Its been a year plus since I started this investing journey into the US market. Dec 2020 was my first foray in NASDAQ and I remembered buying 1 $Zoom(ZM)$ stock at $380. Fast forward to March 2022, what a ride it has been. I must say it has tested my patience and invoke so much emotions. The constant struggle in the beginning if I should have sold some stocks when it had 2x (a case in point was $BlackBerry(BB)$. Colleagues encouraged me to sell when I had made a decent profit. I didn't and $BlackBerry(BB)$ meme rally ended spectacularly. I don't know how to read the technical graphs but at least investing had encouraged me to read more around the companies that I had a stake in, no matter the amount. Despite the correction we are experiencing in US market right now, I continued to hold and

$3M(MMM)$ For a moment in time, I thought this stock was such a stable one that I had decided to keep pumping in money into it. Lo and behold, it was not meant to be presently. The 'ouch' had happened, so will just wait and see... paper loss is still painful though...

$Shopify(SHOP)$is it a good time to enter or just watch and wait? I truly wonder...somehow I still have a certain amount of conviction in thus company...

Looking at the current stock market climate, maybe it's better to just forget about my portfolio, then come back once in a while to be "surprised". Initial plan was to just DCA on some stocks but now, it feels like doing nothing can be a better option until the market stabilises.  It seems hard to sell my winners now though tempted such as $Nvda$ and $Aapl$ Even harder to sell my losers $ZM$ and $BB$, though I had multiple opportunities in the past. Oh well can't look back and regret about those choices I have made...  Another day.. another time.. looking at the portfolio. Till then... 

I truly wonder if my current investment strategy will work for the long haul. I have adopted a somewhat barbell approach where on one end, I have a basket of tech stocks for growth such as $Block(SQ)$, Salesforce and Nvidia, while on the other end, a basket of defensive stocks such as Mc Donald's, $Procter & Gamble(PG)$, $Coca-Cola(KO)$and $3M(MMM)$. During March lows when Ukraine War started, the red was deep but thankfully, could have been worst if not for the defensive stocks. I suppose let's see how this investing strategy pans out in the long haul. For now, this works for me. 

$Alphabet(GOOGL)$when a company has become a verb, it seems relatively safe unless its a pandemic stock. But then again, no company is very safe in current climate. 

I tried to DCA on some stocks such as $apple$, $salesforce$ and $alphabet$. The human heart and mind are always in conflict when there's a market downturn. I ended up stopping my DCA strategy on the downturn and just do nothing. When market is going up, I felt inclined to invest again but could not press the trade button. I guess it's not easy to dissociate my emotions from investing with a cool head despite investing for the long run with an investment horizon of more than 5 years...oh well...

$ZoomInfo Technologies Inc.(ZI)$this stock has been going up and down like a roller coaster...if I had traded this stock, I may have earned a decent sized profits but am more of a long term investor, so I guess trading is not just for me. 

$Adobe(ADBE)$not sure why am so undecided if I should buy Adobe or not. I guess the inertia is there for this company which is unexplainable. 

I would admit that as much as I try to get non-emotional about investing, I was perturbed when my portfolio was in deep red recently. As I watched the stock prices declining rapidly in early March, I couldn't fathom why investors would sell when there are no fundamental changes in the companies. Of course, I will always articulate my thoughts to my colleague, Wise One, to seek some answers. A part of me regretted slightly for not selling some stocks earlier after making a decent profit. The Wise One said:1. People can be emotional during market downturn. They may not be able to stomach the losses and may need the cash. So they sold. 2. Funds will need to protect their clients' money and so they had to sell to cut losses. 3. Traders and investors have different time horizons. Thus traders m

$BlackBerry(BB)$I still remember when BB shot up to $21 recently during the meme stock craze and I was sitting at $27k profit just from BB alone. Did I take profit? Despite being urged by people around me, I didn't...why? As I had high conviction that BB can go higher. But it dropped subsequently to less than $10 in the next 1 to 2 weeks. Do I regret not selling then? Honestly, slight tinge of regret prevails but if I take a long term view, perhaps short term profit is not my intention in investing. I hope I am right as hell...