Good evening guys.

I am late 30 working adult and currently study how to invest in stock market. I study financial jargon like Pe ratio, Peg , price to earning ratio etc etc at investopedia.

Since i don't have financial background, the text is abit dry and hard to grasp for begineer.

Do you guys have more digestible website or any youtube channel?
Any books recommedation for beginner?

I wondered how old you guys start investing?

Thank you in advance.

I started the same way than you 25 years before. Yes, it is a bit dry, but imagine how hard it was before the internet

Can only recommend you to keep on going this way. The thing you need to learn is to understand a company and the market. Choose very little stocks, max 5.

Start a investment book. Write down all the numbers you can get about the company, quarterly results, annual results, forcasts of the analysts. Try to figure out what numbers you expect from them next year, what P/E you can accept and if it is very high, why in that case you can accept this high P/E. Is your last assumption still valid?

Apart from outside factors like market situation, interest rates, ... , there is one basic rule:

A stock will grow if it performs better than the analysts expect, it will fall if it not meets the analysts forecasts.

Another thing is that you cannot ignore a supertrend, no matter what the numbers say.

No matter what you think of Apple, you need to go with it (I would never buy their products, never had one, but the stock is a must)

No matter what you think of Tesla or BYD or E-Mobility, you need to go with it.

No matter what you think of Covid 19, what vaccination you want to take or not take, you need to have the Biontech stock.

Actually as stock investor the first thing when you hear about something like Covid 19 is "Who will make billions out of this and how I can get my very small piece of the cake"

Sure shots like Biontech are very rare, mainly it is the tough work mentioned above.

Forget about books nowadays, internet has it all. A good website I like to work with is simplywall.st

Thank you for your reply.

I will need to study the basic before attempt to pick stocks.
I suppose there is no two way about it.

There is alot of gems in your reply. Aside of company fundamental, one needs to be of trends too.

Simplywall.st present the campany data in a very clear and digestible manner . I surprise it is built in freeware.

I’ll share my stock picking template here. This serves as a guide for me whether to invest or not. May not suit everyone’s investment style so don’t take everything here as financial advice.

// Investment Style

For me, I’m a long term investor who dollar cost average on growth stocks that are traded in the US. I invest in companies that have the potential to give 10X return in 10 years time. Always ready to buy the dip with cash or leverage (ie loan or margin).

Since I’m invested in growth stocks, many of them are not profitable. How do you value them? PE ratio is only available for profitable companies and it’s not the best way to capture the forward looking earning potential of a company.

// Valuation Metric
So, I came across this valuation metric called Market Cap to Revenue ratio which is commonly used by venture capitals to evaluate startups.

If you look at Tesla, it currently has a market capitalisation of USD 1 trillion (use Yahoo finance to check) while let’s say the projected annual Revenue for 2021 is USD 50 billion. You get a Market Cap to a Revenue ratio of 20 by diving the numbers.

Is 20 high or low? That’s the subjective part but I would typically compare this with other industry players. Apple is around 7 but this is a mature company. A high growth company that has annual revenue growth rate of 50% and above usually have a higher ratio. SEA the group that owns Shopee is around 13 right now but it was around 20 at one point. Search up Li or Nio, do the calculation yourself and it should be 20 or higher (or use to be before the Chinese stock sell off).

Another way to judge this number is by looking at the share price trend. If the share price has been stagnant at a certain price range for a long period of time, that may indicate the share price and “ratio” is fair to the market.

If the ratio is lower than the “norm”, then the stock is undervalued. I would put a larger sum of money into the market to buy it. If it’s not, I still dollar cost average to buy it every month.

// Finding a good business
Now that you know of a way to value a stock, how do you know you’re buying a good company? Valuation don’t matter if the company is crap.

I look into B-F-M. The Business Model, Financials and Management team.

This post is getting a bit lengthy so I’ll just put the keywords here.

I use the Business Model Canvas to understand how a business operates. Of them all, I tend to focus more on the revenue stream to see if this is a proven concept that can be scaled.

Look for PESTL model to understand the macro environment. The political and covid situation have big influence in stocks.

Look for the market size of that industry. How big is the pie? Is it a growing pie? For EV and Gaming, these are growing and you can see the 5 to 10 year projections by market research company.

As for Financials, yahoo finance and hypercharts have high level financials. The official quarterly financials from the company official site are good if you know what to look at. Revenue super important and 50% YoY growth is the magic number. This needs to be balanced with a positive cash flow. Being a net positive cash company is more important than being profitable in the short term.

Lastly get to know the management team and the culture of the company. A company is basically an end product of a group of people after all. Are they able to execute? Can they be trusted (look at the founder of Nikola and the way he spoke gave me bad vibes already)? Is the company hiring people of Grade A, B or C (sorry to be classifying people but let’s face it there are coding gurus and there are average joes). Personally, I think Elon and the people around him are some of the best minds in this world.


