STE's Stocks Investing Journey

Everyone Loves a Bubble – Until It Bursts Investors love bubbles. Kids love bubbles too. The sight of prices soaring day after day brings excitement, euphoria, and a false sense of wealth. Everyone feels richer when stock prices are rising. Financial media celebrates new highs, analysts start upgrading targets, and even your barber , taxi drivers starts giving stock tips. But just like the soap bubbles that shimmer beautifully before they burst, financial bubbles too are fragile illusions. They expand rapidly on the back of greed and easy money , but once pricked, they collapse with breathtaking speed, leaving destruction in their wake. On the other hand, recessions , though painful, are part of the natural rhythm of the economy. They cleanse excesses, reset valuations , and sow the seeds for the next recovery. Understanding this difference is crucial for every long-term investor who wants to protect and grow wealth steadily. < Ai Image> The Seduction of a Bubble: When Euphoria ...

 The last two weeks must be a hectic week for Crypto investors as we had seen the collapse of Luna ( A type of stable coin) which wiped out almost $40 Billion of market cap from the Crypto-market. What is Terra Luna? Why did it Crash by 99.9%? <Sources:business2community.com> As I mentioned before, Crypto as a so-called " alternative asset " class is very risky and may not be suitable for all investors, especially for those with low-risk tolerance. Bitcoin as the " King " of Crypto may not collapse like " Luna " since it still has demands on certain "usage " like "currency" for some groups of people, but we may continue to see the huge fluctuations of the price like up and down of more than +/- 50%. For some other coins like "Luna", it will not be that lucky to enjoy such "privilege" and I am sure, "Luna" will not be the last of such coins to collapse, there will still be some to follow Luna...

I took out this book from my bookshelf recently and re-read it again, with much curiosity, I wanted to find out if I could learn something from the past financial crisis and if there is any similarity of past crisis vs recent crazy the price movement of Bitcoin.    I read with great interest especially in Chapter 4 ( Fueling the Flames: Monetary Expansion ) . Quote “ Speculative manias gather speed through the expansion of money and credit or perhaps, in some cases, get started because of the initial expansion of money or credit. One can look back at particular manias followed by crash or panic and see what went wrong .“ Unquote

What is Bitcoin ? image credit to coindesk.com (from Wikipedia ) Bitcoin   is a worldwide  cryptocurrency  and digital  payment system  called the first decentralized  digital currency , as the system works without a central repository or single administrator. It was invented by an unknown person or group of people under the name  Satoshi Nakamoto   and released as  open-source software  in 2009. The system is  peer-to-peer , and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary. These transactions are verified by network  nodes and recorded in a public  distributed ledger  called a   blockchain .

<Image Credit:Investopedia.com> It has been quite sometimes since my last update of the “ Regression Chart “ for STI and world major indexes. After seeing the chart with the latest data, I realized that no wonder everyone seems happy on the ROI of their portfolio and bullish about the market recently as STI hit above 3200 level. Here you go….