Rich Money Habits

Last month, I had the priviledge of being invited as one of the resource speakers in the University of the Philippines Diliman College of Business Administration’s (UP CBA) Alternative Class Learning Experience (ACLE).  The event titled “Stockticks: Learning the basics” was organized by Adelfe Enu Crea Sorority, UP CBA’s only business sorority, helping promote Philippine Stock Market Investing to students of UP Diliman.

The experience was a blast!  More than 60+ students were able to attend the event and learned the basics of investing in the Philippine Stock Market.  I was also fortunate to share the stage with one of the more experienced stock market investors in the Philippines, Mr Aaron Say of Rhyme and Reason Investing.

Good news for you, my wife (a.k.a my number one fan), was able to take a video of my talk.   In the video, I discussed the basics of stock market investing, what a stock is, how do you make money from stocks, its advantages/disadvantages over other investment vehicles and more.  The video is around 30 minutes long so I had to split it into two so it can be uploaded to You Tube.

CLICK HERE to watch part 1 of 2 of the video.

CLICK HERE to watch part 2 of 2 of the video.

Watch and enjoy!

P.S.  I understand that the information contained in the video is basic for some who are already investing in the stock market…but for those of you who are still clueless how to invest in the philippine stock market, I hope this will be a welcome mini-tutorial for you.  I am like you and I know how it feels to want to learn but don’t know where to start.  This video is a good starting point, if you’re really interested to pursue stock market investing in the Philippines.

DISCLAIMER:  I am NOT a licensed stock market analyst or stock broker, nor am I a seasoned investor.  I am just like you, an ordinary person wanting to learn how to grow the money I have.  Please note that everything I say in this blog and in the video are purely my own personal opinion and nothing else.  Take them at your own risk. If you seek professional advice, please consult licensed professionals engaged in that line of business.

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Today, I got curious when I saw an email Newsletter from CitisecOnline, Inc in my mailbox.  The newsletter contained some videos discussing the Philippine Stock Market Outlook for 2011, at least from CitisecOnline’s point of view.

I was amazed because I didn’t expect to receive such a video report prepared in painstaking detail.  I must admit I often get bored seeing power point presentations. Oftentimes I don’t understand half of it.  But I still I thought it would be a good idea to at least share them with you so we can both learn something new today.

DISCLAIMER: I am not connected with CitisecOnline other than as a customer.  I don’t earn any income from promoting them on this site.  All rights to the videos below are with CitisecOnline, Inc.  Please exercise due diligence and consult your own financial advisors before acting on any recommendations mentioned on this site.  I am not liable for any loss or damage from direct or indirect use of the information contained in this site including the videos below.

With that said, here’s

CitisecOnline’s Philippine Stock Market Outlook for 2011

FUNDAMENTAL OUTLOOK (Part 1)

by Ms. April Lee-Tan, CFA

Topics: Inflation and interest rate hike concerns, fund flows, strong fundamentals of the Philippines and the investment boom in the Philippines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mat2Oy3GZU

FUNDAMENTAL OUTLOOK (Part 2)

Topics: today’s valuations, following a buying plan, and the COL Stock Picks for 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzTG-9HLnwM

…If at this point, your head is about to explode because of information overload, wait till you watch the following videos.

TECHNICAL OUTLOOK (Part 1)

by Mr. Juanis Barredo

Topics: brief market overview, a 1-Year Performance read of the Philippine index, a look into the global recovery and current fund drifts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZokTWnsKwJ4

TECHNICAL OUTLOOK (Part 2)

Topics: Headwinds facing the market, the impact of inflation and interest rates, an examination of Europe and what our observations are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfCTn8Igt5s

TECHNICAL OUTLOOK (Part 3)

Topics: What is up ahead, a weekly and daily overview of the PSEi, CitisecOnline’s expected scenario and our technical outlook stock picks and support points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYgLV0yzqfU

I hope you didn’t get a headache from watching the videos.

Readers, what thoughts do you have about the stock market outlook for 2011?  Do you think the market’s optimism will carry us through?  Or will the stock market be sluggish this year?

Good luck investing!

