Some of my friends recognize me as an active trader or investor. Yes I am. I started my investment couple years ago, when I got my first or the second job in IBM. At that time, I put my money in mutual fund (reksa dana) via Commonwealth Bank and Panin Asset Management. I remember my first mutual fund was from Schroder. I choose it because of the track record and its cool name. :D At that time, I was worried about my future, I always have anxiety of everything. I heard my peers, seems they have very bold planning. I was not a Jakarta citizen, so having house was not my priority at that time. I did not have any idea yet where will I stay later in the future. So I decided to investing in market.

I did not have a big pay check every month, so I could not put more money into my account. Moreover, mutual fund did not really get a big return, in term of amount, if we put small money. I tried to find any other way to grow my money. Stock was not my choice as well. I had a mindset that stock market is really scary place. We have to always monitor the market and very volatile. Lot of sad story filled my head. Until I moved to Papua, I had lot of spare time to learn new thing. I tried to read more about the stock market. Later on, I registered an account in Indopremier securities. Until today, I am still active in the stock market. I have experience lot of loss and gain. Investing in the big caps stocks and layer 3 stocks. Every layer or even stock has their own behavior. And for commodity stock, they have cycle every couple month or year. For example, coal, gold, oil, rubber, etc. Its very sensitive with the global market and politics. Let say the trade war between China and US. Suggestion A week ago, a friend of mine contacted me via DM in Instagram. He asked me for teach him to invest in stock market. I was surprised, what should I teach him? I was really proud become a stock investor. I encouraged people to join me in the market. I even prepared some presentation to give them a brief overview about stock market. I though that its a good way to invest your money. Maybe because it was a bull market season. How about now? Hmm.. I don’t really ‘encourage’ or ‘push’ people to follow me. I realize that stock market is indeed a high return investment but has huge risk on the other side.

Do it on your own risk

In stock market there is two main knowledge that people choose to be expert in. Fundamental Analysis (FA) and Technical Analysis (TA). Fundamental is related to emiten or company performance, so we need to learn about financial statement, company profile, etc. Technical Analysis is more to the price action by looking at the indicators, for instance the volume, stochastic, MACD, moving average, etc. FA and TA is possible to be mastered in very short period of time, if you are really keen to learn. However, there is another aspect that people can not learn in one night. It is Trading Psychology . How to handle your emotion during your investment. How scare you can endure to see the floating loss in your account, or how greedy you are when you see the floating profit. Actually its related to your risk management and your goal. Experienced investor say that invest your money with amount that you can afford to loose. If you are okay to loose 100 million, than you can invest 100 million. If your goal for long term, than don’t get shock if just 5 minutes after you hit the buy button, the price fall to 10 percent. For the time frame, people that invest for long term goal is called investor and for short term is called trader. But some people choose both, combine the TA and FA. They are called Swing Trader. I choose to be swing trader because I have not got my best type. So, for anyone who want to invest in stock market, dont be afraid but dont be too bold as well. I suggest you to try with small amount of money. Its good to get the feeling, how the stock market work, test the water. In some securities, they provide the paper trading, where you can trade with virtual money. But this is not really good because you will not feel responsible to your own money.