Once you stop writing for a while, it’s hard to overcome the inertia to start writing again.

Really hope I can start writing regularly again – here’s a quick one on an event called InvestGlobal that is coming up in April 2015.

Date:  11-12 April 2015

Time: 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Venue: Hall 404 of the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre

The highlight of the event will be two keynote sessions by investment guru Jim Rogers where he will talk about his market outlook for 2015.

One of the session is free (limited seats), while the other is a paid extended session with an option to include dinner with Jim Rogers.

For more information and registration to attend Jim Roger’s sessions, you can visit this page :

Jim Rogers at InvestGlobal

Besides Jim Rogers, there will also be a few other speakers giving free seminars.

The main event itself will include exhibitors from broking and trading firms, property investment companies and investment educators, just to name a few.

One thing to take note before you invest any of your money at investment events, always do your due diligence on the company concerned and don’t rush into it!

For registration and more information on InvestGlobal, you can visit www.investglobal-event.com.

Admission to the main event is free.

To leave your comments, please go to : Meet Jim Rogers at InvestGlobal 2015

For those who do not know, Jack interviewed numerous successful traders and compiled them into a few books. These books are excellent reading for those who dabble into trading as it gives you an insight of a wide variety of traders. What worked for them, the mistakes they made, etc.

There’s more material in these books than anyone can teach you in a 3-day seminar and you would probably be able to learn something by rereading the books over and over again at various stages of your trading journey.

Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders

The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America’s Top Traders (Wiley Trading)

Hedge Fund Market Wizards (His latest book)

During the seminar, Jack D. Schwager shared with us various tenets of trading that he had picked up from all the interviews he had done over the years. He was extremely familiar with the subject matter, and could back up all his ideas with concrete examples without missing a beat. He handled questions the same way. This made the entire session very stimulating and engaging.

I managed to take down a lot of notes from barely two hours of sharing, so this post will be quite long. Enjoy!

No Secret Formula

There is no holy grail and single true path to help you succeed in trading. Consider two traders who use completely different methods, Jim Rogers and Martin Schwartz.

Jim Rogers is a macro (long term) fundamentalist. Back when he was interviewed in the 1980s, he could forecast (correctly) the trend of gold and Japaneses stocks. He does not believe in charting. When asked what he thought about technical analysis, he said that he had never met a rich technician, other than those who sell their services/systems.

Martin Schwartz was formerly a fundamental analyst on Wall Street. After he become a trader, he managed to achieve an (audited) average return of 25% over a ten year period. Don’t let your jaws drop, it’s 25% a month and not 25% a year. This he did using purely technical analysis.

There were only two months that he lost money, once when he lost 2% and another when he lost 3%. However, Martin always took his profits and invested into treasury bills, so you do not see an astronomical compounding of returns.

Martin Schwartz had this to say about fundamental investing : “What a stupid idea it is. I spent ten years as a fundamental investor and lost money every year. I got rich as a technician.”

If you can make money using vastly different ways, it should tell you that there is no single true path to money making. You can money as a technician, as a fundamentalist or a combination of both.

It’s not about finding a secret. It’s about finding a style that suits your personality.

It’s also the reason why buying a trading system won’t work. 99% of people who buy a black box trading systems will lose money. You don’t really know what makes them work and whether it suits you. Every trading system will eventually encounter some bad patch and when that happens, most people will simply abandon it.

The Idea of Edge

The idea that even a poor system will make you money with proper money management is wrong.

If you don’t find an edge, by definition you can’t make money.

What’s the strategy that would give you the highest chance of making money in a casino?

Make one bet on red or black at the roulette wheel and then walk away. Your odds are slightly less than 50% but it’s the highest chance you have. As the casino have the edge, the more you bet, the lower the probability of you making money.

If you don’t have an edge, the highest chance of making the most money is to bet it all at once and then go away.

On the other hand, if your system has an edge, the reverse is true. you want to make many small bets. Proper management will help you be profitable in the long run.

Succeeding in Trading

Everyone who succeeded had a very specific methodology and not some murky approach.

Hard work is a common denominator among all the successful traders. Some of the market wizards were hardworking to the point of being obsessive.

