First off, I would like to thank everyone who read my first post entitled 'Dividend Investing?'. It has now reached close to 3.3k views. If you have missed it and would like to read it, here it is: http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/shinado/85241.jsp

Now, today's topic is really just a story of my journey in the investing world. I hope to share this experience with first time investors and also to document on where I am now so that I can reflect back in coming years.

To begin with, I have no knowledge or certification, or any background in accounting or economics. I am an IT engineer working for a MNC in Malaysia (I will not disclose the name of the company but it is public listed in the US).

I used to have a bad habit of gambling and speculating. I would gamble some of my hard earned money betting on football and casino. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. But most of the times, I would lose. Therefore, I quitted.

But old habits do die hard, and so it was no longer casinos and football bets, but stocks. My company offered ESOS plan for us employees. Now, I did not even bother to check the quarterly or annually financial reports but I jumped in because of one reason: It was at it's lowest pricing in years. I told myself: "How much lower can it get, right? It should rebound anytime now". Luck was on my side this time, because I bought it blindly without any fundamental or technical analysis. And the price increased over time to a profit of 50%. I sold it immediately.

Fresh from my gains, I immediately turn my attention to KLSE. I told myself, "I can do this".  I was too confident and immediately I made my first mistake: I bought into Asia Media. It was all hyped in forums. I think this can be classified as a 'Pump and Dump' stock. Bought at 16.5 sen each and sold at 11.5 each for a loss of roughly 33%, it is still my worst loss ever. But luckily I still hold to one of the best advice ever which is 'Never to put all your eggs in one basket'. I didn't put in all my money on Asia Media. I diversified into some unit trusts, because these fund managers are more knowledgeable than I am at that point. So I didn't lose too much.

As I was lost at what to buy and who to believe, I have decided to play like a small time trader. I try to look for stock with a more consistent trade patterns and buy/sell in a short period of time. I told myself that if I can earn 5-10% profit from it and repeat all over, it will great!

Little did I know that I got stuck in a classic trap. Bought into Compugates for 50 sen each. When the price goes up to 55 sen, I thought it was a good deal to sell for a 10% profit. But no, while you queue to sell for 55 sen, there is not one buyer for it. Everyone is queueing to buy at 50 sen. Then price went down back to 50 sen and everyone is queueing to buy at 45 sen. So I was stuck for some good 4 months before there was a buyer for 55 sen. I was lucky to escape.

So it was after that moment when I start to pay attention to quarter or annual reports. I still haven't learn fundamentals but at least I look to see if the company makes profit in recent years. Then I began to read some articles and follow some blogs. Started to learn what is Margin of Safety, Instrinsic Value, ROE, profit margins. But still I know nothing about ROIC, CROIC or FCF. Along the way I made some good and bad decisions, all in all which I gain valuable experience from.

It was not until last year that I learned about Warren Buffet's tennets. I have since incorporated some tennets for my stock selection criteria and also picked up some knowledge on cash flow analysis along the way. It really helped me with some of the good decisions that I've made since last year. Reading really helps, and not just that, I've learned to control my mindset and behaviour in investing most of the time (although not 100%). For example, I did not panic and sold all my stocks when market crashed last year and this year. I just keep calm, hold onto my stocks and try to look for a good bargain or two to buy.

So the lesson I learned here is that the the best investment in life is actually knowledge. Nothing can beat it. If you are knowledgeable in something, you might just make it big someday.

I am still a learner in investing and I do intend to learn more on fundamentals. And perhaps one day on Technical Analsysis (seeing how Mr. OTB is doing so well in his 2015 stock selection!) so that I can have the option to incorporate FA + TA in the future. I will disclose my portfolio that I am holding in real cash just for sharing and learning purposes in the coming days.

On a final note, I would like to say thank you to the following people for their blogs. I learned a lot from their posts:

kcchongnz, L.C.Chong, Felicity, Intelligent Investor & Tan KW.

Thank you for your time reading this post.

shinado