to the guy who wanted to retire at 35 with $1 m cash ---- hey hey, don't! search your heart and mind for a good way to contribute to society. last night, a girl came around to various homes in neighbourhood, said she was from CDAC. She had a badge to support her statement.

And there was a teenaged boy with her -- he is from a single parent home and needs support. He had a cooler box and was selling boxes of Magnolia ice-cream. I paid S$18 for 1 box -- just to help this good cause.  Our society has many people in need of help from volunteers. U get the drift?

Did you ask yourself why today mkt is up when dow was down last nite 25 pts, it is not because it is down only 25 pts, at time 100 pts but we end unchanged. Why??

Thses are harsh time, value invester will hestitate, confuse and wonder why???

But if you are still doing and not vested in the market, you will buy at higher price, i am sure

I am sure to see more happy faces here by Q4, but sadness aplenty come 2013.

expect to see your investemnt to go down by 70% by 2013, dont say this is not possible.

THe Lord Buddha say.

" To a hardworking man , everyday is a lucky day"

so to be lucky in the market, you much be hardworking, looking and observing. Don't throw your money to the wind.

so do not pray to the Buddha for luck, because he say you go and work hard.

I think now is a good time to accumulate s-chip.

Qingmei , foreland , chinataisan and chinNtown.

I cut losses on chinataisan recntly, but have reenter at 91c., yesterday.

sometimes it is a disadvantage been a chinese educated, but i do know what i read,

Yesterday, someone told me a about cordlfie.. I have enter a trade on this one, I expect it to corass 61c.

thanks for your info.

What i am trying to say is if you do your due diligent, your luck will increase. It is not luck, but your due diligent that make you lucky.

I do not trade on tikam tikam, basic, i do observation of many thing before i enter my trade.

Look at GSH, i can assess this countet will corss 10c soon, it is not luck, We shall see. This is not a call, unless you know how to cut your losses.

If you say investing is all about mostly luck, value invester will disagree. If you go to casino , you depend on luck, In stock , u depend on observation.

If you observe carefully, your luck will icrease, So what is luck??

Never go to casino, your luck will run out.

In all truth honesty, i will try to give benefit of doubt, but to retire at 40 and with only 1 million is too risky as 1 million is too little.

If you have lost 500k by 2013, you will have to go back to work.

If you do not know what to do, then don't retire, take your job to new height, If you can achieve 1 m, by 40 it is very good, make that to 2 m, by 50, afterall you do not know what to do.

Unless, you are sick of your job, but you still can find another or start your own business. Don't say like life is long, " I do not know what to do"  Life is short, you spend time touring and enjoying, it a waste of time, and meaningless. At the end, you ask what did i get out of all this.

I have gone thor all this places, what so nice abt them?? U tell me,

Someone call me a professional gambler in one post, well call me whatever i am not angry, In fact, life is a big gamble. But if you gamble with common sense, then you can call it a nicer name, speculating, and even nicer name if you think you have do alot of diligence, you start to call yourself a value invester.

And someone told me, i am glad that i have double my investment to date,  But i am telling you that you will soon see your value go down by more than half, likely in 2013, I could be wrong, but unlikely.

Why people said i lost so much, is that they stay stubbornly, refuse to cut loss, saying that my porfolio are ok all blue chips, it will come back. But why not sell first and buy back later cheaper and profit even more, than stay and watch your value go down day to day and heart break. Blue chip or what all go under water in a crises.

If you do have a cut losss, you can only lost so much, but never 500K. Everything in life must also have a stop loss. Even in relationship. If you and your spouse truthly cannot get along, quarrelling everyday and after trying to patch thing up till come to nothing, you better divorce, insist of ending killing one another. I have one friend, said but i love her, But sometime to love a person is to leave her alone, if the fault is with us, and we most likely cannot see them.

Some ask, should i clear all my account, i think they did not read some of my post. I said rally till Q4 or end Oct. So on the safe side i will be looking out and suggest a selling on all vestment by then.

I think i will not go all over, and stay in my own thread to prevent misunderstanding. I am by no mean a gambler, I am a prudent trader. I dont stay in for shark to eat me to the bone, and then wait for years for it to heal.

come follow me in my thread, i m sure u be glad.

And if you do not know what to do, and is bore with life, contact me

gutman at valuebuddies.com has a good personal story to share, as follows:

I read with interest the ongoing discussion on this topic. I realized there are many forummers here who have walked this similar path just as I did as some of the issues and experiences discussed are so similar to my own. I would like to share my story here. Hope it doesn't sound long winded (I am after all, in my mid forties)

I retired from the corporate world at the age of 40 a few years back after accumulating more than a million dollar. I have no debt, own a fully paid apartment and a Jap car.

The initial days after retirement, I was a little lost (just like what Jared Seah felt). There were no longer people asking me for decisions, no more boss telling you if you are good (or no good), no more shedules or deadlines, no more business and execution plans, no more deals to close, no more jetting around and no more media or institutional funds contacting me for information. I did lose most of my network and contacts (exactly what mrEngineer said) and relied mainly on the internet for information (like what KopiKat did).

I became a full time retail investor.

