The PSE-Ateneo Certification for Securities Specialization Course is now on its Core Course Modules. Everybody in the class are relieved that the Introductory Modules have all been completed and we are finally going to learn the very two subjects that we all paid and came here for - the Fundamental and Technical Analyses. I was expecting that the Stock Trading Game (STG) would come after these two subjects had already been discussed. We were surprised however when it was announced that the STG would start right after a subject on the Stock Market and the Stock Exchange. Given my elementary knowledge on Technical Analysis, I almost protested but had to suppress it as I was also curious how I would fare against my equally knowledge-limited batchmates. Well it turned out not everyone is on same level as me and the rest. Few of our batchmates are actually either already working as traders or had already attended seminars on technical analysis somewhere else.
The STG ran on a very limited trading period - April 13 to April 26, 2011. But with the Holy Week in between, the trading days was effectively cut to 8 days. This forced us to become day traders - one that buys and sells stocks within a day or for very short period of time, something that I am not personally inclined to do.
Our teacher raised the ante of the game - a gain will yield 10 bonus points on our grade but a loss is a minus 5 points. Additionally, the highest gainer will win a seat on Advance Technical Analysis seminar conducted by the PSE as a prize. I looked around the class and my experienced classmates looked like African dessert predators laying their eyes lustily on their inexperienced classmates who felt like hapless preys.
Day One (April 13, 2011), the game was on. For some reasons, I ended up somewhere else instead of being on the game. If this were the amazing race, I would have been booted out on the first day.
Day Two (April 14, 2011), I finally created my STG account and received P1,000,000 starting cash to play. I immediately analysed 75 stocks of listed companies included in STG. Lacking in time, I selected stocks that showed signs of going up after days of going down. I bought RLC, MBT, URC, and FLI exposing a total of 31% of my capital. Within minutes, MBT and RLC went up. In my excitement, I immediately liquidated my positions on these stocks and gained P4,173.16. Not bad on a first day. However, I was one day delayed and our more advanced classmates were already gaining P6K-7K a day earlier.
Day Three (April 15, 2011), I was again analysing the stocks included in the STG. I went deeper this time using all the tecnical tools I have known to date. I also considered two important news I read a day before - BDO bought another bank and the subsidiary of PX in Vietnam may have found significant oil finds. With these on hand, I went on a buying spree on BDO, PX, RLC, MEG, and MWC. RLC? Yes, I rebought RLC realizing my mistake of selling it off too early. Meanwhile, I was right on the money on BDO and PX. My previous gain was sustained.
Day Four (April 18, 2011). The weekend gave me ample time to have better analysis. This time around I took a bold move on CEB. CEB has been on a downtrend days before but I went ahead buying it believing that it was already bottoming out. This was not the day and CEB further declined in value dragging all my previous gains to negative! I was aghast looking at my Net Portfolio Value losing more than P8K in one day. I also bought PIP and NI. I bought NI for the same reason as CEB and PIP for the main reason that all its indicators were a buy. I ended badly due to CEB, NI and PIP resulting to my NPV losing in value by more than P8K. All my previous gains were totally wiped out.
Day Five (April 19, 2011). I panicked at the thought that CEB and PIP would continue its nosedive. I decided to cut my losses. The decision came easy. This after all was just a game and I was dealing only with play money. I ended the day losing an additional P2K. I was down on my luck. I also bought EEI and DMC this day. EEI because of its strong showing and DMC because it was breaking out to new highs. I also bought additional shares on PX believing that this was going to be my salvation stock. I was not wrong. At the end of the day, my bold move in selling CEB and PIP and buying more PX netted me a gain of P80 bucks. This was a pittance after five days of work and I was sure I was already way behind the race. My total exposure was already 95.8%.
Day Six (April 20, 2011). I again ended up somewhere else instead of trading. When I came back I only had 30 minutes left to trade. I logged on but there was no connection. Holy cow! Of all days this happened when I needed to be online badly. I was like going blind not knowing what the status was of my positions. I was cursing to high heavens the internet provider which told me that they were experiencing technical problems. Connection was restored later in the afternoon and voila when I opened my account, all my stocks except two were earning well especially DMC and PX. My net gain increased to P15K.
Day Seven (April 25, 2011). The Holy Week was over. The four-day holiday gave me enough respite from analysing stock movements. Nonetheless, from time to time, I was edgy about my two losing positions in MWC and NI as they may continue their slide from last week. I was thinking of cutting my losses again but decided not to believing that these will climb tomorrow. With only P47,000 left in my cash position, I bought 50,000 shares of LC at P0.67 per share. When the trade was done, it also started losing within minutes. Now, I have to contend with three losing positions instead of two. I could not believe my eyes! The corporate disclosure stated that they have found gold deposits and that they expect a turnaround this year. I stubbornly stuck to my positions. Somehow, the day ended well. LC recovered. MWC and NI though shed more of its price but all other buy positions performed well increasing my net gain to P21.9K up from P15K last week. What a day!
Day 8 (April 26, 2011). The night before, I learned from our teacher that the best performer to date in the game gained P90K plus after seven days. This was huge compared to what I achieved. Somehow, it was a telling difference between those who knew about stock trading and those with limited or no experience at all. I belonged to the latter. During the last day of trading, I simply sat it out - no cut-loss action or profit taking. I just let my positions hang. In my reckoning, I have nothing to lose. If the market improved, which did not by the way, so would my NPV be. If the market went down, which it did that day, it would not be so much so that I would end up with negative profits. In other words, the result would be the same regardless of the outcome. As the day ended, the market went down, four of eleven positions were in the red and the rest lost value but still positive. Overall, my NPV went down from a high of P22k the previous day to P6k plus in a matter of one day.