No sane person will go to a bookstore, buy a medical book on brain surgery, read it over the weekend, and then wake up on Monday morning thinking he can perform a brain surgery.

Yet many people will think they can read a book or attend a 3-day seminar and then be able to trade profitably and beat the professionals.

Why is there such a paradox in this thinking? There is a reason for this.

Trading is the only profession in the world where the amateur has a 50-50 chance of getting it right. Because there are only two things you can do – buy or sell.

So, even if you have no idea what you are doing, you might be able to make money. And it happens all the time. Many people make money in a bull market and mistake it as their brilliance.

Good Trading is Effortless

This might sound contradictory because I just told you earlier that it involves a lot of hard work .There is a difference.

The hard work is in the preparation, but the actual execution and process should be effortless.

Consider an unfit runner trying to run 2.4km under ten minutes. He will find it extremely tiring and almost impossible to do it.

On the other hand, a professional runner would find it effortless to do that actual run. The hard work has already been done in the hours and hours of training.

When you are doing archery, if there is any effort, force, strain or struggle, it’s probably wrong.

In trading, there are times when things just don’t work. And you can’t work harder or force it during the trade. You just have to walk away.

Risk Control & Money Management

There are many books written on risk control but to sum it up in a single sentence, it is to know what is the maximum you can lose in every single trade.

You must know your exit points in every trade. This must be determined before you enter any trade. Once you enter a trade, you lose your objectivity.

Risk management should be determined by how much the market disproves your theory, not by how much pain you’re willing to stand.

Make your decision where the markets should not go (if you are right) before you enter the trade. If the market hits that point, you will know it is time to get out because your call was wrong. Then determine your position size based on that price.

A mistake would be to determine your exit point in the reverse way – by deciding how much you can lose in each trade, then work out the exit price based on that.

This is a very successful hedge fund (made up of individual traders) that has an average mid-tenths returns but has a worst maximum draw-down of less than 5%.

The money management rule given to these traders is that if they lose 3% of their capital in any year, half their capital will be taken away from them. If they lose another 3%, they are out of business. This forces them to trade very conservatively in the start of every year to avoid that 3% loss. However, once they are profitable, they are able to take on more risk to get higher returns.

Discipline and Patience

If you ever drop your discipline, the markets will get you. Jack Schwager went on to give an example of a trader who had a lapse of discipline and lost $7 million in a single trade.

Music is the space between notes, successful trading is the space between the trades.

There is the plain fool who does wrong all the time and there is the Wall Street fool who thinks he must trade all the time. Have the patience to wait until it is so obvious its like picking money off the floor. Wait for the right opportunity.

It was never the thinking that made me the money, it was my sitting. When I was right, I stayed with the position.

Independence and Confidence

Good traders are independent and don’t follow other people’s opinions, no matter how smart they might be.

If you put two traders together, you will end up getting the worse of the two.

Good traders also have this element of self-confidence (not necessary ego).

Paul Tudor Jones keeps 85% of his money in his own (futures trading) fund because he feels it’s the safest place.

Losing is Part of the Game

Good traders understand that losing is part of the game and are able to take losses.

If you try to avoid losses, it will guarantee you lose money.

Don’t trade beyond your comfort level or fear will dominate your decisions.

No Loyalty in Trading

You can be loyal with your friends, family and pets but not for trading.

A good trader must be able to abandon his trade idea (and even take the reverse position) as soon as his trade call starts going against him.

No loyalty and no hoping for the position to become better.

Risk and Volatility

Risk and volatility are not the same and should not be used interchangeably.

You can have a risky strategy with low volatility and low risk strategy with high volatility.

Consider an options selling (naked) strategy. The equity curve will show a steady increase over time. You might be fooled into thinking it is a low risk strategy because of the low volatility. But when the blowout occurs, the portfolio can suffer a huge loss.

The Losing Trade Dilemma

When unsure what to do in a losing trade, cut the position in half. This has a psychological effect because it commits you to be “wrong” no matter what direction the market takes after this. You will not be able to “hope” to be right anymore.

