This is a good opportunity for me to write my thoughts, so I can read it again few months or few years down the road…
A recap for my future self, today (19/03/2020), the entire financial market is facing a meltdown due to the Coronavirus. For Malaysian market, since 16/04/2018, the KLCI index is down -36%. Since the Coronavirus news appeared during the month of December 2019, the KLCI market is down -25%. Personally, my investment is in line with the performance of the KLCI index, which is -25%.
I was overconfident with my assessment of the market. I kept up with the news of the Coronavirus when it first appeared in China via Reddit and Weibo. However, in my view, with how quickly China went into lock down and contained the virus. I thought the virus itself would only cause a scare in the financial market, I too was one of the people who think, “It is just a slightly worse version of the flu”, no big deal. I did not expect it to cause such huge damage in the west. Italy in particular, 450 people passed away today. And US & UK, under the leadership of Trump & Boris, are so unprepared that they are going to face major headwinds for the next 2 months.
Regardless, I thought the market overreacted and I bought shares with 10% of my funds to average down while hoping for a quick rebound after things cleared up. However, that was a stupid move on hindsight. I was overconfident with low PE counters like Liihen & Hong Leong Industries and bought into MYEG, SAM & WELLCALL. Why did I buy these companies? I thought people are overreacting. Once again, on hindsight, I shouldn’t buy into SAM because air travel will be in a tight spot due to the virus; Shouldn’t buy Wellcall because oil price has plunged; Shouldn’t buy Hong Leong because demand for motorcycle will be low due to the virus; Shouldn’t buy Liihen because nobody buys furniture during a pandemic. I did not think hard enough, I was too eager to buy, I thought that the oil crisis will resolve quickly and Coronavirus will die off quickly as well. I was so wrong, oil has plunged to USD22 and Coronavirus is ravaging through Europe & US. To make matter worse, during the boom time, I bought into companies that operates highway such as Ekovest and WCE. These highway companies are high in debt, which is recipe for disaster during an economic crisis. Note to myself: buy companies with solid earnings.
My loss in nominal figure has wiped off all my gains since the beginning of my investment journey back in 2013. Currently, I have 50% cash and 50% invested (because the value of my investment has dropped by so much). I will have to wait for the right opportunity to invest again. My strategy moving forward is to find solid companies that will rebound the quickest. The loss that I suffered will not stop me from buying equities; however, I should manage my risk better moving forward.
