Dec 22, 2018

Cory Diary : Watchful Eyes on Land Mines 2018

Like any company, there is constant search for new blood to rejuvenate our portfolio. As time goes you will realize you get to know more companies and try them out. Some will end badly. A few will flourish. That's part of the game.

However, even a 1% position we will need to think carefully. Often I make the mistake of dismissing their impact which then adds up. For example my foray into tracking the few minuscule US stocks end up bad in the trade tariff frenzy. It could be a lot worst if is a much larger positions.


Land Mines

Passive investment to me is more on not running the businesses literally and there aren't a need to monitor their price closely. That's doesn't mean we are passive in keeping up on our entire portfolio and not checking how they do in price daily. There is constant look out for "Land Mines" who aren't really passive or new to you. What I mean is ones that your portfolio could take a large hit. Is very important at least to me to have a feel for them. That could result in cutting loss to avoid blow out, reducing exposure or averaging down. However needs to be careful of averaging down as it can cause a big dent to our investment if we are wrong.

I do a quick review of my database, and manage to get a list of potential "Land Mines" that I have manage to mitigate. How to read this table (below) is a little tricky. I can do this better but I feel this is not the focus I want to spend time on today. So there are 2 things to know.

1. The list for each column year will only appear if the losses are meaningful enough.
2. if the consolidated results across the year totaled in good losses will the stocks be mentioned.



Fortunately for the past 11 years (almost 11 ! touch wood) there aren't many potential mines. As for the 5 Digits losses, they are low level losses. Year 2018 has 3 and one of them is due to recent JD play.  I like to describe more on the 3 counters with 5 Digits losses in totaled namely MTQ, Mun Siong and Ouhua. All I cut losses and avoided blow-out.

Mun Siong - Extracting money out from IPO money
MTQ - Oil and Gas.
Ouhua - S-Chip. Enough said.

As for 2019, OCBC will be a hold for me. Avoided a blow by Design Studio in 2018.  JD exposure is small so not much meat left and I don't think it will zero out.


Merry Christmas

Cory
2018-1222

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