I’m going to list out some of the other points that were covered by Jack Schwager:

1. Mistakes provide a path to improvement. Keep a trading log and learn from mistakes.
2. Don’t trade to meet a profit target.
3. Systems that work on many markets are stronger and more robust. If it only works on one market, it might be over-fitted.
4. Betting more on high probability hands can transform even negative edge.
5. Options prices assume equal probability of prices going up or down. Identifying when this is wrong can lead to opportunities. Adopting a long only or short only options strategy all the time is not likely to work.
6. One under-appreciated reason for avoiding large losses. It might mentally impede the trader and result in missing a good subsequent trade.
7. Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
8. Mindset of a good trader. Flexible and no loyalty.

The next segment covers some of the questions asked by the audience.

Is Trading an Art or a Science?

It is a bit of both but is probably more art.

Two person looking at the same set of data and information can come to vastly different conclusions. You can have 100 different facts but choosing which one to use is an art.

Of Trading Intuition and whether it can be Trained From Young

Interestingly, many of the market wizards had a keen interest in trading or something related even when they are very young.

It’s not everyone but it’s a much larger percentage than the general population.

There’s nothing mystical about intuition. Intuition is experience, you’ve seen the same thing over and over. You’ve got a feeling that the market is going to go up, you don’t know why, but something in your experience and memory at a subconscious level triggers your intuition.

Contrarian Investing

As a broad principle, buying when there’s fear and selling when there’s greed works.

However, you have to pair it with risk control.

It’s not so dangerous when you are buying, but if you are shorting, a stock can go up much higher and longer than you expect. A perfect example is the technology bubble.

Overall, I felt that the sharing by Jack Schwager was excellent. A pity we run out of time and Jack could not cover all the material that he wanted to. The organizers should have extended the session!

I have decided to go back to re-reading his books.

To leave your comments, please go to : Jack Schwager Market Wizards Seminar Review

After giving about 40 minutes of his keynote address, Jim Rogers spent the rest of his allocated time answering questions from the audience. The questions came thick and fast with long queues at the microphones. The answers were also lengthy, and the entire thing reminded me of the Berkshire Hathaway AGM which I visited in 2011.

The questions were also not one-way, as Jim Rogers would always engage in lively conversations with the questioners to find out more about them. All asked in a candid and non-offensive manner.

Quite a number of people who asked questions were actually not native Singaporeans, and included people from places like Brazil, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Japan and China.

There were good questions, the typical Singapore question of “What stocks should I buy now?” and even weird questions like “In the event of World War 3, how should we protect ourselves and where should we go to?”. The student who asked that question was quite persistent in getting a reply and Jim Rogers duly flashed the world map showing his travels on the screen and told the student that the place to be in would be a country that was not involved in the war.

And the question that drew the biggest laughter from the crowd was when someone asked Jim Rogers what was the biggest mistake that he ever made and he replied “My first wife”.

There was also a noon time panel discussion which talked about “What happens without the Euro” and an end-of-the-day questions and answer session. The Q & A session was dominated by questions meant for Jim Rogers and at one point, the MC had to intervene to ask whether there were any questions for the other speakers.

It was a pity that we run out of time at the end. If not for the time constraint at the venue, I think many in the audience probably wouldn’t mind staying there the whole night just listening to the questions and interesting replies from Jim Rogers.

A summary of some of the questions and replies (edited and rephrased) can be found below. [warning]Note that these notes were taken down live and is not an exact transcript. It might also contain some inaccuracies.[/warning]

Questions for Jim Rogers

What are the signs to watch out for to know that another currency is taking over the USD as the world’s dominant currency?

The signs are already happening. The USD as a percentage of the world’s reserves has declined over the past ten years. People are already moving away from the US dollar. Venezuela won’t take US dollars anymore. China has started to sell their trade obligations in other currencies other than the US dollar.

This is not something that will happen overnight. But it will happen gradually until one day people realize that the USD is no longer the world’s reserve currency.

Some of the currencies Jim holds include the Singapore dollar, Japanese yen and the Swiss Francs.

Since the Singapore dollar has been appreciating against the US dollar in the last few years, what do you think are the chances of investment into US real estate?

