NOV. 1, 2010 is NON-TRADING DAY

       Today was the last trading day for the month of October! There will be no trading on November 1, 2010 in observance of the All Saints' Day. Happy halloween everyone! TRICK OR TREAT?!
       And as my friend Bro Louis said in the KFAM forum, " Let's pray for all the unknown souls... may their souls rest in peace..." To those going for a "vacation" due to the long weekend, take care. "See" you at the "market" on Nov. 2.

"He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed..." < romer is aikonic, aikonic is romer >

IPO - Initial Public Offering

       Last Tuesday, October 25,2010, "Cebu Pacific was able to raise P23.3B for its IPO or Initial Public Offering by selling 30.66 million primary shares, as well as 155.98 million secondary shares, owned by parent company JG Summit Holdings Inc." (quoted from the Business Mirror). It was the first IPO for this year and will be followed by Nickel Mining Corporation and IP Converge Data Center Inc..  But what is IPO and why do company hold it?

       From Wikipedia,  "An initial public offering (IPO), referred to simply as an "offering" or "flotation", is when a company (called the issuer) issues common stock or shares to the public for the first time. They are often issued by smaller, younger companies seeking capital to expand, but can also be done by large privately-owned companies looking to become publicly traded. An IPO can be a risky investment. For the individual investor it is tough to predict what the stock or shares will do on its initial day of trading and in the near future since there is often little historical data with which to analyze the company. Also, most IPOs are of companies going through a transitory growth period, and they are therefore subject to additional uncertainty regarding their future value."

       As for me being a newbie in the stock market, I did not participate in the IPO of Cebu Pacific last Tuesday because of the  fact that I'm not yet familiar on how will be the reaction of the market after an IPO. I still want to learn how does the price moves after some time. One of my friends who managed to take some CEBU PACIFIC (stock code: CEB) shares immediately sold a little part of his shares one day after the IPO with a gain already! The IPO price for CEB was P125/share and it opened at P132/share before closing at P133/share on its first trading day. Good thing my friend already unloaded some of his shares a day after the first trading day because on the third day CEB closing price was P125.10 already,  1 fluctuation only above its IPO price! See, if I participated in that IPO I could have probably still holding my CEB shares right now at P125.10.

NEXT: BULL OR BEAR MARKET?

     
"He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed..." < romer is aikonic, aikonic is romer >

CONGRATS TO ALL ELECTED BARANGAY OFFICIALS

       Congratulations to all who were elected as barangay officials especially to my mother!  Although we already discussed before that they (my mother and father) will not return to politics anymore after my father will finish his term this year, she still applied her candidacy. What can we do if the people in our place wants my mother to run once more and my mother still wants to serve her barangaymates once more also. But if I were to choose for her, I don't want her to run anymore so that they (my father and mother) can concentrate more and enjoy their 3 grandchildren.

       To all those who were get elected, please work hard for those who voted for you and serve them honestly. And to all those who voted for their candidate who won, congratulations also and i hope you chose the right one!

"He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed..." < romer is aikonic, aikonic is romer >

Market is Close

       I am referring about the Philippine stock market which is close today due to the barangay elections. I hope you were able to vote for the "right candidate" for barangay captain and councilors. Trading will resume tomorrow, October 26, 2010. Will the market sustain its upward momentum? We will see tomorrow. With news of 2 more IPO (initial public offering) coming aside from the Cebu Pacific IPO, I'm very much excited what will be its effect to the whole market since this will be the first one since I started in stocks last June.

"He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed..." < romer is aikonic, aikonic is romer >

DIVIDENDS

       So sorry guys it took me some time before I was able to post my next article which is about DIVIDENDS. It was because I am very much occupied in my work and too much worried about my family during the time that super typhoon Juan (international name Megi) hit the northern part of the Philippines last week. As of now you might probably know what was the effect of the wrath of that typhoon. Many of our countrymen are still in need of help as of this posting so if you can, please donate in cash or in kind to GK or any other organizations that are capable of giving the donations to the affected areas.