// Final words
The stock picking template above can be used for a high level sense check or a detailed research.

Honestly sometimes I use this framework in a short 15 mins to decide to buy a stock or not. Though, it’s a small sum of money. Always buy in batches and not all in. This is not a casino.

Other times I would deep dive into building out the details of this framework by putting in days before I invest. It took me quite a while before I decided to invest a significant chunk into GameStop. Went in before the hype and profited 140X from my call options.

One final advice, best way to learn is to go to sources that have digestible content. I read posts in Lowyat finance and Reddit (wallstreetbets used to be a great learning place). I should be given a Reddit scholarship by now. That aside, follow YouTubers that have deep understanding of a company (ie Tesla Daily). Let’s not forget, our workplace has many examples of what a great or bad company can be.

to be honest, it is far, far better to read more on the basic stuff while observing the local stockmarket for some time before jumping in. If really hand itchy, bank stocks are more stable & suitable for beginners. If you can read Chinese, I highly recommend 冷眼：《三十年股票投资心得》, which helped me the most.

I don't have youtube recommendation, as any youtube video can provide a short intro to pe ratio, ROE, etc.

There are local stockmarket authors like kcchong's very technical book & Tradeview's simple storybook style too.

also depends what type of investor you aim to become..

1. Sharks - buy any good stocks, even if they are less known stocks and sell for high return. High risk since need to know finance report much deeper. Also need to keep monitor the stocks. Only for the experienced people. Else risk lose a lot.

2. Long term investing - invest in good stocks.. with less fluctuations. Earning power likely less. More to focusing on dividend payout and long term holding for increased stock value when sell.

3. Foreign investing - buy stocks overseas. Be aware that some stocks have higher withholding tax. Go for Irish Domiciled if want 15% tax. Also beware next year got FSI tax for incoming funds from overseas when u sell. More troublesome to buy foreign stocks also. View "Ziet Invests" youtube channel he got give very detailed steps on how to start investing overseas. Best broker here is IBKR - Interactive Brokers.

4. local investing - after budget 2022 announce many stocks went red. Prosperity tax la, stamp duty increase la, etc. Many people say our local stocks suck compare to stocks elsewhere such as US stocks. I only focus on long holding stocks here to diversify. Can use Mplus if want convenient local stock broker (low fees). Be aware that minimum FPX deposit is RM1000 each time.. better to transfer a bit more than regret later.

5. crypto investing - best avoid now as prices are in the red for all crypto. not sure what happened. If you confident can buy some for low price and sell when high later. But not sure how low they can drop some more, also not sure how long need to hold before can sell for a profit. Super volatile market that operates 24/7. Best platform for this is Luno.

6. relying on Robo advisors - such as Stashaway. But here you learn less as basically you let someone invest for you. Got fees involved and most ppl say not worth it if hold long there as the per annum fees add up to a lot. Buying via Public Mutual Fund also same thing just that relying on real human. You can buy here a bit to test out.. I myself also monitoring see how it goes. Plus side is super convenient and got tools like auto mthly deposit etc to help you save easier.

I think got other type of investors also.. others can feel free to add.
I also new just started last month.. don't give up and keep learning. Best type of fund manager is yourself as you learn for future investing. Also get to save on fees charged by fund managers!

Best advise I can give is don't sell unless if you need the money (or u shark very sure), invest only if you have extra in hand (pls keep some cash for your family needs). Recommended to have 5-6 months of salary at hand in case need it later (esp if u have family like me).

(all the tools/sites I recommend are local SC regulated except for IBKR - however this is popular and regulated at US).

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Dec 7 2021, 03:58 PM

Crypto investing I think more recommended style is not buy low sell high, but is HODL for longer time frame. HODLER buy at every dip as the price eventually went up after the dip.
However, it is really volatile, don't trade unless you are pro and don't make it too much from your portfolio. Just left it there for some time and you will eventually earn from it.

U investing in bursa or us market? If in bursa, those financial ratios are useless. U need to know how to play with the operator

What do you mean by play with the operator? Means be like trader buy then fast sell once high?

I notice Bursa keep up then down to same level. Hard to spot any good stocks that go up a lot. Maybe need many years only can truly go up to earn more.

Really envy US stocks keep skyrocket so much esp for popular brands like Apple, Tesla, Amazon etc. So many foreign investors pour in also. If US citizen get so much privilege buying those stocks too.

Malaysians get a big 30% WHT for any shares we buy at US. FX exchange also makes it more difficult for us.

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Dec 14 2021, 06:57 PM

For investors, need to know fundamental about the company, market and politics also. Fundamental is what to buy and TA is when to buy.
For traders, much more on TA first and FA later.
may check this out also: https://www.bursamarketplace.com/

bursa got pump n dump syndicates... and epf... lol

US got gov indiscriminate money printing to support the market/super rich

most US locals are poor af... don't you believe everyone is well off and invest in stocks...

also why you worry about wht? you say envy skyrocketing stocks... growth stocks are opposite of high dividend ones...

