Stock Market Journey: My First 6-Digit Gains

On January 28, 2019, my total locked-in profits in the stock market has reached the 6-digit mark. The exact amount, for my own documentation, is PhP100,327.77. Please note that I have been a direct investor since July 2014 and my total stock market investment is under 500K. I have also been recording my gains consistently from the moment I made my first selling transaction in August 2014 and received my first dividend payout, also in the same period. I’m so happy!

Let me tell you, though, that a portion from these gains is on the losing side at present. But hey, those aren’t considered losses until I sell them (which I won’t do!). I’m just glad the market is starting to get strong again, or at least a lot of my positions are.

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What is it Like to be a Millionaire?

As per Wikipedia, a millionaire is “an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency.” Because I only started getting really serious about my finances in 2013, I only began keeping tabs of my net worth the year after that. You see, I’m a government employee and we, in government service, are required to submit our SAL-N annually. Prior to 2013, though, I was not minding the numbers there. I knew I was making some money from my job but the net amount (assets minus liabilities) I didn’t care much about.

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Lessons on Stock Market Investing, Vol. VI

On July 21, 2014, my 30-year old self braved the financially rewarding yet dangerous world of stock market investing. I have never looked back since that time. Officially on my fourth year in my COL Financial journey today, I wish I have new lessons to share with you based on my first-hand account but I haven’t really been paying that much attention to my portfolio in the past months. The market has been down since February and all I’ve been doing is receiving dividends (which always makes my day!) and buying stocks (they are sold at bargain prices these days!) when I have extra money to deposit to my COL Financial account.

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Making the Most of My Credit Card Rewards

Because I know better now (after learning my lesson the hard way years ago and eventually becoming credit card debt-free), I accumulate rewards from my credit cards instead of debts. I said credit cards (with an “s”) because from having just one credit card, I now have two from the same credit card company — Citibank Cash Back (Visa) and Citibank Rewards (Mastercard). These two different cards come with cool rewards that make using them worth my while. And because I’m now more disciplined than ever, I get to make the most of my credit card rewards!

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Finances 2018

I overspent last year. I actually got ashamed of myself, but not to the point of frustration. I knew that my “overspending” was still at the normal level. I didn’t accumulate any debts because everything was well-accounted for. It was just that I felt regretful because I could have saved more money had I not succumbed to overspending.

So, what did I spend my money on? Bigger clothes because I gained weight (this I’m admittedly quite disappointed about!). More pasyal which translated to bigger transportation and eating-out expenses. Some home stuff that I could live without but were too nice and convenient not to indulge myself in (you know, products of the I-deserve-these-comforts-because-I-work-hard attitude that I get on occasions). And other unexpected miscellaneous expenses that I’m too lazy to remember right now.

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Lessons on Stock Market Investing, Vol. V

One year after my last post in this series, I’m writing again to celebrate another milestone in my financial life — my third anniversary as a direct stock market investor via COL Financial!

So far, things have been doing great. The market is bullish once again after several months of being bearish. During those gloomy months, I intentionally didn’t check on my port. The few times I did, I just bought more stocks so I could average down those that were in the red at the time, SSI included. And what do you know? SSI finally recovered last month. It went as high as PHP4.33 per share against my average price of PHP3.88. Thinking that the trend would die down soon, I sold my SSI shares immediately when it got to 4.07, which gave me a gain of around 4.8%. Now, why did I not wait for it go higher? I have to admit I got emotional. It’s been more than a year since I had SSI on the red, with losses reaching as high as 43% at one point. Having seen it turning to green recently was an overwhelming feeling. I just felt I needed to sell it right away for fear that its price would go down again and I would have to wait for a long time before it could recover. At least I still made money from it. The decision also prevented me from selling at a loss when I felt like it.

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