Today I realized that I am doing trading in shares since last 4 years. I started it in March 2007 by buying shares of the organization (Maruti Udyog Ltd.) with which I was working then and that was the beginning of exciting journey.
Most "Intelligent Investor" ever says "There is no wrong or right time to enter stock market, you can enter any time and start". These are the words of Warren Buffet. I agree with him in fact I feel that whenever you enter the market thats the best time to do so.
So, I entered in March 2007 and after four years I can say that my timing was perfect. I was lucky to see the peaks in January 2008 (SENSEX above 21000) and again lucky to see crash and bottoms of March 2009 (SENSEX below 9000). I feel that failure teaches you more than success and in a way I was fortunate to be a part of one of the worst recession in the history of mankind (other than great depression of 1930s and oil crisis of 1970s). I saw people buying at 21000, selling at 10000 and then again buying at 18000: A financial Suicide.
It is difficult to tell you how much my earnings were during those four years, because that was not my goal of entering the market. For all those four years I focussed on learnings only. All I can say is that I earned a decent return on my investments but I learned a lot. Here I would like to share few of my learnings.
1. Patience is the Key: You should have patience in the market. Set long term goals on all your investments and then keep yourself calm. Don't care about temporary things.
2. Be disciplined: You should always stick to your targets on your investments. If you want 20% return on one share and it reached there in 2 days, sell it. Dont be greedy.
3. Book losses: Never hesitate in booking losses. If your stock is not performing since last few years, sell it and buy the performer.
4. Dont be sentimental: Never feel sentimental for any particular stock because it gave you return in past. Stock market depends on future growth prospects, past is gone. I will buy Infosys because I like Narayan Murthy, is no reason to buy.
5. Be diversified: Its very obvious thing that all "Gurus" preach.
6. Dont trust every information and call: Dont buy anything just by looking on newspapers or websites, everybody reads this so its not valuable information. Create your own analysis.
7. Make a friend who invests: I have a very close friend, we discuss all this and we learn a lot this way.
8. Just read above 7 points carefully but create your own rules.
At last I would like to quote few more lines of Buffet- "I bought my first stock at the age of 13 years and I feel I was too late".
These lines still strike me becase I bought my first stock at the age of 24 and I too feel I was late.
Have you bought your first ??
Its getting late.