Allan

Allan Inocente

Rich Money Habits

www.akosiallan.com

P.S.  Something is brewing here at Rich Money Habits…Watch out for my next post, as I try to fill you in on my very first project for 2011!  This is going to be really exciting!

What if I tell you you can invest in stocks in your sleep?  How would you react?  I realized you actually can…literally.  Read on to find out how.

Before I proceed, I would like to clarify what I mean when I say “invest in stocks in your sleep”. I don’t mean logging on to your computer like a zombie, eyes closed, still dreaming in your sleep, typing away at your keyboard in the middle of the night and placing an order to buy shares of stock.

I also don’t mean it’s easy to buy stocks.  Doing anything “in your sleep” figuratively means it’s easy. What I mean is more literal than that.

If you’re halfway around the world from the Philippines, you can put your order during your day, and while you’re asleep at night, the official trading hours of the Philippine Stock Exchange begins and your order automatically gets processed and invested in shares of stocks of your choice.

In short, while your order is being processed and buying stocks, you are practically sleeping. How about that?

Ok, I must admit, it’s more accurate to say “how to buy stocks in your sleep.”

Now, that I’ve got your attention, let me show you exactly how.

How To Buy Stocks In Your Sleep?

I’ve been asked many times before how someone can invest in the Philippine Stock Market outside the trading hours which is from 9AM to 12 noon.  Here’s one from Jezz logged under the comment section of my article Online Stock Market Investing in the Philippines.

“Mr. Allan, Am I right to assume that I can only trade from 9am to 12nn Philippine time? You see, I’m somewhere in the Middle East and 9am Philippine time is only 4am here. I find it quite difficult to trade in CitiSeconline because of this time difference.”

I’ve also had this dilemma myself so I was actually looking for some answers but with no luck.  Until now.

CitisecOnline, Inc has officially allowed placing an order to buy stocks outside the Philippine Stock Exchange trading hours (9AM to 12NN) starting September last year (apologies for sharing this to you just now).  It starts from 1PM to 8AM the next day.  Here’s a definition of Off-Hours orders from FAQs of the CitisecOnline site.

What are Off-Hours orders?

An Off-hours Order or ‘After Trade hours Order’ (ATO) – the Off-hours ATO Order is provided to allow customers to enter orders after closing in preparation for the next trading day. ATO orders are accepted after 1:00PM and before 8:55 AM weekdays and anytime on weekends. Off-hours orders will be collected on a first come first serve basis, and will be sent to the Exchange for posting on a first in first out basis during pre-open session. After posting, all Off-hours orders immediately become Limit Day Orders and cannot be cancelled/modified during (9:15AM-9:30 AM). All orders will be governed by the Exchange’s order regulations. For orders during market activity (9:00 AM to 12:10 PM), please use the regular “Enter Orders” function.

There are many reasons why someone would want to invest outside of the trading hours.  The most common is due to schedule restrictions.

For example, you may be working on a night shift and during the day, you would rather be taking your much needed sleep than go and buy stocks during the normal trading hours at 9AM to 12NN.

Or like Jezz you may be living in the Middle East or somewhere on the other side of the world.  Now, you don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night just to place an order to invest in your favorite stocks.

I was so excited about this development I decided to try it out.  Here are steps I followed to place an off-hours order.

How To Place an Off-Hours Order

1.  Log-in to your account at CitisecOnline.com

2.  Click on the ‘Trade/Portfolio’ tab

3.  Click on the ‘Off Hours Order’ section

4.  Enter your order details: Stock Code, # of shares to buy, and price, etc

5.  Click the ‘Preview Order’ button

6.  Review your off-hour order details

7.  Enter your password

8.  Click ‘Place Buy Order’ button

After following the above steps, you should receive a confirmation that your order has been placed.  Once confirmed, your order will be processed during the next day’s trading hours, regardless whether you’re in front of your computer or not at that time.

It’s a good idea to go check your order again the next day just to see if it was processed successfully.

And yes, you can be sleeping while your order is being processed.  Now, that’s investing in stocks in your sleep!

Happy investing!

