Investing in Experiences: Stock Market Challenge

Hi guys!

Today, I want to talk about JCFAP's Stock Market Challenge, a national wide portfolio challenge. The mechanics are simple. Participants must make a team of 3 and trade using the Investagrams platform. Each team will be given PHP 100,000 (virtual money, of course) to trade with. The goal of the competition is to get the largest profit from your portfolio starting October to December 2016.

At first, I was excited and optimistic in playing. My teammates and I have been investing for quite sometime and so we pretty much know the basics. However, trading is different from investing and this challenge made me realize that I'm not a good trader (at all). The challenge for us students is that, university demands a lot of projects and outputs from us that, in all honesty, it is hard to find time to monitor the market movement. 

We were mostly busy with activities, exams, and reviews. Sometimes, we tend to forget to check our Investagrams portfolio. Although we have enjoyed some gains, there were more losses than what was expected. This is also due to the current market condition - The US Presidential elections and other local government uncertainties greatly affected the short term volatility (or the price movements) of the market even though the company's are actually doing well.

The competition is still not over and we will still be playing with the SMC, but I realized that investing is the strategy that would work best for me. I would rather stay in the market for the longer term as this suits my financial needs more.

How about you? Are you a trader or an investor?

Disclaimer: This are my personal thoughts about the competition. Credits to JCFAP for the image above! :)

Investing in Experiences: Online Stock Trading Seminar

Last Monday, I attended the Online Stock Trading Seminar of the DLSU-D JFINEX. It's their annual stock trading seminar which aims to encourage students to create their on online stock accounts and start investing early. For 2 years, COL Financial has been their partner in spreading financial literacy and letting the community know that investing in stocks are not only for the rich and wealthy but for every Filipino! COL also set up a booth where student are inquire and fill up account forms.

Mr. Jed Velarde, a training consultant from COL Financial, was invited to talk this year. I really enjoyed listening to him and he gave us a lot of tips on how we should perceive the market and look at it from a long term perspective. He gave a lot of stories and analogies that were simple yet effective that both students and professors understood and related upon like comparing the amount of groceries you can buy then and now to explain inflation. He is such an engaging speaker and was able to even make students laugh at some of his jokes. 

I learned 3 important things from Mr. Velarde which are:

Be an Investor - Mr. Jed encouraged us to think of ourselves as investors in the stock market and not traders. Traders are usually does person who closely watch the market and day trade which is to buy and sell a stock on the same and gain profit through  share price appreciation. He told us that it would that, although there is nothing wrong with being a trader, it entails a lot of risks and as students who wish to maximize the growth potential of our portfolio we have yet to afford such risks. He recommend being an investor instead where you can continuously invest in the market.

Invest for the Long Term - We should also invest in the market with a long horizon in mind. The market is constantly changing however, in the end, its trend will always go up especially in a developing country like the Philippines which still has so much potential to grow moving forward. Which is why if you are going to invest now, keep in mind that you will doing so for the next 30 to 40 years into the future.

Do it Regularly - Invest in the market regularly. Mr. Velarde suggests monthly, quarterly or maybe semiannually and make sure to invest in stocks with good fundamental which will certainly continue to grow and be more profitable in the future. The trick to this strategy is to continue investing even if the market if high or low. COL Financial  believes that thru peso cost averaging you will be able to create a sizeable portfolio with low cost stocks especially in the long term and you may do this as well through their EIP.

So if you are a student and you are interested in creating your own stock account you may do so thru COL Financial starting with 5000PHP. Here's what you'll need to open one. I hope you'll find it helpful and see you in the next post! 

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored or anything of that sort. Also credits to the DLSU-D JFINEX for the posters and guidelines on the COL account requirements.

The Investing Perspective: How I Budget My Allowance?

I apologize for the temporary haitus for this blog. University life has basically eaten up almost all of my free time. But I'm glad to be back! Today, I want to talk about something I've been doing for the past month in order to help me stay on budget. I have tried a lot of methods to keep track on what I spend but I just couldn't commit to any until this one.

As a typical college student, it really vital for me to monitor my allowance because of I don't, I wont be able to eat the next day. And since, I'm a student leader, I'm very active and I usually join events and competitions. These are a few of the reasons why I created a system for my to budget my allowance.Basically, I made this budgeting system using Google Sheets, which I really find convenient. I can easy edit my template on my laptop using my google account; or my phone using the Sheets App. 

The formula I use is very straightforward. It's my take on the concept of Income - Savings = Expenses. My savings are my deposits to my stock account since I still don't have a job and really want to take advantage of investing early in the stock market, I put a portion of my allowance to my investment.  But I also deduct one time expenses that I foresee to happen in that coming month. For example, I know that I will have to pay membership fees last September so I made sure to deduct it on my spendable allowance beforehand. I really love the fact that Conditional Formatting is available in Google Sheets as well and it really help to condition my mind to save even further.

I also included the one-time expenses I failed to budget on (red mark) so that I can have a better view of the things I did not take account for so that I can avoid it in the future.

After getting the Spendable allowance, I would divide it by 4 weeks and further divide it by 6 days which are my normal school days in a week to get my spendable allowance per day. However I also add the Total Variance to that which is equal to the maximum I can spend in a day. The variance may be a surplus of deficit depending on by much I saved out of the allowances on the previous days.




If you want to try using this template I have uploaded a sample here as well, feel free to download it. The Investing POV: Monthly Budget Allowance

How about you? How do you budget your allowance? Comment them down below.

Disclaimer: The formula is something I created for myself, it may vary from one person to another!