My First Financial Read

I finished this book within 2 days! 

Mainly because it's a very short book; not because I suddenly gain the ability of speed-reading.

But what makes this book special, is because I believed this is my first book on financial knowledge.

Previously, most of my financial knowledge and wisdom (however limited it is), is learned from the web from various sources.

To introduce the book first... 

by Goh Eng Yeow

This short book gives rather broad but sound advice on financial investment into the market that you can make, e.g. buying ETFs such as the STI ETF. It cites quite a bit of knowledge from the famous Warren Buffett, and describes the potential pitfalls in the market, as well as when you should 'make your own'.

Note to self: Not sure whether it's in the book, but take note for SPDR STI ETF (ES3) and Nikko AM STI ETF (G3B).

Some pointers to take note of from the book that I like to archive in this post:

• Time and Health is more important than Wealth
• Buy experiences, instead of materials
• Lucky people try hard to add variety to their lives; to create more "chance opportunities" for themselves to get lucky
• Financial Independence is working a financial plan, keeping to it, and sufficiently covering oneself medically
• Buy and hold stocks that one believe will last, instead of stocks that will have a temporary boost
• Observe the daily happenings to understand what industry/sectors are thriving, and will continue to thrive in future
• Low-beta stocks (stocks less sensitive to market movements) are good for long-term investment
• Look for under-valued stocks when the market is not good 
• Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful
• Fund flows are indicative of market trends
• Cash is king in uncertain times; the opportunity to snap up assets on the cheap when others do not have the mean to do so
• Avoid overtrading, following the crowd, momentum investing, noise trading, and selling the winners and keeping the losers
• One strategy is to top-slice successful investment - sell enough shares to take back capital and some profit, but still have some shares left to make potential further gains

That's it.

I think I need to buy a new book. 

Another book for the year~!

When one puts in effort and stay committed to a certain task, there is really a lot that one can achieve.
I may not be doing so well in the learning aspect of my life in building up app development skills, but I have been consistently reading up on nonfictional books.

Here's the latest one that I have finished!

by Tim Harford

As per the title suggests, it lets the reader understands about how the principles of economics play out in the things around us. It allows me to appreciate more on the effects that one party has on the entire system which are inter-connected, within and between industries and countries. The world is a complex one, but the theories of economics can help us to understand this complexity a bit better to foretell the consequences or benefits of certain course of actions.

It emphasizes greatly that the world works best in a free trade market as it allows humans to freely communicate and convey information which will work out in a win-win situation. Yet, there are certain restrictions that have to be in place that prohibit a completely free trade situation.

The book also helps me to understand a bit on why Mao's idealistic country didn't come through, and how Deng managed to push China's economy (and probably save millions of people from starving) into greater heights. I'm sure Dearest would appreciate that I have some knowledge of China's history, because she's so passionate about them. haha...

Financial Goals~!

As the date of the July bonus draws nearer, I began to think more about what to do with the extra money that I have. I have almost maxed up my savings account to earn the bonus interest, so I'm thinking of using the excess for investment in stocks. 

And just today, Dearest came to me to ask me to set ...

Yes! Financial goal!

I believe everyone needs to have financial goals for long-term planning.

And to set goals, we need to set some rules also.

As advocated by my company, and also Dearest, we need to set....

SMART goals!

Goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

So here's what I aimed to do.

To attain a portfolio of $5,000 worth of stocks that provide dividends 

by the end of year 2016

Specific - It's a rather detailed aim

Measurable - $5,000 can be measured

Attainable - $,5000 is within my ability for investment

Relevant - Aligned with my ultimate financial goal of attaining financial freedom (i.e. retirement)

Time-bound - By the end of 2016

So that's it, I will aim towards this!

On the other hand, Dearest also committed to an aim of starting her first investment by the end of year.

Although not as specific as mine, but she plans to explore other alternatives with a financial advisor, and then perhaps plan from there on.

Jiayou us~!

an interesting place to meditate

I have been trying to do meditation on a daily basis (around 10 min) for the past few weeks. Sometimes I feel too tired to do so, or too sick to even maintain a calm state (have been sick for 3 times for the past 2 months).

Today after my morning exercise at the stadium, I was resting on the concrete steps when I suddenly thought it was a good idea to just sit there and enjoy the breeze while doing meditation. And so I did.

It was quite an enjoyable experience for me. The calmness after my exercise, the chirping of the birds, the random sound of people running and walking.. there weren't a lot of people at that time, so there was just sounds instead of chatter that might distract me. The occasional breeze was gentle and cooling. It felt really good! After 10 minutes of sitting there focusing on my breaths and the sound, I felt completely refreshed from the experience! This could turn into a habit. haha..

I'm not entirely sure meditation brings about a general positiveness to my life yet, but at least it gives me a sense of calmness for that 10 minutes that I'm alone in my world of thoughts.

Finally, a brokerage account!

A few days back, my brokerage account finally got through! So now, officially, I can trade. Hee.

