Struggling To Find A Job At 23 Years Old, Retired A Millionaire At 28 Through Stock Market Trading
“Struggling to find a job at 23 years old, retired a millionaire at 28 through stock trading.” That title is what trading gurus are using to lure newbies in on their paid program. I used it to lure you in my blog post. Now that you are in here, you might as well read what i have to say.
Tell me if this scenario is familiar to you. You have a job. You spend your money away. One day you woke up and realize that you have been spending your money on things that of no value and that you need to save up for the future. You started thinking about your family’s future. First thing that comes to your mind was to save up and plan for a business. Then, you realized that creating/managing a business is really hard and a lot of them fail more often than not. You go on a “mini research” which involves internet and typing words such as “what is best way to invest your money in the Philippines?.” You come across words like “stock investing/trading,” “stock market,” and “online trading.” You ask some friends about stock trading and they all tell you that they know someone who who knows someone that has earned a lot from stock trading. You apply for an online trading account. You fund your account. You started trading.
If that is not familiar maybe this one is. You heard about a certain house maid that got rich through trading and you say to yourself “I earn more than a house maid, If I invest my money like she did I would probably be a millionaire too or maybe even richer than her.” You apply for an online trading account. You fund it. You signed up for a program that gives you recommendation on what to buy each month. Check out this article how “gurus” lied to you.
If that is still an unfamiliar scenario. I bet you this one would be. You are an OFW and you are looking for ways to go back home for good. You have some failed business venture in the past and you are not looking to repeat those. You research online and come across with stock trading. You researched a little bit more and was convinced that you can grow your money through investing in stock market. You open an online trading account. you fund it. You started investing/trading. Read here what is my advice to our Pinoy OFWs and employees that want to enter stock trading.
Fast forward a few years and this picture happens.
Let me answer a big question that was asked and is still being asked in trading community until now. Why do a lot of traders lose money in the stock market? I will answer it bluntly. Ready? (Some of you will not like the next things you are about to read.)
It is not your fault! Yes, it’s not your fault. You were thrown into the water before you know how to swim.
Have you ever stopped and wondered how easy it is to open an online trading account? There are even online trading platform that guarantees a one day processing. You apply now and by tomorrow you will have your own online account. It does not matter if you know how to trade or not. It does not even matter if you know what investing/trading is.
There you are with your new online trading account ready to take on trades. Ready to be rich! You have no prior background about the field. No understanding about who you are up against. Not having a clue of why people buy and sell stocks but YOU ARE READY TO PRESS THAT BUY AND SELL BUTTON.
You will lose money. Of course you will lose money. Beginner’s luck can only last you for so long. Online brokerage firms don’t care if you gain or lose. They are here for the fees. It is not in their best interest that you gain money. What they want is for you to press that buy and sell button as often as you can. They earn that way. If they want you to really succeed, they would make sure that you wont be able to open up an account before you are ready. They will first put you to a series of learnings. You will need to learn about stock market via tutorials. They will teach you different strategies. You will then have a virtual account where you can practice trading. You will first need to be able to succeed trading virtually. Then and only then you can be allowed to have a online trading account. Then they will monitor your progress.
The next reason you are losing is this. There is a boom on “stock trading seminars” right now in Philippines. Even foreign people come to Philippines to teach about investing/trading. It was not like this a decade ago. Nowadays, you can do seminars, sell books or even have a subscription based business related to stock trading even without having proper licenses and track record.
I was twice thrown out of a seminar for asking legit questions. I won’t tell you what seminars are those but I will tell you what have happened. The first one was me doing a friend a favor. My friend needed someone to go with her on a seminar and i’m the only one kind enough to go along. I was there listening. They keep saying about how this former “driver” or this former “gardener” or this former “maid” earned so much in stock market. I raised my hand and ask to see the trading ledger (a trading ledger is a record of all your trades) of those “driver”, “gardener” and “maid” just to verify of how well-off they have made themselves through stock investing/trading. They did not like that. They felt so insulted by the fact that i don’t believe them. I did not get the memo that I was supposed to just believe their words for it. I was thrown out of the venue.
The next one is a little bit funny. A friend of mine asked me again to tag along on some financial literacy event. I did not expect financial literacy was a cute name for stock trading seminar. Who on their right mind would consider the stock market as a safe place to put your savings? Stock market is the riskiest place to put your money in. Going back to the story, I tagged along with my friend. Right in the middle of the event I raised my hand and asked if the speaker who keep saying he manages funds had proper licenses and if it was legal for him to do what he does. I was thrown out again. So, yes none of my friends want to invite me on such events anymore.
I received a lot of messages about traders asking for help about their losses. I wanted to help them but it is really hard to help a person who wants to earn money right away rather than first understand or learn the stock market. I had about enough of the daily messages i get asking for help that I created Trader’s Lounge. It is a Facebook group that aims to help traders. It’s not a place where you come in and get rich. It’s a group that aims to give traders at least a fighting chance through learnings. It’s for free by the way.
To test the idea that you could help educate and transform a trader from losing a lot to losing a little and eventually earn we made GUT (give up tomorrow program). It’s a combination of different traders that has lost more than 50% of their portfolio in trading. We taught them strategies, how to handle emotions and trading psychologies. They have improved a lot. Don’t get a cute idea that we are doing this to get money from everybody. As a matter of fact, all we do are for free. GUT members paid zero. I trade for a living. I get my earnings through my trades. The worse insult you could give a full time trader is pay them. That is what we believe a decade ago and to me it still stands. You can ask any GUT member just to verify of how they are doing now and i’m pretty sure they would be happy to tell you about their journey.