       DIVIDENDS... No, it's not the dividend in  the arithmetic operation, division. This is about dividends in the stock market. I have asked this question to my friends in the KFAM forum, "are they (companies) giving dividends yearly?" to which Bro Louis replied, "dividend is a sharing of the company's earnings during the period's performance. It might be yearly or only when the Board of Directors of the company decides. Some company are very generous that they give dividends twice or even thrice a year depending on the performance of the company". He further stated that there were two types of dividend being given; cash dividend and stock dividend (during this time we were talking about stock market). Thanks Bro Louis! Then Bro John316 also added, "as for cash dividends, it is being distributed to share holders even with negative earnings for the year provided there is a sufficient cash available in the company's balance sheet. Dividends are given to encourage shareholders to invest more & the public to know that a company is not keeping the earnings. Dividends also improve the share value of the listed company as investors are buoyed by the attractiveness of the company's dividends". Thanks Bro John316!

       Taking more of its meaning from wikipedia, "dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder members. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, that money can be put to two uses; it can either be re-invested in the business (called retained earnings), or it can be paid to the shareholders as a dividend".

       In my four months in the stock market, I have only encountered these two types of dividends; cash dividends and stock dividends. Cash dividends are, well, dividends that I have received in cash during the payment period. It was automatically debited into my online broker account. It will be like this, if for example I have 100 shares in XYZ company and they are giving a P0.50/share dividend. Then I will be receiving P50 from my 100 shares during the payment date. While for the stock dividends (I haven't received any stock dividends to date as I sold my PNX which I should have had my first stock dividend), the shareholder will be receiving dividends in the form of additional stock shares of the company. An example would be, if my favorite company XYZ declared a 30% stock dividend and I have a 100 shares of XYZ company, I will be receiving an additional 30 shares during the payment date.

       During my first four months of investing in the stock market, I was able to receive cash dividends already from BPI, PX, MPI and PNX. They were not that big because I only started small in capital but I was able to reinvest them thus letting them earn more profit also for me... But not all listed companies are giving dividends!

       Are you still afraid to try investing in stocks? Are you afraid of taking risk? Any doubts or questions are welcome here, please post them as comments...

NEXT: IPO

"He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed..." < romer is aikonic, aikonic is romer >

TRADING HALT DUE TO BOMB THREAT

       I woke up very early today to see how my offline orders were doing when the trading was suddenly halted at around 10 am (5 am here in my location) due to a bomb threat in PSE Tower One building. I was really upset because my bids were not hit but I knew they were about to be hit due to the momentum. I could have sold my MPI today... sigh... Did somebody made that prank call for fun or what? I don't know but I hope it will not be repeated again so as not to upset our stock investors. The trading was resumed at around 1 pm and closed just after 1 hour.

       The market was finally green today and it was already gaining momentum as per my observation when it was halted due to that "bomb threat". I was able to lower down the average cost for  my FOOD today i(f you will compare my portfolio as of yesterday and today) because I bought some more FOOD (formerly TUNA) @ 1.48... I just hope FOOD will start to go up already. I'm counting on you FOOD! hahaha!

"He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed..." < romer is aikonic, aikonic is romer >

A free, really easy to use and a fun way to learn stock trading - UPDATED

       Do you love to compete? Do you want to learn stock trading? How about competing while learning how to trade stocks? I just found out from the PSE website about the FIRST METRO-PSE-CEAP STOCK X CHALLENGE - an intercollegiate competition open to Catholic schools which are members of CEAP and non-Catholic schools as well which will start on Dec. 1, 2010. Registration already started last Oct. 11, 2010 and will continue up to Nov. 3, 2010. To know more about this event please follow this link, http://www.pse.com.ph/html/NewsRoom/memos/2010/MEMO_2010-0481.pdf

        To download the registration form please follow this link, http://www.pse.com.ph/html/NewsRoom/memos/2010/MEMO_2010-0486.pdf. 