I have been slowly shifting my assets out of the United States. I expect there to be some kind of capital control against the shifting of assets out in the future. If I really have to invest into the US, I will look to buy into agriculture farms. The farmers are the people who are going to get rich.  They are going to drive Lamborghinis and the taxi drivers are going to be the stock brokers.

What is your take on Miami and Singapore property?

Miami is a great place but I do not own any property there. Miami is the gateway to Latin America and has turned into a very exciting Latin city. If I have to look for a place in that part of the world, I would pick Miami. But I am not.

I also do not own any property in Singapore. I want to look for a place near my children’s school but I’m not looking with any great enthusiasm because I expect prices to come down. There will be higher interest rates and greater turmoil in the world.

Also, the Singapore government has been trying to control prices. And as you know, when the Singapore government tries to do something, they are usually able to do it. So, I’m not rushing to buy property in Singapore at the moment.

What advice would you give a person setting up a fund or starting his own business?

Buy low sell high (to laughter from the audience).

If you can buy low and sell high, once you have a track record, people will come to you and ask you to invest their money. It’s an extremely difficult way to make a living. I have my own style which might not work for you. Listening to me or any other person might not be useful for you. You have to find your own way to make money and people will love you for it.

When I graduated, I found Wall Street and fell in love. I really wanted to know what was going on the world. I found that Wall Street would pay me accordingly. Figure out what you love the most. Let’s say you go to a doctor’s office, pick out the magazines which you love the most.

Maybe you like gardening. If you tell that to your parents, they will be horrified. But you should still do it. People who follow their passions never go to work, they can’t wait to go to work. Someday you might have a chain of gardener shops all across Asia. You might even get it listed on the New York Stock Exchange. And then your parents will say they have always encouraged you. Even if you are not successful, you will be very happy. Many people are just pursuing things that their grandmother said they should do.

Finance is going to be a terrible place to be in the world economy. If you were a Wall Street partnership in the old days, you would have had little debt. Nowadays, the government really hate financial institutions and the evil speculators. You’re either going to love it a lot or have a terrible time.

What do you think about the future of Japanese bonds in general?

Japan is the second largest international creditor nation in the world but they a huge internal debt.

I cannot conceive buying Japanese government bonds. I bought a few Japanese shares during the tsunami. Japanese currencies is one of the currencies that I own. Tokyo is one of my favorite cities in the whole world. But Japan has got serious problems – declining birthrate and they don’t accept immigrants. Singapore is lower, but (used to) accept immigrants. The staggering internal debt going up by huge amounts every year, population is declining and aging, therefore I cannot conceive of owning Japanese bonds.

Would an international political system and international law be a way to keep our world more (eco) sustainable in the long term?

I cannot think of an international body that has been successful for an extended period of time. I don’t remember a single war that the United Nations has prevented in the last 65 years. The World Bank has been a hopeless failure. I do not think we need another layer of bureaucrats and politicians.

There have been very few politicians that have been successful in the past 1000 years. The best way to solve problems is to have people use their minds. The market will adjust to reflect this. Rather than having more politicians.

Do you think that the USA market has recovered since the DOW has been hitting a 3 year high now?

I do not have confidence in the US market. I have sold short US stocks (Jim Rogers is bearish for the next two years). Mr Obama and the people in power are spending as much money as they can to get elected. This is one of the reasons why the stock market has been going up. Things feel good for many people, in many cases it Is artificial good news. I am worried about the world after the election. Germany has an election coming up as well. Merkel wants to get re-elected as well by spending a lot of money.

What is your time frame for your short positions in the US?

It won’t happen overnight. You want prices to collapse after you short it but it doesn’t work that way. I expect serious problems in the US in the next couple of years, 2013 and 2014. So, I would expect more opportunities on the short side.

Do you think there will be a QE3?

The central bank is already printing money. QE 1 and 2 were hopeless disasters, they are going to be embarrassed about having a QE3. However they will do it, they will print money, especially if the world economy does not get better. The only way to earn more money is to own real assets.

I read a suggestion that the US should go back to the gold standard. What is your view?

