By Brinju Laxmi Thapa
Most of us have heard about stock/share market as a terminology but how old were you when you purposely tried to understand what a share market actually is or how it operates? I’ll be honest. I was twenty-five, which is some few months back when Chandragiri IPOs and things as such were getting hyped. But Aaman Balami, currently pursuing his BBA at King’s, had already decided that he wanted to earn from investments when he was 16. At such a young age, he figured out the career options and made a conscious choice of getting into the stocks world when teenagers in general are mostly busy processing the growth: physically, mentally and emotionally. Not only that, he could also understand that only interest is not enough. So, he constantly chased knowledge to turn his aspirations into reality.
This metalhead collected the required investment from his pocket money instead of investing them all to buy another set of drums and today the market proudly identifies him as one of the successful young traders as well as an investor. But we do not know the significant contrast between the two, do we? Well, an investor in the stock market is a person or could also be an entity who commits capital with an expectation of maximum financial returns with minimum risk. The investors usually deal with measured performances with one-time investments and return that majorly is dividend dependent. On the other hand, a trader refers to an individual or an entity who are involved in buying and selling of the stocks with an intermediary involved in between with usually a chance of 90% loss and 10% gain. For Aaman, the investors so far have been the SMEs and the consultancies.
The tip of the iceberg is always worth a view but we don’t really know the story behind it. In like manner, the Aaman Balami we watch and read about today had his own fair share of struggles. At the age of 16, he was busy befriending Google and YouTube, thinking the friendship would be his forever. He then made a choice to shadow extremely profound people to begin his actual career with a motive to build the right network. For this purpose, he started interning for people like Mr. Santosh Pradhan Chaudhari who made him understand the functions of real states. Along with that, he also worked with Mr. Sagar Luitel – former sales relationship manager at Property 360 Nepal and a renowned name in the world of real estate. That sure was another wise choice he opted for as it groomed him to become a real estate agent who worked for renting the commercial spaces.
Aaman clearly beats the expectations people might have of someone his age. I could tell this from the kind of influence his presence had on me when in the interview. So, I tried to dig deeper because I wanted to extract a few applicable takeaways for the stock market enthusiasts. For the same, I asked him:
1. It is true that the market mostly operates with trends?
“The market mostly operates with government regularity and there exist things like the Bull and the Bear market which individually lasts for some four to five years. Just in case you are not much aware about it, Bull market implies a market condition where we witness a continuous rise in the prices and we witness the bear market when there is a fall in prices over a time period. If you want to be bullish then you need to believe that the price of the investment will rise and for being bearish it is vice versa. So, one must be aware of the drivers of such upswing and downswing of prices if one is to enter into the market. Those are the trends followed by the market so far and I believe it will continue to do so.”
2. The decisions are based on fundamentals or emotions?
“If you have heard me speak in my previous interviews or even in general life, I use the word ‘hope’ a lot of times and I believe that I am a firm believer of gut feelings, instincts and things as such which sure has been a good guidance for me in the share market numerous times. So, I had started believing that share market runs on emotions but I had to go through a devastating failure experience to understand why we need to believe in the power of fundamentals as well. I am still paying for that very same loss. So, I think it is neither just emotions nor just fundamentals. We need to master the art of finding the balance between both if we are to take wise decisions.
3. Dash of luck plays part in the success?
“I don’t know if ‘luck’ is the right word but I do believe in astrology. I have been told by my astrologers that the hospitality sector won’t be good for me to invest in and that has been proven time and again as to why I should trust the astrologers. This might turn some people off but you can try to make sense out of it when I tell you that giant companies like JP Morgan also do the same. In fact, they do not sign any kind of contracts or deals on specific dates if they have been suggested not to do so by their astrologers. So, I don’t think I have any other choice.”
You know the kind of feeling you get when you are in a restaurant, you are super hungry and the order you made is finally coming to your table, that sort of feeling is what the market has given me. Haha!
4. Given a choice to be in any other field, would you still choose the share market?
“A big yes. You know the kind of feeling you get when you are in a restaurant, you are super hungry and the order you made is finally coming to your table, that sort of feeling is what the market has given me. Haha! I am sorry I couldn’t relate it any better but yeah, I love what I am doing and I would not pursue anything else at an expense of losing the opportunity to be in the share market”
5. Any tips you would like to give to the stock market enthusiasts?
“Stock market has no rule book so there is no tips and tricks or shortcuts either but I can share my individual experience and understanding”
– Not everything that glitters, is gold so we need to have an equal amount of knowledge and interest if we are to pursue it.
– It is important to understand the investor’s psychology before taking off.
– It is equally important to understand about the company before investing.
– You should be able to define the amount of loss you are willing to bear and make the risk more calculative.
– It is the dividends of the company one should focus on rather than the price fluctuation.
– Patience holds the utmost importance because if one is to buy something, he should be able to hold it instead of selling it immediately.
As cliché as it sounds but the beauty of life is uncertainty and the risk we take is directly proportional to the better adventures we can be a part of. But little knowledge is always dangerous. Thus, before jumping into something with huge interest but a handful of knowledge, we should learn to balance the both. In addition, the kind of people we surround ourselves with defines the kind of person we are or willing to become. Aaman says he had joined King’s College just to get a degree and make some friends but the kind of progressive platform that the college catered with and importantly, the values it believes in, aligned with the values Aaman in person possesses. Also, the major BBA in Investment and Economics assisted him to find the fit that he could take alongside his career choice. All in all, it is not mandatory to figure out everything in life by a certain age but we should address the importance of those slightest of the slimmest things in life that adds more value to our success.
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