"He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed..." < romer is aikonic, aikonic is romer >

CHOOSING MY FIRST STOCKS

        Last night after finishing my meal, I started browsing again the Stock Investing Thread in the KFAM Forum from page 1. It still makes me smile when I read the part on how I started my stock investing. I was so eager to know how to apply for an account because it has been my plan before to do that unfortunately only this year I learned about online trading in the Philippines. I always read the posts of bro John316 and bro Louis then tried also playing the Stock Trading Game in PSE website. There were nights where I couldn't sleep early due to my excitement of having my first set of stocks. I will even calculate in advance how much will I earn if I buy and sell a particular stock thinking that it will be that easy to earn money in stocks. I was such in hurry to apply for my account that there was 1 funny thing that happened. Instead of applying for an online trading, the application submitted was for manual trading meaning I have to re-submit another application. Grrrr! I couldn't wait for several more days before I could buy my first stocks.

       Fast forward, after my FMS application was approved I finally bought my first set of stocks on June 18, 2010. To quote my post in KFAM forum " i was able to buy bpi and px today @ 44 & 12.25 respectively! yehey! my first set of stocks... go BPI! go PX! up we go!"... SO EXCITED! hahaha!

       Why BPI and PX as my first stocks? At that time I was following bro john316 posts and some of his recommendations were BPI, PX and VLL. I don't know yet about fundamental analysis or technical analysis (only now I'm starting to learn about them by reading books and browsing the web). Anyway, I know BPI is a bank  and PX is a mining company (Philex Mining was one of our clients when I was still working for a fabrication/ machine/ foundry shop in Valenzuela City). There was no other reason for me why I bought those stocks aside from the fact that they were recommended by my friend and I am familiar with the name of the company! After having them, I couldn't sleep well because I was thinking already if their prices would go up the following day and I could sell them soon for a profit. Since I'm in the Middle East, I have to wake up at 4:30 am just to watch how my 2 stocks were doing... I really couldn't sleep! Next stocks I bought were FLI and PNX... Still I was only relying on my friends suggestions though most of his recommended companies if not all have sound fundamentals... If there are speculative stocks, he always reminds me of taking extra caution even from the very beginning. I don't know but even from the start I already trusted his recommendations. There is one thing I noticed from my friend, bro John316, he loves to share what he knows and what he has without expecting anything in return and I admire him for that!
       And then I came across dividends, some of the stocks I bought gave dividends. It makes it more interesting, I could earn more aside from selling my shares at a profit. Some have cash dividends and 1 have stock dividends... What are these DIVIDENDS? 

NEXT: DIVIDENDS

"He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed..." < romer is aikonic, aikonic is romer >

DOING ONLINE STOCK TRADING - SELLING

       This is the continuation of my previous post, DOING ONLINE STOCK TRADING - BUYING, wherein I explained how I buy some shares of a certain stock (XYZ as a sample stock code) with my start-up funds of 5000 pesos. Let's say after buying my 9000 shares of XYZ and it has finally reached my TP (target price) of 1.00, I decided to sell my shares.It will be either I will sell all my shares of 9000 or only a part of it say for example only 3000 shares. Remember that I was "able" to buy my 9000 shares of XYZ at 0.50 and now its price climbed to 1.00 (a gain of almost 100%). I say almost 100% because the price wherein I was able to buy the 9000 shares has some charges (very small) also when I sell my shares, there will be some charges again but also small. You may check what brokers will deduct and by how much in the website of online brokers mentioned in my previous post ONLINE STOCK BROKERS.

       Proceeding to my topic, in my online broker FMS they are showing my stocks "paper gain" in my portfolio already with the commission charges and tax already deducted. So what I will see in the column of Profit is already my clean profit once I sold my shares. Okay, so my final decision at the moment for my XYZ shares is that I will only sell 3000 shares from my original shares of 9000 shares because I "saw" that it's price still has a tendency of going past 1.00.

       Just like in my previous post,DOING ONLINE STOCK TRADING - BUYING, when I want to sell my shares I will just open the same window that I used when I bought my XYZ shares. the only difference is that I will tick the sell button. Of course your selling price should be a reasonable one, not too high so that it could be hit. Once I finish posting my sell, I will just wait for it to be done.

       It is very easy to buy and sell stocks! But WE HAVE TO EXERT MORE EFFORT ON CHECKING AND STUDYING WHICH STOCKS WE HAVE TO BUY FOR OUR INVESTMENT. It will depend on our appetite for RISK. Do you want a low risk but low reward or a high risk but high reward? 

