geminist: What do you mean by that question?

A portfolio looks like whatever you put into it....

For example it may consists of cash only .. or bonds .. or stocks .. or all sorts of other types of investment vehicles ..

defensive stocks can also mean stocks which are 'recession proof' ...

like bank stocks ....for example ... ie if the stock market in general falls alot, what you term 'defensive stocks' are those that remain resilient against huge falls/moves in the market.

This post has been edited by khoong25: Sep 30 2005, 02:56 PM

If you were interested in gold, you could try opening a brokerage account in the US/Aus/Canada ... there are alot of quality canadian /aus gold mining/exploration company worth buying into..

or you could try gcitrading.com which you can speculate on gold with leveraging ...
in times of inflation, gold/diamonds are good hedge against your paper currency losing its value.

Malaysia is slowly suffering from the ringgit peg as inflation is starting to bite. If the gov doesn't change anything, the ringgit will just slowly lose its value...

If you wanted to talk about long-term stock market trend, alot of stock markets are uptrend in the long term ... you just gotta have patience and ride out the bad times as well..if you are thinking of investing, you should consider learning how to read a company's annual report/etc.

derivatives = futures/options/swaps/forwards/warrants .. etc ... google it ..

I'm an advocate of short-term trading ... so I do believe in it. It is all about risk management, position sizing, and discipline ...

Im not familiar with the Malaysian sharemarket, so I can't comment on it, except I do believe there's not enough disclosure, too much insider trading, and the 30% bumi equity rule on the companies will just hurt the KLSE in the long term.


JUST MY OPINION.

Appears to be many questions .. I shall try my best ..

1. Ringgit peg
At the start, it was probably good because it provided stability ... but now?.. I'm not so sure anymore ...
A managed float, is in effect a 'dirty float' and in reality really is no difference than a peg... I could go on and on about this, but this comes down to Malaysia not developing its economy and reforming its policies and keeping the ringgit artificially low and remaining a predominantly low-skilled manufacturing economy. when it should be moving up the services chain...
Uncontrollable inflation is the direct result of the peg...
Inflation is already rearing its head, have you noticed things have been getting more and more expensive?

2.Investing ...
Investing in anything is good, doesn't matter how much $$ you have as long as you've done your research, and have a LONG term time frame for your investment to materialise ... some ideas such as bio-tech/healthcare, islamic banking, gold/silver, uranium, etc ... I can see Islamic banking booming hugely in Malaysia, as Malaysia's ties with the Middle East grow...
As for overseas investing, that's something you have to work out and find out, unfortunately I can't help you on that dept because I'm not based in Malaysia.

2. RE: About trends in a market ...
http://www.seykota.com/tribe/TSP/Trends/index.htm
may be hard to read, but summary is, a trend can be what you want to see at a time frame that you pick ... So is the KLSE in a long-term time frame? That's for your interpretation....

3. Short-term / Long-term trading / technical analysis
There is such a thing as long-term trading, but its more like 'investing'.. Too many definitions here .. You can be 'trading' for the long term when you intend to get a position in something for a longer time frame say 5 years .. you can then use technical analysis to enter into positions at 'price dips', think the lowpoint of a sine-wave that's moving upwards...

When you talk about trading, it becomes much more specific .. you can enter a trade for a few hours to few days to a few months ... Trading can very much become a job in itself.. if you're not willing to commit, then you should stick to 'investing' for the long-term..

Yes you can make money with technical analysis, I hang out with a lot who do, as for me I'm barely breaking even, but I'm giving it time and intend to make it work.. If you think its a skim-cepat-kaya, its not ... but as with everything in life, if you give it time,effort,energy it will be rewarding.

If anyone would like to discuss anything I've just said in private, you're welcomed to PM me ..

Bottom line for all the negativity and 'No' and 'Can't and 'not for me' ... Here's a line for you to ponder ..

YOU ARE WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE, AND WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE NOT


Ken

silveru, its a good explanation of why people get burnt. Which is why you need to study properly and have good risk & money management.

In your example, if your account size was only USD300, you would never open 1 lot. Instead you would open 0.1 lot and 1 pip would cost you USD1.

High volatility is the reason why you trade. How would trades earn money then?

There is danger in everything that is traded. People lose their shirts because they are greedy. Enough said.

Ken

you can always trade gold, -leveraged- on gcitrading.com, or betonmarkets.com .

did you know gold is also correlated to the canadian dollar/aussie dollar/swiss franc? ....

but not for the faint hearted..