The all-new BMW M4 CSL

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 The all-new BMW M4 CSL: The Legend is Reborn To celebrate their 50th anniversary, BMW  GmbH presented their fans with a special edition car based on the high-performance  models. The new BMW M4 CSL combines old-school racing passion with the latest innovative technology to yield a beast of a car. Competition, Sport, Lightweight. In case you haven't figured out, that's what the CSL stands for. The car posses the next-level power and intelligent lightweight design, model-specific chassis upgrade on the two-seater configuration. The M4 CSL share similar performance specs with the BMW M4 GT3, the M4 CSL clocked the fastest Nurburgring's Nordschleife circuit lap times for a series produced BMW car. The beast boast 3.7 seconds from 0 - 100 km/h, and 10.7 seconds sprint from 0 - 200 km/h! BMW plan to produce a limited 1000 units of the lightweight beast, only weighing 1625 kg, giving it a power-to-weight ratio of 4.01kg/kW. Impressive. Significant amount of weight have been shed
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Surving a 20% Drawdown

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 It's been over a year since the stock market humbled me but I still get PTSD thinking about that incident. Once again, let me share my story.

The emergence of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) interrupted life as we know it. Equally, the securities markets were affected. In the beginning of 2020, South Africa was yet to feel the wrath of the virus, but on February 24 the dominoes started to fall in the Johannesburg Security Exchange (JSE).



As a Systematic Trend Follower I have an obligation to adhere to the set parameters, particularly stop levels, and to bend with the market. Majority of my positions started to hit stop losses, I sold ALL my shares in order to either take a loss or lock in whatever small profit I had. In the end I was down -20%, phew.

I stayed in cash position for 2 weeks before I started getting buy signals again. Despite the signals, the risk of ruin table paints a grim picture. In addition to working twice as much to break-even, trading costs also begin to be significant even if you use a cost-effective broker like EasyEquities. Six months later I broke-even, the account was back to where it was before the COVID-market meltdown. There was a glimmer of hope, I knew that I was now ready to get some profits, unless Mother Nature had other plans. I closed the year marginally up by 5%.


Lessons from this experience:

  1. Always stick to the plan. When the stop is hit, get out, don't think twice. As you can see the market recovered weeks later, some of my stocks never recovered. It's difficult to know which stocks will recover and which will struggle.
  2. Risk management is key for survival. Never risk more than 2% equity on a single trade, total portfolio risk should be below 15%. Seven stocks are enough to give you descent returns whilst minimising draw down. Anything greater than 20% portfolio risk will give you sleepless nights.
  3. The ability to end the year with a tiny profit made me realise that I'm now a tried and tested Trader. It reinforced my belief in Systematic Trend Following, the advantage of being a disciplined Trader, and I saw how easy it is to return 30% in a year. 
  4. I don't want to experience this ever again!

What's your worst experience in the market, share in the comments below.


Location: Pretoria, South Africa

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