I like to chat with retirees, particularly those who used to work in a job where they need to be a bit of a snake oil salesman. It is after they retire that they can be completely honest about their past.A few years ago, a retired stockbroker revealed to me that most of his retail customers lost money. I asked him why. He was in a good position to know the answer since he had access to the buy/sell transactions of his clients.This was what he told me.They patiently held on to losing stocks and impatiently sold winning stocks.If you have several years of experience in the stock market and are still a loser, please check your own past transactions and verify for yourself if this is true. 😁Years ago, I spoke out against contra-trading because I suspected this practice was harming most Singapo

This crypto startup firm, Uprise, lost 99% of its client funds while shorting Luna during its price crash. Luna crashed 99.98% within 1 week from Thursday, 5 May 2022 to the following Thursday, 12 May 2022. Just 1 week ago, Luna's market capitalization was USD28 billion. 1 week later, this USD28b crashed by 99.98%. This is the fastest and biggest price crash in crypto history. A short-seller who shorted Luna should be making huge sums of money in quick time. Yet, Uprise lost 99% shorting Luna.How can this happen?The answer can be found in the hourly price chart of Luna. Luna surged violently by 708% within an hour from 13 May 2022 10 am-11 am. I guess this is the hour that pretty much killed Uprise. Even if Uprise survived this hour, there were several other hourly intervals when Luna

I have been pleasantly surprised by the resilience of the Straits Times Index(STI) and the Singapore stock market for most of the past 2 weeks. There were days when the U.S market plunged but STI declined much lesser than expected (usually less than 0.4%). That was unusual strength. Unfortunately, by the end of this week (6 May 2022), STI finally succumbed to global stock market weakness and joined in the decline.I started getting more aggressive in adding to my Singapore portfolio during theweek of 19Mar2022when STI showed signs of strength. I took some profits off as the market started to weaken this week. Initially, I enjoyed good profits in some palm oil stocks like Bumitama Agri and Golden Agri but Indonesia's ban on palm oil exports caused these stocks to plunge, particularly Bumitam

To help me track financial markets in a customized format to my liking, I developed websites available for free to the public.Here are the results for 2022.Top ranking of stock indices in 2022 (USD-adjusted). Source: https://market-observer.addvaluedonoevil.com/ranking-of-stock-indices/The ranking of the stock indices is adjusted to USD. An investor can make good gains but the gains can be lost from a depreciating currency. Investors cannot ignore currency movements. Ignoring them will lead to a distorted reflection of the purchasing power made from their investment gains.2022 has been a sea of red for stocks worldwide, as can be seen from the year-to-date performance of global stock indices. It is an achievement if you managed to break even this year in your stock portfolio.Straits Times

FTX has been exposed as a fraud and is now bankrupt. I have lost my funds on FTX, although I withdrew most of it before the collapse. I owe it to myself to reflect deeply on this event. I also owe it to my readers because I wrote 2 positive articles(1,2) on FTX in the past. I was not paid a single cent for writing the articles. I wrote them on my financial blog because I was a happy customer of FTX. Some people gloat over the investment losses of others. Some people get resentful when others are profitable. I do not wish to indulge either group. Hence, I do not wish to talk about how much I eventually made or lost from FTX. This information is relevant only to me. The important content is the lessons to be learnt from this disaster. Why was I so enthusiastic about FTX? My experience with F

The yield curve has inverted in U.S Treasury bond markets in Apr2022. This is big news in financial media. Why is this a significant event? According to experts, the inverted yield curve is one of the best predictors of impending economic recession. However, is it a good predictor of an equity bear market?As an investor, the question that interests me "Is the inverted yield curve a good predictor for an impending equity bear market in a timely fashion?" The keyword here is timely. Being early in financial markets is as good as being wrong even if the prediction turns out to be right eventually. It is useless in making predictions about bear markets, selling out early, only to see the market rise another 30% before the bear market finally sets in.Based on the number of news a

This has not been a good year for my stock portfolio. This year had been characterized by bear market rallies which whipsawed my stock portfolio (more on that later). It is a year to be remembered for risk management and survival through decisive exits. About 4 months ago in June 2022, I decided to move into China/HK stocks after the market showed some signs of recovery. 3 weeks later, I decided to exit China/HK stocks because my China/HK stock picks performed poorly despite a good performance from China/HK stock indices in June. I wondered what was wrong with me then. Usually, my stock portfolio will move hand in hand with the indices but this time, I lost money despite the indices going up. Either something is wrong with me or the market is telling me there is worse to come. I cannot all

2 weeks ago when the U.S stock market started a mini-rally (27 May 2022), I suspected it was a bear market rally driven by profitable short-sellers covering their shorts. After 7 down weeks, short-sellers would be looking for an excuse to take profit. S&P500 suffered a mini-crash this week dropping 5.05% and it was the worst week of the year since January. This market action showed that it was indeed a bear-market rally.Take a look at the U.S stock indices in the table below.https://market-observer.addvaluedonoevil.com/ranking-of-stock-indices/Take a look at the internal market statistics of the U.S market.https://market-observer.addvaluedonoevil.com/stock-market-internal-statistics/Take a look at the internal market statistics of individual U.S sectors.https://market-observer.addvalue

One day before Singapore's National Day celebrations on 8 Aug 2022, Hodlnaut threw a bombshell on their customers. The company was going under. Hundreds of millions(estimated $500m) in customer deposits have been frozen.I have been following Hodlnaut closely since last year after I signed on as their customer. I even got my wife in as well. I believe I am qualified to give my opinion on what happened with Hodlnaut.How I would react if I were a Hodlnaut victimAlthough I managed to escape from the Hodlnaut disaster, I have had my fair share of gut-wrenching losses from questionable investments. I have given some thought to how I would react in a similar situation and I would like to share it with Hodlnaut victims. If the money lost is not too much (say, a few months of work income), it is be

2 months ago, China and Hong Kong stocks looked like they were making a recovery and I decided to resume purchase of China/HK stocks in June.https://ttm.financial/post/9056115067It was not a profitable experience for the next 3 weeks. The HK/China stock market did not seem to act right. Maybe something was wrong with me since the China stock indices were going up in June but my portfolio was not showing similar performance. My losses were telling me I was not in sync with the market. I decided to exit the trading positions to protect both my financial and mental capital. For long-term investments, one should give the portfolio more time before exit.https://twitter.com/Market0bserver8/status/1548624639907151874?I was mostly