Invest Fair 08

Since my last post, I have been busy with my assignment and project in school doing research and meeting deadlines. Now that I have completed the more pressing projects, I managed to get a few days off to rest my body.

 

Invest Fair is an annual event that I religiously attend due to the exposure to different kinds of investment instruments and the insights I can gain from the free informative seminars.

 

My agenda for when attending this Invest Fair’08 is to get exposure and greater understanding of warrants, technical analysis, the outlook of the next half of the year and alternate investments like premium liquids. I also want to activate an account to do trading in the US and Hong Kong market; and get some freebies too (yes, I am a Singaporean)

 

Knowing from my past experience that the place will be packed with many interesting booth and it will be challenging to enter a seminar at the last minute, I went to Invest Fair’08 website to procure the seminar schedule and promptly filter them down to those I am interested in. based on my objectives, I chose to visit CapitaLand to learn more about Singapore reits, CIMB-GK Securities to learn about 2H08 macro outlook, 2008 Market Focus to listen to the interesting views by the panels, E*Trading Financial for access to the US financial markets, Online Trading Academy for fundamental technical indicator analysis and T3B Holdings to learn about basic forex.

 

As anticipated, I arrived at the fair at around 1030am and started browsing different booths to check out for my objectives, freebies, offers and immersed myself in that atmosphere. The different seminars provided me with extensive insights about the direction of the market and leads to do my own due diligence. I managed to activate and open accounts to do trading in the US and Hong Kong financial markets and introduced me to more investing instruments. Land banking and premium liquid were nothing new, however there seem to be a large increase of warrant players in the market like Rabobank, Societe Generale, Philips and more…

 

It was a pretty fruitful day as I had learnt lots of new things. I will be going through all the brochures when I reach home tonight and be anticipating the financial reports which I placed order today.

Picking up momentum

 I took a few days break after tying the loose ends in the SOE. My aunt offered me a position at her company, this was just as well as I needed some cash to fund advertising fees when I am marketing properties for my clients; if I become an a formal property agent. I chose to work at her company as it was a good opportunity to learn how SMEs functions and the salary was above market rate.

 

Her company deals with distributing drugs and poisons to local clinics, polyclinics and hospitals. My job would be to process the daily orders, consolidate daily sales and pack the goods. The role of the data entry clerk was quite simple after I am familiar with the job description and the functions of my colleagues.

 

Besides my eight-to-five day job, I also took night classes concurrently; so as to become a real estate agent. I joined ERA and took the ESST and Diploma in Real Estate, as a result; my average day will end at 11pm. This period was very physically and mentally demanding but I had learnt a lot about pharmaceutical business and the property market during this one month.

 

Despite the hectic schedule, I found it very fulfilling as everything had gone according to plan; my next goal is to juggle my real estate commitments with my studies when school reopens and make 20k worth of commission monthly so as to be in line with my goal to become the best rookie and subsequently, the youngest millionaire in Singapore at 25.

 

 

P.S. I happen to have 3 quotes which inspired me greatly during this period, they are:

 

-See what others do not see, do what others do not do, sacrifice will no longer be a sacrifice

 

-The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary- May Smith

 

-Tough times do not last, only tough ppl do

 

Spirit Of Enterprise

After my exams were officially over, the next task that awaited me was the Spirit of Enterprise. The spirit of enterprise is meant to allow the republic to show appreciation for the various entrepreneurs whose role had contributed to the Singapore success story.

 

As a student interviewer, my role was to locate and interview theses entrepreneurs from various industries. Naturally, my initial choices came from previous pleasant encounters. I had thus chosen to nominate Ice3 café which sells tasty dessert (with accolades to it), Cambridge institute where I had picked up the Japanese language, Jill Lowe international who specialize in image creation and a couple more; but only Mr. Edwin Chan and Mr. Philip Wong graciously agree to participate in this process.

 

The entire interview process was very enjoyable as I got to interview with 2 successful entrepreneurs and listen to their struggles, personal philosophy, and their vision for the future.

