Personal Update

There has been no article on Equity Management last week because I as getting into the deep end of the book which talks about selecting the right data and tracking errors, items which are dry even for a dedicated finance otaku like me.

Instead, I hope to start talking about the Portfolio Management section of the book over this weekend.

So all I have is a personal update :

a) School has been intense but the worse is over.

This has been the week of major deadlines. I have one more presentation to go next week and then it will onto the exams. But beginning next week, I can start to relax as I only have two papers this semester. If everything works, out my final paper in SMU would be sometime mid-April.

Then its about 3 months of holidays and internships before the bar preparations.

b) Finance and Investments

Markets have been red-hot and most income investors would have had a great time with the markets with a series of large payouts at the end of March. Manufacturing stocks are also doing very well due to the turnaround in the Singapore economy.

The question remains as to whether the turnaround in the economy is real and whether the US may put a dampener on world trade when they kick in protectionist policies. The markets don't seem to care that the Donald is in charge.

I probably made my dumbest investment move this decade in February :

Because I needed some liquidity to tide over the Chinese New Year, I started liquidating my non-yield generating assets and sold off most of my cryptocurrency. Thereafter, Ethereum went from around $10 to $40 !!! It was only a token sum of $1,000 but $3,000 can last me quite a while.

Fortunately, I had secured some mining contracts which still gives me a couple of Ethereum coins in my wallet but this failure is really epic in the midst of other parts of my portfolio doing so spectacularly well.  

c) Books and readings

I am currently reading The Complacent Class by Tyler Cowen. It is an interesting take on how America's loss of physical mobility is slowing down innovation and exacerbates inequality. It is full of insights which can be contextualise to Singapore.

One possible tip is when observing Singaporeans is that when you read about those keyboard warriors who rail at income inequality may be the folks who live in the most segregated housing estates and school in the most racially segregated secondary schools.

There are too many good books out there. Anthony Robbins just published another finance guide called Unshakeable - maybe he just wants us to forget about his old self-help guru days. The Cato Institute finally published a book entitled Anti-Piketty which is compulsory reading for rentier/super-managers aspirants.

d) The Hillion has opened.

For the folks who live in Bukit Panjang, congratulations.

The Hillion has opened so we have another soulless mall within a short commute of where we live. For my family, at least we no longer have to go to Choa Chu Kang when a kid needs to see the pediatrician.

Hope to post at a higher frequency from now on.