The 19 Year Old Year Review, Reflection & 2018 Resolution

It's the time of the year again. Days to a new year. And here we are. Time really flies and in a blink of an eye, I will be leaving the 1X world, moving to the next digit of my life - 20.

Before I continue, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my readers for the kind words, lessons and compliments for the past months as well as the wise seniors in the local blogsmophere that is providing me with insightful learning through their blog post and comments.

Caution: Very lengthy post.

Portfolio Review of 2017:
Last week, I have done a review on my portfolio performance this far. Nothing impressive. But this practical lesson had provided me with several valuable experiences. Knowing that my performance is heavily dependent on my "homework", this triggers the learning devil inside me to explore and consistently find out more.

For this year, I've set a target initially to channel $15/day into my war-chest/investment portfolio. This sum will come up to $5,475. However, I've achieve this goal in August and have since revised the goal to $7,350. 

In that post, I have revealed that I've achieved the target I've set for this 2017, exceeding the revised version slightly by 3.19% with unrealized + realized P/L at +15.80% and CAGR of overall portfolio performance at 18.69%

For 2017, I've managed to hit both my goals set for my investment portfolio.  

Read: 2017 Overall Portfolio Performance


Review & Reflections for 2017 (Personal, Study, Work, Finances):
2017 had been a really really exciting year for me. This is the first year that I'm into the world of investment. This is the start of my journey towards financial freedom. I would say that I've gain alot of knowledge and insights in this year from blogging, the financial world, work and school.

2017 is a very rewarding year for me and it marks a very important year in my life.

Let's start from personal life:
No, unfortunately, I have not found the cup of tea. It had been a lonely journey for many years now. There is too many hi-bye people around. With the restructuring of my life, I've found out who is the ones that truly matters and will be by your side when the sky fall. This is both a happy and sad thing - happy to know the good quality ones, sad to know that there is so many clowns around. But well, what's new?

On a side note, I've also obtained my Class 2B license this year. Biking is something that I used to love when I'm younger. However, due to insufficient funds at the start of this year, I've struggled through some parts of my course and managed to complete it. Dangerous sport? Well.. There's a devil inside me.

Family wise, it had been a rocky journey and it is not as smooth sailing as it should be. Nonetheless, the opportunity to be "separated" from them for months had allow me to see the loving and soft side of my family. Hereby, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family members for the support and love they have provided me over the years.

I've also embarked on this "blogging-project" on August to write on my learning to serve as a personal diary for me. Hopefully, the day when I achieve financial independence, I will be able to look back on the journey. If I'm ever married with children, this blog will be a present to them from daddy. Hopefully, they will be able to learn on my mistakes and avoid them.

Through this platform, I also hope to be able to provide some information for people, young adults who are uncertain if they should embark on their financial journey and to how they can get started. Hopefully, it will provides some motivation for them.

Study:
I'm blessed to be granted an overseas opportunity for my attachment program, visiting a country that I always wanted to visit. I'm extremely thankful for this opportunity as well as the knowledge acquired from this event. Apart from learning a new language (unfortunately, I'm still not well-versed), exploring a new culture, understanding things differently. This program had forged several extremely valuable memories and knowledge in my life.

In this program, I'm here for a research and honestly speaking, I'm had a shock when I receive the subject of research as it is something that is pretty much different from what I'm learning. The subject here is more on programming and computer engineering which is not in my field of studies. Nonetheless, in the course of this program, I've worked hard and managed to understand and fulfill the research requirement and project.

Tasting the local food, living the local life, learning deeper about independence. This is something that I will never forget. Having that said, I hope to return to this land of rising sun whenever possible.


Work:
Throughout this year, I have held 2 different part-time jobs and one attachment program. I will not go into detail of what I'm working as, but I will write briefly about them. In my first job, I've learnt things the hard way. Instead of learning things in the classroom manner and how beautiful the world is, I've learnt about how it felt to be someone who work with labor. This is truly an eye-opener for me. It allows me to understand very much on what blood sweat money (血汗钱) is.

There's some people that is asking me previously on why did I take up the first job. My answer to them is simple - I want to experience how it is like to work with labor. In the world today, most teens in Singapore and young adults are studying and playing happily. After graduating from a university, they will be sitting in the air-con environment and working - not mentioning those that are born in a silver or golden spoon. Personally, I'm not born in the silver or golden spoon, but given the education system and school in Singapore as well as working society, it is less likely that one will experience the "harder job" when they step into the world. Hence, I'm very glad to have this opportunity that allows me to understand life differently.

Coincidentally, through the first job, I manage to find a second job. This comes at a very big surprise to me. The second job is something that I always wanted to do. Due to the nature of it, I never had the opportunity to venture into it. Hence, being presented the opportunity in summer 2017, I gladly took the offer and begin working hard there. However, a caveat here is that I'm working slightly out of my usual comfort-zone for the past few year. Therefore, apart from working for something I enjoy and regaining a part of my "extroverted" self, this job had allowed me to learn things that are out of my comfort-zone, creating valuable insights.

