Personal Update

As exam season is upon us, this blog would be facing erratic updates over the next 3 weeks :

a) Financial outlook

One of the most important result of the Trump victory is that it's become impossible to read what will happen to the markets next. Analysis found on Friday's issue of the Economist is already incorrect in many ways as Trump is already working to back track on many of his campaign promises. The most promising news for investors is the question of whether the Fed to proceed to raise interest rates on December ( They might not ). The most negative news is on TPP but Singapore already has a mesh of trade deals in place so I'm not too sure whether the negatives will outweigh the positives.

But the most interesting thing is this. From what I'm seeing, the purported experts who are saying "I told you this would happen" are not backing it up with real market action.

I continue to invested in high yielding counters and there is another avalanche of payouts over the next few weeks which would need me to spread my portfolio further. While I have no data backing me up, everything seems more positive than negative to me over the next 12 months as some readers know that the killing I made was mostly done during the Great Recession of 2009.

When no one really knows anything and can't figure out what will happen next, I think the solution is to stay invested, spread your dividends over a wider number of counters and bargain hunt over time.
 
b) Alternative investment

One thing I started in 2016 and not done too well are the forays I made into the alternative investment world. I continue to pay my tuition fees in this area.

In the crowdfunding space, we are still trying to sue the guarantor of Rupini to see if we can recover the amount of money loaned to them. As a law student, this development is fascinating as a lawsuit like this can make or break the entire crowdfunding space. It's interesting to see professional lawyers get schooled by the courts on the finer details of making statutory demands as the case unfolds. This also cuts too closely to my law school adventures with one professor  asking me in class whether I expect to get my money back in my campaigns. ( I guess in life, its either you win or you learn. )

My losses in crowdfunding in total is around $500 since 2 out of 4 campaigns failed.

In cryptocurrencies, I have paid about $60 in tuition expenses but learning quite a bit about Ethereum. It would have been in the thousands had I built my own mining rig a few months ago. The currency has been beaten down due to the continuous hacking by some unknown parties.

I'm very optimistic about Ethereum because every hack creates a bargain opportunity and every hard fork make the currency more robust to future attacks.

c) Miscellaneous Readings

Out of the blue, I've been reading too many books on the new jobless economy so I wanted to cheer up so I picked up a book called Hygge by Charlotte Abraham.

Hygge is probably the most un-Singaporean concept you would ever encounter. The folks in the west are currently obsessed with this Danish concept which is some sort of Danish conception of happiness but contains within itself a few aesthetic components which reflects cosiness in product design and hanging out and talking to a bunch of friends ( who never seem to be jerks ).

I have no idea what kind of drugs I ate to even bother about this book ( And I'm on several ). The author spends an inordinate amount of time whining about her personal life and the rest of the time, the book features a large amount of Ikea furniture.

As it turns out Hygge works if you have long winters and constantly need to snuggle up to something. It also functions if you have a homogenous culture with generous welfare benefits so no kwai-lan friend can afford to inflict some micro-aggression at you with their latest Rolex watch purchase.

Well that's for this Sunday. If there are updates over the next few weeks, it's likely to involve IPOs and some SGX Listing Manual rules because I have to mug them for the exams.