Hello Grasshoppa,
Do you prefer to have professionals manage your investment, or do you prefer to manage your own investment? I used to think that investment is tough to understand & it is a common misconception among many people. Sometimes when I asked my friends to invest, their answer is always that they don’t know how to start. How hard is it to learn about investing? Do you have to go to an investment course advertised on social media where you have to pay thousands or learn it at minimal cost?
I gain most of my knowledge by reading good investment books, blogs, websites, & news. There is a transition period for me during my investment journey from having 100% of my investment portfolio professionally managed by mutual fund companies to 80% self-managed investment portfolio. The transition period did not happen overnight & it took me around 2 years to fully move from a professionally managed investment portfolio to a self-managed investment portfolio. Before I go into details on how I did it, I will be sharing some of the resources & books that have helped me along the way.
Books:
I have a list of investment books that I have read & most of them are the ones that I truly enjoyed. If you were to ask me to pick my top 3 favourite books from my recommended list, I’ll choose One Up On Wall Street; A Random Walk Down Wall Street & You Can Be A Stock Market Genius. It is easily understandable for beginners, especially if you are new to stocks investment. Once you have a better understanding of stocks investment, you can try reading The Intelligent Investor.
Websites:
The main website that I use to learn about investing is Investopedia. Their content is superb & there are many things you can learn from there. Since there is so much content & it is updated frequently, I do recommend you to subscribe to their newsletter so you can receive their articles daily. They even have Investment Simulator where you can learn to trade with virtual cash. Another website that I visited a lot when I started investing is The Fifth Person, focusing on the Asian market.
Blogs:
The main blog that I used to refer to before investing in Malaysian stocks is Dividend Magic. I used to refer to the stocks that he buys & uses them as my investment portfolio benchmark. Aside from Dividend Magic, KC Lau is also a worthy read for Malaysian.
Podcast:
There are so many good investment podcasts out there that are worth checking out. My personal favourite is Ringgit & Sense by BFM, where I was featured early this year for Malaysia. My other favourite Investment Podcasts include Invest Like The Best and We Study Billionaires & Capital Allocators. It has helped me to learn a lot about investments.
YouTube & Facebook:
I don’t remember much on the channel that I learned on YouTube, but there are so many Malaysian YouTube channels that talk about investment over the years. For Facebook, I only remembered many of my friends used to share Spark Liang investment videos. Although my mandarin communication is limited, I still manage to pick up some knowledge from it.
How Did I End Up Managing My Own Investment Portfolio?
With all the resources that I have referred to, I slowly gained some confidence to manage my own investment portfolio. Still, before I started my first investment in stocks, I actually registered for Investopedia Investment Simulator, where I was given $100,000 virtual cash to invest. After understanding the basics of stocks trading with the simulator, I registered an account with Rakuten Trade. The first stock that I bought was Padini & I remembered how nervous I was upon making the stock purchase. The good news is, I don’t feel nervous anymore, but instead, I feel excited each time I invest in stocks. It is all contributed to the experience that I accumulated over the years & the resources that I learned from overtime. “Don’t Know How To Invest” is just an excuse if you are unwilling to learn. Just like Elon Musk learned to build a rocket by reading books, you can learn to invest by referring to all the available resources out there.
OSS!