Ever since I’ve opened my CitisecOnline (COL) account, I’ve been doing fund transfers from my BPI express online savings account to my COL account whenever I want to fund it and buy some stocks.  Recently, I was having trouble doing fund transfers for some reason.  I wasn’t sure whether the problem was with BPI Express Online or with CitiseOnline since I have never encountered this problem before.

While thinking whether to call BPI or COL, I asked my wife whether she was having the same problem.  She simply answered, no.  I then asked her how she funds her COL account and to my surprise she was not doing a fund transfer but instead uses BPI expressonline’s Bills Payment facility.  I tried it out and in just 15 minutes, I was able to enroll my COL account into BPI expressonline Bills Payment and do a bills payment transaction to fund it.

Here are the 3 steps I did.

Step 1 – Enroll Your COL account into BPI Express Online Bills Payment facility

1. Log on to www.bpiexpressonline.com
2. Enter your username and password
3. Under Payments & Reloading, click Bills Payments, click Enroll all other Bills
4. Enter your BPI account number and Joint Account Indicator No.  (this is the 2-digit no. located at the lower right hand corner of your ATM card right across your name)
5. Under Bill information, select CITISECONLINE.COM INC. (COL) as the enrollee merchant
6. Enter your CitisecOnline account number (8-digit code username) on the space under Reference Number (I entered mine with the dash in it xxxx-xxxx and it worked fine)
7. Click Submit

Step 2 – Fund Your COL account by doing a Bills Payment transaction

1. Under Payments & Reloading, click Bills Payment, click Pay Bills Today
2. Under Pay, choose your CitisecOnline Account
3. Enter the amount
4. Choose BPI account from where payment will come from
5. Click Submit

Step 3 – Verify that Your COL account is funded with the correct amount

1. You should receive a confirmation once your COL account has been enrolled
2. You should receive a confirmation email from BPI if payment was successful.
3. You should receive a confirmation email from COL once they’ve received the amount and credited it into your COL account.

It only took me 15 minutes to set this up but the time savings and convenience of not having to wait in line at the bank just to fund my COL account brings a smile to my face.

Hope the above tips make your stock investing convenient and hassle-free!

This article describes the 3 tips on how to do online stock market investing in the Philippines.  This is part 2 of a 3-part series on the lessons I’ve learned from the recent Money Summit and Wealth Expo.  If you missed the first part, you can read the real-estate investing tips in the Philippines here.

Online Stock Market Investing in the Philippines

It’s been months since I’ve started online stock market investing.  As I’ve shared in my 2010 Financial Goals Mid-Year Update, investing in stocks has been an eye opener for me.  This is the reason why I was so glad to learn more about online investing in the stock market during the Money Summit and Wealth Expo seminar.

Lesson #1 – Investing in the Stock Market Requires Discipline

According to Conrado Bate of CitisecOnline, Inc. (COL), one way to successfully invest in the Philippine Stock Market is to invest continuously and regularly on good quality companies with predictable earnings.  This investing method is known as cost-averaging. 

That means, you need to invest a fixed amount of money every month (or quarterly) regardless if the market is up or down.  If the market is down, your money buys more shares of the company.  If the market is up, your total investment would also go up in value.  So even if the market is up or down, over the long term, your investment will still yield a pretty good return.

This is a pretty simple strategy.  But it is NOT easy.  For one, you have to have the discipline to buy the stocks even if the price is too high and still buy the same stocks even if the price is too low.  Your tendency is to get greedy when the price is too high, and become afraid when the same stock is priced way too low. 

Personally, this has been my experience.  The reality is I am an emotional being and I too am driven by 2 emotions – greed and fear.  For example, initially I planned to invest monthly through EIP but my over excitement has gotten the best of me.  When I bought my first stocks, I was so excited, I bought 3 different stocks right away.  Then I learned about the Super EIP and realized some stocks are being sold 47% below their price.  So I bought some of those stocks too.  That’s greed in action. 

With so many stocks in my portfolio, I don’t have enough money to invest in each of them every month now.  In addition, the price of some of my stocks is down 5% (ouch).  Worse, I don’t know what to do (fear).  Should I buy more of this stock now that it is priced lower?  How about those stocks I own that are now 30% up?  Should I sell them now?

