Lady, You Can Be Free

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• Hello there!

  Congratulations on passing a million dollars in profit! Will like to know, what do you think of ETF and UT investment instead of stock picking and would it have given you less stress if you looked back retrospectively? Thanks and look fwd to your second million!

• Hi Yi Hao,
  Thanks for reaching out. I'm ok with ETF as it traces the index. I am not so much into UT. Reason, UT is basically passing your money to a bunch of funds managers. Unless you religiously follows these rockstar fund managers and their whereabouts and trackrecord (which we retail customers typically don't have the deep insights to the individuals except from the fund brochures), there is an additional risk and commission that you are leaving on the table. I actually do enjoy the process of shortlisting my own investment. Maybe when I am older where my brain may be more foggy. I may take the ETF route. Who knows. Hope this helps.

• I discourage investing in UT. Basically, you are allowing people who play with your money.

  Rather lose it yourself and learn some lessons.

• Hi Kai,
  Well said :).

• Thanks! I did lose some money for the painful lesson. hahaah...not cheap but valuable

  Splunk is a good pick. Take a look at Atlassian (DevOps Tool Provider) too!

  As a software engineer, I am really looking forward to invest in the new list of pre-ipo tech companies in the near future. Like Stripe (Payment Giant in the wild), HashiCorp (IaC Pioneer), Databrick, and more.

• Ah...I didn't realised Stripe was planning to get IPO. No wonder my twitter is not moving. Jack must be too preoccupied.
  Will check out the recommended list. Databrick has been all over my fb, need to check it out. Thanks :)

  Amendment : Opps, I realised I mixed up Stripe with Square :).

• Hi, which platform do you use to buy US market stocks?

• Hi Jason,
  I am using DBS Vickers.

• Hi, thanks for sharing:) Congrats! You are my example to achieve financial independence!

• Hi Daren, Thanks for the kind comments. Wish you success in achieving your financial independence.

• Very impressive! Congrats to your achievement in investment!

• Thanks Lynn.

• Hi LYCBF, this journey of yours is awe-inspiring! I wonder if you will be inclined to start some form of mentorship or discussions to share your ideas? I'm sure there will be loads of people willing to pay a fee to attend.

  All the best.

  P.s. love your insights in the tech fields.

• Hi Robin, thanks for the kind comments. I don't think I am professional enough to start any form of mentorship or discussion. There are plenty of such resources on the Internet already. I think the key is to be able to digest them and form your own conviction. Good luck in your investment journey !

• Do you use DCA strategy to shop for your stocks or you buy a bunch of them at a given time? If it’s the latter, could you share more insight to the variables you take into account when making purchases?

• Hi Ken,

  No. I don't do DCA. Variables that I take into consideration typically includes price history, financials, roadmap, risk management, "market survey" and occasionally technicals.

• Hi, thanks for sharing your portfolio! I would like to say you are a great inspiration to new investors like me. I personally prefer dividend stocks in my portfolio (Especially REITs) but your earnings on US growth stocks is starting to make me rethink. What would you recommend as the appropriate balance between growth and dividend stocks?

  P.S. Your portfolio is truly inspiring

• Hi Dividendisking,
  Thanks for the kind words. I don't really follow a formula in term of % allocation between growth and dividend stocks. My journey is documented sequentially in my blog, if you walk through the journey, you will notice that my concentration in early days are in SG stocks and dividend vested, I decided to diversify after noticing that there are disruption happening in the SG markets esp. dividend driven stocks. Thus, now you may notice a higher percentage allocation in growth. Usually it's based on my confidence level on the equity and sector I am investing in. Hope this clarifies.

• Hi Lady,

  I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog. It is inspirational and educational.

  In 2016, you challenged yourself to try out trading based on technicals. Your initial conclusion then was that while you made some profit, it wasn't a sustainable journey for you.

  I am focused on fundamentals and investing for the long term and have always been somewhat skeptical of trading based on technicals.

  May i know what are your thoughts on technical analysis now as a tool to grow wealth?

  thank you!

• Hi Emika,
  Thanks, it's always good to hear that the blog is useful in providing insights. I believe investing (long term) and trading (short term) are two different activities that can be performed in the market. When you trade, technicals are extremely useful as you are focusing on trends, patterns and market sentiments. Thus, the technicals provides you with those insights to determine how you want to execute your trade. When you invest, you will probably focus more on the fundamentals but technicals can be useful when you are trying to determine a good entry or selling price e.g. Fibonacci, pivot points etc. Example, I know of trainers out there that uses fibonacci to determine when to buy or sell their investment i.e. when Fibonacci level reaches above 70%, sell; below 30%, buy. Hope this helps.

• Thank you for taking time out to reply!

  Does this mean currently you also actively deploy technicals as a tool for your own entry and exit prices?

• Hi Emika,
  No worries. Let's learn from each other.
  I use it occasionally when I am buying, I sucked at selling ;-).

• Hi Lady,

  How did you even find the determination to hold on to your profits and let them run?
  For me, I will get spooked if my profitable stocks drop 20% and I will just sell them away. Your Apple stock is one good example.

• Hi Cedric,
  I think by spending time understanding the business of the stock I am holding on to and why it dropped or rise allows me to have the conviction to follow them through.That said, you will see I have some rotten apples in my Singapore portfolio. I am still learning the art of selling.

• Hi Lady,

  I am impressed on your US stock holdings. Do you trade US stock when you first started? I saw you are basically holding on to your US stock which are already 1 or 2 bagger. You have no intention to cash out your US stock holdings as most of them actually do not give dividend. You must have the conviction to keep on holding to it. May I also ask how long have you invested in US market?

• Hi Eric,
  Thanks for the kind words. I started to invest in the US market in 2008, my first stock was apple and I added more through the years. If you want more insights, feel free to browse through my old blogs as they were arranged to trace my investment journey.