After your first buy, what happens? — reading P/L, rewards, dividends and month one

Congratulations, your first order is done. A lot of people never even get this far.

But Daus wants to tell you something Daus keeps seeing in the DMs. Out of 16 people who bought their first stock, only 2 carried on to make it a monthly habit. The rest stopped right here. Not because they lost money, but because they didn’t know what to do next. Some opened the app, saw a red number, felt a wave of panic, and never opened it again.

This page exists so that doesn’t happen to you. We’ll read the numbers in the app together, understand why they move, see when each reward lands, and finish with a checklist for your first four weeks.

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Part 1 — Read the Positions tab

Open the Accounts tab. At the top there’s a summary of your whole account, and when you scroll down, you’ll find Positions, the list of every stock and ETF you hold.

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1. aAccount summary
2. bEach of your stocks

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There are five things you need to understand. Once you understand these five, the screen stops being scary.

Market Value is what your holding is worth if you sold it right now. It changes every time the price moves.

Position P/L is the profit or loss on the position you still hold. This is called unrealized profit or loss. It means it’s only a paper gain or loss for now. As long as you haven’t sold, this number can flip direction tomorrow.

Today’s P/L is today’s movement only. This is the number that makes people the most anxious, and it matters the least for a long-term investor.

Price/Cost in the Positions list shows two prices. The top one is the current market price. The bottom one is your average costAverage costThe average price you paid across all the units you hold.See it in the glossary →, meaning the average price you paid for each unit. If you bought three times at different prices, Moomoo averages them all into one number.

Realized profit or loss only exists once you’ve sold. That’s when the gain or loss actually becomes yours, and it doesn’t change anymore after that.

Every other number on the Accounts screen (Total Assets, Net Assets, Total Cash, Withdrawable, Cash BP) is explained in the read your account screen tutorial.

Market Value bigger than Total Assets?

That’s a sign margin is being used. Total Assets is the value of your shares plus your cash. If the value of your shares (Market Value) is bigger than that total, your cash is negative, meaning you bought more than your own money and the rest is a loan.

How to clear that debt and switch margin off, step by step: margin in Moomoo.

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Part 2 — Why the first day is almost always red

A lot of people message Daus in a panic: “I just bought this and it’s already down. Did I buy the wrong thing?”

The answer is almost always no. There are two reasons the number turns red right after you buy, and both are completely normal.

1. The trading fee has already been counted. Every order carries a fee. For US stocks, an order below 1 share (fractional) pays a platform fee of 0.99% of the order (capped at USD0.99), an order of 1 share or more pays USD0.99, and every order pays about USD0.24 in stamp duty. For Bursa there’s a RM3 Platform Fee plus other small charges. That fee gets baked into your cost, so the moment your order fills, you’re already “down” by the amount of the fee, even if the price hasn’t moved at all.

A real example from Daus’s account: a USD25 VOO buy paid a USD0.25 platform fee and USD0.24 stamp duty, USD0.49 in total, about 2% of USD25. So the P/L shows roughly -2% straight away, even though the ETF’s price hasn’t dropped a single cent. This is why Daus always says: buy less often, in bigger amounts, so the fee doesn’t eat into your capital. The full table is in Moomoo fees.

2. The gap between the buy price and the sell price. In any market, there are always two prices: the price buyers are willing to pay (bid) and the price sellers are willing to accept (ask). The gap between the two is called the spreadBid / Ask (and spread)Bid = the price a buyer will pay. Ask = the price a seller wants. The gap between them is the spread.See it in the glossary →. When you buy, you pay the higher ask price. But the value of your holding is calculated off the current market price. That small gap looks like a loss in the first minute.

Both of these are small, and they each happen only once per order. Hold on long enough, and they stop mattering at all.

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Part 3 — Ups and downs are normal. You don’t need to open the app every day.

This is the most important part of this whole page.

The stock market moves up and down every single day. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. That’s not a sign something is broken. That’s the price investors pay for the chance at higher returns than a regular savings account.

Look at two real examples from the S&P 500S&P 500An index of 500 large companies listed in the United States.See it in the glossary → index, the 500 biggest companies in the US:

• In 2020, when COVID first hit, the S&P 500 dropped roughly 34% in a single month. People who panicked and sold locked in their losses. But within about five months, the index had already climbed back to a new high.
• In 2022, when interest rates rose, the S&P 500 fell about 25% and took nearly two years to fully recover. It did recover, but slowly. And through those two years, people who kept buying every month actually got cheaper prices along the way.

