My Trading Diary since September 2020

Started trading in Korean and US stock market since early August. Learning and experiencing by hands day by day, time by time. I want to log (more or less scribble down) my daily or weekly strategies over the market and lessons (whether it’s a painful or joyful one) I learn in this post. I believe that one who keeps track of the past and learn from them has lower chance to lose in any form of game.
Both Korean and US market have seen a dramatic soar, especially led by some tech stocks, after a plummet from February to March due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Probably the early August, where I started to trade was not an ideal time to hop in to this bubbled(?) market. The first stock I’ve ever bought was Samsung Electronics. Without really planning any strategies in mind or scrutinise their business plans, I did not hesitate to buy Samsung, whose market cap was the highest in KRX. However, the next one I bought after Samsung was the one that I was long for to invest quite a while ago. The Velodyne Lidar Company. Velodyne Lidar, the leading supplier of a sensor widely considered critical to the commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles, had struck a deal to merge with SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company), called Graf Industrial Corp on July. Back then when I first started to get interested in driverless vehicles and study computer vision, I happened to know that Lidar is one of the key sensors that enable vehicle’s vision with concerted efforts with ladar and camera, and that Velodyne suggests us a promising future in terms of that point of view. Turned out that, I was lucky enough to know the company earlier than others and invest in their stocks! I’m seeing 50% profits from them as GRAF is reaching an all time high almost everyday :)
Anyways, back to the main point, I’m gonna share my trading journey with you guys. Logging will not gonna happen every trading day of course, but I’ll try to jot down a bit as long as there’s some valuable lesson I gained. Enjoy!

04 SEP 2020

Bearish! I’m now writing this sentence during the pre-market trading hour and I see the most biggest drop I’ve ever seen.

Before Market Opens

• Should I consider buying shorts?

Thoughts or lessons after close
Keywords in Bearish market: Shorts, Inverse, Bonds. I sold my ARKQ, which I profited satisfiable amount from. Still reserving LIT (Secondary Battery ETF) and BOTZ (Robotics and AI ETF) as I’m planning long term investment on those. #hodl

08 SEP 2020

After the mass plummet… Will the bubble keep popping? Let’s see how it goes… #hodl again

Before Market Opens

• Will GRAF stay safe
• What will happen to QQQ and SQQQ
• Professor Damodaran, dean of valuation, says that among those FAANG companies, Apple is the most over-valued company.
• Index-ETF (S&P, DJ) Vs. Value-ETF (ARK)
• Planning to buy Apple at $120

Thoughts or lessons after close
Bearish market continues, but GRAF has gone up… why? SQQQ is beginning to rebound from their long hell-bound history. Value Funds tended to lose more of their assets compared to that of Index Funds. Bought 2 shares of Apple at $119.

10 SEP 2020

Bull Bull Bull, are all the bubbles gone now?

Before Market Opens
These days I’m studying and finding under-valued little companies with SPAC on thier path. GMHI and HCAC are the ones.

• Dow Jones will likely to underperform compared to yesterday
• At 10AM EDT Velodyne will pitch their plan in the 2020 Citi’s Global Technology Virtual Conference
• Should I sell GRAF now?
• Luminar (SPAC on GMHI) Vs. Velodyne (SPAC on GRAF)
• [NKLA + GM] Vs. TSLA

Thoughts or lessons after close
The tech conference seems not very impactful to the share price of the GRAF, as it did not show any special pattern from their chart. States are flipping! Nikola and GM saw their golden day after they’ve announced the cooperation, but now Tesla’s winning…lol classic market

11 SEP 2020

SOLD GRAF at 29 dollars (on a downward move) with 50% overall profit, and
SOLD NNOX at 55 dollars (on a upward move) with 20% profit, which I reached in just 2 days.

Why did I sell GRAF
Originally, GRAF was bought for a long-term investment as I evaluated Velodyne’s value way much higher than its stock price. However, at Citi tech conference they did not bring any new topic, which led their stock price to record historical decline after they’re listed in the market. $30 - $31 was a local maximum price according to my judgement, so I sold it on a downward move at $29, still gaining over 50% profit.

15 SEP 2020

My decision on GRAF and NNOX was a great move!
GRAF has dramatically touched down to 25 dollars, and NNOX… fell by 20% for two days in a row, making -40% dip in total… haha

+) Last friday, with the money I gained from GRAF, I bought GMHI, another SPAC for ‘Luminar’, one of the greatest competitors of Velodyne.

Luminar, where my new investment goes, in replace of Velodyne
Disclaimer: Doesn’t mean that I ditched Velodyne though! I’ll keep my eye on both of them (Velodyne is aiming to finish their SPAC period in 3rd quarter 2020).

Luminar the lidar startup again that burst onto the autonomous vehicle scene in April 2017 after operating for years in secrecy, was merged with SPAC, called Gores Metropoulos Inc., with a post-deal market valuation of $3.4 billion, which is bigger than that of Velodyne has announced as their valuation. Once all done, Lumiar will maintain its name and will be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol LAZR. The deal is expected to close in 4th quarter fo 2020. So why did I choose to invest on Luminar while my money is out from Velodyne?

• Luminar’s lidar has better design that goes much better with cars. Although lidar is not only used in cars but also in other products and industries, one of its major use cases is automobile for sure. Velodyne’s lidar rotates 360 degrees while driving and kind of disturbs general car design once attached, as opposed to Luminar’s. Luminar’s Lidar can be embedded, rather than attached, on the roof of the car, still allowing good-looking design of a car.

• Better range of vision (they say)

• They’ve got more famous sponsors

• Price is lower than Velodyne. Some people might say this can’t be a mojor reason for investment, but in SPAC investment this makes sense a lot. SPAC HAS MINIMUM GUARANTEED PRICE. Normally set to 10 dollars, from which both GRAF's and GMHI's price was started. Even if they failed to make their company be listed in market, investors will get their 10 dollars back from them. The price of GRAF had gone up to $30 from $10, while GMHI’s price had gone up to $12 from $10. I’m not sure if Luminar’s technology is better than that of Velodyne, but Luminar seems more attractive to me, because this is where impossibility (deemed by majority) can happen, ‘low risk, high return’.

• Young and innovative CEO, who dropped out of his college and found $3B worth startup. (Just an extra fun reason, which looks quite cool to me)

5 Jul 2021

NVIDIA is soaring. Been waiting for this moment for over 8 months.