Business Trends and Market Trends

Awhile ago, I registered for a webinar, "Does long-term investing still work?' by The Fifth Person on the 20th June 2018. I found it particularly good for beginners. In the webinar, Rusmin mentioned about what really is long term investing and for him personally is 5-10 years. He also mentioned that having a long term stand in the stock market proved to be more profitable than a short term position.

One point that Rusmin emphasized regarding long term investing was the emotions that the investor would experience. Some years your portfolio would have good performance whereas other years would not be good. He mentioned that with the easy accessibility of news nowadays, it is easy to get swayed by 'noises' that may change or affect your decision. Of course, if you have done your research on the company, holding for 10 years would usually profit.




I have been affected by price fluctuations before and made my first sale based on that. I got into investing for the long-term but lost track of it at that time as I was so immersed in checking prices a few times a day and even a small increase or decrease would affect me. Of course, over time it has gotten better now.

Read more: SGX - First sell transaction of 2018




Another point that he talked about was business trends and market trends which I feel is a good point to talk more on. He pointed out that business trends was an important point rather than focusing too much on the market trends as they tend to fluctuate a lot. Business trends for example, in the case of telcos, he mentioned that Starhub is experiencing decline in it's 'Pay to watch TV'. I can still remember when everyone used to have a Starhub set-up box in their home to watch cable TV channels. However, recently with the rise of Netflix and online access to shows, Starhub has seen a decline. Even my home doesnt have a set-up box now.He mentioned that business trends is a better predictor in the long run than market trends.

The webinar is something different because a substantial portion of time is allocated to Q&A and this allows interaction. Many people used this part to clear their doubts or to have a better understanding of their current knowledge about the stock market. Overall, the webinar is good and you can go to the website to see previous webinars that they have done.