As luck would have it, for Ms Lim Pei Yi, 23, her first trade was her worst.

This came after she opened her trading account in May last year. She is still in the red for that trade, so she is still holding on to the shares.

'I bought two lots of SPH stock just before the onset of the economic crisis. It was my first stock and I was looking for long-term capital appreciation. With hindsight, I should have researched more instead of jumping into the market due to impatience.'

The stocks were bought at $3.98 apiece a few weeks before the collapse of American investment bank Lehman Brothers last September.

However, Ms Lim has cause for optimism. The counter has been on an uptrend in the past week. On Friday, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) shares closed at $3.25.

Her best investment so far was in CapitaLand.

'I bought two lots in December last year and sold them in April. I also subscribed to 1-1/2 lots through the rights issue. I made a 12 per cent return on my capital sum of $9,000,' she said.

So far, Ms Lim has about $10,000 invested in stocks such as SPH and SingTel. The money came from her savings from hongbao, vacation jobs and giving tuition.

She believes in exiting a counter once it is able to hit a target profit of 12 per cent.

'If it reaches that target profit, I will sell. But if it drops I will adopt a long-term approach and hold it. I anticipate that I won't be needing the money any time soon,' she said. She also has some savings in fixed deposits and savings.

Ms Lim graduated from the National University of Singapore with a degree in chemical engineering recently. Last month, she started working as a research officer in a government research agency. Now that she has a monthly income, she plans to save and buy more shares when the opportunity arises.

Meanwhile, she makes an effort to update her financial knowledge by reading The Straits Times' Money section daily, watching finance TV programmes and reading financial management books like Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

An only child, she lives in a three-room HDB flat in Waterloo Street with her father, who is a delivery man. Her mother died 11 years ago.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.