The Death of Cbox

For those who didn't know, my blog has been around for a very long time. And it had always been accompanied by the cbox. Remember that this is the time before any of the social media groups are up. The best groups to talk about investing comes from CNA forum. There are no WhatsApp, telegrams or facebook messenger. But my blog always has a cbox for the regulars to chat with each other.

From the cbox, I knew many people both offline and online. Some of them went on to become bloggers themselves. I can remember a few of them: Cory, AK, SMOL, Cookie, momoeagle... among others. The cbox community grew together with my blog, and I say that it is an integral part of the bullythebear experience. Some are just students when they first came in, graduated to become accountants and doctors. Some came in to find their apple trees, and from what I've heard, grew so many apple trees that they bought many more lands to grow many more trees. I'm glad to have shared the experience and their journey together with them.


I've written some articles about the cbox. Some of them are articles to raise funds to get the premium edition of cbox so that everyone has a better experience. Here's a few of them:

1) How do you know if you are addicted to the cbox?

This is interesting because I was addicted to it. Just click refreshing to see who posted anything new, so that I can respond. Some even choose a certain model of cbox so that the handphone can access it.

2) Circular to shareholders

This article gives me a kick. I've adapted a typical circular sent to shareholders to really just ask for funding for the premium edition of cbox instead of the free one. That is essentially crowd funding. Haha, I did crowd funding before it was even popular!

Brings back fond memories reading my past articles, isn't it?


I noticed that the cbox premium membership had expired. I think it had served its purpose in forming a community of like-minded people together to form a sort of support group. But the function of the cbox had been replaced by Whatsapp group and Facebook groups, to the extent that even I am no longer visiting it. A few years ago, I shifted it down to a less prominent position to the bottom of the blog. Now, I think it's time to bury it and remove it altogether. Some of the friendship I've made are real and had been transferred online to offline. Some of my best brothers and sisters I still keep in contact with, and they sprung from the tiny cbox.

Thanks for the fond memories. Goodbye.

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3 buckets of time revisited

Haven't really blogged out any article for nearly a month because I was busy with work. It's my peak season now before I can have my well deserved rest towards the end of the year. This year is qualitatively different from any years that I've been through, but I will blog about such things when my work for this year truly dwindles down.

I want to talk about the 3 buckets of time and I've been spending quite a while thinking about it. I had written an article on it last year, here. Each day has 24 hours, and if we divide the amount of time we have daily by 3, each bucket of time will have 8 hours.

The first bucket is meant for sleep. That's like 8 hours down the drain. The second bucket is for work so that we can earn money to buy the necessary things needed for life, like food, shelter and a lot more beyond survival. That's another 8 hours down the drain. It's this 3rd bucket that I'm most interested in right now.

Before I had a child, my last bucket of time is mainly spent on the following activities:

1. Gaming
2. Reading
3. Shopping/cafe/walking around in malls
4. Exercising
5. Friends
6. Household chores

With a kid, my last 8 hours of time is spent on:

1. Family (and kid)
2. Gaming
3. Household chores
4. Netflix
5. Grocery shopping

I introduced to myself another sort of bad habit, which is watching Netflix. Gaming is still in the list of activities, but the quality and quantity of gaming is much much reduced. I only have a small segment of time to game, much less than what I would have without a kid. Reading is thrown out of the window and there's just no way to do it. At least not for now. It's not that I don't have the time, it's just that it's extremely tiring to do it, so I could only hope to vegetate myself in front of a tv binge watching on Netflix. It's a bad thing, I know, but until I'm still in survival mode and not yet in a steady state to move out of this comfort zone.

I suspect more and more, I would have to take some time out of my work and sleep bucket to increase my third bucket of time. I would increasingly have to spend more time with the kid, sacrificing sleep and work along the way. I think this might last for the next few years until the situation is stabilised but till then, any 'me time' would have to be reduced. I'm not complaining; there's joy in taking care of the kid. I think a lot of people don't want kids because they are not prepared to sacrifice personal time for another person, namely the child. It's a personal choice, so I'm not here to make judgements. But better to open both eyes to know the consequences of the decision. It's the worst case scenario to want a kid but not prepared to sacrifice, or not want a kid but not prepared to be lonelier in the future. Can't escape the cause and effect of actions.

But back to the 3 buckets of time. I think it ties in with the concept of frugality. I define frugality as the efficient use of limited resources, which also includes time. I've to think of ways to streamline my work flow and make it better. Somehow, in between all these, I also have to slot in time to do homework for stocks. Thankfully the two systems I implemented towards the end of last year is bearing fruit. I blogged about it here. I'm very used to the work flow now and I must say it saves me a lot of time. There's less time looking at my watchlist to see what stocks to buy, because I only do my homework once every week (more if needed), and I'll just stick to my plan.

We can't increase our daily bucket of time beyond 24 hours, but we can optimise and waste less time, and that's the best we can do, isn't it?

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My 50k savings goal back then and now

I was reading back my previous post on my 50k savings challenge here, and trying to see if there's any difference between then and now. I first started back in 2009, and it had been 7 yrs since. How time flies!

Comparing the difference between 2009 and 2016:


1) Shift in focus between 2009 and 2016

I had a plan on how much to save every month back in 2009 and it was further broken down into weekly goals for savings. That created a lot of stress because I have to watch my expenses like a hawk! While I appreciate the shocking jolt that made me rewire my thoughts and actions to align myself to this goal, I think I would not have done the same way again. This year, I just saved what I could after my expenses, and didn't really keep a tab on how things are going. The idea is that I've already streamlined my behavior after so many years, so things are almost on auto pilot mode now. I know if I hit a certain income level, I will have hit a certain savings level at the end of the year. And because of that certainty, my focus is not on cutting expenses, but more on getting that critical mass of students so that I can hit an income level that will guarantee my savings goal. There's only so much to cut in my expenses, but my income can be unlimited. Well, more or less.

Summary: Shifted focus from cutting expenses to increasing income


2) You can get used to shit

I was complaining back then about working 10 hours in a day and having lessons at 7am and ending at 1130pm latest. It was quite entertaining reading about such things because it must have been quite a shock to me back then to work so hard. Back then, I also have my Sunday off, so it wasn't as bad. Compared to 2016, I think the work load in 2009 is considered a breeze! This year I had 14 hours workday, starting at 7am and ending at 11pm with 1 hr break in total for lunch and dinner. 9 hours on a weekday is quite normal and during peak seasons, 12 hours workday is the norm. I was quite stressed up over work back in 2009 and was generally feeling burnt out and unhappy. But this year in 2016, I was just laughing and enjoying my work (mostly), even though I was working a lot harder and longer. Like a hedonistic treadmill but in reverse, you can get used to shit, and when you do, it's no longer shitty.

Summary: I can take shit and enjoy it too. It's just takes a reframing of the shitty situation.

3) Impossibility made possible

Back then, I don't think I can save 50k. It takes a few years of doing it and stressing over it before my mindset is changed. I think it took about 3-4 yrs before my internal dialogue changed from "I think it's crazy" to "I might be able to do it" to "I think I can do it" to "I did it again". I can't stress how important it is to be able to leap from the impossible to the possible, because it gives a shot of confidence in my ability to go through the entire process of goal setting, planning, execution and review. I could never imagine that now, saving 50k is a norm and not a challenge anymore. That's just crazy.

Summary: Plan something crazy and go do it. The growth to achieve that crazy thing you're aiming for will be the catalyst for many other crazy things you could possibly aim for. If you don't challenge yourself and expand your limits, you'll NEVER grow.

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Old posts made new: Multiple brokerage platforms

When market crashes, you thought that you can be nimble and sell your stocks if you’re in the wrong side of a trade. But have you encountered situations where your brokerage platform failed on you?


I looked through my 2007 posts and realized that I posted about it before. It’s found here:

1. The sky is falling
2. SPECIAL DAY – TAKE NOTE
3. DAMN U DBS
4. Finally logged on to DBS


Back then, I only had one brokerage platform which is under DBS Vickers online. It had failed miserably on me back then when I was trading warrants. In the midst of the trading, the whole platform went offline and I couldn't sell it. From a winning trade to a losing trade because of platform issues isn't funny. What’s worse is that warrants trading for HSI closes earlier, so it's nearing the closing time and I didn't want to hold on to a volatile warrant overnight.

Needless to say, it’s an incredible stressful time for me. I swear never again! That’s why I got another few backups as my brokerage platform. In fact, now I had several backups, even though I use mainly just one for my transactions. In the past, I used to log in all the time to trade. I seldom do that now, but I think it's still good to know that if I need to buy/sell, I had the options to go to different brokerage account to do it, just in case it fails on me again.


Again, the idea of redundancy applies. If you have a margin of safety on your stock purchases, do you also have a margin of safety for your transaction platform? Being prepared also means getting all your resources ready, for that moment when you need them the most, during the moments when you need them the least.


I think my thinking back then of having multiple brokerage platform, still applies to the context now, and possibly in the future.

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Old posts made new: Warrants Trading

I'm starting a new series in my blog, called "Old posts made new". I know, the name is quite lame and I'm not in a creative mood to come up with fancy name now. In this series, I'll look back at some of the past articles I've posted in my site and compare to see if it still stands true now. Most importantly, I'll share some of the psychology behind my thinking in the past and contrast against that of now. I hope that in this series, I can reflect and think about whether I had aged AND grown wiser over the years.


In this debut of the series, I'll talk about my trading of warrants way back in 2006. Using the word 'trading' might be a bit kind to myself - the actual situation is just whacking. If you look at the posts in my 2006 history, it's all about warrants. Why did I choose to enter the stock market using such an exotic instrument instead of the more normal blue chips or small caps?


It's capital. I only have a very small capital to begin with, and naive as it sounds today, I thought that if I can buy more because it's cheaper, I can make more. At that time, I didn't know that warrants are highly leveraged and also highly cornered. It's a wonder, even till today, that I didn't blow my account out.


My trading size back in 2006 was about 10k a pop. Since warrants are about 20 cts to 60 cts, I'm holding about 20k to 40k number of warrants. Scalping is what I think is the closest term I can use to describe what I'm doing. Since I hold such a large number of warrants, a small tiny movement enables me to reap profits (or losses) after transaction costs. And back then, I didn't know anything about charts so I was scalping without any guide or roadmap. Basically, I'm just picking pennies in front of a bulldozer.


I was going in and out several times a day. My stock screening 'technique' is just to see which counters are the top volume of the day, and trade that particular warrant. It was so incredibly funny looking back at how I 'played' the stock market, treating it like a casino betting on BIG or SMALL. Some days, I'll make 1k, sometimes I'll lose 2k, but I think most of the time, I'm making a few hundreds a day. Back then I just started my career as a tutor, so I'm earning less working for 6 hours a day, compared to just a few minutes trading the warrants. It was an amazingly f up realisation that you can earn more money in the stock market compared to your work, and that makes you NOT want to work. Back then, it was the height of the bull market and the music in the party was especially loud and intoxicating with everyone almost drunk with all the money they had made from the stock market. Who would know that in a span of 1 to 2 years, everything will come crashing down?


So why did I stop trading warrants?


Ironically, it was when I read more about it. I bought a book on warrants trading and initially I wanted to master it. I also picked up more books about technical analysis and charting. The more I read, the more I realised I can do it and I went in with greater and greater sizing, thinking that if I'm smart without knowing all these and I can still make money, I'll be invulnerable now! Such hubris!


In 2007, my position sizing increased to a staggering 40k in one single position. Let me break this down for you. The warrant is about 73 cts, and I went in 55 lots at 1000 shares per lot. One tick of 0.01 movement means $550 dollars. And warrants are very volatile and they move A LOT! I lost 1.5k on that trade alone. It could have much much worse, on hindsight.


In 2006, I was ahead by 3k but in 2007, I was down by 9k. Overall, I lost about 6.2k trading warrants, with most of it lost in 2007. It's like I've lost my magic touch. But no, I knew that I don't have any magic touch at all and it's really thankful that I didn't lose much more than that.

What are the lessons that I drew from this?


1. Everyone has a gambling nature. It's just whether we can find the proper channel to unleash that beast inside you. I think it's more important to honestly recognise that you are addicted than to say, oh, I won't ever gamble and I'm risk adverse and all the other bullshit you kid yourself so that you don't have to face your inner demons. I'm generally a careful conservative person who is extremely prudent with money. I'm shocked at how I can totally reverse 180 degrees to be a 'warrant prince'. It can happen to me, and it can happen to you too. Be honest and recognise that you have a Dr Jekyll and a Mr Hyde within you - it's just that most of the time, you kept Mr Hyde on a leash.


2. Position sizing and loss cutting. The relation between these two are inversely related. If you have a huge position sizing, you must have a strict cut loss. If you have a smaller position sizing, you can have a wider cut loss. If you already planned out your portfolio such that no position is more than x% of your total portfolio, then you might never have to cut loss if you're not of the trader mentality. The point I'm making is that you should make sure that any individual counter CANNOT rock your entire boat. It applies equally to nonsensically averaging down techniques. You can literally average down a sinking stock all the way to kingdom come. If you use leverage, and you screw your position sizing, and have a lax cut loss, I hope you have a put warrant out there so that I can buy it to short you!


3. In bull times, everyone wants to be a trader. When you see your returns from the stock market earning more than the time and effort from your work, it can seriously f up your mind. History repeats for those who do not know them. I'm very sure in the future, I'll see a new batch of young punks wanting to earn easy income from the stock market and complain about the purpose of studying/working/earning active income etc etc. I might already be seeing signs of them now.


4. Greed and fear can work magic on your mind. I noticed during my warrant trading days that if I'm wearing a certain T-shirt, I usually win more than lose. So, I try to wear my lucky shirt in order to win from the market. Stupid shit like these are warning signs that my emotional state is fragile and I need astronomical and godly help for everyday life to function in the way I want it. You'll notice that I always pay attention to my emotions and psychological state. Now you understand why.


It wasn't easy talking about old battle scars. I wasn't proud of them and I wouldn't normally revisit and peel off those scabs just to see if the wounds are still bleeding red or not. But I think it's important to make your mistakes, own them and make f-king sure you won't ever repeat them.


Gosh...I lost count of how many 'F' I mentally scolded myself during the course of writing this post.

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