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After a 23-year career in the Royal Singapore Navy (RSN) as the Commanding Officer (CO) of a warship, Robin left his iron rice bowl job in 2002 to pursue a career in trading. Within a year, he amassed over S$300,000 in trading profits.
Brimming with confidence, he began doubling down on his trades. This left him on the brink of bankruptcy as he lost over half a million dollars within a 2-week period in the financial markets in 1990.
With his back against the wall and, not to mention, how it would affect his wife and children, he poured his entire time and energy into creating a trend trading system that works.
Armed with his trading system and a capital of S$30,000, he managed to turn around his losses within the year. After reaping the benefits of his trend trading system, he began teaching others about it – but not in the traditional classroom setting. He went a step further than most trading mentors by doing live trading demonstrations for those under his tutelage.
His battle-tested trading strategy enabled him to accurately predict and profit from trading the markets, including making over S$2 million over 15 months in 2008 (during the Global Financial Crisis). He had also predicted the 2020 (pandemic-led crash) and called an end to the 20-year bull-run in 2022.
Source: Robin Ho
As the multi-millionaire trader today puts it, “it’s all about supply and demand. That’s the essence of my proprietary trading strategy. Imagine studying the candlesticks in a similar manner, but overlaid with volume data”.
I had the opportunity to chat with Robin to learn why he decided to become a full-time trader in the first place, how he navigated the ups and downs, as well as how he trades newer products in the marketplace, such as the Daily Leverage Certificates (DLCs).
Dinesh Dayani (Dinesh): Thanks for agreeing to share your trading journey. I understand you were a relatively active trader while still in your Navy stint. What made you want to start trading?
Robin Ho (Robin): The Navy usually retires their officers in their 50s. Despite learning a great deal, I always knew that my skill set would not be relevant after I left.
Source: Robin Ho
I started snooping around for a second career. I was first introduced to trading in 1997 – amid the best-ever Singapore and Malaysia bull markets. Even the housewives were punting the market, including my mom and aunties, who were making big money trading every day. Seeing them earn easy profits from their trades, I joined foray and got a taste of how easy money can be made.
I didn’t even have to put up any cash. I just had a credit line provided by my broker, and the “contra phenomenon” allowed me to hold my positions for as long as 2 weeks. I bought all the “hot stocks” and kept rolling them. Back then, I only had guts, but I traded without any trading strategies or understanding of how the market worked.
Long story short, I made S$300,000 in 12 months only to lose S$500,000 in 2 weeks in 1990. That was my harsh introduction to trading.
Read Also: Using Daily Leverage Certificates (DLCs) In Volatile Stock Markets
Dinesh: That must have hurt, and it must have been a very difficult time for you. How did you turn it around?
Robin: Being the sole breadwinner with seven mouths to still feed, I had no choice but to put my heart and soul into really learning how to trade.
Was there a holy grail to trading? I began reading every trading book I could find. I also tested almost all the trading strategies you can think of – from candlesticks to Fibonacci to Bollinger bands, and more. Nothing worked, and I was still losing money in the markets.
That’s how I realised I had to think of it differently. I discovered my proprietary RHO Price Action strategy – combining price action with volume.
Dinesh: I understand your RHO Price Action strategy was able to accurately predict the last 3 market crashes – in 2008, 2020 and 2022. Can you give us a sneak peek into how you’re able to make such precise calls?
Robin: The RHO Price Action trading strategy uses trend trading. The technique of trend trading is not new. My strategy uses price action with volumes – finding a synergy between them, similar to finding a relationship between supply and demand.
The simplest example is seeing two stocks that break out of a support or resistance. One breaks out with volume, while the other breaks out without volume. Obviously, the one with volume is more credible and gives you conviction in the direction that its price is headed.
I’ve actually been demonstrating my strategies already, with live trading at the trading courses I run.
In fact, I got into the teaching and training business only after Phillips (where Robin used to be a prop trader) saw how consistently I was performing and asked me to run a course to train all their professional full-time traders.
After that, around 2015, I was also commissioned by SGX to train existing remisiers/full-time traders. So, I went to most of the broking houses in Singapore to train their full-time traders – there would be around 30 to 40 traders, and I would also do live trading with them.
Dinesh: Today, you’ve been a full-time trader for over 20 years. While you are an experienced trader, you have also been responsible for one of the biggest trading volumes in Singapore over the years. Can you share how you keep up with newer products to trade, like the Daily Leverage Certificates (DLCs).
