Trading is a journey

Hello world and welcome to my blog!

I first began investing in shares at the age of 12, at 16 I bought and ran my own business and at the age of 22 I have left my job and established an online business so that I can work from home and become a full time professional investor. Along the way I have traded options, CFD’s and tried out a variety of short term investment and trading strategies.

After the culmination of many hours, reading, trading and learning about the markets I feel like I am returning to my roots. Originally when I was twelve and bought my first shares in Billabong (ASX: BBG) I always envisaged myself as a long term investor. Although this purchase didn’t exactly turn out the best (I purchased at $7.30 and they went to mid $4.00’s shortly after) it taught me some valuable lessons about researching a stock and understanding it’s fundamental value, future prospects and above all the catalyst that will drive its share price higher.

After my purchase of Billabong I made another rash decision that taught me even more lessons about the stock market and the behaviour of stocks. It’s not that I didn’t care about my money or the investments I made but as a 12 year old who lived by the beach I guess I thought everyone wore Billabong and bought TV’s from Harvey Norman. Any way you can probably gather that neither of these investments really paid off in a financial sense, however from an educational view point it was money well spent.

After my first two forays into the stock market I began reading financial reports and conducting some analysis into the company’s performance. I looked for consistent growth in sales, earnings per share and dividend payments. This formed the basis of my research and I was able to purchase my best two performers to date Leighton Holdings (ASX: LEI) and Origin Energy (ASX: ORG). I had found a style of investing that I liked and enjoyed creating a whole raft of excel spread sheets with formulas and graphs.

After I purchased my business at 16, my investment capital dried up and I just continued to monitor my existing shares without making any major new purchases. This went on for a number of years and I was pretty comfortable with what I had. I also think the business and my HSC took some of my focus away from the stock market during this time.

As I matured I came to realise that the potential for large, life changing returns were not going to be found in just buying and holding blue chip companies (unless I wanted to reap the fruits of my reward when I am 20, 30 or 40 years older). As a result I began investigating different trading methods and Contracts for Difference. I have in the past dabbled with options, however I have not traded them since I was about 15 or so. What would follow was a period of frustration. I can read and understand charts and could tell you how most underlying indicators works, but I never found anything I was overly comfortable with trading or basing my investment decisions off. Even if I did make some profits using various systems and trading methods.

During the Global Financial Crisis I traded the FTSE 100 and individual UK stocks, I made some fast (but relatively minor money) short selling bank stocks intra-day (at the time the intra ranges were he 10, 15, 20%+). I have also traded the ASX 200 index, where I also made some profits. Anyway what I believe was a combination of a small account balance, a lack of time to trade these markets full time and the failure to find a way of trading that I truly enjoyed I stopped.

I then went on another hiatus from the stock market and entered the property industry (something that I used to love, but am somewhat indifferent towards now). I completed a bachelor degree via correspondence and worked for almost 4 years in the industry before finding myself where I am now…… back to where I started, with a passion for the stock market and a realisation that I was in the right place the whole time. I just needed to change what I invested in slightly. I have always had an analytical mind and even during my property career I would run analysis on property developments, investments and retailer trading figures. I am now in a fortunate situation where I can apply this to the stock market in a somewhat full time capacity. At the core of my investment philosophy is the uncovering of stocks with the potential of multi-bagger returns (ideally 5 - 10 x return on investment or more). Now I am not under any false illusions and know this is not an easy area of the market to crack, but I have finally found my niche and I plan on utilising my strengths to exploit it to the best of my ability.

Welcome to my blog and please follow me on my journey! 

P.S. Please read the disclosure statement. This site is provided for entertainment purposes only and no information should be taken as advise or a recommendation to buy, hold or sell are share or particular investment.