       Always use only your free cash and set aside something for emergency fund....

NEXT: CHOOSING MY FIRST STOCKS

ANNOUNCEMENT!

What: 
Official launching of on-line trading, First Metro Securities Brokers (FMSB)
Where:
Le Pavillon, Metropolitan Park, Diosdado Macapagal Avenue, Pasay City.
When:
14 October 2010 at 6 o’clock in the evening

For more information, Please follow this link
http://guscosio.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/on-line-trading-launch/#comment-4678

My Stocks for Today - 12/10/2010

       RED RED RED! Red was the color of the day in the Philippine stock market today.... Even my portfolio, it was almost painted RED except for MPI and PX! It's the 3rd day of correction which I believe started last Friday... Sigh, how I wish I have more FREE cash to use in my stock investing. I could have bought so many nice stocks at a bargain price. But since I'm just a regular guy with an average salary, I have to content myself for now to just maximize my small fund for my stock investment. It will just depend on how will I choose the right stocks that will give me a good profit when I sell them. As what my friend told me, this is just a healthy correction in the market before another take-off!

My Stocks for Today - 11/10/2010

       What a way to start the trading week... My eyes ache when I saw the color of my portfolio today! hahaha! All are red except for MPI and PX. I thought I was able to buy ALI at a bargain price of 17.94 but it went further down to 17.44. Sigh.... Anyway, I'm now a shareholder of Ayala Land!!!! My other stocks which were in red just went down a little. This is just part of a healthy correction and no need for us, investors, to panic. When the AEP of my stocks becomes higher than their current price, it is a good time to buy for more and lower down their average price! Although my attempt to lower down the AEP of my VLL was not successful because my super barat bid of 3.20 was not hit. It's really a super duper barat...

       As I continue to invest and trade in stock market, I will also try to learn about fundamental and technical analysis which will further help me in choosing my stocks to buy and sell. I will be discussing my progress about it also here in my blog hopefully soon.

       Christmas is fast approaching and I need to have extra money for my love ones' and inaanak's gifts. December, I believe will be a good time for bargain hunting... I'll be ready for that! SALE SALE SALE!!!

DOING ONLINE STOCK TRADING - BUYING

       To become an owner of a banking company, a mining company, a holdings company or your favorite foodchain company might be one of your "dream" but you can not achieve because financially you are "not yet" capable. So why not own first a share of the pie? Take some shares and be one of the "little" owner of your dream company by investing in stocks. After reading some of my previous post, you might be interested now on how I do my transactions (buy/sell stocks) online. I could not explain further here on how to apply for your account on which broker you wanted as I only have one broker at the moment. Anyway, on my previous post I included there the list of online stock brokers which you can just click their photo to reach their website. FAQs and Instructions on how to apply are usually in their main page. Also, you might want to visit our KFAM stock investing thread  as some of our friends there could help or guide you on your application.

       I am not in anyway connected to Firstmetrosec but since they are my online broker, the example that I'll be discussing here would be on how I do transactions thru them.
       Once my application with them was approved,  I can start transferring funds into my portfolio from my Metrobankdirect account (you need to have a bank account first with them,their maintaining balance is 2000 pesos only). Let's say, I transferred only 5000 pesos to my funds and I decided to buy my first stock..
       If I wanted to buy the maximum number of shares of EXAMPLE Company (STOCK CODE: XYZ), I will type the XYZ on the CODE space then tick the buy. If I only have initial cash of 5000 pesos for buying , I need to know first the cost/share and no. of shares/board lot. How would I know how many shares I could buy then? At the bottom of my blog, there is the NTS Board Lots and Price Fluctuations where it is shown there the minimum board lot I could buy at a certain price range. If the price of the stock is within the range of 5 to 9.99 pesos, I could only buy by 100 shares (1 board lot = 100 shares). If the price is within 0.05 to 0.249, then I could buy only by 10 000 shares (1 board lot = 10 000 shares) and so goes with the other price ranges. If I want to use my 5000 pesos cash to buy my XYZ at my Bid of 0.50 (say 0.50 was the price of XYZ at the time I wanted to buy some shares of it), I could buy 10 000 shares right (5000/0.50=10 000)? WRONG! hahaha! Of course I need to reconsider also the charges by my online broker (most probably around 23 pesos only for the maximum number of shares with my budget of 5000 pesos). So, the maximum shares I can buy with my 5000 pesos would be 9 000 shares. Why? It is because 1 board lot  (1000 shares) at the price of 0.50 pesos is worth 500 pesos and 9 000/ 0.50 = 4500 + 23(charges) = 4523 pesos. The balance of 477 is not enough to by 1 more board lot of XYZ. This is only for normal transactions of course.

