Random Topics #2

Too Many Games No Time to Play

I have been more than satisfied with my PSP purchase. I can’t believe I was hesitant on buying the PSP even on the day i planned to buy it. I felt like I might be bored with this thing in no time, just like any other thing. But I was wrong. I really enjoyed playing the games so far.

PSP Games I have tried and liked:

• Ridge Racer
• Scrabble
• Virtua Tennis 3
• Practical Intelligence Quotient 2

I know these are not exactly the most played games around. But they mean a lot to me personally.

Ridge Racer. I played this game when it was first out on Playstation 1. I like the game because it was  a simple driving game that i could play over and over again. The game on PSP has the same racetrack that i use to play so i was instantly glue-d to the game because of the memories it brought back. One new feature they included is the Nos/turbo/boost function. Other than that it’s to me just a better graphic version of the first Ridge Racer.

Scrabble. Ok I know a lot of people would puke (like my friend) when he saw that I had so many so called useless games. But these puzzles are actually very good in gameplay. For example, it look me no time to get glue-d onto Scrabble, of course again for personal memories reason. My English tuition teacher brought it for us to play when I was 8 or 9. And it made an instant impression on me. I loved the whole point system of the game. My mind will be totally absorbed on the board looking for possible ways to make use of the Double and (especially) Triple word Scores. So naturally, I would love playing this game on PSP.

Virtua Tennis 3. Doing these reviews, I am pretty sure I am quite stuck in my past lol. Scrabble and Ridge Racer are games i played in primary school. But Virtua Tennis is a game that first came out in the Arcade around 1999/2000. I was attracted to this game immediately because I play Virtua Striker obsessively (the soccer version of Virtua Tennis). Though to my disappointment I realize that I was not at all good at the game. I could never go past the 3rd/4th round. But the new story format on the PSP, and the beginning traning drills seems to me more like mini games, for example, shoot the ball onto a certain point, the closer you get to the bulls-eye the more points you collect. Enjoyed these games, would play more soon.

Practical Intelligence Quotient 2. Now this is a puzzle game to do with moving boxes around, so you can get to a target location. It’s just a 10×10 tile map, very small. And you have to think of how to reach a certain location by lifting boxes, piling them on top of each other, climbing on to them, and moving them around. According to the game, I am still very slow at completing these puzzles. I always get like D and take too long to solve the puzzles. They have a 100 puzzle list which I am doing right now. I have solved puzzles 1-20. Although I seriously got stuck twice. It was great to be stuck on one puzzle, and keeping thinking about how to solve it. And then i go to sleep. Try the puzzle out in the morning with a fresh mind, and solved it haha. I guess our brain is awesome in that way, it helps us solve the problems we can’t solve in our sleep, or at least organize the information received so that we could do better with it the next morning we wake up.

Of course I am missing out on the more prominent games, but so far I haven’t tried out all the games yet. I have played Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Tekken 6, but they seem good but not addictive. But I guess GTA is not bad, especially like the comic like drawings and music. I tried The Godfather and Silent Hill Origins but they don’t seem too special either. I finally backed-up and transfered “better” games into my psp to try out.  Games are: Dissidia, Crisis Core FF7, NBA 2K10, Assassin’s Creed Bloodlines and PES 2010. Tried Crisis Core for a bit, and really liking the graphics, kinda new to the gameplay but i think i would like it.

Mind & Spiritual

To be honest, I am already exhausted right now after writing the above. I feel like my mind is overloaded and I can’t write anymore. I don’t know why yet again. It seems like every time I do something, I tend to over-push myself, and I end up getting nervous. Even simple things like Writing. That is why I can never go writing over 1/2 pages before I get utterly overloaded, and worse of all I don’t know why! Maybe I should relax a bit.