Finances:
Would you believe if I tell you I've started and entered 2017 with $3.63 as my net worth? I've to be honest here. I used to be a typical student. A typical polytechnic student. Someone who is paying attention to trends and chasing dreams of others. Years ago, I've been earning money easily from selling things online. Unfortunately, this small business of mine died as the trend ended. With the amount of money I'm earning as a secondary school student back then without working, it is a really impressive amount and I've no idea on where I should be spending on. Hence, a silly younger me decided to spend it on chasing the dreams of others and going for trends.

As much as I love traveling, I've visited 6 countries in 2016. In the same year, I've gotten my Class 3 license and have gone for certain extravagant thing. With my business dying in late 2014, early 2015. my savings that I had previously had been wiped out and I bankrupted myself completely in 2016. Going back to zero.

Did I mention that I used to be an investor? Oh yes. I'm.
In 2016, I've head-started in trading and speculations. I've won big, I've lost big too. Big enough to wipe out my capital back then. Short? CFD? Leverage? I would explore every single option back then haha. However, approaching the end of 2016, when "sleepydevil's crisis" is peaking, I've decided to diligently read up on what truly an investment is. Steps at a time, it brings me to who I am today. Nothing impressive, and I will continue to learn more from this adventurous journey.

Would you believe again if I tell you now that a polytechnic student that is born in a plastic spoon amassing 10k in the year of 2017 from stints, part time job and investing? Perhaps I can write about this soon?

Better not, I might be lying :)

Despite my equities portfolio not doing that well this year, I'm fortunate to have beginner's luck in my favor when I made my debut into the world of cryptocurrency.


Here are some resolutions for 2018:
I will be listing them in point form before going point by point to elaborate more on them. There's a couple more less significant ones which I will not be listing down here.

1. Building up a sizable cash positions
2. Target of S$10,000 - My first 5 digit by 1H 2018 (before my 20th Birthday)
3. Target of S$16,442 by end 2018
4. Visiting 1 country before enlistment
5. Stronger relationship with family

1. Building a sizable cash position
This may sound strange, but I am trying to build up 60% cash position and if possible, more. This will be done by channeling more money into my war-chest. Why am I doing so? Why are you leaving such a big fraction of your dollars to rot in the bank and getting tiny interest?

Well. The world today is richer than it is from the past few market crashes and no doubt, there is still room for further growth in the world's financial market. However, as most of the indexes around the world are reaching all time high, like DJIA and with our local STI market at 34XX. It's true that it is not so easy to source for under-valued stocks and most of them are fairly valued/over valued. Hence, building a bigger war-chest will allow me to capitalize when the stock market GSS comes and I'm preparing to go all-in when Mr Market is suffering from depression.
Nonetheless, it does not mean that I will stop buying shares when opportunity presents itself. In the upcoming months, I will be establishing a separate war-chest that will be recorded in my monthly portfolio update. The funds in this additional war chest will only be utilized when a big crash or correction comes. Regular stock purchase will be coming from my original war-chest which I did not include in the portfolio.

This fund here will not be inclusive of cash for my daily expenses/emergency-funds.

With that in mind, I will be doing a slight adjustment and hope to achieve a 30% cash position for that "separate war-chest" by 1Q 2017.

2. Target of S$10,000 
This will be my target which I hope to fulfill by 1H 2018. It may comes in the form of "cryptocurrency funds", additional war-chest and equities holding - value of my overall portfolio. To accomplish this, I have 6 months starting from 01/01/2018.

With my current portfolio value at S$7,584.66 (as of 19/12/17), this is S$2,415.34 away from my goals. Working backwards, I will need to inject $402.56/month should my investment stays flat.

I foresee that there this target will be coming earlier than intended, however there will not be any revision to 2018 1H target.

3. Target of S$16,442 by 2018 end
This target is originally set in my earlier post on the 19-year-old investor part 2.
This target requires an additional injection or positive performance of S$8,500 based on the target for 2017, which will work out to S$708.33/mth. Now this is a pretty challenging sum for a student. But as I will be graduating soon and will be in my waiting phase before the NS, I hope that I will be able to better capitalize on the time and achieve this goal as soon as possible.

Similarly, the sum of S$16,442 will consist of equities investment, additional war-chest, cryptocurrency funds and so on.

4. Visiting 1 country before enlistment
Now, it might sounds even tougher here. Having to contribute S$708.33/mth, living expenses and going overseas as a student! Well, at the current moment, I have not made any plans on where to visit yet.. as I'm still aboard.. But I will soon be doing a research on the country that I wish to visit. There's just too much in the list, and I will need to handpick one from the list. I'm sure that this trip is going to be a very exciting and adventurous trip!

5. Stronger relationship with family
As much as I might be occupied, in the year of 2018, I will be taking more time out to spend with my dearly family members before my enlistment. I'm planning and also hope that I will be able to do things that we've never done together as a family. I believe this is going to be a very valuable memory for the family.




Nonetheless, I will be back soon. 
And it's time to continue working hard for the next year!

How have your year been thus far? :)