was my previous larger holding, Frontken, PPHB, Latitude and Adventa. Adventa was my largest investment.
So when the market crashed drastically in early Mac20, I was not worry at all because I have more than 50% cash on hands, even though I still hold some stocks.
I was waiting for bottom fishing, and tried to fish as "bottom" as possible. I must make full use of my precious cash for maximum gain.
Ini kalilah!
I thought the bear market would last for at least 6-12 months. Even though there was a rebound in the end of Mac20 and Apr20, I thought it would form lower highs and continue to reach lower lows.
I thought the best time to go in was when there was a consolidation in the indices or share price, in which the price moves sideways for a period of time.
As we all know now, there's no lower lows or consolidation after Mac20, the market staged a sharp V-shape recovery instead.
In Apr20 and May20, I thought that quarterly financial results of companies to be announced in May/Jun won't be good, and the following quarter results announced in Jul/Aug would be disastrous.
Most investors would expect the same so I thought the stock market should stay low and might even drop further.
With this "theory" in mind, I decided to stay sideline until at least after August when all the quarterly results are out and all the shares are thrown.
In hindsight, this theory is just a crap.
In the end, I did not buy any shares until the last 2 days of May20 when I spotted KPower & SCIB. At that time, almost all stocks have recovered 50-100% from their lows.
It's an once-in-every-10-years opportunity lost.
To make my frustration worse, all the stocks I sold in early 2020 have rebounded higher than the price I sold.
- Sold Inari @ 1.56 in Feb20, rose to 2.75 in Nov20 (76%)
- Sold Frontken @ 2.35 in Feb20, rose to 3.95 in Aug20 (68%)
- Sold PPHB @ 0.88 in Feb20, rose to 1.25 in Dec20 (42%)
- Sold Latitude @ 2.73 in Feb20, rose to 4.80 in Dec20 (76%)
- Sold Adventa @ 0.65 in Apr20, rose to 5.00 in Aug20 (670%)
- Sold Notion @ 0.70 in Jun20, rose to 2.30 in Aug20 (230%)
- Sold Geshen @ 0.53 in Jul20, rose to 1.10 in Nov20 (108%)
If I'm out of the stock market for the whole year of 2020 with zero transaction just like in 2018, I think my stock portfolio will perform very well.
Anyway, I just couldn't regret I sold all those stocks. I actually breathed a sigh of relief that I did it in Feb20. I could have done it again if I could take a time machine to go back to that time.
My problem is I didn't buy in stages when the the market dropped because of the mentality to buy as low as possible and believing that the bear will stay for long.
The lightning fast recovery in stock market which was not in line with the real economy situation really caught me off guard.
From Mac20 to May20, all of a sudden I was not that active in stock market. I did not study companies and I only read little financial news.
I was like waiting for the dust to settle first before I restart my engine. That's part of the reasons I totally missed the gloves rally.
The consolation for me is that I went back into the stock market earlier than Aug20 and still manage to make good gain in year 2020.
While I didn't care too much about stock market from Mac20 to May20, what did I actually do? Well, it's K-dramas...
http://bursadummy.blogspot.com/2020/12/best-opportunity-missed-in-mac20-may20.html