These days I have been thinking about a lot of Spiritual things. Mainly that of Control. I believe that, from personal experience too, that over-controlling your life and things are responsible for miseries. I feel like the saddest times in my life come when I couldn’t do anything about something, or something didn’t go the way I wanted them to. In other words, i was losing control. But yesterday i meditated on ‘Control’ and decided that we should let go of control, and let go of our will and desires, and let everything be. Let God take control, and let yourself be part of his plan, instead of imposing your plan on everything and getting disappointed/sad/angry when things don’t go your way. Also people would be more friendly and talk to you when you don’t control yourself and other things too much. No one likes to get bossed around by another. Just be like a leaf or water, and sway and flow with everything that happens right now. Don’t harbor any extreme thoughts, think gently and kindly. Be soft and usually everything would miraculously end up to go the right way. It is in letting go of control that power comes. People who are hard on other people, are obsessed with control, and it cannot be that a person has control over everything, he is bound to meet with obstacles to teach him that fact that ‘your are not in control’. A truly wise man usually are the softest people. They don’t talk big, don’t boss people around, because they don’t try to control everything, everything seems to go the right way in their lives.

So i have been trying to control things less. I just bought a Bible last week, and it’s a very readable bible, and i have read a few pages of it here and there. I don’t know, but I like the feeling i get after reading the bible. I feel somehow more serene and collected. I think reading the bible would be a great new routine for me.

Stocks

I plan to post about stocks and charts soon. I think posting in this way would at the very least, help me make sense of my decisions. Also I could share it with whoever would come across this blog.

My plan for my portfolio right now is to wait for a clear uptrend after bouncing off a support. It seems that IHSG (Jakarta Composite) has failed to break the recent high of 2530. The support at 2500 also failed to hold. Now we are at 2480 or so. For now I don’t see the point of entering into positions because we are so close to resistance, being the 2530 mark. If we buy now let’s say, the index could go 50pts higher to 2530. On the other hand, we could see the index go down more than 50 pts from this point to 2400 or so. So this isn’t the most opportune time to enter most stocks. Exceptions occur of course with individual stocks. I would first wait for IHSG to past 2530, and when it seems comfortably above it, and 2530 has become support, I would enter. Of course this may or may not work lol but definitely the most logical way (most +EV way) i can think of.

I am going to start reading company annual reports, presentations and news so I could better understand the business and the fundamentals better. That’s it for this post, mind overloaded.

Rant Post

Okay this is just a rant post. I really have no topic in mind, just felt like there are randoms things I would like to express.

Loud and Insensitive People

I especially can’t take people who talk loud and about stupid things I don’t care about. Especially insensitive comments. It’s okay if they say it normally. But when people talk loud, I just can’t stand it. Maybe I am sensitive to sounds. I certainly can’t stand being in a crowded place like a mall for more than 1-3 hours, it gets really uncomfortable for me for some reason. But then again if I don’t go out I feel cooped up, and 1-3 hours at a mall is a great release. But anything more will only be detrimental. I just want to say that, through my observation, people who are loud and talk before they think, are usually the most thoughtless (nice way of saying stupid) people. Since I am the direct opposite. Someone who thinks a lot before I do things, I especially don’t appreciate loud & insensitive people.

Back to Stocks

So now that my poker stint is over, although I will still play from time to time, I feel like I am going back to stock trading again. Not that it’s a ‘legit’ job. I mean it just takes 1 minute for someone to buy stocks and be “in the business”. But to buy stocks in a +EV manner, it requires a lot of research and hard work (just like anything else). If you are given $2000 to start with, it would be good to play poker. I would play at 0.25/0.50 or 0.50/1.00. With a decent winrate of 2BB/100, and playing 50,000 hands a month. You could pocket $1000 a month for a huge 50% gain. However, if you are given $20,000. You probably couldn’t replicate this same success at 5/10 (Unless you’re nanonoko) I don’t know what the word is for it, but I think it’s called ‘leverage’. Your earnings in poker can’t be leveraged with more money, as opposed to stocks. You could argue that you could leverage more money in poker, just play the higher stakes! But no, that is gambling. Trying to earn money where we don’t have an edge is risky, no matter the amount of money, but even when it is big! But with stocks, you could earn the same rate with $20,000 as with $2000. Because the average person trades for that much, and the average poker player don’t play for $20,000.

On Energy

This morning i woke up and felt really tired and with a bad mood. And these are the possible reasons:

1) only had 6 hours of sleep

2) the old air-conditioner in my room is stuffing up my nose, thus can’t breathe

3) i went to sleep the previous night hungry

So these are the possible reasons why i didn’t feel good after waking up today. Lack of sleep, lack of fresh air, lack of food. Hmm, all are possible reasons. I am more inclined to say number 2 for now, because I have been waking up with bad stuffed nose when i use the room air-condition. The lack of sleep definitely factored in to the dazed feeling, and hunger probably didn’t matter that much because i ate a donut and milk as soon i woke up.