There are people who feel that  the gold standard is a better system. It has been tried many times in the world history. Politicians have always found ways to cheat. When they had coins, the Romans would start to put base metals into gold or silver coins. Eventually, what started out as 100% silver ended up as 1% silver.

The gold standard would work for a while but politicians would eventually cheat and we would go back to where we were.

Is it better to invest into the Singapore stock market, Hong Kong or the Shanghai market?

I am not investing into Shanghai at the moment. I only invest when there’s a collapse. The China market has dropped for a few years but a collapse is when people are throwing stocks and saying never mention shares to them again.

If I had to buy one (out of the three), I would buy into one that is dropping (Shanghai) than rising.

Do you have any stocks or ETFs to consider buying for China or Singapore?

I’m not here to do hot tips.

If I told you what to buy, you wouldn’t know what to do if the price goes up or down. Because you will not know why you bought it. You will not know it when I sell.

For you to listen to anyone about investments, you must be involved with them on a continual basis.

If you do not know what to do after what I have told you about where I think are the good areas to invest in, then you shouldn’t invest.

You mentioned you hold Singapore shares. Which ones? (laughter) (There were a few attempts by the questioner to get an opinion on some individual companies but they didn’t work).

For most investors, investing in the index is the best way to invest. Many studies have shown that index investing will outperform almost 75% of money managers.

Since you are bullish in commodities what is your view on precious metals, would you invest in the bullion or the mining stocks or gold mining index?

I own gold, silver and precious metals. For me, the best way is to invest in gold and silver coins because they are more marketable and liquid. In Singapore, it is difficult to buy coins or bullion because of GST. That tax is being removed so I suspect you will see a much more vibrant and dynamic market in Singapore.

Gold mining shares are extremely cheap right now. If you can find the right company, you will be able to do extremely well. If you do not know how, you will have to do index investing. If you are a stock picker and you know which stocks to pick, then that is the best way to go.

However, more money has been lost in gold mining shares than in any other stock.

Do you have any comments on Brazil and its Brazilian currency?

Brazilian football players and dancers are the best in the world. Their alcohol is one of the strongest.

They generally do well when commodities are in a bull market. But when the next commodities bear market comes, Brazil will not do so well.

Normally when the bear market comes, the Brazilian politicians will start doing foolish things.  But the present government have already starting doing foolish things. I am worried about Brazil and have no investments in them.

Question about interest rate

I think interest rates world wide are going to go much higher in the future. There’s going to be currency turmoil, higher interest rates. The debts are going through the roof. If I told you how high interest rates are going, you will stop listening to me. If you can lock in any loan at current interest rates for a long period of time, you should.

In the low interest rate environment, the people who do everything right and the prudent savers are being wiped out. Pension plans, endowments and insurance companies are being wiped out.

The people who run up big debts and speculators are being rewarded.

I am skeptical on how long this can go on.

Panel Discussion on the Euro (less than 20% of the discussion is covered)

Jim Rogers:  Euro is going to change several times in the next few years. Some politicians will try to win their elections by saying they will take their countries out of the Euro. There will be turmoil when countries leave the Euro but some kind of Euro is going to survive. We can let Greece go bankrupt but the politicians might not do it. In America we have states that have gone bankrupt and the United States has survived.

Merkel will do whatever she can to hold the Euro together till after the German elections next year. I suspect once the German elections are over, a lot of forces will be unleashed. The market is bigger than the Germans.

Mike Bellafiore : The best thing is to let some of the weaker players exit. The thing that strikes me as being so disappointing is that those who push for the Euro zone didn’t consider that those countries wouldn’t play by the rules. I actually don’t hope for a mass exodus for three or so at the same time, even though that would actually create an awesome trading situation for my company.

Problem is that historically, if we take a look at productivity of workers of Greece to what they are paid, they are expected to work less than other countries and be paid more. If you tell them to go into austerity, you are essentially changing everything about who they are and what they want. Sure they’ll sign up for a couple of years and try to be responsible, but what happens when the person gets docked their pay cheques?