I went through the 2007 crisis with much pain after losing about 500K on paper but was fortunate to have recovered since (I mentioned in one of my earlier posting). I was certainly humbled by that crisis and can understand what wsreader mentioned on Michael Lewis's article about luck. I did have some luck, both before retiring and certaily after the crisis. Before the crisis, just like most people who have made their fortune in the bull market then, I thought I knew a thing or two about investment. If you asked me again today, I will tell you it is a lot of hardwork and yes, luck.

After spending these few years doing full time retail investing and managing my own money, I can concur with what sgd said, that it is not easy, especially in the current market. You can have all the fundamentals or numbers right, but you can get the sentiments or timing wrong. Or you can get all these right, but your greed or fear just prey on you.

I did most of my research via the internet, just like what KopiKat said. There are just tonnes of information, if only you spent your time and effort to find. And from forums like this, I learned from many here: Musicwhiz, Temperament, shanrui_91, D.O.G, etc etc, just to name a few.

I can also relate to what mrEngineer said about losing your network and contact once you retire, and may not have access to the real story or the management of a company. What I do about this is, I tried attending AGMs whenever I can, and talked to the CEOs. I also make an effort to keep in touch with a lot of my past contacts and colleagues, buying them lunch or coffee every now and then, and exchange some informations.

I do have more time with family and friends. Recently, I was able to spend more time visiting and chatting with both my 70+ years old parents, and realised there are many things I do not know about them. I was glad to learn about their own little stories. I also spend more time exploring our own little city, Singapore, and found many interesting places, where I never knew existed. I am also planning to do more travelling with my wife, and there will be no more business meetings during these trips.

But somehow I guess whichever route one chooses, you gain some, you lose some.

By the way, have you ever though of retirng to other countries, why must we stay here till death.

Country like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, i believe your HDB flat and CPF will be much more than enough to retire there like a king.

if say your CPF and saving together with your HDB flat, i think you can easilyworth 1.5 m ringgit in Malaysia, enoug to retire very comfortably and there offer a serence life style.

what say you? but ppl say the place not safe. I have relative in Malacca, it is a nice place,

can consider.

Yes Sir, my apology , but you want proof , you can e-mail me at victortancheongwee@yahoo.com.sg

anybody interested, i will invite him to my office, i can show you all what you want to see.

But after that you must do some meaing work for me. I can't simply do that for nothing.

I have you sign an undertaking, but if on the contrary i can't then i will do what you want me to do.

All my trade to date, cannot be bluff. form securities.

Your take, Your turn now.

Dear cheongwee,

This is a virtual forum. In the virtual world, you can be anybody or say anything. Nobody knows.

Just that your postings are done without solid facts and evidence supporting them. It leaves doubts in the minds of many whether you have actually done it and / or what are your strategy in doing such successful executions.

Cheers!

Thanks, 99% will disagree with me, but at least you are the 1%, hopefully, But 1% is quite a big number in a forum. 1% is still ok, even if it is only 0.000001%, i m happy that i share. But i hope the 99% will be generous and forgive me of my sins.

To trade with no emotion is a big lies, The only thing that got no emotion are non living things!!!

The trick is try not to be too emotional, Do what is necessary, When i was taught abt cutting loss, i was very emotional abt it, because i lose money, But as i do more and see most of time that counter edge lower it comfirn that this cut loss work, so i m now less emotional., no truthg that i got no emotion,

For example, look how i reply to "cheongster" , show that i have emotion.

We should also have a cut loss for long term vestment. So when market crash big time or head lower we can buy cheap and profit even more, No point go down and up with it and gain nothing.

may you be well

A short visit cannot reveal the suffering of the people. You must live there for a period. And if you have visited only places of interest what can that say about the country.

Can you see poor people around Eiffel Tower? or White House, I didn;t see them when i was there. You must go to the area of poor to understand, not a few days of visit and holidaying. Maybe you see some begger, Like you go Orchard road, maybe u see Ah Peh selling tissue paper, they are still consider lucky, you want to see the worse, you tell me, i will tell you some places, but you must be able to withstand the smell, I tell you , worse than the worse kopitiam toilet.

And i did not mean Isaac Chin, you are the one who memtion his name I means in general, Now i am in deeper trouble, because i means ALL!!!, My post was for ALL!!!

Look i have got myself into trouble, and more enemies, but i was comforted by my more profit.

You can go holiday, I didn't say you can't, but you want to learn about their suffering stay with them for sometimes, not a few days,or 2 weeks.

And upon learning abt their suffering what can you do??? Oh yes, they are suffering , very good, i should go back and short the market, Oh no, they are not suffering i will long ....or what. you tell me.

Cheongwee, you are incoherent -- you can't see it. A guy like Isaac Chin has an experience to share from his visit to Spain -- Spain, the country on the brink of bankruptcy. This is most interesting and here you go yapping about as though there is something grossly wrong. 99% of people will disagree with you on this, you know.

> ISAAC CHIN: My pleasant trip to economically-depressed Spain

And this coming week will be mostly OK, most data are at low, got no way to go but flat to up.

I think it is a week BB like to push up stock to dump later. So I will be looking out to take some profit, if my sock soar and i see BB cashing out.

I believe Gold and silver will head south, not vested yet.

This will be a week stock end up positve.

Good luck.