Posts filed under 'Personal'
People at Raffles Place are just crazy about all these red balls of various sizes being displayed on the turf above Raffles Place MRT station in Singapore. The time for the display is at random and the balls are for the public to take and bring home. No wonder you see many workers, cleaners, staffs, bosses etc come ready to grab the balls. Some come equipped with the big black trash bags! According to my source, there will be a display of these red balls at around 11am on top of Raffles Place MRT station today.
For your information, the display of these red balls is part of the advertisement programme by OCBC Bank, one of the three major local banks in Singapore. It basically tries to arouse people curiosity about all these red balls and of course get attracted by them. For those who wish to grab one or two red balls, you may wish to wait on top of the Raffles Place MRT station today at around 11am. Watch out for latest info: next week venue will not be at Raffles Place where it has been the venue for the past one week. Hint: you may wish to wait at the twin-blade towers along beach road (you should know which building I am referring to!) on 8 Oct.
Seeing red sometimes gives one a very nice feeling, a feeling of festive mood, at least this is so for me. Cheers!
Master “The Essence of Stock Investment” and ride towards the journey of your financial freedom to be the “Master of Your Own Destiny”!
Disclaimer: Investors are investing at your own risk. Please read full disclaimer at the end of the blog or from the main page of the website.
October 5th, 2007
NW Teong
1) There is boom-bust cycle in economy, in business and in each sector of the economy. The current market turmoil in US is a classic example in the real estate and hence the debt market.
2) Do not assume that the authorities will do nothing and hence let the system unravel by itself. If we look back into the history, we would know that the authorities would not hesitate to act in the event of a crisis. Some examples, US Fed took action to ease its policy during the following events: 1997 Asian Financial crisis, 1998 Russian debt default and collapse of LTCM, Y2K date change etc.
3) A financial crisis may force an economy into a deflationary trap and no government in the world would want its economy to reach that stage. If you have witnessed what Japan economy has gone through in the 90s, you would understand this. It took 13 long years for Japan to come out from that deflationary trap. Obviously, we have also noted when the deflationary force has gathered momentum, even an extremely low interest rate environment (even negative interest rates0 could not help to ease the situation. Yes, deflation is an ‘economic monster’ that everyone would love to avoid! Avoid for all you can, that does not mean we would not fall into one.
4) A slow and gradual unwinding of market excesses is fine, a sudden and rapid collapse of market is definitely a no-no. This will cause serious confidence issue which itself may cause a bigger collapse in the world market.
5) US today is still the largest economy in the world, and a sudden melt down in its financial system would have serious implications on the world economy and stock markets. However, we also need to understand that while US has a domineering position, its position would gradually being eroded due to the emergence of other big economies such as China, India and other up and coming economies in Asia, and other parts of the world. At times, we may read news article talking about economy of other countries de-coupling from US’s economy. To me, this is a matter of degree. That is the influence on other countries from US would decrease over time but will not totally decouple from it. Not so for a long long time.
Just like the bull-bear cycle in stock markets, the boom-bust cycle is really a reflection of human nature which has not changed much since the day we human beings first invented “money” or “currency”. We have reasons to believe that Fed and the US government would not hesitate to act in the event of a crisis. In fact both have lots of ammunition and thus have the ability to prevent a financial crisis at the moment.
At this juncture, the biggest nightmare for US would be a serious capital flight by the foreign investors whom might be sparked by the market turmoil in US. This will only happen if foreigners (as well as American) lose confidence in the US financial system and hence decide to divest their US holdings and re-invest these funds in overseas markets. We all know that foreigners have a substantial holding in US assets such as US Treasurys, equities, real estates and others. While this is not likely to happen now, it is always a possibility that this might happen one day. Perhaps, this will be carried out at a very gradual speed.
All of us would not want to be in the middle of a stampede. The worst nightmare that one may have is that you wake up one morning and realizes that you are in the middle of a stampede. What will you do? The most rational thing to do is to secure a safe spot (if you can find one) and wait for the stampede to be over. Remember, the casualties due to a stampede were never caused by the original cause (For instance, there is a stampede due to a fire in a cinema and many people died not due to the fire but due to the stampede itself). A smart investor will never allow herself/himself to be in the stampede situation in the first place. How to avoid, you may ask? My answer is: Don’t follow the crowd!
Master “The Essence of Stock Investment” and ride towards the journey of your financial freedom! Be the “Master of Your Own Destiny”!
Disclaimer: Investors are investing at your own risk. Please read full disclaimer at the end of the blog or from the main page of the website.
September 7th, 2007
NW Teong
Hi, just want to share two incredible pictures which are forwarded to me by one of my contacts with you:
The experienced one catches one fish at a time, the master catches two fish at one go!
In term of investment, we need to be very focus and sharp. We have to understand that, our resources namely time, money and energy are limited resources and hence we need to use them wisely. Always use razor sharp strategies. In short, we use laser-guided bombing with pin-point accuracy instead of carpet bombings. To translate this to investment is like this: do your homework and monitoring the markets, macro, and your stocks closely and zoom in when the timing is perfect (remember my call on 17 Aug 07? This is the result of days and weeks of monitoring works.)