Robin: I was very excited when I got to know that DLCs were going to be launched in Singapore. To me, it has the potential to revive the Singapore market’s trading volume. I saw it as a door to trade foreign mega caps stocks on the Singapore Exchange (SGX).
Through DLCs we can trade foreign blue chips like Alibaba, Tencent and PetroChina, and even indices in Hong Kong and US – like the Hang Seng Index (HSI) and NASDAQ and S&P 500. Personally, I hope the list keeps getting longer so that investors here can enjoy the range and rewards of trading on the movements of these stocks and indices.
What I like about DLCs is that it requires a low capital outlay, allowing traders to participate in the price performance of an underlying asset at a fraction of the underlying asset price. As a trader, you get to free up your cash, which is important for capturing other trading opportunities. Your transaction costs is also reduced due to the lower capital however holding the DLCs overnight do have costs involved as with most leverage products.
As with all derivatives, there are risks and complexities involved. The main one is the in-built Air Bag Mechanism. While the air bag can cushion your losses if the underlying asset continues to move against the DLC after it is triggered, the ability to recover losses is also reduced should the underlying asset rebound and move back in favor of the DLC. Single stock DLCs are typically more vulnerable to air bag triggers as opposed to Index DLCs as indices are generally less vulnerable to wide fluctuations compared to single stocks.
Dinesh: You put it nicely: as with any financial product we trade, we must be aware of its characteristics.
To end off, I thought we could do something fun. Since you regularly trade DLCs, can you share your biggest gain (and biggest lost)?
Robin: First, we must have a trading plan before making any trading decisions. For me, the moment I spot a trend reversal, I stop buying or selling (depending on the direction of the trend).
Then you have to decide when to enter the market. I usually start small once my conviction in the trade increases. When prices start moving (in the direction that my trading plan predicted), then I will build up my trade.
For the biggest gain: I remember making close to S$100,000 in a single trade once. I bought the 7x short SIMSCI (SIMSCI MSCI Singapore Free Index) DLC for S$1.00, and it rose to S$9.00 within 3 weeks!
I also lost about S$30,000 when a 5x SIA Long DLC. This happened when the Air Bag Mechanism was triggered.
Gaining Exposure To Overseas Blue Chip Stocks Directly On SGX
In the more than 25 years that Robin has been trading in Singapore, he has seen many investors lured to foreign markets. The reasons vary, from limited opportunities on the SGX to higher volumes and more interesting companies in overseas markets.
When DLCs were introduced in 2017, Robin felt it was a product that could reinvigorate the investment and trading scene here. One of the biggest draws of investing in DLCs is that we can gain exposure to some of the biggest foreign companies and indices directly on the SGX.
Through the DLCs, we can trade Chinese tech giants such as Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, Xiaomi, Ping An, and Baidu among others. At the same time, we also have access to other large cap Chinese stocks, including China Construction Bank (CCB), China Merchants Bank, China Mobile, Geely Auto, PetroChina and more.
As Robin also mentions, buying single stock DLCs can carry greater risks, as they may swing in value much faster. Of course, this can also play out in our favour. For traders looking for less volatility, we can also look at foreign indices that DLCs give us exposure to. These include the Hang Seng Index (HSI) and the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index (HSCEI) in Hong Kong, as well as the S&P500 Index (SPX), NASDAQ (NDX) and Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJI) in the US.
Besides access, we are also able to leverage DLCs to magnify our exposure to both foreign and Singapore-listed counters. This led to the 6-figure gain that Robin realised when trading the 7x short SIMSCI DLC. For individual stocks, we can gain up to 5x leverage, while we can gain up to 7x leverage for indices.
To get started on our DLC trading journey, we can preview the full list of Société Générale’s over 200 DLC listings on its website. We can also learn more about the product features, including the associated risks and applicable costs and fees of trading the DLCs on the website.
Read Also: How You Can Start Trading Hong Kong Stocks On The SGX
Disclaimer
This advertisement has not been reviewed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The views expressed under this article represent the personal and independent views of the author and do not constitute investment advice. The content of this article does not form part of any offer or invitation to buy or sell any daily leverage certificates (the “DLCs”), and nothing herein should be considered as financial advice or recommendation. The price may rise and fall in value rapidly and holders may lose all of their investment. Any past performance is not indicative of future performance. Investments in DLCs carry significant risks, please see dlc.socgen.com for further information and relevant risks. The DLCs are for specified investment products (SIP) qualified investors only.
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