[Lesson] learnt #1 Discipline: if you intend to trade, trade; if you intend to invest, invest.

Investing or trading discipline is very important trait to have.

I learnt it the hard way and lost within a short time span $2k out of my $60K investment kitty within 2 months. here how it goes.

#1 problem: investing but behaving like a trader.

I had been eyeing DBS since the start of DEC 2015, and noticed the drop in prices till 2013 prices. 

i felt confident and went in for the kill at $16+ dollars ( end of dec), however within a few days, the price of my counter dropped further and at the price of 15plus, i sold it for a lost of approx $700.

Price then continued to fall till $13 plus, and i bought in at 13.88, but i sold it again as it fell down to the low $13. by now my lost had cumulated to approx $1.2k for this counter.

and as you know, the price of DBS have been shooting up non-stop , and as of today ( 21 mar 2016) it had past the $16 mark, and i have no doubt it will climb back to the $18s  by end of the year.

After reflecting, here are the mistakes:

1) making an investment using a trader mentality. I bought into DBS, as it was a blue chip with solid fundaments. however due to the initial fizz of buying my first counter, i constantly monitored the counter and was emotionally involved. and using a trader's mentality i cut loss.

2) fear of missing out. this is commonly mentioned in investment bloggers. i entered DBS the second time, and again repeated trader mentality with a investment thinking. this time rounf i lost $500.

so as you can see, i had committed very typical newbie investor mistake of panic selling and having the fear of missing out. if i were to do it again,

what i would have done would be:

1) buy in at $16 holding it and reviewing on a weekly to biweekly basis.

2) when price fell, instead of panic sell, make a decision either to hold on, or accumulate.

stock markets have proven that it will always bounce back after a fall was just a matter of time.

3) subsequently when i thought there was a rebound opportunity, i should have bought in again at $13+ to average down, and hold onto it and look at the general pricing.

4) continue to accumulate on the rebound trend on a monthly review basis till it hits above NAV.

for this i paid a rather painful lesson fees of $1.2K ( slightly more than 50% of my monthly savings)

hope whoever reads this, learns from me too.

thanks