 

The thing that I found in common with these individuals and previously interviewed entrepreneurs was that they were once at the brink of failure or had failed before, but they didn’t just stop there. What they had chose to do was to pick themselves up, learn from there mistakes and persevere instead. They usually had a difficult childhood or had experienced a significant event in their life which brought them out of their comfort zone; as a result, they also take failure or risk very positively.

 

Although I was remunerated financially for my service, I had gained an alternate form of intangible remuneration. I managed to see beyond the illusion most people aspire; having a stable job with a fixed pay. This is in fact so insecure due to influx of cheaper foreign talents, inflation and volatility of business cyclics. This had reinforced me on the path I want to take, to strike it big in the property market as a real estate agent and eventually develop my career in the financial industry so as to enjoy my financial freedom with my close ones.

Spirit Of Enterprise

 

 

“You’re Fired!”

I am finally back after one and a half month; many things happen during this period. Firstly, I managed to clear this semester exams although my grades were not exactly fantastic. Next would be my involvement in Spirit of Enterprise project in which I would have to interview entrepreneurs about their success stories. Last but not least, I commenced my real estate courses and formally enter the property market. I would elaborate about these interesting events later.

The few interesting things that happened to me, between my 8^th April post and last paper on 9^th May.

 

Part 3: The Apprentice

 

Meanwhile, I am addicted on the Apprentice; namely the first, fifth, sixth and seventh seasons.

 

What I really like about the Apprentice are the different colorful characters, clash in personalities between projects and the board with Mr Trump and Ivanka in it.

 

Season one apprentice Bill Ranric has very good business acumen, quick mental reflexes and often thinks out of the box. These qualities were expressed when forming a formidable team for the final showdown against Kwame, locating the lost advertisement when all hope seems lost and putting advertisements on the rickshaws for additional revenue. However, I would have to give credit to Omarossa as she left a deeper impression on me due to her devious nature and caustic personality.

 

Season five apprentice Sean is a ladies man and someone who had excellent EQ in additional to his great sense of fashion. However, Lee really impressed me because he had customized and employed marketing strategies which flustered their opponents and lead his team to victory in several episodes. He seemed like a master strategist and is the underdog, taking into account his young age.

 

Season six apprentice is really someone I would love to take EQ lessons from. Stefanie managed to win this game without being project manager or being invited to the board room. She is also capable of making very good presentation which I believed brought her team to victory more than once.

 

Celebrity Apprentice is extremely entertaining compared to its’ predecessors. From the Piers-Omarossa feud to the Piers-Steven vendetta, its entertainment value is immense; not to mention 13 full board room session of Ivanka.

 

After writing this blog a month after watching this show, I have the irresistible urge to go through it once again- that is if I can make the time. There are many thing that I had learnt from the various apprentices in this show like handling interpersonal conflicts, utilizing team mates forte, thinking creatively and perhaps use them in similar situations. The corporate world is indeed full of surprises and i cannot wait to make my mark there. 

 

 

The Woodstock of Capitalist: Berkshire Hathaway AGM

The few interesting things that happened to me, between my 8^th April post and last paper on 9^th May.

 

Part 3, and also the last :

For the uninformed, the Woodstock festival exemplified the counterculture of the late 1960s – early 1970s and the “hippie era.” Many famous musicians of the day appeared during the period. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest moments in popular music history according to wikipedia and my dad.

So, for an event to be considered to be the Woodstock of capitalism, it has got to be pretty defining right?

 

I am very interested in Warren Buffett, and have been reading up on his books about his investing philosphy  (keenly anticipating his bio on the 29^th September). I am very inspired about how he improvised Benjamin Graham and came up with his success investing style, his thoughts on being frugal(relatively) and his laconic humor( go read his annual reports). So I had to know whats going on in Omaha that weekend and it was especially helpful that I suscribed to The Motley Fool.  

 

The event was from 3^rd to 5^th May at the qwest center in Nebraska. Hotel rooms and flights were packed by the sheer volume of Berkshire( or Buffettologists). There was a  Q&A session between shareholder and Buffett and Munger that day and question raised were related to their Bershire Hathaway subsidiaries. Some touched on environmental issues, others on the current recession and Buffett’s investment decision, and the replies were pretty funny most of the times. The entertaining videos on CNBC is pretty cool and helped supplement the experience of the event. I will want to own Bershire Hathaway shares sometime in the future, beginning with the b-shares for the AGM tickets and it’s fantastic compounding value.  

