Smart Pinoy Investor: March 2013

Bo Sanchez's Maid is now a Millionaire - Now It's Your Turn

Okay, let me be more accurate. Bo's maid is now half-a-millionaire. =)

Currently, Bro Bo updated that his first maid—the first one who started her investment program under his guidance—now has P518,844 in her stock market portfolio! Great job! And she’s only 30 years old.

Bo added that if she keeps investing, she’ll have P15 Million by the time she hits 50. Note: A maid! (Though she's been promoted as a bookkeeper).

I was lucky to see her personally during the Wealth Summit 2013 last March 1.

Her name is Gina, and all I can say is she's a very humble lady.

You wouldn't even think that there are hundreds of thousands at the back of her meek aura.

When she was called by Bo up on the stage and asked her how much is her current investment, I felt how happy Gina was while answering it teary-eyed. Moments like that are precious memories where you see people with changed lives.

Sometimes I start to think if I can be a good maid, give up my career and serve Brother Bo while absorbing and learning from him. Wachathink?

So why am I sharing you this update?

Two reasons.

First, because I know for a fact that many people were inspired from this story (I for one!) so I thought that updates like this can continue the fire inside these people. You know, many times we need to be reminded often to continue the action we had started. So this one is to set that fire burning again!

Second, because I also use their stocks portfolio performance as one of my baselines when checking the performance of my own portfolio. Since we follow the same strategy of the club, any difference in our performance means I might have done something different. I'm sometimes intrigued how they exactly do it.

To give you a historical update, below are some of their previous "records":

As of Oct 26, 2012, this first maid had P363,658 in her Stock Market account!

His other maid, let’s call her Maid 2, then had 210,847 in her account!

In another update sent last June 28, Maid 1 had P308,388 while Maid 2 had P176,465.

So in a span of four months, Maid 1 had an increase in its investment amounting to 55,270 while Maid 2 had an investment increase of 34,382.

So putting the numbers we have now, the investment of Gina have increased by P155,186 in a span of almost five months!

Quite a nice reward!

And I could only think of two reasons behind all this good news: (1) the discipline Gina has in saving and keeping her investment; and (2) the favorable bull market we're having now.

It’s very true when Brother Bo said that his maids are now richer than many managers!

Hope this update pushes you more for your own dreams.

And I hope that we all catch the discipline and the bull market harvest too!

Have fun investing (keeping the dream within)!

Omeng \_(",)/

From now one, I'll be ending my post with a quote for us to ponder on. Here's our first shot!

"Follow your passion. You never know where it may take you. But one thing is for sure, you will never be wrong."

PS: Are you alone in your journey to your financial independence?
Time has proven that achieving something is always much easier by doing it with a team. Successful companies have a team backing it up. Each organization has its own team.

Join our team in spreading financial literacy to others as we share and impart our learning to our fellow Filipinos! Be mentored too by no less than Lyndon Malanog, Financial Coach of Bo Sanchez and Truly Rich Club.

Make your own personal financial plan here.

PS2: For beginners, download Bo Sanchez' pdf ebook - My Maid Invests in the Stock Market... and Why You Should too!
Click here to download for free!

Forget your investment - And Make Lasting Gains

So what is your greatest investment?

Just sharing this short story as a reminder for us in this quite "uncertain" market we had these past few days.

Whatever goal you may have, focus on it and start taking little action each day.

But don't forget the ultimate reason behind it.

Enjoy the friday!

***

SON: "Daddy, may I ask you a question?"
DAD: "Yeah sure, what is it?"
SON: "Daddy, how much do you make an hour?"
DAD: "That's none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?"
SON: "I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?"
DAD: "If you must know, I make $100 an hour."
SON: "Oh! (With his head down).
SON: "Daddy, may I please borrow $50?"

The father was furious.
DAD: "If the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you are being so selfish. I work hard everyday for such this childish behavior."

The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door.
The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy's questions. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?
After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think:
Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $ 50 and he really didn't ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy's room and opened the door.

DAD: "Are you asleep, son?"

SON: "No daddy, I'm awake".
DAD: "I've been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier. It's been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here's the $50 you asked for."

The little boy sat straight up, smiling.
SON: "Oh, thank you daddy!"
Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled up bills. The man saw that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, and then looked up at his father.

DAD: "Why do you want more money if you already have some?"

SON: "Because I didn't have enough, but now I do.

