This is a 'happening' month. Not in a good way. I have quite a bit to document here.
Upon knowing the funds for the EC need to be standing by by Jan 2027, I started to cash out my holdings progressively. Here's the catch - my portfolio just happen to be sliding downhill. A steep one in fact. All my tech and REITs took a beating. After cashing out about half my holdings, realised I am severely down by about 6k from my high. That's... about 5-6% of my portfolio! Gosh. Lets review each trade for better debrief and learn from it.
FLCT, MIT - FLCT was kinda ok, the least damaged stock. Although it was down a few pips from its recent high, my holdings were not a lot - so a few pips rise after selling was bearable. for MIT, I kinda regreted exiting too late, at 1.8X, knowing it is starting to be a falling knife. And as I cut, it rose back up on results expectations, but whew, it proved to be a falling knife as it went back down to below my selling price. I shall leave this stock out for the time being, having been defeated by it 3 times over. The last time I should have sold was when I was at Hoi An - at 2.2X. Even selling at 2.1X a year ago was still fine, could have saved me 1k+ of loss.
Lendlease - While the REIT is fundamentally strong, sentiment seems to define it otherwise. have been staying around the 0.5X for the longest time. Again, should have just let go at 0.6X last year at Hoi An. I cashed out with 3k+ losses. Although having said that, with the dividends I have been reaping over 5 years, maybe the loss is a lil more contained.
I am still trying to look for exit points for Keppel REIT (CPF holding), Netlink trust, and Ascott. Seems that KREIT and Ascott are bouncing back up, I intend to adopt a wait-and-see approach, and if it reaches a resistance level I can cash out. I should not be too greedy, seeing that there is probably not much upside for these 2.
That should be about it for my CDP holdings, now to my custodians:
Rex, Avi-Tech, GKE, G Invacom - these were my heavy losers, period. These stocks show why there is a need to "stop loss" instead of holding on to dear life. They tanked, really tanked, and I probably lost about 2k from here. Kinda paid back with all my profits in 1H. And they were the reason why my unrealised losses were edging 4k+ 5k+. 1 behaviour I noticed is the volume just died down, which mean probably no show until the next significant event. Hold also no use. So should just dump no matter what. Better than holding on to dead fish. Right, I should take note of this and learn to identify such behaviours.
Next - Food empire - Ok I tried, while accepting that it's gonna be a loss making trade anyway, I scaled out while there was a pump towards end of month. I started with 1.95 to dump those that bought in at 1.89 and 1.90, and the rest I pretty much want to cash out before it drops back down. But seems someone pumped it up to 2.1, and I slowly let go a bit more. Now left not much Food, and seeing the stock slowly descend gives me a sigh of relief. In a way, scaling out works for this and risk was managed, somehow. Although still ended up with loss, it beats seeing 1k+ unrealised losses when it was struggling at 1.84, 1.85.
Now to the heavyweights - AEM, Addvalue, CSE global. I was a bit greedy on CSE global and should have dumped more when I was profiting. Thought when it came down was a good opportunity to add, but sentiment weakened, and it continued to slide. Not sure what it meant, but I ended up adding more, and there, I am stuck. Same for Addvalue. And I cut loss for it at 0.113, and totally out the rest at 1.07 with a loss. These 2 were spanners which were part of the whole AI sell off scheme of things. Caught me.
Next is AEM. Ok this one I wanted to jot down how each trade went on the last day because I am basically pitting logic against emotion. I tried again swing trading intraday, and the feeling was abt the same as my experience with YZJ and iFast last year. Having charged with the same emotions, I tried to control myself but failed. SO how it went:
- Shorted 7.33 2k, and AEM surged way up to 7.56. My feeling was oh no if it went back up to 8.1 I am in hot soup. and I checked the graph every minute. Graph suggested it is gonna come back down. so I waited. and waited. still hovering around the 7.4X range, and I gave in, bought back at 7.41. little did i realise that about half an hour later, it dropped back to 7.35, which was a huge support point. All these happened within an hour. So had I waited half an hour later, I could have been spared a $160 loss.
- After buying at 7.41, I continued to buy at 7.42 seeing it go up. The moment I bought at 7.42, it dropped. But learning from the chart that its going to swing anyway, I set my sell price at 7.45. When seeing the buying trend build up, I amended the selling price upwards. Every time I amended upwards I worry if trend will reverse. but I need to know back of mind, that this is going to be a swinging day. somehow will touch my amended selling price. But to play safe, I left some at 7.45, and the rest at 7.53. true enough, both tranches were sold, and it went even higher. So I felt a sense of relief that at least I am not totally pawned by the swing trade - probably costed me some brokerage fee, about $50. Ok better than getting pawned by 20 pips, which could have costed me $400, and considering those lessons on YZJ and iFast which costed me $2k+, this lesson is cheap.
- After lunch trend was similar to opening. Noon time was at a high of 7.58. Immediately after lunch, it got heavily shorted down to 7.4X. So I tot I might queue at 7.38, see where the trend go, hoping that my price is low enough for bounce. And unlucky me, I thought of checking to see if I needed to amend the trade, but too late, my buy trade was done minutes before I plan to amend. so whole afternoon I was stuck with 7.38, 1k. and now my aim was to get it out; didn't wish to hold on to it past today as too much volatility increases risk of holding the stock overnight. So I tried for a simple sell target - 7.43. At first for the next 1 hour or so, it sank towards 7.35. But somehow there was a wave of buying around 3.30pm onwards that slowly floated it past 7.43 and I managed to exit. And it went even higher, but this time it peaked at a lower high of 7.49 and it settled back down at 7.45 at closing. So whew, 2 profiting trades to offset 1 big losing trade :( how I wish that losing trade didn't happen and I could have walked away with at least a bit of win. but never mind, I hope the experience is worth it.
Come Monday, AEM is going to sink even more because INTEL crashed today. Now question is how do I play this out? I have about 60k funds ready to deploy to ride the downswing, but would I dare to? I dunno. Have to think really really hard.
Update 59:
