My First Week in my Telecommunications and Internet Technologies Class

I never thought I'd say this, but my first week wasn't exactly a walk in the park. I have a few things against me:

• The instructors had a "European" English accent, the kind that girls in the US probably think is cute. I find it hard to understand them, given that I grew up watching Hollywood.films. I bet it wasn't easy for my American classmate as well, who by the way, is from Kansas. Yes, think of Dorothy and Toto. Howdy pardner!
• I was the only one with a non-IT background. The rest of my classmates graduated from Internet Technologies, Computer Networking, Electrical Engineering, etc... courses. When it was my time to introduce myself, I managed to blurt out that I graduated with a Chemical Engineering Degree and have no background in IT. I did say that I have a very strong interest in learning about telecommunications and internet technologies. That managed to draw some looks that seems to say"Huh?! Are you sure you want to be here?!"
• Hunger. The moment I leave work, I have to move it and get going. I have an hour to get to class.It turned out that my classmates don't seem to mind not eating. I can't do that. Food is my fuel. It gives me energy for physical and mental work. Our class is from 6pm to 9pm, and it seems like we have nor breaks. I need to eat something while I commute to class. A sandwich... maybe a nice juicy burger. There is just no other way to do it if I want to arrive in class on time.

These are a few of those things. It seems I have a lot of catching up to do....

So let's go! (in Zohan accent)

My IT Battleplan

In every war, there should always be a battle plan. As quoted from the Art of War by Sun Tzu:

"Hence the saying:  The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead; 

the good general cultivates his resources."

I'm no soldier. Just an Entreprengineer. I have limited time on my hands, but 

I want to live a balanced life. Man is afterall, multi-dimensional. Therefore, I 

have no to make use of plans and force myself to execute them as violently as I can.

 Let me see:

• Learn new CMS. I decided it will have to be Joomla! for now.

• Get a degree in Telecommunications and Internet Technology. 

• Study Internetworking via Cisco's CCNA (Cisco Certified Networking Associate). 
• Get myself CCNA certified (Thanks to Dennis and Arnold for introducing me to this wonderful company)
  

 

• Get a Windows certification of something. Maybe a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE).

I hope to finish all these in 2-3 years through professional and educational institutions. I already enrolled myself in a specialized university here in  Vienna which thankfully teach in English (I imagine myself to be totally devastated, defeated, and broken if these courses were taught in German. I can speak Deutsch but just a little. I frankly sound like a preschooler, but it get me by for now.

Hmm... so far the plans looks all good from here. The question remains if I am really built for this. Let's see if the Entreprengineer can make it in IT.

How do I start Trading Stocks?

This is a question I always get from everyone I know who's interested in learning about stock trading in the Philippines. I'll share what I know about the Phil Stock Market and how to trade it.

I've actually began my adventure from learning about financial planning before trying to master stock trading. I have to insist that everyone learn this first. It will lay down your financial foundation and protect you from your inner greed. Everyone has one.That's also the reason why not many succeed in stock trading.

 

Let's begin by reviewing the basics. I have an article on this somewhere on this blog. Oh well, let me

 

1. Insurance - Protect the goose which lays the golden eggs. No goose, no golden eggs. Of course, that goose is  you. When the unforeseeable happens, you should also be ready for the defense. We all die, we all can have accidents. No one is exempted.  Only immortals don't die. You should prepare for this just in case.
 

2. Debt management - To maximize growth, eliminate negative interest-bearing instruments first. Debt. You can't grow a 20% annual interest investment with a 36% yearly interest of debt. Eliminate debt. Otherwise, the negative interest on your credit card will just eat up whatever you earn from investments.
 

3. Emergency fund - This should be 6 months to one year of living expenses (depends on where you are). In the Philippines, we compute it to be 6 months. How does this work? When you get laid off or if your business loses money, you still have some money to recover from such a disaster. It will cover your expenses while you look for a new job or start a new business. It will also cover other "emergencies" like medical expenses when necessary. This way, you don't have to apply for more debt or touch your investments.
 

4. Investments - mutual funds, ITF's, stocks, etc... This is mostly done after you have covered the first three.
So please keep these in mind before going into stocks. 

Here are useful news resoureces.

For news (they serve as catalysts):
 

http://business.inquirer.net/ - and other local business news sites are ok.
 

For international news, I use the following:

http://www.bloomberg.com/
http://www.cnbc.com/
http://www.thestreet.com/

 

 International events have an impact on investor/trader sentiments, and can be used as signal for entry/exit  points while trading.

 

 There are two major philosophies in trading. Technical and Fundamental analysis. Technical analysts follow price movements, chart patterns, etc... to determine valid entry and exit points while trading. Fundamental analysts need to know what caused these price movements and gauge if the current stock price is cheap or expensive based on business fundamentals. One of the most famous and successful user of fundamental analysis is Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest men. He's known to have built his wealth purely from investing in stocks.

 

If you want to learn technical analysis check out these links I found on the web.

http://www.informedtrades.com/trades.php?page=school
http://www.swing-trade-stocks.com/
http://thepatternsite.com/

There are more but these are the coolest ones.

For the Philippine Stock Exchange and PSE graphs:
http://www.pse.com.ph/

There's even a cool Pinoy Community with seasoned traders, brokers, or fund managers willing to help out.
You can check from the Online Trading and Brokerage Feedback Topics for advice on which
companies you can use.

http://financemanila.net/ - the forum is where most of the veteran traders hang out

http://www.traderspizza.com - another nice forum with its own gurus as well.

http://tsupitero.com/selection.htm - the broker (you can find his profile on this page too) he hangs out at financemanila.net as well

I only use BPI Trade but they said COL is better (they have their own graphs and tools). I might shift to COL as soon as I get back to the Philippines. If you want to open a BPI Trade account, ask the nearest BPI near you on how to open one.

 

Below is Citiseconline's website.

https://www.citiseconline.com/


Of course we can then chat, and share trades and learn which are possibly good ones or not. 

 

Good luck on your trading!