 

Something I thought was very interesting was that the many millionaire in town were borned by owning Berkshire Hathaway shares in the early days, he has helped these people attain financial freedon and will be donating a large sum of his fortune to charity posthumously. What a great guy!

 

                                                          

 

 

 

Library these days ain’t what it’s used to be

The few interesting things that happened to me, between my 8^th April post and last paper on 9^th May.

 

Part 2: AMK library

 

  For the period I am studying for my exams, I have been going to Ang Mo Kio library on a regular basis. The reason I chose to meet up there with my study group was because it is at a central location and is “supposed” to be conducive; but I got more than what I had bargained for.

 

I have nothing against AMK library, in fact, I used to go there occasionally to borrow books until I somehow managed to incur a 13 dollars fine; which I am pretty sure was due to the books that I returned didn’t get scanned properly when it was deposited in the return bin. It is a very good studying location in the morning but the nightmare begins sometime during 1 pm.

 

Around 1 pm would be the time taken by schooling kids between 11-17 of age to take their lunch and congregate at the library. They would sit between shelves and get together at various corners and start chattering loudly. Some individuals might be more adventurous, they would take out their hand held game to play, play with items like a LIGHTER or carry on where they has left off from their last date.

 

Initially, I thought I was the only one who was aware of the cacophony of chattering but I guess I was not that unique after all. When I looked I around, I could see faces of some people frowning when they are reading, occasionally giving the kids disapproving looks. But there was this one time when a group of giggling and squealing Chinese secondary school girls got it from an Indian lady. She went “Can you shut up or not!!!!” I wasn’t exaggerating with the 4 exclamation marks. For a brief moment, silence reigned supreme in the Indian section, and I am quite sure all the other readers were heaping praises on her telepathically.    

 

Later, I was discussing with Deepak about behavior of kids these days (outside the library), what I distinctly remembered was that there was this fear of authority during our time; you don’t really find people unabashedly chatting in library.

Has times really changed? Such behavior wasn’t just limited to kids or teenagers, there were parents playing hide and seek with their child between the shelves and even reprimanding the child openly (and loudly). I am quite shocked at this degradation of basic manners because I though it was a basic levels of human decency and politeness to be considerate.

 

What I though was like changing the layout of the library so that there is a separate level for teenager and adults, another solution could be studying room with partition to singular study desks to discourage talking or even additional discussion room to segregate those kids from those who require silence. I was wondering about the measures that were taken by the NLB to curb such occurrences, however, one thing I am sure is that the regular announcements over the intercom doesn’t work.

 

 

Another 1st: Annual Report & Dividends

The few interesting things that happened to me, between my 8^th April post and last paper on 9^th May.

Part 1: 11^th April

Today, I found a pleasant surprise lying in my mailbox; it is the 2007 Annual Report for Banyan Tree Holdings. For the uninformed, I have bought Banyan Tree shares at a distressed price (and yes, I am a value investor), my current paper gain is in excess of 15%.

Banyan Tree has hotel and property operations, they also manage spa, gallery and designing operations. Their existing operations are mainly in Southeast Asia and Australia, with future developments in America, the Middle East and PRC.

I will be receiving my first dividends sometime in June; it is a small sum, further reduced by POEMS dividends charges (dammit!). Banyan tree has done a good job in maximizing shareholder value so far, pity that markets sentiments on rising oil prices has beaten down this counter.

What I thought was impressive was that they had a societal marketing concept, their 2 initiatives are the green imperative fund which provides financial support for environmental initiatives and environmental protection AND the natural resources conservation initiative with the aim of reducing water and electricity consumption by 10% for the next 3 years. They are also challenging themselves to plant 2000 new trees annually, drive greater awareness of climate changes and concurrently reducing their carbon emissions. I don’t know about you, but I would be a pretty satisfied customer if I am unwinding in a Banyan Tree or Angsana resort, knowing that a portion of the consumer dollars goes back into protecting the environment.

