The whole world prayed for long life, good fortune and prosperity as it welcomed the Year of the Dog for 4 consecutive days this Lunar New Year celebration 2018. And what could be a better way to personally embrace it than to crush it financially and allow prosperity to flow in.
Put your friend’s wishes of prosperity for you into action by putting eggs into investments. Because at the end of the day, what you reap is based on the seed you planted.
A good friend of mine, gave me the Conquer 2017 Planner last year put together by Krissy Domingo. She’s a Philippine serial entrepreneur who manages private funds, real estate farms slays trades and currencies as a retail trader. She wishes to tell her rags-to-riches story to the world that’s why she decided to take the path of writing this financial planner.
Overall, it was very empowering as it encourages you to develop a tycoon mentality, save using the 52-week challenge, and teaches you how to invest in Philippine Stock Market.
As an overseas foreign worker 3 years ago, I understood my job could be taken away from me. Well,…. let me rephrase that. Nobody is assured of a stable job. You cannot be too sure that income will stay forever like that. And if you can assure me that it would, then that means the salary stays the same until the end of time. And that’s bad. No promotion, no additional compensation, that’s not just bad, that’s sad.
That’s why I thought of looking into investment tools that could benefit me over time in terms of ROI (return on investment), affordability and flexibility on liquidation. And stocks investment was the first one I met in my journey to financial freedom. Let me convince you to read on why and how we should invest in the first place from this post. It also includes how to invest in Philippine Stock Market while based overseas. From here, I want to tell you, that owning a TIN number is a must.
HOW TO INVEST IN THE PHILIPPINE STOCK MARKET AS A LOCAL
I would like to feature Omeng Tawid, a Philippine blogger that wrote in the CONQUER 2017 planner about HOW TO INVEST IN THE PHILIPPINE STOCK MARKET while staying in the Philippines:
STEP 1:
Assuming you’ve learned the basics of financial education and decided to go into investing in Philippine Stock Market, the first step you’d need to do is open a stock trading account. This account is the one you will use to actually buy and sell stocks or shares of companies.
For beginners, I recommend opening an ONLINE stock trading account because of the convenience it offers compared to a traditional broker.
Unlike using traditional brokers which is the practice before where you have to call your live broker to place stock orders in your behalf, having an online trading account allows you to do the same principle but this time, you only have 1, anytime and anywhere (even if you’re outside the Philippines).
Opening an online trading account is just like opening a regular bank account (think of your payroll/ATM). All you have to do is, go to the website of your preferred online broker, read the account opening instructions, download all the forms, fill them out and submit it together with all the other requirements to their office. After submission, waiting within the next 2-3 working days for their email confirming that your trading account is ready for step 2 – which is funding it.
STEP 2:
Once confirmed of the operating online trading account, it’s ready for funding.
You can actually do this during your account opening day in their office by making an initial deposit just like what I did above but you also may postpone this and just do the funding after you’ve received their email confirmation containing your account details. This email will include your account number which you’ll use in your funding-your-account step. Note that your initial deposit already forms part of your investments which you can use to buy your first stock.
Funding your trading account works via merchant payment through a bank (BPI/METROBANK/BDO). If you’re aware of paying utility bills (Meralco/Mobile plan) through banks’ merchant payment, that’s exactly it, with the difference that you use your trading account details given to you by your broker through your email.
FUNDING RESTRICTIONS
There’s NO required monthly funding.
How much you’re going to put to your trading account on top of the initial deposit is completely up to you. While your online broker may need a minimum of Php5,000 initial deposit to activate your trading account (activation means your account is ready to buy your first stock), it’s all up to you whether to add more on that later on. As such, there’s totally NO required amount you need to add regularly (weekly, monthly, etc.) to your investments. However, take note that your buying power will obviously depend on the amount of fund you put into your trading account. Check the procedure of your online broker on this step but this should be a very simple task.
STEP 3:
Once your trading account holds sufficient funds, you now have purchasing power to buy your first stock.
There are now 3 questions that you’ll need to answer at this point:
- What investment strategy are you going to use? Are you going for long-term, short-term or a mix of it? The best way to trade is long-term through Peso-Cost Averaging (PCA). Less risk, ‘steady’ profitability. This is recommended for the newbies while you’re in your learning curve. It is a simple strategy that involves investing fixed amount of money in giant companies at regular intervals (monthly, quarterly, etc.) over a long period. This is a totally passive approach which does not entail daily monitoring. However, those doing this strategy should understand that this really requires a long time frame – as long as 10 years or more. You can learn more about it here.
- With the strategy you have in mind, what stocks will you buy? Based on experts, consider blue-chip stocks. These are shares of companies that will more likely stay up float the market for a long haul.
- Given the strategy and the stocks to buy, WHEN do you buy/sell? In other words, what/when are your entry and exit points?
It is important that your answers to these questions should reflect your goals’ time-horizon and trading skills. Your answers to these will also help lay down your plan for your investments (which is critical), how much time you’re going to devote and to what extent your daily routine will be changed.
FOLLOWING OMENG TAWID’S MODIFIED PCA
Personally though, I’m primarily using a modified PCA called Strategic Averaging Method which answers all the three questions above. It is designed for those who want to maximise their stock investments without drastically changing your daily routine. You can check smartpinoyinvestor.com for details. – Omeng Tawid