These two examples don’t guarantee the market will always bounce back the same way. But they show one thing: a 10% or 20% drop is a normal part of owning stocks, not some rare disaster.

So why don’t you need to open the app every day?

Because checking the number every day doesn’t change anything about a long-term investment, but it does change how you feel. A red day makes you want to sell. A green day makes you want to buy more. Both urges usually strike at exactly the wrong time.

Daus’s suggestion is this: check once a month, on payday. Add capital if you have it, confirm your RSP is running, and close the app. Let time do the rest of the work.

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Part 4 — When each reward lands

If you signed up through Daus’s link and entered the code DAUSDK37 at Special Deposit before your first deposit, your reward arrives in stages. Not everything lands at once, and that’s the most common reason people ask “where’s my reward?”

For a deposit of RM1,000, here’s the order it comes in:

1. Tap Claim first. The reward doesn’t appear on its own. Go to Discover → Me → Promotions, tap the Welcome Rewards card, then the Rewards / Claim Now button, and in the My Reward popup tap Claim. (If your app has a Me tab in the bottom bar, go straight to Me → Promotions.) Do this right after depositing, don’t wait 60 days, because claiming is only open during the current campaign. Check the campaign end date in the app.
2. Two RM25 coupons activate as soon as you claim, and stay valid for 90 days. Each coupon needs one buy order of at least RM200 (in ringgit value). Within 3 trading days of that order filling, RM25 lands as cash. The RM25 doesn’t reduce the order price; it arrives afterwards as cash. One coupon per order, so two coupons need two orders of RM200 or more. If your first buy was under RM200, the coupon hasn’t been used yet, so place one order of RM200 or more within those 90 days.
3. The RM50 coupon (the official new-user reward) and the Apple reward from the DAUSDK37 code only unlock after your net deposit stays at RM1,000 or more for 60 days. For a RM1,000 deposit, the code’s reward shows in My Rewards as “Apple ≈ USD12.79” (its value follows Apple’s share price). After it unlocks, the RM50 coupon lands within 10 trading days. All in, that’s roughly two and a half to three months from the day you deposited.

You can check all of these under Me → My Rewards, along with each one’s status.

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1. Status

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The full table with every deposit tier is on the reward page, under when each reward lands.

How to use the RM25 coupon

After claiming, the two RM25 coupons sit in Me → My Rewards with a Use button. Nothing complicated:

1. Place a buy order for a stock or ETF worth at least RM200 in one order, within 90 days of claiming.
2. Under the official terms, the coupon is applied automatically to an eligible order (the one expiring soonest goes first). One coupon per order, so the second coupon needs a second order of RM200 or more.
3. The order price is not reduced. RM25 lands as cash in your account within 3 trading days after the order completes.

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1. Two RM25 coupons · Use

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Deposited, but the Claim button or coupon doesn’t show

First check your deposit has really gone in. Go to Accounts → Transfers and look at the History → Deposit list at the bottom. If the deposit is still Pending, the reward can’t be claimed yet. The usual causes are two: the account isn’t approved yet (approval usually takes 1 to 3 working days), or the bank account holder’s name doesn’t match your Moomoo name letter for letter.

If the deposit went through, remember that Claim is manual. No Claim button pops up on its own on the main screen; you have to go to Discover → Me → Promotions → Welcome Rewards and tap Claim as in step 1 above.

Still nothing even though a deposit of RM1,000 or more went in within 30 days of registering? Contact Moomoo customer service and include your deposit date.

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1. 1Transfers
2. 2History → Deposit
3. Your deposit records

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“60-day hold” means don’t withdraw, not don’t touch it

A lot of people get this wrong. The 60-day hold does not mean your money is locked up and unusable.

During those 60 days, you’re free to buy stocks, buy ETFs, sell, and buy again inside Moomoo. What you can’t do is withdraw money to your bank in a way that drops your net deposit below RM1,000. If that happens, the RM50 coupon and the Apple share won’t unlock.

One more thing Daus needs to say upfront: if your investments fall more than 20% during that period, the fund-lock condition can fail too. If that happens, contact Moomoo customer service to check.

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Part 5 — Dividends: when they land, and why they get cut

A dividendDividendA portion of company profit paid out to shareholders.See it in the glossary → is a share of a company’s profit paid out to shareholders. Many ETFs pay dividends too, since an ETF holds shares of companies that pay dividends.

When does it land? Every company and ETF has its own schedule. Some pay quarterly (four times a year), some once or twice a year. You qualify for a dividend if you already held the stock before the ex-dividend date. Buy on or after that date, and you miss that round’s dividend. This date is on the stock’s page in Moomoo, under the dividend section.

