Sharing my experience as pro over the last 6 months
I joined Pro in June 2021 after following BN on twitter for a few months. The trigger for me was BN’s focus on portfolio CAGR rather than chasing elusive multibaggers which may or may not materialise and consequently cost you in terms of opportunity cost. This was something practically nobody talks about and frankly was a light bulb moment for me.
I was a wannabe value investor prior to June 21 with a dismal portfolio CAGR of 10% over a period of almost 4 years. The concept of stoploss was alien and uncomfortable and I had difficulty in booking profit at 40-50% which were the backbone of BN’s methods.
I switched almost 70-80% of my portfolio to BN stocks and aided by beginner’s luck gained 25% at portfolio level in June and 11% in July. My portfolio reached its peak in July and since then moved like a yo yo in that range from August to December.
Though the market was weak in this period, I know a lot of pro members made good money in this period. I realised that I needed to fix things and though BN made many offers on Pro channel offering 1 on 1 help to any member who had trouble executing, I realised mine was a mindset problem and first I needed to fix that.
I implemented 3 changes starting December.
1) I had a big problem with booking losses. I would stick to stocks that had hit stoploss knowing that most of BN’s picks run eventually and there was also fear that the stock would shoot up after I sold at a loss making me feel like a fool. I finally realised that this was greatly harming my portfolio and there was much higher probability of the stock I shifted to doing well rather than the stock that had hit stoploss. I have become ruthless with stoploss since then, booking out the same day.
2) Inability to book profits. I was unable to follow BN’s scheme for booking profit ( booking part profits at 40% and 60% or at 20,40 and 60%) This was because I generally allocate 3-5% to each stock in my portfolio and once the allocation went below 3% after taking part profit, I would completely lose interest in the stock as even if it did well after that, it wouldn’t make much difference at portfolio level. I had given up very significant gains owing to not having a selling strategy. I then decided that I would book out once a stock retraced 10% from high in most stocks and 15% from high in very high conviction stocks. The stock may still explode after I have booked out, but if it goes down further, then some profit is a lot better than no profit.
3) Avoiding information overload. There was a time I was following more than 100 people on twitter discussing sundry stocks. At the time of becoming Pro, I had reduced this to 5. Starting December, I reduced this further to 1, i.e BN. I might still read up some other ideas but don’t put my money in any non BN Pro idea. My ultimate goal is to be able to generate and trade my own ideas, but till I reach that stage, I am sticking to one person (BN) and one strategy.
With these small tweaks and a lot of help from the market, my portfolio is again doing well since December. It crossed the July high in early January and went further up over last week or so. I have a return of 13% in January so far and about 50% at portfolio level since June 21. My understanding of the market has increased significantly largely due to the excellent video content shared by BN, in particular the Pro Meet Videos. Thank you so much BN ?
Update: Market fell big in February, followed above profit booking strategy. Managed to restrict portfolio drawdown to 10%, ruthlessly executing stoploss. Since March, have dramatically decreased no. of stocks in the portfolio, a concept BN has been stressing greatly upon in Pro video meets. Have been allocating big to core BNP Pro bets, particularly where BN says ‘Don’t Miss’. Have been richly rewarded as a result, with portfolio at all time high.