Friday, June 30, 2017

Personal Update : Career transitioning continues.

Ok, as I have just completed another round of internship, it is time to take a break and go for a staycation in Sentosa over the weekend, so there will be no updates until this weekend is over.

a) Career transition into a lawyer is proceeding smoothly so far.

I won a a training contract after two months of gritty, realistic training, my boss admitted that I was thrown somewhat over the deep end and I was treated more like a trainee than an intern.I did my usual share of legal research, assisted in pre-trial conferences, wrote parts of some affidavits, and even used my multidisciplinary skills to produce some spreadsheets and charts to reinforce some of the legal arguments we wanted to use.  It was rewarding seeing some of my multi-disciplinary ideas get implemented in a dispute. I'm not too sure if my crazier ideas would have been taken this seriously in a bigger firm.

The only sad thing was that it took 4 months of work before I was able to be offered a contract. The economy for lawyers really sucks right now but I think that things will get better over the next few years.

I believe the 2:1 requirement for foreign grads would have to brought back to ease the glut somehow, let's see if I am right.

b) Was finally conferred my degree by SMU

At the same time, my time in SMU is almost coming to an end and I was conferred my JD this week. I spent the morning getting my gown and certificates and will be attending my third convocation within the next 2 weeks.

My 3 year journey as a Law Student is finally coming to an end !

I will be spending the next 6 months preparing for my Bar Exams. I hope it would be less stressful than Law School.

c) Croesus ! Croesus ! Croesus !

A bona fide dividends yield investor would never miss out on having Croesus in his/her portfolio and I was no exception to this rule. While almost all Croesus investors would be disappointed at losing a wonderful yield counter thanks to the impending offer from Blockrock, most would accept the attractive offer.

I always had an unusually sizeable portion of my portfolio in Croesus and made about 50% returns since the time I started investing around 2013. I guess it's time to move on and I know exactly which part of my portfolio to reinforce with my winnings so that my annual yields would increase after conclusion of the acquisition.

d) Next talk - 50 Shades of Dividends Investing

Once I get back from my short holiday, I will be all hands on deck for the next talk. My slides are quite skeletal at the moment and I need some time with a Bloomberg terminal before I can nail my material down pat.

Getting the numbers is one thing, making the theme consistent with 50 Shades of Grey is of course the biggest challenge for me so far.

e) Readings

A recent survey on what CEOs intend to read this summer show that the book lists are dominated by one name : Yuval Noah Harari. Both his books Sapiens and Homo Deus are similar to each other but I am currently reading the latter after have a great time with the former. ( It was recommended to me by a reader of this blog ! )

The insights are so brilliant, I would possibly need a few articles to ground these ideas into ordinary living in Singapore.

Otherwise, there has been a spate of books which show that the trend is shifting away from blaming inequality on the 1% and more towards the new meritocratic. I expect to comb them all in due time.

Also, we should be getting ready for the return of Game of Thrones.

Catch you guys next week !







 

3 comments:

  1. Hi Christopher!

    Congrats on your degree! First time stopping by your blog and found it interesting that we have rather opposite stories. You have built up your financial independence and are now working towards becoming a lawyer, while I had practiced as a lawyer for 3 years as my first job, just went in-house recently, and have been trying to enter the world of personal finance. I hope you do well and enjoy practice! Will look forward to hearing more about your experiences!

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  2. Thank you for your kind words.

    Waah... I think every practicing lawyer looks forward to a cushy in-house counsel job !

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  3. Haha, its not cushy at all, feels equally intense as practice, but its been a refreshing change though!

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