Sometimes, answering these questions is not always easy.  In times like these, having the discipline to stick to your plan will come in handy.

Lesson #2 – Invest Only What You Save, Not What You Need

One very useful advice from a COL agent (I can’t remember her name) during the seminar, was to invest only what you save, not what you need.  The stock market is subject to market fluctuations.  You have no control over how the price will go.  This is the reason why some investors advice on investing only what you save (or what you can lose), and not what you need.

You should NOT borrow money to invest in the stock market especially if you’re a beginning investor.  Save first.  Unless you have the discipline to save, you won’t have the discipline to invest. 

Don’t invest what you need.  Money spent for your needs should NOT be invested into the stock market.  Never use money from your emergency fund.  Never invest the money you are using to pay for your debts.  The stock market is risky precisely because you don’t have any control over the investment.

With consistent saving and investing, your small amounts can become big amounts over the long term through the power of compounding.   Your money is leveraging the consistent growth of the company and the power of compounding to give you a nice return in the future.

Lesson #3 – Don’t Watch The Market

One very good habit that I’ve realized recently, is NOT to track your investments on a daily basis.  This may sound contrarian.  Maybe it is.  Maybe for some they need to watch the market daily.  But personally, I have not found a very good reason to track my investments on a daily basis.

I do track my investments every now and then, maybe once or twice every month.  But it has never come to a point where I would have to watch over it on a daily basis.

This is both to make the most of my time as well as for my own sanity.  I cannot imagine myself being glued to the screen monitor tracking the stock price every minute and then and worrying about the problems of the world such as the European debt crisis, oil problems, election results or what not. 

I understand that my money will be able to work for me over the long term, only if I give it time and stick to my strategy.  I am not investing all of my money in the stock market.  Stocks is only a small portion of my investment portfolio at the moment.  Besides, I don’t invest what I need.  I invest only what I can lose.  That simple thought helps me sleep at night.

Readers, what other stock investing tips can you share?  do you think cost-averaging method actually works?

It’s now July! The first half of the year has already passed.  Time does fly so fast, doesn’t it?  So many things have happened and I am still amazed at how this blog has grown steadily over the past 6 months.  Before we welcome the next half of the year, I’d like to take this time to reflect and give you an update on my 3 financial goals for this year 2010. 

Financial Goal #1 – Buy a House!

My first goal for 2010 is to Buy a House.  The short update is…NO we have NOT bought a house yet.  But maybe soon.

My wife and I actually invested in a house…but only for a private lending deal.  Besides, we won’t actually own the house, so that doesn’t count.  That deal, however, introduced us to great friends doing business in real-estate whom I am learning a lot from.  In the next months I will also be spending some time to learn investing in real-estate myself. 

We’ve also been looking at buying a nice 2-bedroom unit on a pre-selling mid-rise condo.  But this one will NOT be ready for occupancy until April 2012.  We actually paid the reservation already so hopefully, if everything is in order, my first goal for the year could actually be within reach (at least technically).  

Financial Goal #2 – Invest 20% of my money

The second goal I have is to invest 20% of my money.  I’ve started investing in the Philippine Stock Market.  I’ve tried the cost-averaging method via CitisecOnline’s EIP and even Bo Sanchez’ SUPER EIP way! The experience has been an eye opener for me. 

Apart from that, I also got into a private lending deal on real-estate.  While I haven’t gotten my money back yet, I’m confident this will lead into more investing opportunities in the future. 

Just last week, one of my friends also asked me to invest in her Travel Agency business.   Normally, I don’t lend money unless I’m very sure I will get my money back.  However, since I know her and the money (including interest) will be returned in just 7 days, I thought it was worth a try.  If this deal goes well, I might be encouraged to invest again in the future and probably open it up also to dear readers of this site.

I’ve also been investing heavily on my personal development these past months.  I’ve just attended the Money Summit and Wealth Expo last weekend to learn more about money, business and investing.  The 2-day seminar was a blast!  The energy from the speakers as well as the attendees was simply amazing!  Up to now, I’m still digesting everything.  I’m really excited to share the lessons I’ve learned from that seminar to our dear readers.  So, watch out for that in the coming weeks.