In Trader’s Lounge we have this 8K challenge which i personally think every trader should take. It is basically using 8 thousand pesos as your trading capital. No more, no less. It don’t matter if you have a million pesos or fifty thousand pesos on your trading account. All you can use is 8 thousand to trade. You find a strategy. either you use strategies available on our weekly lessons in traders lounge or develop your own. You trade with 8 thousand. You will make mistakes. You will lose. You will improve your strategy. you will improve your trading. If you lose it wont hurt so much for you will only lose in hundreds of pesos. When you finish the challenge is the only time you can trade with your real capital. You can only finish the trading challenge if you made six out of ten winning trades. That’s basically saying “you can only trade with big amount when you are ready.”
Losing money through trading sucks. It does not feel good. I have been trading for over a decade now. On my first three years i lost a lot. I said ”ayoko na magtrade” at “di talaga para sa akin ang trading” maybe a hundred times back then. I even prayed a lot when i was losing. I went to church and prayed na maibalik lang losses ko magbabago na ako. I cried a lot. I never eat for days. I was depressed. I promised myself di na ako sasakay sa lumilipad only to find out yun pa din binili ko. I promised myself hindi na mgpapa hype only to find out yun pa rin ginagawa ko. I even tried buying the highest loser just to “reverse” what i normally do. Same result, talo! So, when I talk to traders now I know what they are going through. Three years of losing… You wonder why i did not give up? I did. I gave up more than a hundred times. I quit trading for a week after 10 straight losses. I quit trading for a month after more than twenty straight loses. I gave up a lot of times.I never understood back then that i needed that. i needed to go through with all those losing. Looking back now i’m happy i went through that. I know know how to deal with emotions and what to do for different trading scenarios. If you are new to trading you would feel like this year is really bad but trust me this year is pretty much normal. This has happened before.
I do believe that when you are new to trading and you lose money that its not entirely your fault but merely believing that serves no purpose in writing this blog post. I will leave you with an idea as i end this post. Here is how you should approach trading. It does not matter if you ave been losing for quite some time or you are new to trading. Here is how you should approach it. You research about stock market. You open an online account and fund it. You research some more. (You can go to Trader’s Lounge for we have free learning materials na nasa pinned post about Technical Analysis, Fundamental Analysis and Trading Psychology at meron din weekly lessons doon with different trading strategies. Meron if may work ka at di maka check ng trading account mo lagi. Meron pang daytrading. Meron pang longterm trading. Iba-iba). After funding your account you should not trade yet. You let your money stay there. You create a virtual trading account. You trade using your virtual account. You can visit Arbitrage.ph and create a virtual trading account there. Virtual trading is the same as real trading except you use virtual money instead of real one. Mag virtual trade ka. Doon mo subukan mga iba ibang strategies. Doon ka gumawa ng trading system na fit sayo. Stay ka sa virtual trading until ma e angat mo virtual portfolio mo by 15%. Kapag na e angat mo na you can use na your real trading acount with real money but only use 8 thousand muna. Keep trading using 8 thousand. You can havethree stocks but dapat each stock 8k lang lagay mo na pera. Stay ka sa 8 thousand until you are able to win 6 times out of ten trades. If nagawa mo na yun then and only then na ready ka na magtrade ng buong pera mo. This is how i think every new trader should approach trading.
If you want to learn more about stock trading join our Facebook Group called Trader’s Lounge.
Our advocacy is sharing ideas, experiences and knowledge to traders for FREE. We offer free Technical Analysis, Fundamental Analysis and Market Psychology learning materials for free.
We also have weekly lessons over there. We created different trading strategies like MAMA which made a lot of traders profitable. Other trading strategies include FISHBALL, PAPA, CALMA and more. We want to offer OFW’s, Employees and all Filipino people a chance to learn without paying a cent.
We also have a Youtube Channel wherein I myself discuss strategies and trading related topics.
Come join us. Let us push free learning.
3 Comments
Mako solano
Laughtrip yung sa Seminars. hahahaha.
Salamat po ulit sa advice!
Kristine Estacio
Hi Ms. Gandakoh and Team!
Thank you for the unwavering commitment to provide the trading community free learnings. I was so glad i discovered this group.
Clifford
Thanks for this blog maam Gandakoh. It’s really an eye-opener. I was about to do live trading na talaga because I think I can afford to lose naman this X amount of money just to test the waters pero deep down I know na wala pa talaga akong solid foundation and strategy. I am blessed that I came across Trader’s Lounge and your blogs as well kasi I was able to restrain myself from doing such decision. Ngayon po I’ve been studying the various strategies na itinuturo nyo po and currently, I’m doing trades sa virtual port ko. May account na din naman ako sa COL way back 2018 and I have funds there pero as of now, hindi ko na po muna ginagalaw yun. I purged my account early Jan this year kasi dati puro lng tlga blue chipa binibili at asa lng ako sa mga stock recos thinking na long term naman ako eh. Pero narealize ko na by blindly doing just that, hindi ko tlga naiintindihan yung stock market. Kaya I decided na I need to learn more about it kasi parang napakatamad ko naman kung yung buy and hold strategy lang gagawin ko and palagi nalang ako umaasa sa mga subscriptions ng mga “gurus”. Again, maraming salamat po maam for your selfless efforts in putting up these blogs and giving your best to help your fellow traders. Godbless you po and more power.