Be Humble.. and Keep investing in Yourself

Below are extracted from New Paper online. Human being are easily get
carried away. This will serve to remind us to adopt cut loss
discipline, and gamble within our limit.

Sources -> http://newpaper. asia1.com. sg/news/story/ 0,4136,124646, 00.html?

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EVEN before he graduated from an Australian university, this Singapore
engineering student earned $80,000 in a month.

Mr Chan (we are not giving his full name to protect his identity) did
not have a job.

The 27-year-old was betting on the Singapore stock market, and managed
to pick the shares whose prices rocketed in the recent bull run.

Buoyed by the success, his father was convinced that his only son had
a Midas touch. So, the 67-year-old former sailor, who runs a shop
selling women's clothes in Chinatown, gave his son $300,000 - his
whole life savings - to invest in shares.

That was a couple of months ago.

Today, Mr Chan has not only lost all his father's savings, he has
incurred another $320,000 in trading losses.

When the global market went through a sudden meltdown last week, so
did his luck and fortune.

EVERYTHING BOMBED

In just two days, Mr Chan chalked up a few hundred thousand dollars in
losses when The Straits Times Index (STI) dived by 75.9 points on 27
Feb and another 127.87 points (the steepest dive in 20 years) on 28 Feb.

He said: 'Everything bombed in just 48 hours. My life, my future...
and now, even my parents could lose their home.'

In three short months of trading, Mr Chan has lost about $700,000.

Although the market has regained some of its earlier losses this week,
the recovery means little to him.

Mr Chan was dabbling in high-risk contra trading, where you buy and
sell the same shares within three days, putting up no money and
earning the profits when share prices go up. But investors can lose
money when the stock market is having a downturn, and they will have
to pay the losses to their stockbrokers within days.

Mr Chan bought heavily into popular counters such as DBS, UOB,
Capitaland and even China stocks such as Longcheer Holdings, and hoped
to sell them for a gain before the usual deadline.

But as the market dipped suddenly and he could not afford to pay and
keep all the shares, he had to make up for all the losses he incurred
during his trading period.

Even after exhausting his previous winnings, his father's savings, and
loans from friends, he still owes two of his remisiers more than $200,000.

To add to his woes, his girlfriend of eight years has also walked out
on him, disappointed by how his gambling had cost him dearly.

Most of his friends are also avoiding his calls or finding excuses not
to meet him. Word has gone around that he is desperate for money
because he has already borrowed some $70,000 from 20 of his friends.

Mr Chan said: 'No one can blame them for avoiding me. Thankfully, I
still have my parents on my side, otherwise I'd probably have gone
insane.'

To help him, his father is prepared to move to a smaller home if
needed. While the family is scrambling to raise the money to clear the
debt, Mr Chan admitted he had entertained thoughts of filing for
bankruptcy.

He said: 'I was told if I did that, it'd be tough for me to find a
decent job.'

During the interview with The New Paper on Sunday, Mr Chan became
rather agitated and restless when he related his problems. 'Look, it's
fine if it's just me, but I've got to think of my parents,' he said.

This is a far cry from October last year when he was preparing for his
final-year examination in Perth.

At a group study session, one of his Singaporean classmates checked on
his own trading account and shouted happily when he made a few
thousand dollars.

Mr Chan recalled: 'I was hooked from the minute he started talking
about how easy it was to make a profit.

''He encouraged me to do likewise and even suggested that I start off
with contra trading since I didn't have much cash.'

Mr Chan then contacted a cousin, who had an online trading account in
Singapore, and asked him to buy some shares he selected.

He said: 'I made $23,000 by the end of the first week and my friends
started calling me Prince Midas.

'I guess I sort of got carried away when I made another killing of
about $30,000. I got bolder and by the time I stopped because of the
exams, I was richer by $80,000.'

Mr Chan returned to Singapore in early December after his examinations
and shared the news with his father and 58-year-old mother. They were
impressed with his 'windfall'.

Still, he insisted that it was not the 'easy cash' but boredom that
got him trading again.

He said: 'I wanted to take a break for a couple of months before
looking for a job, so I was idling during the day when my parents and
my girlfriend were at work. 'I was surfing the Internet when I decided
to check out the SGX homepage. I randomly picked a few companies and
the chart pattern I saw was definitely encouraging. '

He started to monitor the shares, and role-played as if he had bought
heavily into them.

When the STI closed on the first day, he had made an imaginary
$100,000; on the second day, it was another $110,000 'win'.

'I was, like, geez! If only I had dealt in real money. Then it
occurred to me, maybe this is my calling. If I were good, I could
afford to let my parents retire comfortably, have a lavish wedding,
and upgrade my Honda Civic.'

Over dinner that night, Mr Chan shared his plan with his parents and
asked them if they would like to pool in their money.

He said: 'My father told me, no risk, no gain.' Two days later, the
senior Mr Chan transferred $300,000, his whole life savings, to his
son's bank account.

Flushed with cash, Mr Chan was able to open trading accounts with
three stockbroking firms. He was so focused on his new
'responsibility' that he 'ate, slept and breathed stocks'.

From analysing companies' chart patterns to buying stocks after a
fall, Mr Chan traded shares of up to six companies at one go.

'I thought I was so smart to diversify... you know what they say,
never put all your eggs into one basket,' he said.

But when he registered the first negative return, Mr Chan 'freaked out'.

'I felt it should not have happened because people were making money.'

The $28,000 loss was just the beginning of his nightmare. He said: 'I
lost control. I could not afford to lose the money. My family does not
belong to the high-income strata.'

His confidence level dipped further when he kept picking 'the bad eggs'.

As his stocks dipped further, he started to panic and began to ask his
friends for loans.

To help him, his girlfriend applied for four bank overdraft facilities
and even maxed the limit on five credit cards.

She was the only one who knew the true extent of his losses.

Mr Chan said: 'I couldn't tell my parents. But my girlfriend was there
for me... until she could not take it anymore.

He covered his face for some seconds and said quietly: 'I've let her
down. Really.'

In his bid to win his girlfriend and his money back, Mr Chan said he
stopped trading for about two weeks, but continued to monitor the charts.

Hoping to recover some of his earlier losses, he set his sight on the
stocks of nine companies when the market re-opened after the Chinese
New Year.

But Mr Chan ended up suffering $100,000 in paper losses and $220,000
in contra trading.

He said: 'I went in for the kill, only to find I could barely stay
alive less than five trading days later. My loved ones may now have to
'die together' with me.'

He added: 'I don't even know if I have the money to return to the
university for my convocation end of this month. I can't bring myself
to think of what's next.'