New Specs & PSP Games

Today I am going to get myself new specs. My specs of 5 years is finally giving in. The nose support thing came off. Although i manage to glue it back on, I have thought for a long time to buy new specs. I don’t know what kind of specs to get yet, but i plan to get one of those no rim specs, i mean those lenses without a frame around it. I guess I shall call it the Bae Yong Jun specs for simplification lol.

Also i plan to get myself a bunch (prolly 20) PSP games. For all outside Indonesia who are mistakenly thinking I’m a rich brat, I am refering to pirated ISOs (not UMD) of these games which sell for USD$0.50 each and are transfered straight to the Memory Stick. I doubt I will play all the games, just want to try them out since they are highly recommended games on PSP. The games i am excited to see are: Crisis Core & Dissidia – both Final Fantasy, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Assasins Creed II and God of War: Chains of Olympus.

Back after 5 months!

I am finally back to blogging! (online at least).  I’ve been keeping an offline blog, but they are more topic-centered. Like how i used to use this blog as a poker blog. Actually the reason i haven’t blogged here is because I have stopped playing poker, aside from the occasional facebook poker games. So i decided, that i should keep my investing diary offline. But certain things are not bloggable in the investing diary, and i often go into philosophy and psychology in my posts, so i thought i might as well come back to this blog, where i can discuss everything and have them put into the different categories. Also I have the feeling that if i write them here, they “won’t be lost forever”.

Here I will sum up all that has happened in the last 4 months (to make up for lost time) ( i may have forgotten some but these should be the main ones):

15th of July, I missed my flight

This was the first time ever i missed a flight. And it was due to an unexpected jam on the airport toll. We could have anticipated the jam, as it was at 5pm, but i don’t think we could have anticipated the severity of the jam. It was terrible… 6 lanes of jammed cars, on the only highway that leads to the airport! I can’t imagine how many people missed their flights too due to this.

Run like God in a live cash game

Might sounds like a blasphemous statement but the session itself, how good i ran, it really felt like God or a force was playing through me. Everything just went so well. I told W that I’ll never run this good again in my lifetime lol. How do you get up 8 buy-ins in a 3 hour cash game? Was dealt a fair lot of premium hands (AA twice KK JJ TT) but mostly importantly, every time i played for a big pot, i get lucky. Whether with premium hands like AA or speculative like 35s, i seem to hit the board hard, but more importantly someone else also hit the board, but only for the 2nd best hand. For example, I flopped flush on the turn over this guy’s set of aces on the flop, the two times I got aces I manage to get it in pre-flop and hold, then things like flopping straight over two pair, flopping two pair against a high pocket pair. Very unreal, and was definitely a great feeling. Although it seems like a lot in Indonesian money, I only won SGD$200. But it could last me a month or two here. Before the session i was focusing my mind on relaxing, and not thinking of anything at all, i think this state really helped a lot. I tried to maintain it throughout the session.

Finally investing the money

Father gave me some capital to trade, which is quite a huge sum to me, but i was too scared to put the money to use as i think i haven’t learned enough to invest properly yet. Then after some pressure from my dad, i finally picked a day when the market was red, and put 50% of my portfolio into 4 stocks – TLKM BBRI UNTR and BBKP. I believe these companies are safe yet might produce more than medium returns. I used two indicators, first Earnings growth, and second strong analyst recommendations. These stocks produce solid growth in earnings and are recovering well from the crisis. Their P/E are low 13-15. So this combined made the  ’margin of safety’ i was looking for if i was to enter into stocks. Although this was in no way a detailed analysis, at least i felt i did a good job in minimizing risk. I just didn’t want to lose any money, that is the number one key.