That reminds me of my plans to go turtle riding in RedangJ, I heard from many of my friends that excessive tourism is hurting the coral reefs there and nothing will be left in time to come.

You can click here for their corporate video, enjoy!

                                                              

                                                 

                                           

Challenging times ahead

My exams are finally over; the entire last month schedule consists of mugging at AMK library with my study group, Deepak, Kyaw and company. One thing I noticed is that a long study break has its cons too as I got burnt out at the last week; but I am not complaining as they time was well-spent.

 

But now it is time to get to serious business. I will have approximately 2 whole months to myself and I have to optimize it. My agenda for this break is pretty simple: complete my Spirit of Enterprise project before the 15 June deadline, earn some bucks by working at my aunt’s company during the day and go for my real estate ESST training in the evening during the month of June.

 

Beyond all this tasks, I would like to start reading again; learning makes me feel all good and smart. I realized that I had to give up several of my activities like attending my church group, drawing, reading and sports during the course of my study break; that is a rather startling (and bad)discovery: I just cannot manage my time well! And that’s going to come back and bite my ass when I am juggling real estate, club activities and my studies next semester.

 

One reason is that I feel contributed to my bad time management is that I try to study with every moment I have, I am under the impression that all other activities will deprive me of my studying time so I just cut themL.

 

 I guess I have to study more consistently next semester to prevent this feeling of insecurity (hey, this sounds awfully familiar!); this will help given my real estate and club commitments. I don’t want to face this issue when I am working in future and become a dull, fat uncle (sorry, no offense to all dull, fat uncles out there!)

 

This brings me to the issue on why I didn’t manage to allocate my schedule this semester better. The reason would have to be my enormous commitments as a project group leader. I realized I am a perfectionist (partially due to my above mentioned insecurity as well) and expects a lot out of my team mates as well, and that led to couple of conflicts with some individuals along the way; thankfully nothing personal. That clearly points out that my intra personal skill needs some polishing, so it’s back to basics: time to read Richard Templar’s The Rules of Work

 

 

Adam Khoo: Singapore youngest millionaire

I had a pretty tough time juggling my marketing principles group project, tests and my personal time and it took quite a toll on me. I made too much sacrifices and it made my life topsy turvy. But the good thing was that every thing good or bad will come to an end eventually (it was the latter).

 

 Luckily I was invited to join Adam Khoo in one of his seminar on wealth creation in the evening and that certainly brightened my day. Adam Khoo is Singapore’s youngest millionaire at 26; he is a multi-millionaire with several businesses in education, training, event management and advertising, all with a combined annual turnover of $20 million.

 

I managed to book an additional seat for Daniel, my class mate who is passionate about the financial market and wealth generation. We met up at Amara Hotel; he just knocked off looked pretty tired but still came for the talk to learn new ideas; that’s what I call commitment to personal interests. We registered for the seminar and took our places among the crowd. One thing I noted was that a mildly handicapped guy was hired in his company; I thought that was a very good move as this provides them with an opportunity to contribute to the society.

 

The talk was exceptional, touching on personal mastery, money management and income generation. He shared about his personal experiences and how to adopt the millionaire mindset which empowers their beliefs, enables them to identify potential business opportunities and cultivating powerful mental habits like goal setting (you will be surprised). Money management way about delayed gratification, micromanaging your wealth and expenses down to your last cents( and I thought I was detailed). Last one was my personal favorite: to generate multiple passive income streams through IP, the various tool available in the financial markets and our natural talents.

 

I have read his book, Secrets of Millionaire Investors before, he made it so simple that a layman can grasp the theories, which is a very good thing. But the talk is a different game altogether. I would go for it if I could afford, but it was a whopping 3k. Looks like I will have to learn it my own way thenJ it was very insightful on the whole it helped me to snap out of the mental state I was in.

Booklist

Few gems i had came across through this course: 

 

7 habits of highly successful person - Stephen Covey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People

 

Psycho-Cybernetics – Maxwell Maltz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Cybernetics

 

How to win friends & influence people – Dale Carnegie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People