I'm no expert, but on the surface, it seems that because of the recent Brexit, the market is quite volatile. Might not be a good time to get into it at the moment. oh well, let me observe further and think through carefully how to go about doing this.

I guess in general, the route to being able to trade can be summarized into 2 main steps:

1) Get a CDP account

Download the form.
Prepare whatever documents are needed.
Send in through snail mail; email doesn't seem like an option.
Wait for confirmation of account.

2) Get a brokerage account

Choose which brokerage firm you want to open up the account with.
Go to the bank and tell the person you want to open up a brokerage/trading account.
Wait for confirmation of account.

It's that simple, though I took some time to decide which brokerage firm to open up the account with.

Might be able to open up accounts with different firms, not that sure. Anyway I got rejected by Standard Chartered Bank because on the form, it requires me to have knowledge on trading or financial background in order to open up an account with them. I have read on forum that you can just fake your way through and they won't be care, but I'm more inclined to say the truth and seek alternatives, even though the fees for SC is lower.

I have signed up with OCBC. So now on a daily basis, I get emails from my broker on market research. I have saved the emails that talked about ETF and dividends, because this is what I'm looking for in the long term. Will look into it in the near future!

Staying at home today because my throat is infected again.
This is the 3rd time in a short span of 2 months.
I'm beginning to think that the free flu vaccination jab is giving me more problems.
It might make me immune to flu, but it definitely doesn't make my throat infection less probable.

My attempt at another experience - Urban Attack 4!

Over the last weekend, I did another thing that I have never tried before in my life - attempting an urban attack obstacles course!

I signed up for it shortly after I have completed my Spartan Super (did it on 7 May 2016), which by the way, I have been trying to squeeze time to produce a video footage for the race. It will probably take some time (actually, it will take a long time because I'm rather busy during this period, with the project deliverable coming and stuff).

The night before I was quite excited about this event. perhaps a bit too excited, until I found it difficult to fall asleep. haha.. I was kinda worried about overcoming the obstacles, especially the monkey bars, but also looking forward to conquering them. I'm not that old, but I kinda feel like a young boy again, taking on these new experiences.

Dearest specially woke up early in the morning to accompany me to the event at Velocity@Novena to support me, to be my cheerleader, and to massage my sore muscles while we were waiting waiting for my 2nd run =)

Here's the 1st run!

I had some troubles getting over the curved wall; scrapped both my knees and elbows as I slided down the wall from the 1st attempt. Then I nearly failed at the monkey bars, twice! the shaking of the structure kinda makes me misjudge the position of the next bar. But luckily, I managed to not fall and still continue on! I was completely exhausted after completing the run, but it felt great! 2:02 min. not bad, not bad at all.

Took my time to rest and recuperate, with Dearest massaging my back as we waited for 2nd run.

The 2nd run was much more smoother, as I did a few changes to my run; giving myself more distance to get speed up the curved wall, reaching further to compensate for the misjudge of the shaking of the structure when I did the monkey bars. Managed to clear it faster! 1:45 min. Woo~

Though not enough to enter the finals, I'm more than satisfied to have completed the challenge, twice, and improving my timing on the 2nd run. $20 well spent~

Ever since I started on Spartan Race (Sprint) 2015, I seemed to have been hooked on getting myself challenged on these kind of events. Because I have already signed for the next one... which is...

YES!

I have signed up for Spartan Beast!
It will happen on 19 Nov, in Bintan.
I took a while to consider this, but finally I thought, wthell~
Dearest gave me her support for this also >_<

Looking forward to this race.
Aroo.

3rd book of the year

It took me a while to finish this book.
I probably bought this many years ago (maybe a decade?), but only managed to get into the habit of reading this consistently over the past 3 months after my second book.

The book teaches me to think more critically on the use of statistical methods on areas where single 'Black Swan' event could overshadow the long history of past events in terms of its impact. Like the financial crisis back in 2008 that the book kept bringing up.
I felt it was quite critical on the statistics that are being used now, and I felt it more because I'm a practitioner of this tool that he felt was bullshit (not in all areas, just those areas with the swans).

Most of the time I found it hard to understand and remember some of the terms that he used. Sometimes it gets rather technical. But overall, it was an okay read to ponder over the negative effects of the black swan and how to protect, or be robust against it, and also think about how to optimize with positive black swan.

Haven't been blogging much nowadays.
Kinda lost the momentum from the early stage of the year due to work.
And also, have been giving less (actually zero) focus on developing my Java skills.
The self-learning process is rather tedious and felt somewhat like wandering around in a haystack sometimes.
I am planning to get started on a Udemy course on Mobile App development to get my engine started again, and specifically in the area that I wanted. The purpose of learning Java was to help in my learning in app development, but since this course also teaches beginner in Java, I suppose it would be more ideal to dive right into this course than to continue on my self-learning, and unguided (except by the textbook) journey.

Wondering what's the next book to read on the train... hmm...

Best line from the book:

"Missing the train is only painful if you run after it."