Thanks to my ‘guts’ the market rallied from that day onwards, BBRI and UNTR has seen 10-15% increases, reaching the initial price targets i set on them (which i never expected will come so quick). The less volatile stocks like TLKM and BBKP has seen a fair share of increases from 3-8%. I have seen taken profit on UNTR for 15% (it’s since moved higher….). BBRI i should have taken profit at 15% too but i didn’t because i thought BBRI has a little more to go. But i was wrong.. it’s gone down 10% from then, and my paper profits for BBRI today is only 6%, TLKM 3% and BBKP 1%. I’m thinking of putting another 1/3 of the money into the market again today, seeing 2 days of big drops upon no real news. We’ll see how.

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That’s the end of the summary. I’m constantly distracted throughout this blog post but hope i didn’t write too bad. More frequent blogs posts (mostly about investing) from today onwards.

Back!

Ok I’m back to blogging now after leaving this blog for like half a year? I am posting again because yes, i’m play poker. I guess i don’t quit that easily… I want to do other things but i don’t know, i guess my mind is poker-filled already. HELP. I am not a gambling addict, i just crave action! I don’t know, i feel bored too easily and look for excitement in sports and games.

I am back to bloggin because i just read some pro poker players’ blogs and i’m surprised that so many of them blogs! I guess poker players are more self-evaluating people, so they tend to be people who keep personal notes of themselves? I am definitely this type. Also it is very shocking to find out how many poker players were athletes! I guess that again is another trait i possess, although i was never near professional in standard in any games, i have always loved all sports and play many sports. I probably above average in like most sports.

Anyway i am getting more out of point here.  I just want to say that i will be playing poker from now on, putting in some time each day to play poker, and other times for a new endeavour – investing. I am just starting out, and really clueless and know no people to discuss with? which sucks. at least i got a couple of poker friends. But a true serious discussion partner is very rare, but i think the best thing that you can have in your career. I am learning the basic chart patterns like support resistance those kind of things, i hope i don’t lose momentum, it can get really boring sometimes and i don’t have the best attention span (pretty bad actually). I have my parent’s approval for investing, which is the most i can hope for actually, very comforting actually. First time my self-interest is being supported by both my parents. I think i don’t have anything else to worry about now but to do my best, but that in itself is very difficult, i haven’t been putting in sustained effort in anything for a long time. That’s it, i don’t think this blog post is very structured but i think it should be okay. touched on the things i wanted to discuss at least.

Next blog will be the poker part.

My Fantasy Stock Portfolio

Ya basically it’s a bloodbath. Now you know how bad the economy is! What I’ve learned from playing this is that investing is not as easy as “Buy Low – Sell High”. Stocks that have gone down a lot might go even lower. Goldman Sachs (GS) was at 164, it went to 119. You must think it’s cheap at that time right, but wrong! It’s now at 50, just 1/3 the price of what it used to be! SKF from around 140-160 shot up to 220. The stock never ever went above 200, it’s always gone to 180-190 and drop all the way down to the 140s. So i shorted it (which means bet on it going down) at 220. Look, now it’s at 262.

I will never, ever buy/short anything i don’t understand again.

The Best Stock Trader Ever

goes by the name of Jesse Lauriston Livermore or more commonly known as Jesse Livermore. He was such a successful stock trader that by the age of 15 he had already earned $1000 (equivalent to $20,000 today). However, his life did not go so well, his family was broken, he went bankrupt a few times. And at the age of 63, he committed suicide, leaving this note to his wife:

My dear Nina: Can’t help it. Things have been bad with me. I am tired of fighting. Can’t carry on any longer. This is the only way out. I am unworthy of your love. I am a failure. I am truly sorry, but this is the only way out for me. Love Laurie

How sad it is, to have a life of accomplishments and luxury only to have it end by taking your own life. I believe most accomplished investors are not your Average Joe. To excel in their field the way they do, it requires them to have different motivations compared to people of other professions. Mainly their obsessiveness and competitiveness. I also happen to find out that most of them are some sort of a recluse. In fact most great artists and geniuses have been the sort who never quite fit in and often an outcast – Van Gogh, Einstein, Mozart, the list is endless. It is not enough to say that eccentricity is a characteristic shared by many of them, it is shown across the board, that all great thinkers have always been somewhat eccentric.

My point actually is whether this characteristic can be changed. And whether people who are great thinkers can also lead a happier and more social life. Or is eccentricity a prerequisite to being a great thinker. And if so, is it worth it being a great thinker?