First Steps

And so this is my very first post.

Well, I never really wanted to put up a blog in the first place. I've tried several times, but usually, I ended up neglecting them. Never knew why. Just a bad habit, I guess. Those past blogs were "personal", i.e. real-life personal. One blog I made - I have nooooo idea where it is now. Probably deleted... hopefully - was even used just to vent my frustrations.

This blog is going to be my personal blog on a subject I love with a passion that shall never die: INVESTING. Investing is something every person likes or even dreams of doing, but the moment they dirty their hands on it, they start losing money so much they fail and give up, never coming back, and associating the thought of "investing" with "stock speculation".

For example, my paternal grandfather. You mention "investing" to him and he'll tell you you'll lose money no matter what you do. The more preferable option is to simply let your money accrue in a bank or in a bond until you can put it in something closer to home: a small business. And you know what? I can actually understand his position. One of my uncles has lost $33,000 in "investing" at the stock market, and he is often described as looking at charts and everything through about 3 computer monitors. My maternal grandfather, too, has lost money, purchasing Petron preferred shares to "invest" in.

But... in the end, "investing" in a savings account or in a bond is no different from putting your money in the stock market. You're entrusting money to a third party, to a company, whose operations you have no control over (though the case is different for the stock market since you CAN wrestle control into your grasp... if you're rich enough to afford it, that is). Everything still relies on the company you've deposited/lent your money to.

Ben Graham once wrote, a junk bond could be just as good as a triple A if the company meets one's standards for investing (though this is a rare occurrence, I've read). Conversely, even the most secured bonds and bank accounts can run the risk of you losing your principal if the company is weak, due to poor financials or something it isn't disclosing (Legacy Bank Group for the Philippines; Subprime Mortgage bonds).

Attacking my grandfather's belief in the "small business" as the investment, the only difference between that and the stock market is "control". The investor has control over the business's operations and its corporate direction. Yet it is far riskier than the stock market, and my grandpa acknowledges it: 19 out of 20 newly-incorporated small enterprises in the Philippines fall. In the USA, I've read that over 90% of the businesses in America are enterprises, yet most of them still fall or remain in obscurity.

Robert Kiyosaki, whose book (Rich Dad's Guide to Investing) inspired me to seek out the world of investing, asserts that the failure of businesses occur due to the owners' inability to secure their enterprises' ability to survive in their absence, i.e. the company will live on if the owner can fully place his trust and confidence in a competent manager who can do all the work and focus instead on other investment/business opportunities. Otherwise, if the owner ever dies / leaves / otherwise rendered unable to operate the business, the corporation shuts down utterly. (Though he insists that owning a business IS the path to richness, but only if you have what it takes to make it...)

Anyway, I just want this blog to represent not only my journey through the world of investing and business as I grow up amidst trials and tribulations arising from mundane work and life in general (which is especially important now that I have officially graduated from my university into the so-called "real world"), but also my thoughts on investing, on certain literature, and well, on companies that I end up liking. Anyone who ends up reading this is free to school me on what they think, suggest a company they like, or whatever. All these are my thoughts.

Why I named this "Analysis Paralysis" simply stems from that very concept: you spend too much time analyzing you NEVER get anything done. I come across this term multiple times whenever I'm analyzing something, and I agree with it. My first value investment - a geothermal energy company in the Philippines whose stock price was at its 3-year-or-something low (due to an extremely low net income) - was an opportunity I FAILED to miss early on, just because I kept on analyzing and analyzing over six months and never even bothered to place my money in a brokerage and put it in there. The result? I bought it at PHP 4 a share when I could've purchased it at P2.5 a share two months earlier. It's at PHP 5/sh right now and the target price is still at a high PHP 6.5 a share. Damn. >.<

I swear, I must never let it happen to me again. And whoever's reading this, the same goes to you. Seriously.