How many companies that you have sold out but the current trading price is higher than your sale price?

I was asked this question recently…. Well frankly as the context was that I had to answer the question with a rough estimation, I had to give an answer and I said probably 15.

But I knew that is highly inaccurate as there has been too many things I have done across the past years. Nevertheless, it piped me to take a look at my previous sales in detail.

As I have over 100 transactions, I will take a look at my last 15 sales and my first 15 sales.

Last 15 Sales

Coy Name	Ticker	Sale Price	Current Price	Current > Sale Price
Zengame	2660 HK	2.69	3.18	Yes
Medialink Group	2230 HK	0.194	0.189	No
JH Edu	1935 HK	1.21	1.36	Yes
Chaoju Eye Care	2219 HK	4.15	5.65	Yes
Yuexiu Services	6626 HK	2.51	5.02	Yes
Central China NL	9983 HK	2.30	3.33	Yes
Human Health	1419 HK	2.08	1.91	No
AV Concept	595 HK	0.57	0.495	No
Hotel Grand	H18 SGX	0.98	0.89	No
Samudera Ship	S56 SGX	1.22	1.22	-
HK Johnson	1955 HK	0.98	0.72	No
YTO Express Intl	6123 HK	2.55	2.40	No
Tat Seng Packaging	T12 SGX	0.70	0.66	No
WKK INTL	532 HK	0.91	0.72	No
Uni Asia Grp	CHJ SGX	1.13	0.95	No

 

5 out of 15 this equates to a hit rate of 33%. In fact, most of it came at late last year and early this year sales. I still feel that this looks satisfactory to me.

First 15 Sales

Coy Name	Ticker	Sale Price	Current Price	Current > Sale Price
TTJ	K1Q	0.41	0.23	No
Genting Singapore	G13	0.985	1	Yes
UOB	U11	20.01	30.23	Yes
Valuemax	T6I	0.28	0.35	Yes
MM2 Asia	1B0	0.53	0.043	No
Bund Centre	BTE	0.785	0.485	No
Singpost	S08	1.315	0.555	No
Sembcorp Marine	S51	1.635	0.137	No
New Toyo	N08	0.26	0.21	No
LHT Holdings	BEI	0.69	0.7	Yes
PC Partner Group	1263	2.56	5.31	Yes
Frasers Cpt Trust	J69U	2.19	2.16	No
China Aviation	G92	1.70	1.03	No
Chu Kong Shipping	560	1.10	1.09	No
Figtree Holdings	5F4	0.169	0.033	No

Surprise and Surprise, its 5 out of 15 again. But if u asked me, I think my last 15 was better than my first 15.

Let’s put it in dollar terms, if $1000 is invested in each stock, what is the difference at the end of the day between selling and holding?

Last 15: -1035.10

First 15: 2783.50

Conclusion

Looking at this small backtest, I believe that the last 15 tend to be more inaccurate due to the duration being shorter and as such it is more influenced by market conditions and sentiments. However, it does show that I am truly a master of market timing like a noob as the last 15 sales came in 2022 and 2023.

Stretching a longer horizon, the first 15 happened between 2016 to 2018. As such, some stocks might have delisted, some might have change in fundamentals and business conditions etc. Not to mention, Covid has occurred and it might have brought the companies to new heights or new lows as well. Nevertheless, the first 15 definitely performed much better which justified my decision that holding them for long term is not ideal.

In fact only 5 companies having a higher share price than the share price I sold might paint a true picture that my deficiencies in investing is that I do not have a sound 3-7 year time-line in my investing line of thoughts when I think about investing in companies. Something that the person who asked the question highlighted as well.

Lastly I would like to end off by saying, its never easy to just continue holding on 3-5 years without selling. Even if I did to my first 15, none of them returned 200%. With the highest being around 110%. If discounted across 5 years, the return is just 16%. 40k will be 84k. 

I won’t commend if that is good or bad as everyone will have different view to it.

Going back to the question, another angle to consider is why am i selling it. It could be flipping ipo to realizing profits to cutting loss. Even when realizing profits it can also be non-related to hitting target prices.

On other hand, i think its time for me to go think about other non investing related things such as nursing post attending k-pop event depression and how good the S22 Ultra Zoom might be.

(This is probably 10 to 15x zoom, i forgot the exact zoom but it probably is the clearer photo among the many not clear ones. I wonder if S23 Ultra will be better....)

                                                 Maybe looking at some videos will help