Sandu Avtar : Politicians do cook their books and this is quite apparent with Greece itself where the books were cooked and Greece went into the Euro. Strong countries could leave the Euro as well, but that is not likely to happen. Weak countries would most likely leave the Euro. Greece, but if you look at history of countries leaving and breaking up, volatility is in fact different from what analysts tell us.

To leave your comments, please go to : Jim Rogers Q and A at Shares Investment Conference

There were a few speakers but the greatest pull was obviously Jim Rogers, who was also allocated the longest time on stage. I guess no one in the audience will complain about that.

The other speakers were Mike Bellafiore, Avtar Sandu and Collin Seow. There were also a few other speakers who were invited to give presentations during the breaks, with Chua I-Min being one of them.

I managed to take down a lot of notes so there will be two review posts on this event – one covering the key points mentioned by each speaker and the other for the Q&A and panel discussion.

The organizers did a smart thing of giving out packed food for lunch, which avoided a nightmare scenario of long queues and insufficient food.

Overall, I felt the event was very good, even though many in the audience would probably have wished we had more time for the Q&A.

I am looking forward to the next event in the Phillip Investment Festival, the  Asian Value Investing Conference, which will feature Mary Buffett as one of the speakers.

Read on below for the key points which me and my friend managed to take down. Do look out also for the second part which I hope to complete in the next few days.

Jim Rogers

According to the official timings for the event, Jim Rogers was given more than three hours on stage. He spent the first forty minutes talking about his family and his views on the world/market, and the rest of the time answering questions from the audience.

It was quite refreshing to hear from a speaker that did not have to rely on selling you something from the stage (as many speakers do nowadays), and the clarity of his presentation made it easy for most people in the audience to understand his views.

The tone was conversational, and we did not have to sit through a long and boring powerpoint presentation. There were only a few slides showing us some pictures, which included photos of his family and a world map showing us the countries he had traveled to before. The world map was referenced many times during the presentation.

Here are some of the takeaways:

• Jim Rogers used to be very much against having children. After having two, he realized he was very wrong. He urged everyone in the crowd to have more children (to much laughter in the audience).
• The 19th century belonged to UK, the 20th belonged to USA, but the 21st century will belong to China. There will be problems before China became great, just like USA had horrible problems in the 19th century before it did. Which is why it is important to know Chinese/Mandarin – both his children do. He has looked at several cities (where Mandarin is used) to live in before deciding to live in Singapore.
• While Jim Rogers is bullish about his holdings in China, they are meant for the (very) long term. They will be given to his children and he will want his children/grand children to look back one day and say “what a great investment papa made”. He had only bought China stocks a few times, each time after they went through a significant clash or correction.
• The world is moving from USA towards Asia exacerbated by the financial crisis and mistakes made by politicians. The United States is the biggest debtor nation in the history of the world. Countries like China, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore are international creditors. The US$ will not remain the world’s reserve currency forever, just like the UK pounds did not. This shift will not change overnight, but will change gradually. Those who are able to understand this shift will be able to make fortunes. He only holds US$ because it is perceived as a safe haven currency by everyone and there is much turmoil in the world now. Over the long term, the US$ will continue to devalue.
• Bonds have been in a bull market for thirty-one years in most parts of the world. Yields are already very low and the bull market in bonds is coming to an end soon. He has shorted bonds before a few times in the last few years (unsuccessfully) but will look for opportunities to do it again. He cannot conceive of lending money to the US government for thirty years. Jim also mentioned that if you hold bonds (other than short duration of special situation bonds), you should consider selling them. Bond portfolio managers should think of getting another job.
• Jim Rogers only holds shares in some parts of the world, one of which is Singapore. He is short on the US stocks, with a negative view for the next two years. The country he is most optimistic on in the world is Myanmar. In 1962 (before they shut off from the world), Burma was the richest country in Asia. They have become the poorest country in a few decades and have the potential to become rich again. Unfortunately, one of the few ways that you can invest there is to go there and start a company (something which he is not prepared to do). He is also optimistic on North Korea.
• Most of his investments are in natural resources, raw materials and commodities. Throughout history, there have been long bull and bear markets in commodities. It happens this way because of supply and demand mismatches and it takes time for supply to get onto the market. The current bull market started in 1999, and has been extended because a lot of new supply coming onto the market has been delayed. All bull markets eventually come to an end when new supply becomes available.
• Agriculture has been very bad for thirty years, but Jim Rogers foresee a reversal in the future where the farmers will become rich. Inventories in agriculture are running low and the average age of farmers have been increasing rapidly. There will be a shortage of food and farmers in the future.