"Daddy, I have $100 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you."
The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little son, and he begged for his forgiveness. It's just a short reminder to all of you working so hard in life. We should not let time slip through our fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to us, those close to our hearts. Do remember to share that $100 worth of your time with someone you love? If we die tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family and friends we leave behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives. And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than to our family.

Some things are more important.

***

Have fun investing (in more important things)!

Omeng\_(",)/

Check more details here.

PS2: For beginners, download Bo Sanchez' pdf ebook - My Maid Invests in the Stock Market... and Why You Should too!
Click here to download for free!

Why You Should Have a Plan in Investing

Here's another investing story to teach and inspire us in growing our money in Philippines stock market.

It's a personal account of Wilms Tumor, one of our investing tips & tricks group member on how he started investing in Philippine Stock Market, his struggles and his lessons.

In just less than a year in a stock market world, he already has baskets of lessons we can learn from.

Truly experience is our best teacher, whether from our own or from others'.

Btw, he's an internist and gastroenterologist currently affiliated with De los Santos-STI Medical Center, Megaclinic, and Veterans Memorial Medical Center. So better read this to know if there's something wrong inside you!

Enjoy!

***

I have been into time deposits, UITFs before but the return is minimal. Most of the bank employees cannot even answer my questions on how I can maximize profits from my savings, worse some even can’t explain their products such as mutual fund and how it works. I receive a monthly statement of account from BPI including charts for the fund which I could not even understand.

My brother was trading in the stock market for several months before I did after having been encouraged by his officemates. During his day-offs, he would buy and sell but a change of work schedule kept him from monitoring the stock market. After all my training and exams last October, he handed me his copy of the swing trader. The pages and terminologies were strangers to me having been in the healthcare for almost a decade now. Having started analyzing the charts made me asked myself the purpose for buying stocks except for expecting higher profit as compared to the mutual funds & time deposits.

I opened an account with BPI Trade but I also bumped with Citiseconline (COL) which received positive feedbacks with their investment guides/ reports. My first buy was MPI with COL EIP last Dec then BDO with BPI Trade. My first online fund transfer from BPI to COL took 2 days hence I just used COL for its Investment Guide and Breaking News etc. But last week I tried transferring fund from BPI account to COL past midnight and I was surprised that it was credited in the morning. I will be using COL more in the coming days.

Searching the web for ways how I can increase my knowledge in the Philippine stock market, I stumbled upon this group at a time somebody or a group of members bid farewell to this group. I supposed they were the experts and I’m glad Omeng and the group took care of the site. A testament that their effort is sincere in helping each member here. I was fortunate to attend the first seminar last January and from there I learned the basics and the purpose of investing. Each investor or trader is unique. You should have your own goal and your trading plan, your entry and exits; whether you want to do short term trading, or medium to long term investing or a combination of all of these. And your purpose for these, whether for retirement, for buying a house, to fund the education of your children, to buy a car etc. When collecting profit, just be mindful of things that appreciate or depreciate in value so that you’ll get the most out of it.

Invest your time acquiring knowledge as little knowledge is dangerous. Investing in stocks is risky especially if you buy stocks of companies that don’t have good track records or worse are selling their properties to raise funds or companies that don’t even have regular employees (see company disclosures at pse.com.ph or the website of your broker). I regularly visit techfilipino or trader’s logbook website on weekends and read their predictions for the week but of course I don’t buy all the stocks on their watch list as some don’t have fair value by COL. Then after a week I revisit it again to see if the trend occurred. The knowledge I gain I apply on the charts of my stocks. This will somehow make my investing less risky.

Currently I’m holding BDO, MPI, AGI, PGOLD, SMPH and DNL; as you see all are in the daily TABLE of this site. Recently sold MEG at 25% profit. My problematic stock is CHI, now at 4% loss which I plan to sell anytime this week, a stock with good fundamentals but if investors or traders are not interested (low volume), the price might not go up or just trade sideways. I’m planning to buy the monopolizers like MER once I have more funds while keeping BDO for my long term.

Your worst enemy in the market is yourself especially your emotions, like riding on the euphoria of buying stocks that are in a very steep uptrend only to find out that prices fall the next day. As a value investor, I buy on dips or pullbacks although this may not be evident anymore in this time of bull run. I also buy stocks if the % upside is >15% before the price reaches its fair value or if the SMA is above the candlestick or if the RSI is not yet overbought. Setting a stop loss is very important as this minimizes loss and don’t convert a losing stock into long term investment just like with CAL as what I have read in this site. As a newbie, I prefer not to invest in penny stocks although I’m sometimes tempted by just looking at the gainers (& losers) and their volume at the start of the trading day. These stocks are green today then red tomorrow. Let’s leave it to traders and experts, we are not in the trading floor and we cannot hear their shouts and voices. In the end, it’s your trading plan based on your goals and risk appetite that you should follow. And always be patient, we will also have our millions, albeit slowly but surely.

