Of Discipline and investment advisory

In a recent training for Financial Advisors, 8 out of 10 participants admit that they only meet up with client once a year.The rationale given is that they definitely will meet up adhoc when market is down, which discharges their duty better than meeting regularly. In fact I would say most clients agree with this: …

Fintech Investment Review 2.0 update

Another year into the Covid crisis, I thought that it will be interesting to track how the new Fintech investments are performing. For this 2nd review, there are 2 notable changes: First is that I've top up some investment amount to Cryptocurrency and started a new Robo-invest Mytheo. Summary of the annualised investment changes is …

Trading vs Investing

As I talked to people, I realise there is tons of confusion out there between trading and investing. When I ask people what they invest in, sometimes the answer come back as 'something that generates double or triple digit returns'. Sometimes the answer comes back as 'something that I HEARD is good'. Investing is something …

The 3 Pitfalls to achieving Financial Freedom

The goal of Financial Freedom is to break free of the dependence on and compulsions of money.In my advisory practice, I’ve seen those that managed to do so, and those that are unable to do so.So where are the pitfalls? 1 Materialistic accumulations Life is an ever increasing need to experience higher and higher sense …

Understanding how Investment Marketing appeals to our mind

And the correct questions to ask Recently I received a forwarded message about an investment product: First thing to note is that this is a Fintech Product. And looking through the website, it is a crytocurrency trading algo. There are a great many investments free from speculation risk, e.g. FD, bonds... Fintech and Crypto are …

Investment Review 30th Sept 2020

I last posted my Annual Investment Review in January 2017, looking back on 2016. https://aikyong.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/investment-review-2016-revised/ Since then I've stopped investing in single stocks and continued on a diversified plan. I thought I'll look back on my investment performance since it's been awhile. Before I dive into the investments, note that I have dabbled in new …

Why diversify when xxxx is returning x%?

One question I get asked a lot is why I recommend a diversified investment when I know that xxxx is doing so well at the moment. There are many double digit and sometimes triple digit returns, e.g. China stocks, tech stocks, etc. why are we spreading our eggs into many baskets? Sometimes even Warren Buffet …

Fintech Investment Review

Cryptocurrency Commentary: First thing to notice is that Cryptocurrency is faraway the highest return at 61% annualised return compare to 14%/10%/2% for others. This hasn't always been the case as at one point it made a loss. The idea of cryptocurrency is that it is created to counter inflation from government issued currencies. To this …

How low can Interest Rate go?

So Bank Negara did another round of Interest Rate cut, reducing OPR from 2.5% to 2.0%. Soon FDs in bank will start paying lower interest, Money Market Funds will definitely follow suit. But how low can Interest Rate go? Why is it going lower? To answer this question, it may be instructive to review what …

Markets misconception: Markets always corrects to normal

“Wall of Ignorance or Bridge of Understanding,We can’t choose what others build for themselves,But we can choose what we spend our time on. “ There have been a few misconceptions about the financial markets which has been bothering us. Things we tend to pick up because it is our favorite subject. The answers are always …