The STG gave me an important lesson. Day traders must bet only on breakouts and must shun stock crawlers. Of the 11 positions I had, two were breakouts while the rest were either crawlers and decliners. If not for those two breakouts, I would have ended below and not get my additional 10 points in class.
With this in my end, I am now doubly excited to have our next STG right after the fundamental and technical analyses courses. You betcha, the result would be different this time around.
The STG ran on a very limited trading period - April 13 to April 26, 2011. But with the Holy Week in between, the trading days was effectively cut to 8 days. This forced us to become day traders - one that buys and sells stocks within a day or for very short period of time, something that I am not personally inclined to do.
Our teacher raised the ante of the game - a gain will yield 10 bonus points on our grade but a loss is a minus 5 points. Additionally, the highest gainer will win a seat on Advance Technical Analysis seminar conducted by the PSE as a prize. I looked around the class and my experienced classmates looked like African dessert predators laying their eyes lustily on their inexperienced classmates who felt like hapless preys.
Day One (April 13, 2011), the game was on. For some reasons, I ended up somewhere else instead of being on the game. If this were the amazing race, I would have been booted out on the first day.
Day Two (April 14, 2011), I finally created my STG account and received P1,000,000 starting cash to play. I immediately analysed 75 stocks of listed companies included in STG. Lacking in time, I selected stocks that showed signs of going up after days of going down. I bought RLC, MBT, URC, and FLI exposing a total of 31% of my capital. Within minutes, MBT and RLC went up. In my excitement, I immediately liquidated my positions on these stocks and gained P4,173.16. Not bad on a first day. However, I was one day delayed and our more advanced classmates were already gaining P6K-7K a day earlier.
Day Three (April 15, 2011), I was again analysing the stocks included in the STG. I went deeper this time using all the tecnical tools I have known to date. I also considered two important news I read a day before - BDO bought another bank and the subsidiary of PX in Vietnam may have found significant oil finds. With these on hand, I went on a buying spree on BDO, PX, RLC, MEG, and MWC. RLC? Yes, I rebought RLC realizing my mistake of selling it off too early. Meanwhile, I was right on the money on BDO and PX. My previous gain was sustained.
Day Four (April 18, 2011). The weekend gave me ample time to have better analysis. This time around I took a bold move on CEB. CEB has been on a downtrend days before but I went ahead buying it believing that it was already bottoming out. This was not the day and CEB further declined in value dragging all my previous gains to negative! I was aghast looking at my Net Portfolio Value losing more than P8K in one day. I also bought PIP and NI. I bought NI for the same reason as CEB and PIP for the main reason that all its indicators were a buy. I ended badly due to CEB, NI and PIP resulting to my NPV losing in value by more than P8K. All my previous gains were totally wiped out.
Day Five (April 19, 2011). I panicked at the thought that CEB and PIP would continue its nosedive. I decided to cut my losses. The decision came easy. This after all was just a game and I was dealing only with play money. I ended the day losing an additional P2K. I was down on my luck. I also bought EEI and DMC this day. EEI because of its strong showing and DMC because it was breaking out to new highs. I also bought additional shares on PX believing that this was going to be my salvation stock. I was not wrong. At the end of the day, my bold move in selling CEB and PIP and buying more PX netted me a gain of P80 bucks. This was a pittance after five days of work and I was sure I was already way behind the race. My total exposure was already 95.8%.
Day Six (April 20, 2011). I again ended up somewhere else instead of trading. When I came back I only had 30 minutes left to trade. I logged on but there was no connection. Holy cow! Of all days this happened when I needed to be online badly. I was like going blind not knowing what the status was of my positions. I was cursing to high heavens the internet provider which told me that they were experiencing technical problems. Connection was restored later in the afternoon and voila when I opened my account, all my stocks except two were earning well especially DMC and PX. My net gain increased to P15K.
Day Seven (April 25, 2011). The Holy Week was over. The four-day holiday gave me enough respite from analysing stock movements. Nonetheless, from time to time, I was edgy about my two losing positions in MWC and NI as they may continue their slide from last week. I was thinking of cutting my losses again but decided not to believing that these will climb tomorrow. With only P47,000 left in my cash position, I bought 50,000 shares of LC at P0.67 per share. When the trade was done, it also started losing within minutes. Now, I have to contend with three losing positions instead of two. I could not believe my eyes! The corporate disclosure stated that they have found gold deposits and that they expect a turnaround this year. I stubbornly stuck to my positions. Somehow, the day ended well. LC recovered. MWC and NI though shed more of its price but all other buy positions performed well increasing my net gain to P21.9K up from P15K last week. What a day!
Day 8 (April 26, 2011). The night before, I learned from our teacher that the best performer to date in the game gained P90K plus after seven days. This was huge compared to what I achieved. Somehow, it was a telling difference between those who knew about stock trading and those with limited or no experience at all. I belonged to the latter. During the last day of trading, I simply sat it out - no cut-loss action or profit taking. I just let my positions hang. In my reckoning, I have nothing to lose. If the market improved, which did not by the way, so would my NPV be. If the market went down, which it did that day, it would not be so much so that I would end up with negative profits. In other words, the result would be the same regardless of the outcome. As the day ended, the market went down, four of eleven positions were in the red and the rest lost value but still positive. Overall, my NPV went down from a high of P22k the previous day to P6k plus in a matter of one day.
The STG gave me an important lesson. Day traders must bet only on breakouts and must shun stock crawlers. Of the 11 positions I had, two were breakouts while the rest were either crawlers and decliners. If not for those two breakouts, I would have ended below and not get my additional 10 points in class.
With this in my end, I am now doubly excited to have our next STG right after the fundamental and technical analyses courses. You betcha, the result would be different this time around.
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