My Experience As A Stock Broker - Part 1

When I saw the ad in the papers that was put up by Phillip Securities, I was already jobless for almost 3months. During the 3 months, I was doing freelance car grooming for people. But my main source of income was from grooming the cars in a car dealership that a friend was working at. Though many things happen, I'm still grateful to this friend who helped me out.

I would also like to thank Larry for helping me out during that time as well, letting me polish his Nissan Skyline every month. Thanks Larry, you wont know how much those 50 dollars you gave meant to me.

Another person that I'm very grateful towards is a friend called Teck Leong. I met him while I was taking a Comprehensive Financial Planning Module for the Chartered Financial Consultant. TL was already a CPA and runs his own audit firm. He was also taking his MBA in finance and asked if I was available to help him in the completion of his thesis, and in return, would pay me for my efforts. It was a miracle that I managed to produced something presentable, and again, those 3 to 4 hundred dollars he would pay me as I completed the chapters in phases kept my stomach filled.

Back to the Phillip ad. I went ahead to apply for it and attended their career seminar. The brochures i read and the setting reminded me of those recruitment drives by insurance agencies. But the good thing was that they mentioned that we could concentrate on a certain area first (or for as long as we liked... as long as the revenue was generated). And so I decided to take the plunge and signed up for the courses for Modules 1 & 6.

I continued grooming cars while I was taking the classes, and managed to pass both papers on my first attempt. Although I only made abt S$1200 during the 5-6months polishing cars, I managed to get by.

I spent much thought about becoming a broker on how I was going to meet my bottom line, where am I gonna get clients etc. By then, I was already monitoring the Singapore and US markets for 2 years (including my 7 months of trading experience in the Singapore market back in 2002). My paper trading in the US market produced returns of 38% (Apr03-Oct03) and 23%(Jan04-Jun04) respectively while I was testing out my trading (or investing) strategies - as I CLEARLY lacked the funds for real investing.

At time, I was also planning on continuing my work on a trading system that would help me analyse the market and pick stocks that met certain criteria(s). This system would then form the backbone of my entire operation(s). That way, I could quantify the stocks I recommend, what to buy, when to buy, what to sell and when to sell. I would also be using the outputs from this system for my own trading activities. The outputs from the system would then be published on a website on a regular basis for my clients as well as another venue where new clients can be found. But sadly, I never got to complete the trading system during my time at Phillip (see previous post). However, I left Phillip with knowledge about the Singapore market that will serve me well for many years to come, was able to read up an emormous amount of books during that period, and realised that having a full-time job with constant income and investing on the side is not a bad idea after all. I guess I'll continue the story in my next entry.