Stock Markets, a strong force in my roller coaster financial life
I was familiar with the stock markets right from my high schools. For some reasons unknown I was even familiar with the terms like portfolios, gains, losses etc. though not knowing much about the finances during that time. Some years later, when I got familiarized with the internet it led me to the sites like moneycontrol.com, where it allowed creating the virtual portfolios showed virtual profits and losses. Those were the days without the earnings still in the college with no real money in hand.
As soon as the career kicked in, within few months I opened up my first trading account with then Geojit BNP Paribas. This was the real start into the world of the stock market. Interest in the field slowly led me to uncover most of the terms, techniques of making money in the stock market. First of all, understanding what stocks are, what stock markets are, why are so many companies listed in the stock exchanges of BSE, NSE, why there are two exchanges, global stock exchanges etc. All these questions encircled me and seeking answers led to more and more questions.
I was very much fascinated by the sheer number of public listed companies involved with the various business in the country. It was really a plethora of them from all sectors — IT, Auto, Banking, Metals, Power, Oil and Gas and many more. These industries employ numerous people. They are the growth engines of the countries economy.
It would be a dream come true for any entrepreneur to startup and take the company to the public domain, scale it up to realize its ultimate potentials.
Then came the days of the first attempts into tradings without even realizing making losses, burning hands and seeing the money vanish. At a later point, I had to put a stop to trading, started exploring other options. Investing for longer terms for a year and more started to bring in money. I started slowly investing my hard-earned money as an investment in the stock market where most people don’t even consider it as an option for investments.
The investments I made in the stocks, mutual funds during this time helped me manage finance in the coming tough years. It was mostly the ELSS Mutual Funds giving returns after lock-in periods of 3 years were completed. It was yielding the much-needed money coming out as monthly instalments since SIPs were the mode of investments into the Mutual Funds.
The initial four years of my career, there was a lot of investment done on the long term stocks as well as the ELSS mutual funds. Long term stocks required an understanding of the fundamental analysis. This is nothing but reading the company financial reports, annual reports etc. All these helped to get a brief idea about the overall functioning of the companies and the different sectors of business that our capitalist country operates.
The excess money will make you invest in the mutual funds if you don’t want to worry about getting into the technicalities of the stock markets. However, if one is ready to put some efforts then the long term stocks should be the pick. This would either come from the advice of others or some personal fundamental research.
This was the mode of investment during the comfortable phase of the career.
After four and a half years into the stable career, I decided to quit my job without any other options though at a later point I decided to join a startup. During that time, I had a sizable proportion of EMI to pay and this put my financials on the huge back foot.
The next three years was just balancing the financials on the tight rope. I adopted the minimalistic approach to life cutting down on all the unnecessary expenses and sacrifices at times.
It was zero investment period, but only cashing out on all the returns from the mutual funds. Further to this, the stock markets tumbled and led me to lock all of my long term stocks as they were deep into the red zone of the loss territory.
I am still holding these stocks that entered into the red zone to see the ray of light emerging with the strong hope on the rising Indian economy.
When one has not much money, then the stock market offers an option for trading. Trading is not for everyone, it totally involves the game of money along with emotions. There will be profits booked and losses all around. The initial attempts of the trading was a failure.
Money does control the minds, holding it tight is the most essential aspect if one desires to get into stock market trading.
Now after some experience of trading, the real game is actually controlling the emotions and the time at which you enter into the markets for buying and selling is important. This gets better as you continue trading on the regular basis taking feedback and correcting approaches. A sound plan will definitely make realize profits than one without it. It makes one disciplined and this will ride on top of the emotions, avoids taking erratic decisions which ultimately ends up in booking profits.
The stock market provides everyone an opportunity, its up to one to either book profits or take the losses.
Is it possible to rely on the stock markets for a daily wage? In fact, it can be done with strong discipline is what I have learnt and sort of experiencing it. I had an opportunity of introducing many people to the world of stock markets. I strongly believe that stock markets should be a part of everyone's financial lives.
Till this day, the financials are still shaky as always wanting to try new stuff with the career, still not clear where it will eventually end up. But all these years there was one financial force standing strong and backing me up on the roller coaster ride was the Stock Market!
During the tough times, I always looked up to the stock markets and it always had something to offer!
