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Grand Designs and Expectations

In one of my previous blog posts, I discussed the “nationalistic” or “patriotic” side of this website. While every word of it is true, I haven’t mentioned the other reasons why I put up this news/blog site. And there is definitely still a lot to tell: about the direction of this news/blog site – where I hope it would be in the next year or two, its goals and my expectations from it.

Frankly, I set this up to promote and provide the latest information on the business and capital market landscape in the Philippines. But of course I also set this up to make business out of it. Well, the first part of my agenda is going strong, as you can see in my daily posts. The second part, however, remains a dream, at least for me.

Around September-December last year, I’ve been reading a lot of blogs on how to make money online. And indeed, these blogs are really making money—despite the huge number of blogs that discusses the matter. Forgive my bluntness in saying “money” outright, but I will get to the point in a bit.

So, money. Money is important. They say “Money is the root of all evil” but that is not entirely correct. Money helps people by creating jobs and creating products that improve the quality of life, to borrow James Altucher’s words. Money is used to pay for things needed to build buildings and roads and schools and hospitals. Money is needed for our daily transactions—to buy food, medicine, clothes, everything. So definitely money is not evil: it is important.

But it doesn’t grow on trees or fall from the sky. You have to earn it by working. You have to persevere; you have to do a bit of sacrifice to have money (some do a lot of sacrifice to have lots of money). Even these bloggers that I continuously find on the web have to create unique, compelling content so that people will get to know them, connect with them, and eventually bring business to them.

This brings me to my point. I do have a day job that provides for my wonderful family and pays the bills. But there’s always this fact that you need a little more extra to make life a little more comfortable. It is not something to be ashamed of really—you will be working for it anyway. No matter how big or small, as long as you toiled honestly for it, that extra money is rightfully earned. It’s not like you would ask for it without doing anything. But sometimes to find that extra money is really difficult. Others do freelance jobs. Others have a second or even third job. I can’t do that. My day job prohibits me to.

So I looked up these blogs, and I have taken the bold step of following on their footsteps—even though I have no experience in setting up and running a website. I have a burning desire to be able to build something that could be of value in the long run. I am not an entrepreneur type really. I don’t even have a product of my own (yet) to sell. So setting up this blog, I hope, could bring me there.

In setting up a blog, they said it has to be something that you are really passionate about (this follows the saying that you could make money from something that is really your interest). It is funny though: this website provides the latest news and updates on the businesses and stock market in the Philippines.

But the truth is, I DO NOT HAVE ANY BUSINESS OR FINANCIAL BACKGROUND. PHStocks provides the latest information on listings, IPOs, financial statements, stocks, cash dividends, investing, share buyback, etc., of public companies, as well as private ones, in the Philippines—but I do not have any educational background on such topics or discipline. It is just my burning desire to have more money that drove me to learn about these financial jargons—by myself. So technically, I am a self-thought business, investing and stock market enthusiast. But of course, I make sure that every post here is as accurate as they have been presented by their original source.

I focused on investing because that is one of my New Year resolutions for 2011 (I will start to invest in the stock market around the second quarter of the year). And I focused on investing also because I believe that only less than a quarter of Filipinos worldwide (I haven’t done my research on this yet; so correct me if I’m mistaken) are investing in our country’s stock market. And reasons could be:

  1. they don’t know how to invest;
  2. they always thought that investing is “gambling” your hard-earned money on these companies; and most importantly,
  3. there is a lack of financial education in the Philippines (I took up engineering, not a business or accounting course; but I think it is important to have at least a few minor subjects on financial education).

That is why one of the goals of PHStocks is to provide as much information, in the simplest of laymen’s terms as possible, on investing in the Philippine stock market. As I’ve said before, that is my foremost goal (and it happened to be the gist of the business plan I wrote so that my wife will approve my acquiring a domain name and hosting).

Of course in that business plan, there are some points as well that discuss possible outcomes of this endeavor—that’s why it was approved as well by “the boss”. They say dream big. And my expectations from this website are kind of like me talking out loud: I see this being acquired by a bigger information provider, or be acquired by leading online stock brokers in the Philippines, or have these companies, as well as the companies I have been writing about, put their ads in the website. Well, that is the dream. And I hope one or a combination of these could happen. I don’t know yet, it is still too early to tell. The website needs a lot of tinkering anyway in terms of aesthetics and functionality. I haven’t even put the “Subscribe via email” button or something. But that is the dream—driven by desire to earn more money on the side, of course.

Anyway, I took the bold step of creating PHSTocks to help educate Filipinos on how to invest in stocks in the country. Of course, there are already lots of these kinds of institutions and courses and centers in the Philippines. There are also others that are quite more popular, including Colayco Foundation and Bo Sanchez’s TrulyRichClub.

But then again, it won’t hurt to have one more. As long as you can differentiate yourself. And that I am bound to do. You just have to stay tuned as to the developments in PHStocks.

Now more than ever is the perfect time to invest. I urge Filipinos worldwide to know more about how to do this. My next posts will focus on the Philippine stock market, how to invest in stocks in Philippine companies, and some guidelines to consider in investing. I have no financial background, but that doesn’t mean that what I am writing or will write about has no weight. I have studied on my own every important detail I need to start LONG TERM investing. I don’t have to dig deep on technical analysis or whatever. In every discipline or study, it is important to know the basic principles, the fundamentals on what moves what and why they move. That is important. And that is what I will focus on. Not only for you, but especially for me. As I’ve said, I am about to start investing in a few weeks time. So that will also be documentation on what I have been doing.

Bo Sanchez’s maids are already investing in stocks, and perhaps at this point they already have significant positions in the market. If they can do it, why won’t you? It’s time to start now.

– Richard

Email me at richard@phstocks.com.

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