25.0 Among the Bulls and Belles

For about 26 years, I walked into meeting rooms, conference rooms, and board rooms and talked to bosses and subordinates, suppliers and customers, and ate with office friends in sprawling cafeterias amidst the noisy, unintelligible chatter of office workers. The hectic corporate life were briefly interrupted with birthday celebrations and annual office parties that somehow remind everyone that they are social beings after all and not just paid employees doing the bidding of the lords and masters. Then it is back to the routine of endless meetings, memos, reports, in addition to the operational matters to attend to. Life then was pretty predictable and stressful as well.

When I left my corporate job and went full-time as a private stock trader, I felt like a fish scooped out of the ocean and placed inside a small, round, glass aquarium - alone. The change was sudden. I found myself no longer waking up early and hurriedly eating breakfast and taking quick showers just to beat the early morning traffic jams to arrive at the office on time. The work pressures are gone but gone as well the company of my office friends and the parties and celebrations. I found myself working alone, eating alone and walking from the bedroom to the living room, the dining room and back alone. I have become my own boss, my own employee and my own customer rolled into one. But I love the change - no more demanding bosses and no more unreasonable customers. But if there is one thing that I miss, it is having officemates.  

I am a social being and the need for belonging still works in me much more than before. Every day that passes is like another day spent in quite solitude with no one to talk to for stock trading tips and compare chart analysis. But more than this, the need to find a group to belong to who share the same passion and dreams, successes and failures, is magnified by the fact that no man can ever become a tribe by himself and thrive alone. So I sought out the lucky 1% of the Philippine population who invest and trade in the stock market. I needed to find these people who I can share the joys of success and find comfort in failures because I did not intend to talk and talk back to myself in a vacuum.

Not long after, I found these guys in online forums one after the other - Traders Information Exchange (TIE), Philippine Investors Group (PIG), The Global Filipino Investors (TGFI), among others. Then I met some of them in a Christmas Party and in another event hosted by Rob Trader of Advance Financial (ADVFN). After some time, the founder of TIE, Mr. Frank Co requested me to become the Administrator of TIE.  With much time in hand and a generous heart, I willingly obliged. As administrator, I become more aware of the struggles and victories of our members. I also get to know the masters, gurus, and newbies who unselfishly dedicate themselves to the art, science, and "witchcraft" of stock trading and share their knowledge for free or for a little fee. In a sense, we form some kind of a brotherhood though most of us remain physically remote.

Then it dawned on me like a spiritual enlightenment that comes to those who seek it. When I left my job, I was not actually a fish scooped out of the ocean and placed in an aquarium but a wild beast freeing itself from its caged world to be one among the bulls and the belles in their natural habitat. It becomes clear to me that I am not actually trading in a room but trading with the world and what a big world it is where opportunities lie for grabs. Indeed, I feel like I finally found myself and my future in stock trading where the bulls and bears lock horns in daily battles and where the smartest and the quickest survive and win. 

As I was writing this, I received a text message and I quote, "If you do not step forward, you will always be in the same place." I am glad I did.