I plan to invest in bursa only. Still new to investing .

I probably will try with bank stocks first. Since banks harder to manipulate.

Though i think i will read somemore first before investing.
Maybe next year.

Yea some companies like Amazon don't give dividend so that can grow faster. Ok will close eyes to wht next time.

Hope FSI bill won't pass.. Else next time got risk when we withdraw funds back here kena tax kaokao.

Agree hate how EPF buy and dump stocks suka2 hati. Their volume so big somemore.

Means understanding the intention of the operator (big players). Bursa stocks cant move up and down much without the operator. You can do this by reading the changes in volume, price and also looking at the market depth. Some good fundamental stocks on bursa don't move up much because operators are not interested in them and you will be wondering why rubbish companies that are in heavy debt and are making losses from one quarter to another, are going up a few folds. It always starts with accumulation and end with distribution. But some operators might distribute and then reaccumulate when prices reach a certain price range ( not at accumulation price range) and push the stock price back up once reaccumulation is done. Based on my experience, operators usually hold their shares for short to mid term and then distribute them. That's why bursa index cant move up much . The reason why they do this is because of Malaysia's economic and political reasons I think.


Just a brief one, I will just take a bunch of companies for explaining purposes....


As u can see here, during the accumulation phase(accu), the volume activity is low to avoid attracting any attention from the retailers. Once accumulation is done, they will push the price with big volume to attract retailers so they could sell their shares to those waterfish retailers. You can see the volume activity during the distribution phase (dis) is higher as evident by the volume bars below. If the volume activity is high and the price is not pushing up higher, it means there is a lot of selling activity going on.




This is another one...

I marked the accumulation phase with the box. From the daily chart it doesn't look like much right? Wait till u see the 15 mins chart below.




15 mins chart....


As you can see in this 15 mins chart, those volume and price spikes don't happen by coincidence. What you see right there is accumulation but very subtle and quiet so as to avoid any attention. For this stock, the operator only push the price up for a 20-30% profit. If I remember correctly, i only got like 15% from this trade. How did i know when to exactly sell? I saw the operator push up in the morning then a huge dump in the afternoon. That's when I know I have to take profit fast. That's why there is a wick/shadow in that candlestick with a big volume below ( ya, big volume to attract retailers). (Dee the daily chart)

This is just a brief one...I have seen many cases where operators like to push prices up with high volume in the morning to make the stock get onto the top active list ( like advertisement lol). Then a big sell down in the afternoon session. but sometimes they let the price stay at above until the trading session ends and do a big dump in the next morning trading session.



This stock(DNEX) has been on the top 30 list for a long time...i think you have seen this. This one is distribution going on. A lot of waterfish will get burn from this. Push up and sell down everytime.



This post has been edited by Questions12345: Dec 14 2021, 08:36 PM

Damn I just got to know this. Yea always see big shot buyers and sellers on mplus news section of a stock. Suddenly see Mr xxx (or EPF) buy this much or sell this much stocks like 500k stocks or so. So these are the operators.. F***. Rich manipulating our local markets 😢.

US don't have such things? Due to the trade laws there that prevent short buy and sell?

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Dec 14 2021, 08:25 PM

US market has a lot of big players manipulatingg also la. But their market always up up up one . Hard to hold long term in bursa..not a lot of stocks on bursa you can hold long term. If cant follow operator, buy blue chips lor..but bursa blue chips performance kinda shit lately. Those small caps are manipulated by different operators..big caps usually epf.

Agree. Small fish investor like me hold long term. But see value keep go back to + or - 20 make me keksim. Even if buy good stocks like Maybank or Axreit also same. At least now know why.. Thanks for sharing. 👍

After this will put more money to work at US or other better performing markets.

Avoid Fintec related companies like focus, gocean, saudee, macpie, LKL + several other companies. The syndicate will pump to moon and then dump you dry.

The stock will be dropping it's price until it's around 1 or 2 cents. Then fintec will consolidate 10 to 1, then same thing repeats itself.

why avoid?... join them collect at 1-2 sen... sell at 50x... lol

Dont bother study those, not solid indicator for success. Go for name, buy and yolo or go short.

agree.. especially for stocks in Bursa /KLSE. Seems like fundamentals don't really matter there zz.

Yes Bursa is true casino, similar to Genting.

Cant agree more. Previous years wasn't like that when see the charts. After Najib then plus Covid, foreign investors have left in droves.. Even news reported it. Now there are all the rich players, EPF, some other financial institutions buying low and selling high. Can read it at the insider tab at mplus.

For time being I'll invest via IBKR for US ETFS mainly CSPX, SWRD, and VWRA. Heck even invest via Stashaway also earn more since they invest in foreign markets.

Later got time and more capital then will focus on stocks.