Financial Goal #3 – Be Consciously Alive

The 3rd and last goal I have is to be consciously alive.  This goal has more to do about my desire to live a healthier lifestyle than anything else.  This is the reason why I think your health is more important than your money. 

While I’m not sick at the moment, my health has not been ideal the past few months.  It is not where it is supposed to be.  My lifestyle is not very good.  I still drink coffee a lot.  I am also having a hard time getting enough sleep.  As a result, I’ve easily gotten a cold every now and then.

I’m always in a hurry. Most of the time, I go for fast food.  My weight has increased so much that my pants now hardly fit.  Oh well, it’s a good thing fitted pants are the “in” thing these days.  I don’t have to feel so out of place.

One good news is that I finally used our condo’s gym.  Finally.  Just today.  And I liked it.  I’ll probably go to the gym more often now.

Quite honestly, this goal is a little bit vague to measure and be actually effective.  So, to make this goal more specific, measurable and make me accountable , I’m revising it to say “my goal is to weigh 80 kilograms by December 31, 2010”.  I only have less than 6 months to go so I better get started right away!  Wish me luck!

P.S.  Dear Readers, what financial goals do you have for the year?  How have you made progress on your goals now that the first half of the year has passed?

Here’s an interesting guest post from Mariusz, sharing his thoughts on the most important lesson about investing.  Read on and enjoy!

If you are a beginning investor, it can be very confusing to listen to others who give you advice on how to invest your hard-earned money. The best thing that you can do is ignore most of the advice and educate yourself following the strategies of investors who successfully built wealth over long periods of time, not just over the last few days, months, or quarters. I would suggest reading lots of books on the subject of value investing.

The major theme that you will get from reading these books is that in order to be a successful investor, you must think that when you buy stocks, you are investing in businesses because this is exactly what stocks represent.

When companies are started, they usually are funded with some type of private or venture capital money. When a company becomes big enough, its management might turn to the public markets to raise money to pay off the original financial backers and to grow the business going forward. When that happens, the company issues shares to the public through a process called the Initial Public Offering, and these shares are assigned ticker symbols such as DVR or MORN.

At this point, they start trading on the exchanges such as the NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange. These exchanges allow stock owners to buy and sell their ownership interests in companies. While it can be very cumbersome to buy and sell private businesses, shares of publicly traded companies can trade hands with a click of mouse. This liquidity can be advantageous for investors because it allows quick access to cash, but I believe that it actually lures investors into becoming gamblers or speculators. For example, do you know anyone who has a successful business? You probably do. How many times do you see this person selling his or her business during the course of a year? He or she probably holds on to the business for years, if not forever, reaping the benefits of business ownership.

However, because public markets allow investors to buy and sell within seconds, this allows them to become flaky investors who forget about the underlying business and, instead, focus solely on the stock price. As a result, they are willing to abandon their ownership whenever bad news about the company is released. A private owner would never sell a business simply because the Fed changed interest rates or China’s GDP slowed down.

“If you truly want to experience success in investing, you must realize that when you buy stocks, you become a partial owner, or a salient partner in the businesses that these stocks represent.”

But that’s not everything. Just because you realize that a Lexus is a car doesn’t mean that you should be willing to pay any price for it. Depending on the model and year, you would not pay more than you think it is worth. Businesses are no different – they have values. It is safe to say that Business A is worth more than Business B, if Business A generates more money than Business B. So it would be logical to assume that it is not the best strategy to overpay for businesses because when it is time to sell, for whatever reason, it would be hard to find another fool that would be willing to overpay you for your business.

While this may seem logical to you, this is exactly the opposite of how the majority of investors invest. They get excited when prices go up and depressed when prices go down. So they are happy and more willing to buy businesses when they become expensive, and they are sad when these same businesses become cheaper. To me, this doesn’t make any sense, but this is the world of investing.

The recipe for successful investing is simple: treat stocks as businesses, buy them with the intentions of becoming an owner, pay only the price that makes sense, and wait for your wealth to grow.