***

Have fun investing (with a clear plan)!

Omeng \_('',)/

PS: For beginners, download this full version of Bo Sanchez' pdf ebook - My Maid Invests in the Stock Market... and Why You Should too!
Click here to download for free!

Five Ignored Versatility Features of BPI Account

Special thanks goes to Ronald Malicdem, a member of our investing in stock market tips & tricks group for this piece.

If you have an existing BPI account, you might want to check out some of their investment products!

Read on to find out what can suit your need!

The versatility of a BPI account

Just want to share for newbies asking where to start. Having a BPI account is one of the most versatile tool in starting your investment. Some may not know but you can do a lot of things with your BPI account.

1. Rule 1 - start savings, ensure to have a savings account. You may open a BPI savings or checking account. Do not start your investment adventure without enough savings and emergency funds.

2. Rule 2 - emergency funds. You can link your BPI savings / checking account to open any of the BPI trust funds. For emergency funds, to ensure capital preservation, minimal risk and growth, go for BPI money market funds or BPI bond funds. One good news, all BPI trust funds have no holding periods! Can be withdrawn anytime without a penalty, what a nice feature :-) Note, this is for BPI UITFs only, Oddyssey and ALFM MFs have holding periods.

3. Investment - you can link your BPI savings / checking account to open a BPI equity UITF fund or you can link your BPI savings / checking account to open a BPI Trade trading account. Now here comes the versatility, you can easily move your money online from your savings/checking account to your BPI trade account and vice versa, withdraw from the trade account and move back to your savings/checking account.

4. Long-term - you can setup your BPI savings/checking account to have an EIP to your BPI trust funds, this means, an auto-transfer of funds on a specific period (monthly) from your savings/checking to your BPI trust funds.

5. Online and versatility - all of this BPI accounts (savings, checking, trust UITF funds, and trading accounts) are online and can be interlinked! You can always monitor online status of your accounts anytime anywhere, make necessary processing within and between your accounts. The power of versatility! :-)

As I've shared before in my previous blog, BPI Trade can be ideal for long-termers who don't need to monitor the market day to day and seldom makes transactions.
You don't see a lot of market actions so you're not bothered with dips and blows. And the bank-linking is what I like most.

Have fun investing (while partnering with your bank)!

Omeng \_('',)/

PS: For beginners, download this full version of Bo Sanchez' pdf ebook - My Maid Invests in the Stock Market... and Why You Should too!
Click here to download for free!

Before You Invest - One Critical Thing You Should Not Miss

I've been investing for the past two years in Philippines Stock Market.

When I started this blog, I only intended to make this as my online finance diary. I got that idea of making journal when I discovered in my PI100 undergraduate class (Life and Works of Rizal) that our national hero Rizal had so much letters exchanges with many different personalities.

So while making my first moves in building my financial foundation, I made sure to make records of it. I was financial literacy-poor and started even poorer back then. Now, I'm pleased to have my chunks of investments now. The journey has been good so far (Thanks to the bullish run)!

Sometimes, when I check during a random trading day, I see my investments growing much more than I'm being paid now, which could be the reason why so many are tempted to be actively managing and trading especially that we're seeing bull market. While I sometimes entertain the thought, I'm planning to really make my investments as passive as it can be.

I was missing something.

But when I attended the Registered Financial Planning class (on its batch 28), I realized that investment is really just a tiny component of the whole financial planning picture. In fact, there are several areas one needs to look on first before even thinking of branding yourself as an investor of giant companies. It was so imperative that I had to make sure I'm applying the sound financial principles I was learning from that day on. It's so critical that one mistake I might commit can erase all my investments together with all the hard work and memories in building that up.

That's also the reason why when I organized the market outlook 2013 seminar, I intentionally added an overview section about personal finance and invited Sir Ricky So to remind everyone that buying and owning stock is not the end goal, but merely to use investments as just one of the tools for an individual to attain his life goals. These personal goals in turn should be the ultimate reason behind all the financial planning and committed habits you're putting in your life now.