       After that, just I reconfirm my order and then wait...... IF the transaction is okay and my bid was hit ( It was matched with sellers at my bid price). Presto! I have 9000 shares of XYZ! 

       Before I forget, BUY LOW AND SELL HIGH!

NEXT: DOING ONLINE STOCK TRADING - SELLING

My Stocks for Today - 08/10/2010

       Hello guys! I hope you had a good day today unlike me. I was suppose to write about my next topic, Online Stock Trading, but after what happened this morning I can't concentrate about my next post. So let me just update you about my stocks as of today. The market had a correction today and you know what? Finally! I got my FOOD at my barat bid of 1.52! YES! PATIENCE, PATIENCE, PATIENCE.... But I was not lucky to get additional VLL because my super barat bid of 3.19 was not reached, the lowest price for VLL today was 3.25 only then it went back to its closing price of 3.32. Try and try.... and try and try.... I'll just post some bid a bit higher probably from 3.20 - 3.24 next time to lower down my average price of 3.2877 as of today.

My Stocks for Today - 07/10/2010

       The "balato" I've given has already been used, my baby has a new toy "singing Barney". hahaha! The rest from my princess' balato will be deposited to her kiddie account by her mother. Thanks PX! There is not much movement in my portfolio today. My bid for 1.52 on FOOD and 3.19 on VLL were not hit. They were too much "barat bid", nobody wants to sell their  stocks at that price. I'll try again tomorrow anyway.

       What I'll be doing for today is browse some forums of stock traders, read business news and have some "kulitan" with my friends in KFAM Stock Investing Thread while discussing stocks. Its a fun way to learn and discuss about stocks. You may join us there if you want to learn stock investing, meet friends and join our "tele-serye tele-seryehan, Lovers in PSE" which is just for fun in the thread.

ONLINE STOCK BROKERS

       "Knock, knock"! Somebody is at the gate and you can hear him/her saying "Excuse me sir/ma'am, do you want to buy my XYZ shares in stock market?" Oh my, how stock trading would be so difficult if the buying and selling of stocks would be like that. Or you are in the market passing by their shop where stocks are sold like shirts or fish. Even me, I doubt if i would also do stock trading/investing if that's how it should be done. Thanks to stockbrokers, the buying and selling of stocks is easier.

       By the way, taking its meaning from wikipedia "stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional broker who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers on behalf of investors. A broker may be employed by a brokerage firm. A transaction on a stock exchange must be made between two members of the exchange—an ordinary person may not walk into the New York Stock Exchange (for example), and ask to trade stock. Such an exchange must be done through a broker". Some brokers not just do the buying and selling of stocks for you, their clients. They can also give you advices on which to sell or buy. You may choose between a manual stockbroker who does trading on the exchange trading floor or online stockbroker where transactions are done, well, online.

       At today's computer age, stock trading can be done online already and I chose that one over the manual stockbroker. It is because I can do the transactions anywhere I could be but of course with internet connection. Also the charges is lesser in online stockbrokers than manual stock brokers. At least that's what I have researched for now. The following are the listed online brokers for the Philippine Stock Market;

AB CAPITAL SECURITIES, INC

ACCORD CAPITAL EQUITIES CORPORATION

BPI SECURITIES CORPORATION

CITISECONLINE.COM., INC.

DIVERSIFIED SECURITIES, INC.

F. YAP SECURITIES, INC.

FIRST METRO SECURITIES BROKERAGE CORPORATION

RCBC SECURITIES, INC.