That’s it. It is that simple, but for some, it is too simple. The investment industry cannot possibly follow this strategy because how else would most investment professionals justify charging you insanely high fees in relation to its terrible investment performance?

About the author:

Mariusz Skonieczny is the founder and president of Classic Value Investors, LLC, an investment management company. He is also the author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

P.S. How about you? What do you think is the most important thing to keep in mind when investing in the stock market?

It’s been more than a year since my wife and I signed-up to the Truly Rich Club. While it has been an amazing journey, there were also some logistic problems we encountered along the way. 

A few months ago, my wife and I had to renew our membership.  Since our credit card issued in Malaysia already expired, we renewed the membership using our BPI credit card here in the Philippines.  However, 3 months after renewing the membership, the DVDs and Audio CDs have NOT been delivered to our home yet. 

That’s when I tried to search for any support contacts in the Truly Rich Club member’s site.  To my surprise, I couldn’t find any support contact number. 

Thankfully, my wife was able to save an old email from the Truly Rich Club when we were still starting out as a member.  We emailed the address right away, and in 3 days, the DVDs and Audio CDs arrived in a bright red LBC package.

If you’re having the same problem or  you ever encounter any problem with your Truly Rich Club membership, you can email the following address:

P.S. Do you want to solve your financial problem?  Join Bo Sanchez’ Truly Rich Club NOW!

For the past few months, I’ve been investing in the Philippine Stock Market using Citiseconline’s EIP (Easy Investment Program).  In a nutshell, it’s an investment program where you invest a fixed amount on a regular basis to take advantage of the cost averaging method.  I plan to do this for at least 5 years for the most stable stocks that I feel have the most probable chance of being profitable in the next 5 to 10 years.

The Super EIP of Bo Sanchez

I mentioned in my Truly Rich Club Review that Bo Sanchez recently launched his Stocks Updates Newsletter along with his e-book “My Maid Invests in the Stock Market”.  Through the Newsletter, Bo aims to share his stock investment advise.  He plans to tell you what stocks he is buying, what stocks he recommends people to buy and when to sell those stocks.

This very helpful information is available only to Truly Rich Club members.  Since you’re an avid reader of this blog, I’ll give you a sneak peek on what Truly Rich Club members are getting.

In the first issue of Bo’s Stocks Update Newsletter, he introduced the SUPER EIP investment program. The strategy is to search for “undervalued” companies with proven track record and buy them at a low price.  For example, if a stock is valued at $2 $1.50 and it is currently being sold at $1, you have a 50% potential profit once the market aligns with the stocks’ true value.  After the stock reaches $2, you can then sell your stocks and get 50% profit.  Keep in mind that this may happen after weeks, months, or even years.  For Bo’s case, his PhP 148,000 actually increased to PhP 441,000 when he sold his stocks after more than 1 year!  That’s a profit of around 200%!

At this point, I need to mention that the results will definitely vary from case to case and some people may even lose money.  In the end, you should still be responsible in making your own investment decisions.  Citiseconline, Bo Sanchez or even this blog may tell you what stocks to buy and when to sell but the reality is that it is still YOUR OWN MONEY.  There’s no one more concerned on how to make your money grow than you.

In an attempt to try out the SUPER EIP investment strategy, I’ve invested some of my money into 2 stocks (one valued at 47% upside profit, and the other one a 42% potential upside) starting this month.  As with Bo’s strategy, I also plan to take advantage of EIP cost averaging for these 2 stocks.  Every month, I plan to invest a fixed amount and once it reaches the target price, I will sell the stocks to take my profits.

I am really excited to see how this strategy will fare out in the future.  I can’t wait to share to you whether the money I invested will grow to its potential or I end up losing money.  Watch out for that in the coming months.

How about you?  What investment strategies are you using when investing in the Philippine Stock Market?

P.S. If you want to know the 2 companies I invested in for the SUPER EIP and other undervalued stocks in the Philippines, you can contact me or join Bo Sanchez’ Truly Rich Club and read Bo’s Stock Updates Newsletter.