In fact, financial planning is simply just like that - designing your financial life to achieve your life's goals, be it education for children, house and lot, car, vacation, long-term purchases, retirement, etc.

The whole idea of financial planning rests on five simple steps: (1) Knowing your life goals (2) Assessing your present financial condition (3) Identifying available options/tools/alternatives and coming up with a reasonable plan (4) Executing the plan and (5) Regular monitoring.

Now, it may seem that those are obvious lessons, but the implication, if ignored, can literally turn your life upside down.

My Experience With My Tatay

Once upon a time, when I was in my third year in college, a big disaster has blown my family.

My grandfather, whom I dearly call Tatay, was rushed to a hospital (Lung Center of the Philippines). His bad habit of heavy smoking during his younger years was then taking its toll on his health. Though he's no longer taking a cigarette stick, it was already too late for him.

Since he's also no regular source of income aside from his tiny pension from SSS, our family who was living with him had to do the taking care. That meant taking time to look after him while he's confined and finding ways to finance the hospitalization.

You see my family was not prepared for that.
I think we were never ready.
My mother had to extend her neck out to find ways to shoulder the expenses looming every single day. She went to PCSO, friends, mayor. Congressman, councilor even our barangay chairman. I guess when you're really in a very desperate situation, no one can stop you in extending the life of a person you love.

I couldn’t exactly explain how I felt that time. I was only a student facing such a real challenge for the first time. Somehow a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness occupied me. Helplessness because I couldn’t help in finding ways to cover the bills; hopelessness because I saw my Tatay getting weaker each day.

When I saw a rubber tube pierced to his body with the other end connected to a collecting bottle, I knew it's never going to be back to normal.

Time came when he was needed to be moved to ICU. Few days later, he's back to the "normal room". Few more days after, the doctor gave advice that he could be brought home. He was in the hospital for more than a month.

But before leaving the hospital, we deeply felt that the head of our household wanted to stay longer in the hospital so he could be taken care better, but knowing the burden of that extension, we felt too that he had just kept that thought in himself.

When we went home, good things lasted only very shortly, as some had expected...

He was my first fan.

He once mentioned before that his only dream was to see me graduating in college. It's already big for him considering that he had only finished until Grade 2.

Sadly, heaven didn't grant his wish. At a young age of 68 years old, my first avid fan left us. It was also my very first time to have a taste of the reality of death of someone who's been a big part of your life. His dream for me came true only two long years later, which I offered to him with my prayers.

This is not just my story

That story is just one of the real stories highlighting the fact that many patients are dying not because there's no medicine or doctors to attend to them, but because there's no money to pay for doctors and medication.

I and my Tatay during my elementary graduation

The two questions we all need to answer

Recently, I availed this financial product (from IMG) that I believe addresses this concern.

It takes care about the three major financial needs of anyone - healthcare, insurance and investment. It's a three-in-one package that can contribute to one's financial foundation.

You see there are two major problems when it comes to money (I got this from Bo Sanchez' book): (1) you can die too young or (2) live too long.

That's just another way of saying what financial planners suggest: the first goal anyone should have is to be safe; then the goal of a comfortable life comes second. The first goal - to be safe – sounds very simple, yet very few are aware of its utmost significance.

The second – to be comfortable – is something that everyone looks forward to.

Now you see what hooked me up in the product: the Insurance component can give peace and protection to your family in case the first unfortunate case happens whereas the long-term healthcare and investment parts are there in case you live too long to provide you healthcare and generate a passive income. So it’s also like your giant piggy bank that can help answer your retirement needs. What's good is that it can be payable only in just five years.

As what I've learned, the goal is to be self-insured. We want our money to grow year after year to a point where we no longer need insurance. But at this point we cannot do that, we use the blessing of insurance+healthcare with investment as bonus.

In case you also want that type of investment, I can ask a friend-agent to do a free financial check up for you and see how the product can specifically address your need or of your relatives. As each person has different situation, a closer look needs to be done to suit your specific situation better. You can send email (pinoyinvesting@gmail.com) if you need more information.

That’s all for now!

While we're now in the 21st century, the solid financial principles remain the same.

Aim to have a great financial foundation. Let's prepare for the coming years of our lives!

Have fun investing (with peace and preparation)!

-Omeng \_(",)/

PS: We people don't plan to fail; we only FAIL to PLAN.
Make sure you have your own financial plan in place before investing your first peso.
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