Mike Bellafiore

Mike covered seven fundamentals that everyone would need to be a profitable trader. I will list them out in point form:

• Proper preparation
  • You are only as good as the stocks you are going to trade
• Hard work
  • Analysing the market depth and times of transactions
  • Knowing important intraday prices levels
• Patience
  • Waiting for a good entry price level
  • Affects your exit if you enter at a bad price
  • Hard to do well from a bad entry
• A detailed trading plan (before entering each trade)
  • Knowing what to do if the stock trades in your favour
  • Knowing what to do if the stock trades against you
• Discipline (to follow your trade plan)
  • What do you do if your stock trades against you? Get out
  • What do you do if your stock hits your exit price? Get out
  • What do you do if your stock hits your criteria for exiting? Get out
• Communication
  • Sharing information with community
  • Creating your own trading community
• Reviewing and replaying your important trades
  • Trades that make the most sense to you
  • Build from your strengths
  • Get bigger in the plays that make the most sense to you
  • Find more of them
  • Trade them with more size
  • This is how you become great

Contrary to what you might think, a professional trader actually takes losses all the time. His job is to control their risks and do the right thing.

Avtar Sandu

Avtar mainly spoke about the commodities market (He was a senior manager at the commodities department at Phillip Futures).

Unfortunately, I didn’t managed to take down any notes for this session, so this will not be covered in this review.

Collin Seow

Collin was actually not one of the speakers on the original program. I guess he was given some time to talk as he had a booth at the event promoting his seminar.

Collin took up one hour from the end of the day Q&A session (which was supposed to last for two hours) to talk about using technical analysis for trading.

Interestingly, his method also uses the same metrics for the moving average cross-over method that Kok Huan had spoke about last week.

As we run out of time for the subsequent Q&A (that involved Jim Rogers), I was actually not too happy about the inclusive of this surprise segment.

Nevertheless, remember to look out for an upcoming post which will cover some of the questions asked and the interesting replies that were given during the Q&A session.

To leave your comments, please go to : Jim Rogers Review at Shares Investment Conference

Mike Bellafiore, author of One Good Trade: Inside the Highly Competitive World of Proprietary Trading
and co-founder of SMB Capital, a proprietary trading firm in New York City, will also be sharing with you on the outlooks of 2013, and how you can beat the market.

Shares Investment Conference 2012 

Date: 1st Sep 2012
Time: 9:00am – 7:00pm
Venue: Rock Auditorium (#03-063/065) Suntec City Mall, 3 Temasek Boulevard

Programme

8.00am : Registration / Morning Snack
9.00am : The World Tomorrow and How Jim Rogers Sees it – Keynote speech by Jim Rogers
11.45am : Will The Bumpy Trend Continue For The Commodities Market? – Avtar Sandu
12.30pm : Panel Discussion: “2013 – What Happens Without A Euro?” (Jim Rogers, Mike Bellafiore, Avtar Sandu)
1.30pm : Power Lunch with Jim Rogers & Mike Bellafiore (for Platinum ticket holders) / Lunch (for Gold ticket holders)
2.30pm : Investing in Today’s Crazy Markets – Keynote speech by Jim Rogers
3.45pm : Beat the Market with ONE GOOD TRADE – Mike Bellafiore
5.00pm : Panel Discussion: “Local Companies – They can be your Best Bet”
6.00pm : Q&A with Jim Rogers, Mike Bellafiore, Avtar Sandu
7.00pm : Lucky Draw

Discounted ticket prices are available for PhillipCapital (eg Poems) clients.

Click here for registration link (Public)

Click here for registration link (PhillipCapital Client)

To leave your comments, please go to : Jim Rogers at Shares Investment Conference