02. Aiming for the Moon

My personal moon is a 60% average annual rate of return on investment over 15 years. This is high by any account and most probably unreachable. That is why it is called aiming for the moon. Is this really unrealistic? Am I setting up myself for failure? Is this a march towards self-destruction?


Before explaining my choice of a personal moon, I wish to remind the readers that someone already did land on the moon which many years ago seemed impossible. Which means it can be done! Well that is for the real moon. What about my personal moon?


Allow me to cite extraordinary personalities who had achieved the unthinkable in stock investing and other financial instruments as enumerated in the book "Market Wizards" by Jack Schwager:

• Michael Marcus, turned a $30,000 account into $80,000,000
• Michael Steinhardt, averaged 30% annual return on his fund over a 21-year period
• Tom Baldwin left a managerial job with $25,000 in hand and now trades up to $2 billion worth of T-Bond futures in a day
• Paul Tudor Jones registered triple-digit gains on his funds five years in a row
• Ed Seykota realized an astounding 250,000 percent return on his accounts over sixteen years

The above examples say the same thing. It can be done!


My reasons for blogging my personal moon is simple. I want to commit to it publicly. If it is a private matter without no one knowing about it, it is not a commitment. Commitments are like marriages for it to be real and true. It must be declared publicly. If I do it privately, there is no challenge to it. Since no one knows about it, I can just discard it any time. With this being made public, my personal moon is now my covenant.


My first experience in stock investing gave me a return of 24% ROI for two years. And I was not even trading then but was simply investing! I was not even analysing either in the technical or fundamental way of analysis whatsoever. I just followed my hunch and the saged advice of Mr. Buffet.


This time will be different. I am learning how to analyze charts and fundamentals from all resources available online. I am currently reading a book on stocks and will soon enroll in a Certificate Program for Securities Specialist Course run by PSE-Ateneo for six months starting this March 2011. I will be trading and investing with more purpose and depth of knowledge that propelled those people abovementioned achieve extraordinarily. But of course, there are risks. But so is life in general.