When the payment date arrives, the money lands as cash in your Moomoo account, in that stock’s own currency. Dividends from US stocks arrive in USD, and Bursa dividends arrive in ringgit. It doesn’t go straight into your bank account.

Why are US stock and ETF dividends cut by 30%? Because the US government charges a withholding tax of 30% on dividends paid to foreign investors, including Malaysians. This cut is taken in the US before the money reaches you. So if your ETF announces a USD1.00 dividend, what actually lands in your account is roughly USD0.70.

This isn’t a Moomoo charge, and you don’t need to fill in any form for that cut. Every broker that gives Malaysians access to US stocks applies the same cut.

Bursa dividends, on the other hand, mostly aren’t cut at source, since Malaysian companies have already paid tax on their profit before distributing dividends. Since year of assessment 2025, though, individuals who receive more than RM100,000 in dividends a year pay a 2% dividend tax. Bursa REITs have different tax treatment.

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Held Bursa shares for years (bought on a guru’s tip)? Re-assess with four questions

Lots of people DM Daus about Bursa shares they bought years ago on the advice of a guru, a group or a friend, and now don’t know whether to keep or let go. Daus can’t tell you which share to sell, but these four questions help you decide for yourself:

1. Why did I buy it? Write the original reason in one sentence. If the answer is “because the guru said so”, you’ve never really assessed it.
2. Is the business still good? Look at profits over the last few years, debt, and dividends on the stock’s page. How to read each number is in fundamental analysis in Moomoo.
3. If I didn’t own it, would I buy it today at this price? Forget the price you paid. An old buy price doesn’t change what the company is worth now.
4. How big is it in my portfolio? If one stock takes up a large part of your money, reducing that risk matters more than waiting for the price to return to where you bought.

If your answers show the original reason no longer holds, read three valid reasons to sell. And if that guru sells packages, signals or “coaching”, check investor scams & safety first. This isn’t financial advice; whether to keep or sell is still your call.

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Part 6 — Next step: make it automatic

Your first buy is just the start. What actually makes a difference over 5 or 10 years is your second, third, and every purchase after that, every month, without fail.

The easiest way to make sure it happens is an RSP (Regular Savings Plan). You set what to buy, how much, and when. Then Moomoo buys it for you on schedule, whether you’re busy or you simply forget.

As an example of what Daus personally does, not a recommendation: Daus runs five weekly USD25 RSPs in Moomoo, and each one buys on its own without Daus ever opening the app. Daus knows each USD25 buy costs about 2% in fees, so if you want to save on fees, a bigger monthly buy is more efficient than weekly ones. Pick the frequency you’re comfortable with.

The full tutorial with a screenshot for every screen: Set up an RSP in Moomoo.

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Checklist for your first month

Tick one week at a time. Your ticks are saved in this browser, so you can come back next week and pick up where you left off.

The first four weeks after your first buy

0/8 done

• Week 1: Open the Positions tab and find your Market Value, Position P/L and average cost. Explain it to yourself in one sentence: "I'm up/down because ___".
• Week 1: Tap Claim under Discover → Me → Promotions → Welcome Rewards (if you used Daus's code), as soon as possible after depositing, before the current campaign ends (check the date in the app).
• Week 2: Check Me → My Rewards. Confirm the RM25 coupon has landed as cash, 3 trading days after your RM200 order filled. First buy under RM200? Place one order of RM200 or more within the coupon's 90 days.
• Week 2: Open your stock or ETF's page, and find the next dividend date.
• Week 3: Work out how much you can afford to invest each month, for 24 months, without feeling squeezed.
• Week 3: Set up your first RSP with that amount.
• Week 4: Set a phone reminder to check your account once a month, on payday.
• Week 4: Don't withdraw. If you used the code, work out the date 60 days out and write it in your calendar.

Clear allYour ticks are saved in this browser only.

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Summary

1. Position P/L is unrealized profit or loss. It changes as long as you haven’t sold.
2. The first day is red because of fees and spread. That’s normal.
3. A 10% to 20% drop is a normal part of owning stocks. Check once a month, not every day.
4. Rewards arrive in stages: tap Claim first, during the current campaign, an RM25 coupon after one buy order of RM200 or more, the rest after 60 days.
5. A 60-day hold means don’t withdraw. Buying and selling inside the account is still fine.
6. US dividends are cut by 30% in the US. That’s tax, not a broker fee.
7. Next step: set up an RSP.

This is a guide to using the app, not financial advice. Stocks and ETFs can fall in value, and past performance doesn’t guarantee future results. Make your own call based on your own circumstances.