Of course, sometimes we may be wrong, however, the frequency of wrongs should greatly be reduced with the passage of time. This is the important of experience. I am very sure young and in-experienced eagles will miss their catches some times. However, they never give up and continue to try until they have perfected this skill.
Hope these two pictures would inspire you to be a great investor!
Master “The Essence of Stock Investment” and ride towards the journey of your financial freedom! Be the “Master of Your Own Destiny”!
Disclaimer: Investors are investing at your own risk. Please read full disclaimer at the end of the blog or from the main page of the website.
September 6th, 2007
NW Teong
Yes, today is the auspicious date for launching my website: www.master-rider.com and I sincerely thank all of you for visiting and supporting my web site!
I would like to specially thank Sing Chyun for putting this web site together and I must say that I have learnt many internet related knowledge from him. Thank you Sing Chyun!
For those who have visited my web site, I hope you have benefited from it as it is always my passion to share my professional investment knowledge with all of you. With this spirit of sharing, I do hope that you will also introduce this web site to your relatives, friends and to as many people as possible.
While there is no short cut in investments, you can surely cut short your learning curve by learning from the right source!
I wish every one of you many bountiful returns!
August 8th, 2007
NW Teong
Hi everyone, I am Teong and I would like to extend a very warm welcome to you! If you would like to know a little bit more about me you could visit this web site: www.master-rider.com and click on about.
As you can see, I have a very ‘complicated’ background. I started my career as a Project Engineer with a developer when I first graduated from the National University of Singapore (‘NUS’). However, barely after 3 years, I concluded that for this job the reward does not justify my effort. Hence I made up my mind then either I be my own boss (in real estate) or quit the job. At the tender age of twenty something, with no capital to be my own boss my choice is obvious.
I went on to join a market research and consultancy company which exposed me to all kind of companies in all sectors that came to us for market research, survey and consultancy works. This is a good exposure for me as I have the first chance to really come into contact with people across all industries. Two years after this job, I realized that I need a business degree to complement my engineering degree. At that time (even till today), I thought that an engineering degree coupled with a MBA degree was one of the best combination as far as tertiary education was concerned.
However, I faced with two options: doing my MBA full time or part-time? It did not take me long to make a decision, yes I did my MBA full time also at NUS. Doing a cost-benefit analysis, I felt that doing full time MBA was more superior as I could really benefit the most. Besides obtaining a full scholarship for two consecutive years from the Institute of Banking and Finance in Singapore, I also went on to become the President of the MBA Club while doing my course. In fact, I was fortunate to say that my whole MBA course was fully covered by the scholarship!
After I came out from NUS with a newly equipped MBA, I joined a conglomerate founded by one of the richest tycoons in this region. This job brought me to China in the early 90s. During my 3-year stay in China, I traveled extensively, especially the coastal and the north-eastern regions in China. Oh boy! I can tell you, it was really an eye-opener. I had tried the best and the worst food in China. One of my more interesting lunches was at a river side restaurant somewhere in Heilongjiang province. The sea food was excellent, as the fish and water used for cooking were both from the river (江水煮江鱼!). There was also an unforgettable experience of eating dog meat for the first (also my last) time in my life in a remote Korean village somewhere in Liaoning province. At that particular fateful day, we had been traveled for half a day already and we were (with my Chinese colleagues) all tired and hungry but we some how ended up in this little Korean village which offered no other food other than dog meat!
I also cannot forget the spectacular view of a vast soybean crop that extended to as far as your eyesight can see. It was simply a sea of soybean plants that seemed to connect to the sky at the far end!
Of course, I had also been to many parts of China during that three years. Oops, I got a bit carried away on my China experience!
After this job, I came back to Singapore for personal reason and joined a shipping company. After a short stint in this company, I joined a venture capital firm in 1996, which officially began my investment career. You can find my profile in the above mentioned website. In short, I have spent the last 10 years in investment, managing both the private as well as public listed markets. In between, I also published a popular investment book, “The Essence of Stock Investment” in 2005. I have also conducted many seminars, short courses, radio talks in the past few years. I have great passion in investment and I am truly sincere in sharing my professional investment experience with you. To me, something that works must be both simple and effective!
I regret to say that other than selected seminars organized by Singapore Stock Exchange (‘SGX’), I have stopped all my seminars, courses since middle of 2006 due to my current job commitment. FYI, I am currently still a full time investment professional (still waiting to retire la!). However, there is one piece of great news. I have just re-launched my website: www.master-rider.com, and once again I am able to share my investment experience through my e-book and e-seminars with you.
One piece of advice to share with you:-
Every knowledge/wisdom that you come across, you have to really grasp the essence of it. This applies to those who read my e-book, e-seminar and other e-publications.
Last but not least, I wish every one of you great success in investments and in life! Stay healthy, happy and wealthy (in that order please)!
August 3rd, 2007
NW Teong
