1. How long have you been trading?
I started trading in 1986 and have been a remisier at A. A. Anthony Securities (Johor Bahru) since 1994.

2. What are the basic rules you trade by?
One has to be very disciplined and practice strict money management by not over-exposing one’s investment fund. More importantly, never hesitate to cut losing trades early and let the profitable trades run. By cutting my losing trades before it loses 8% of its value and letting my profitable trades go beyond 20%, I can afford to be wrong seven out of ten times and still take money off the table.

3. What kind of stocks do you look out for, for long term profits?
For long term profits, I would look out for stocks of high growth and stable companies that are undervalued by the market. The best opportunity to purchase undervalued stocks at a discounted price is during a recession, when stocks are shunned by investors. Keep the stock until the market is overheated and the stock becomes overvalued.

4. What kind of stocks do you look out for, for short term gains?
For short term gains, I would look out for momentum stocks. These are stocks that are highly rated and being actively accumulated by investors. This surge in interest of a particular stock will cause its price to hike quickly, creating an opportunity for short term gains.

5. What is the latest stock that has caught your attention?
The latest stock that caught my attention is Bursa Malaysia, which I believe has all the ingredients for continuous growth and handsome dividend payments.

6. How do you identify stocks to buy?
Start with reading up on research reports of companies listed on Bursa Malaysia and identify potential stocks with strong fundamentals and high growth potential.

7. What advice do you have for new investors?

Firstly, it is essential to invest in your education before investing in stocks. Learning how to invest and make your own investment decisions can sometimes be a taxing process that requires a lot of dedication but the results will often pay back many times over.

Secondly, practice, practice and practice some more with paper trades or a virtual trading account before committing your money to any investment. Bursa Pursuit is a good example of a virtual trading system that allows you to hone your investment skills with virtual cash and gain valuable experience in the process without losing a cent of your hard earned cash.

Finally, get a dedicated and responsible mentor or remisier to share his/her experience and guide you on the road to being a profitable investor.

1. What rules do you trade by?

I usually trade by utilising two approaches. Fundamental and technical analysis. Both of these are vital for any investor who is serious about investing. I have to admit that although I have only started trading for less than a year, learning fundamentals of a business and analysing technical charts is not an easy task. I too am still learning more and more about investing day by day.

A few very basic rules that have guided me throughout my trading experience so far is:- never buy a stock of a business that I do not understand. I must understand a particular business practices, operations, model, services etc before making a decision as to whether their overall potential is worth the investment. Once I have made an investment decision, patience is another rule that must not be overlooked. Getting in at the right time and getting out whether to reap the profits or cut losses are crucial in any investment.

What I have learnt so far is that, being young at the age of 24, I tend to take risk, which are sometimes unnecessary and I am also sometimes overly impatient. Timing plays a very important part in my trading process.

2. How important is research to your trading process?

Research is indeed a very important element in my trading process. As mentioned above, by doing research on a particular business, I am able to understand what the business does on a day by day basis, how they conduct their business and etc.

Investing into a company without proper research on such as business activities, their fundamentals could lead to losses. I have had my fair share of losses from investing blindly into businesses that I don’t know much about.

3. Where do you get your research?

There are heaps of resources out there for investors to get their hands on. I particularly research the companies that I am interested in from websites, newspapers and business magazines. Websites like Starbiz, Bursa Malaysia, daily news from websites of investment banks such as OSK, CIMB, RHB, HLB, ETF have a lot of information that we could obtain about businesses we want research on.

Other sources would be business magazines like Personal Money, Smart Investor and Malaysian Business provide me with the information that I need on companies in the country as well as abroad. The Edge and The Edge Daily too plays an important role in my research process. By reading and listening to the news daily, helps me grasp the current situation in the region, country and business.

4. Do you use charting tool? If yes, which ones?

I was first exposed to charting tools at the beginning of the year. The charting tool that got me really interested in technical analysis was when I learnt how to analyse a stock using candlestick and simple moving average.

A friend of mine invited me to a seminar and that was my first exposure to charting. Charting tools helps me look at patterns of stocks and because patterns do repeat themselves, it allows me to determine the probability of a certain business potential.

A friend of mine once told me. “ A chart would never lie, because it records every emotion, every event and every outcome of a particular period in time” And because of that, using charting tools is definitely an essential tool in trading.

Since then I have been mucking around with free online charting like the ones available on TheStar.com as well as another website that I am particularly fond of which is www.tradesignum.com which is a free web based site which allows users to use basic chart functions like Bollinger, simple moving average, candlestick, exponential moving average, sometimes donchian channel and a few others.

Since participating in Bursa Pursuit, I have been exposed to more charting tools like Integrastock and NextView which are relatively simple to understand and user friendly.