WEALTH SECURITIES, INC.

       

       I chose First Metro Sec as my online broker because I can transfer funds from my Metrobank account to First Metro Sec trading account on the same day! And the maintaining balance for my Metrobank account is only P2000 meaning I can start trading even if I only have P5000 in my savings! And from my experience of doing stock trading for only about 3 months, there has been no major problem that I have encountered. To compare the abovementioned online brokers, you may browse their website to see what they offer for their clients. You may click their FAQs for your questions. And for those who feel more comfortable with manual stockbrokers, you may visit the website of the Philippine Stock Exchange and click the Trading Participants button under the Other Links to get the complete list.

       So, when do you want to have your first set of stocks? Come on, try to spare some time to read more about stock investing. If you are have 10 hours a day browsing your favorite website playing games or chatting, it would be wise if you can spare even just an hour a day for a start to read the PSE website and explore the world of stock market. Good luck!

NEXT: DOING ONLINE STOCK TRADING

My Stocks for Today - 05/10/2010

       Merry Christmas! HO HO HO! I feel GREAT! Did you notice any changes in my portfolio today? Some stocks were not there anymore right? It's because I let go my DMC and RLC shares. I also sold some of my shares of PX to pocket my gains (almost 50% profit) from my favorite stock. The rest of my PX shares will wait until it reaches my TP of 18 - 20. Now I can give balato to my babe and baby!
       One thing I just notice, every time I was able to sell my stocks their price shoots up! Oh well, as my friends always remind me "moderate your greed" and "a profit is a profit"! Some of my profit I will invest them back again, wait for the bargain hunting time... yipeeee! To my super "S" gurus in KFAM Stock Investing Thread aka LIP thread, thanks a lot for being so nice to us newbies! God bless you all.

Stocks Price Movement

       Have you ever experienced a shortage of chicken supply, meat supply or vegetable supply in the wet market? How about over-supply of the same? You will notice that when there is a shortage of supply, their prices tend to go up and when there is over-supply their prices goes down. That is the same in stock market where stock prices change every day as a result of market forces; meaning share prices change because of supply and demand. If more people want to buy a stock (demand) than sell it (supply), then the price moves up. On the other hand, if more people wanted to sell a stock than buy it, there would be greater supply than demand, and the price would fall. 

       But what makes some people to like a certain stock and dislike the other stock? This comes down to figuring out what news is positive for a company and what news is negative. Are they having a good earnings? Of course if the company has good earnings, they are going to stay in business. Earnings of public companies are being required to be reported because analysts base their future value of a company on their earnings projection. If a company's results are better than expected, the price jumps up. If a company's results are worse than expected), then the price will goes down. 

       Earnings, new products from the company, new projects or any other good news about a certain company affects the appeal of its shares to stock investors. Some just speculate and buy a certain stock or base their decisions from their friends or brokers. Others might be buying the stock of a food chain where he or she always eat or his favorite bank or mall. But whatever your reason of buying your stock, you should always trade at your own risk as what Sis Krissy always says. 

       As for me I always read the business news, browse forums, ask my friends in KFAM (LIP thread aka Stock Investing Thread) and then I buy low then sell high. But in case I was able to buy my stock at a high price, I just lower down the average price during "correction". It is when more people are selling than buying causing some stock prices to go down because of profit taking. Example of that was when I bought my first shares of PX at 12.25, then the next time I bought it was at 10.75. When it still went down to 9.90 and 9.89 i bought again, thus my AEP went down to my current average price of 10.4144. Now the current price of PX is 14.50 meaning my profit is at around 38% if I can sell it at that price. If for example, I invested P10,000 on PX then my profit is P3,800 already. And you can't earn that from the bank even after 1 year! But what if more traders want to buy than sell their PX tomorrow? Aha! Of course the tendency would be its price will go up and I can sell it at a larger profit... We will see, I'll update my portfolio in my blog tomorrow whatever happens. Go PX!

       So do you want to invest in stocks? Think... Who wants to be rich? Hmmmm... ME!!!!

NEXT: ONLINE BROKERS