Many members of my investing club often inquire about my personal story of investing in the stock market. Members requested me to share my lessons learned in stock trading and investing for the benefit of all.
Let me share with you the most defining moment of my life, which made me a successful stock market investor.
I have a big dream of making million in stock trading to fulfill my dream of 4-bedroom apartment on the beach, red Ferrari, big plasma TV.
On that particular Sunday morning in April ’92, as I sat at my computer studying the market, my daughter asked me when we would become rich so that we could enjoy a family vacation to the Greek Islands.
I looked into his eyes and found a simple question “Daddy, why aren’t we rich?”
I looked into my past and realized that I tried to build wealth for the past 10 years but with no real success. My tacit answer to my daughter is that I have yet to achieve financial independence. I’m still trying to come out of the rat race, even though I somehow survived the October 1987 crash on Black Monday.
I introspected and realized that I bought some stocks that were going down and then didn’t sell them soon enough. I was in profit but why didn’t I really make big money from stock market.
I started looking through all the transactions to find out what went wrong.
I asked myself why I bought those stocks in the first place. I began to analyze what prompted me to sell the stock.
After crunching some numbers, I learned that there was no reason to buy those stocks. I had no reason to hold them while they were going down.
I learned my first lesson in my investing to ask the question why for every decision.
A few days later, I can get my “aha!” Pal and I changed my strategy of investing in the stock market.
I started by writing down my vision – what I wanted my life to look like when I became a successful trader and investor. Once I visualized the end position, I started taking small steps to achieve my dream of earning millions from stock investing and options trading.
