Hi there! I just want to greet you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year. Year 2017 was very interesting for me as I learned so many things especially in my financial life. The only thing left to do is to find my love life LOLz.

Anyway, I want to share to you all the lessons I learned from my investing and blogging career. As you know, I started this blog at the same time I started investing in the stock market in the second quarter of 2015. So here I am sharing to you 9 invaluable lessons I learned from blogging and investing this 2017 and I hope you learn from them too!

What have I learned (and still trying to master...) from my blogging activities... I've listed 4 things which I think have the biggest impact in my blogging career.

Here they are!

I have no idea how to write good posts in the early days. I just write whatever is running in my mind - topics that I like and I'm interested in. But I realized that to get more likes and engagements in my posts, I need to know what my audience want. Knowing this information from my readers helped me generate fresh content ideas. I also get a lot of questions in my Facebook page which also helped me in drafting content. 

The lesson here is that to get readers interested, you have to know what they want. Then you blog about it. Posts like these get a lot of likes, comments and shares.

This is what I love about blogging... You can create a passive income stream through affiliate offers if your blog get lots of traffic and engagements.

Today, I'm making an average of Php 10,000/month from this blog without any additional effort. This is measly compared to superstar bloggers who can generate Php 100,000/month or more. I'm targeting to double this in 2018, possibly triple if I'm lucky.

If you want to learn about this method of creating wealth, I can share you some of the things I do. Just hit the comments below or send me a PM or an e-mail.

It's easy to make money in Adsense. The hard part is getting approved. It was a pain in the ass. After numerous rejections by the Adsense team, I was finally approved last November 2016.

If you want to get your account approved, you really have to strictly follow their guidelines and TOS. 

I have yet to receive my first payout last November 21 of this year amounting to $101.45. It's still small but it doesn't matter. What matters is the opportunity being there. Once I scale it up big time, I can easily make $100-$500 a month. I've seen Adsense checks as large as $100,000 and if I can at least do $100/month this 2018, then that would be really great!

Keeping fingers crossed.

... And for my top 10 most viewed post this 2017 according to Google Analytics, the award goes to the following articles below, the first on the list being the most viewed and so forth:

So here's some of the things I learned from my investing activities this year.. (actually, it really changed how I view the global financial markets). From Forex to Bitcoins, and all those stuff. These are mostly a product of continuous reading, watching videos and listening to different mentors.

If you're still struggling with Value investing concepts, here are some of the Udemy Courses I took this year that further enhanced my knowledge. I recommend them especially if you want to fast track your learning process:

Learning what Financial analysts do also helped me in my overall understanding of valuations. You can also learn them from these Udemy Courses below. These courses will teach you how to fiddle with Microsoft Excel to do financial modelling and intrinsic value calculations.

These courses sound very technical and academic yes,.. But I find it interesting and enjoyable to watch when I'm doing nothing especially during weekends. It's also a better way to pass time especially if you're waiting someplace else, like a coffee shop. You can put them in your device and watch as you go instead of playing mobile games.

This is where I spent most of my time during the last quarter of the year and I can tell you that it's been a crazy hell of a ride.

If you want to learn Forex trading, you have to learn the foundations. And in Finwaze, 20 hours is all you'll ever need to get armed with the basic knowledge and tools. I learned it from them and I recommend that you get inside their program and finish it up to the advanced course.

This 2018, I will gradually shift my focus in this area of trading. One reason is that I see Forex as a more liquid asset, has leverage and you make money even if the market is going down.

In 2018, the stock market will be my "piggy bank". Forex will be my "cash cow".

I have good hopes in Forex this coming year and for this, I'll be working very hard to achieve the goals I set.

If you want to be in this game, I would recommend Pepperstone which I use. Pepperstone is a true ECN broker.

If you want to get serious in Crypto trading, then the Udemy Course below might help you get on foot.

Cutting losses hurts but is needed in order for you to survive especially in the Forex market. This is why starting this 2018, I'll be having different strategies on each asset class I'm investing.

In the stock market, since I'm a value investor, I'll just cost average down for the long-term. I'll base my buy decisions on support levels of the monthly and weekly pivot points and Fibonacci retracements.

In the Forex market, hedging gains and losses will be part of my strategy. My trading opportunities will also be based on monthly and weekly pivot support levels, hedging gains on monthly and weekly pivots and taking profits on pivot resistance levels.

I'll also do intraday trading if opportunities exist.

As much as possible, I will try not to cut big losses and take small profits.

Learning to let my profits run is the key to wealth generation. This, I'll be focusing more often this coming year. Practice makes perfect as they say. Trading should be done by having more gains instead of losses.

Lastly... but this I have yet to think about. I wanted a business of my own. A true cash cow... That's why I'm eager to learn more about it. Luckily, there's the Business Start-up Blueprint from Bobit Ebarle which according to some of my readers is a very good training ground for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Be sure to sign-up in their e-mail list to get updates as this training opens only twice a year.

There are also a few courses in Udemy that I took which will give you an idea how to be a successful entrepreneur. I recommend that you check them out as they have very useful information in them.

I'm eager to start something this 2018. Something I'm good at. Maybe an investment partnership of some sort. So hopefully if plans pan out, everything will push through.

Stocks, Forex, Cryptocurrency and Blogging.. these are the things that I'll be focusing on this 2018.

About blogging.. I'm planning to rebrand the blog. Because when I started this, its main focus is the Philippine stock market. But this 2018, I'll be adding in Cryptocurrency and Forex topics as well. If you noticed, I already did that for the last few months.

Thus, The Investing Engineer PH will no longer be just a value investing blog.

I'll also add in blogging topics since I also get some inquiries about how to blog. There are some who admire how I created this blog and I'm willing to share all of these knowledge. Just ask me and I'll make it into a post so that everyone can digest it.

Webinars?... Video tutorials?... Nah.. I'm a shy type of person. Writing posts is enough. But I'll think about it.

Stock analysis posts will continue so if you have stocks that want fundamentally analyzed, I'll give more time in it during weekends. I also apologize for those that PMed and e-mailed their requests that wasn't granted. I really got busy in Forex as I tried trading intraday. This year, I'll transition myself to become a position trader instead.

I'll make time this 2018. More blog posts starting next year. That's my goal!

I hope you have your goals set this 2018. Some of you may reach millionaire status this year, others may be next. But it doesn't really matter when. As long as you're in that path, it will come. Soon! So let's aim for that 1st million today!

New year is fast approaching and I wish to thank all those people who helped me achieve this milestone in my life. To all my unnamed mentors, family, friends and co-workers.. Thank you!

Let me know your thoughts this coming year and share them on the comments section below.

Happy new year!