Catching up with AI's new capabilities will be tough

 

As I'm facing an empty semester, I've been trying to be as productive as possible, putting a lot of effort into getting up to speed on the latest AI developments. It began with going to the Polytechnic to attend an in-house session on how AI can assist lecturers in making their lives easier; I was pretty stunned that I could create a slide deck on Intellectual Property Law ( complete with local references to legal cases ) when I had never taken Intellectual Property Law as a module in SMU. My services may cease to be required by public institutions in the future, as in-house lecturers can do much more with less. 

To deal with this existential fear, I signed up for a foundational module under the Artificial Intelligence Apprenticeship Program to improve my coding skills. While I had no issues learning the material and incorporating data analytical skills into my investment coursework, I was intimidated by how the course is thoroughly run by AI. The lecture video can explain the concepts well with a decent accent, but the lecturer looks artificially constructed as he did not blink often enough. The assessment was highly effective as the AI could mark my qualitative answers, tell me how my answers lacked detail, and even assign a grade to me in real-time. This is replacing post-graduate educational courses, so students only need to show up to perform labs or role-playing sessions. 

Of course, learning is only half the story; I have to figure out how to use ChatGPT to solve practical issues. My web application for my investment course has flashed many warnings over the years since it has existed. These warnings are harmless but may be signs that my code will be deprecated one day, so proactive elimination of warnings is a good idea. I resolved all warnings in one night as ChatGT-4o could explain what the warnings were and tell me exactly what code I needed to change to remove it for good. 

As I was pretty happy with ChatGPT and the more straightforward programming tasks, I restarted my attempt to host my web application on the cloud, something I had been unable to do since my last deployment broke years ago, and I have hosted my website from my laptop ever since. So, I patiently copied my code to the cloud and attempted to bring up my website, sending error messages to ChatGPT, which would patiently suggest what to do. While the AI did not get it right the first time around, I was able to have my website up within about 2 hours of troubleshooting. This required amending code that I did not write, and my understanding of software engineering is in drips and drabs. I have been an IT systems administrator, project manager and compliance professional for most of my career, so I have never done coding professionally.

I see a lot more disruption on the horizon. I was enrolled in a new AI called Manus AI, and within hours, I could generate an analyst report for Jardine C&C with quality and explanation that seemed better than ChatGPt-4o. The free version of ChatGPt felt that Jardine C&C was worth six times more than the current market price. The paid version was more accurate, projecting the price to be about 10% above the market price. Manus AI gave me a fair, comprehensive sell report. 

Over the next few days, I'll pass a few employment contracts through Manus AI to see whether it can identify critical clauses and point me to the proper case law to resolve the legal issue. If it does, it means that all three of my degree qualifications that I've worked so hard for would become obsolete pretty soon. What I know would not be worth much compared to my knowledge of how I ask an AI to solve the practical issues I'm facing in my business.

So there you have it. 

It's not about a bunch of creatives who are upset because you tried to turn family photos into something resembling a Studio Ghibli animation. With such practical tools, IT professional teams can shrink by at least 10%, causing widespread unemployment. My ERM students no longer require brokerage reports to assess potential stock picks. DBS is not renewing the contracts of some of their contract workers.

Lastly, I suspect the next-generation tool, even if it might not be able to replace a legal professional, may force law firms, at the very least, to be able to set fixed fees for legal work instead of hourly billing rates; this is Kryptonite to a sector that has grown fat over the years. If anything, in-house counsels are way more innovative and have superior AI tools to assist them, so they will try to pay law firms less.  

Financially, I'm safe for now; I might not need to do anything drastic to survive in Singapore, but I will likely rush headfirst into AI programmes at NUS. It might not be too late for a creative, a bookkeeper or even a coder who is extremely unhappy to pick up a blue-collar skill like plumbing, electrical work, or a heavy vehicle driving licence. 

I suspect the future may not look good for cognitive workers, so plumbing and home repairs might become popular CCAs in NUS. 

So we're all BDSM professionals now?

 

A while ago, during lunch, a pal suggested that Dr Wealth's marketing approach was very neutral and bland and may thus lack the ability to provoke clients to take action.  He's describing how these internet personal physical training marketing materials do it. 

" Disappear for a month. Come back as the most dangerous person in the room !"

The marketing message proposed by my friend left a bad taste in my mouth because it reminded me of how the crypto bros talked in 2021 before the Terra blockchain implosion. I explained that marketing messages like this can attract a lot of incels and folks who take the red pill, and because it proposes a quick way to allow young men a change in status, the message may serve its purpose. The last kind of student I want are the folks who say," Don't talk cock, just tell me what to buy !" because there are many trainers who cater to that demographic at less than $500 per course.

Still, I have a slower community-building business model and prefer a smaller group of software engineers, CFA candidates, and even finance professors in my community. Over six years, I've built a 600+ community so unique that Maybank Kim Eng brokers will tell me they can identify my students from the carefully balanced margin accounts never seen elsewhere. 

But what my friend said bothered me, as I'm still a businessman, and sales numbers are a matter of pride and somewhat a measurement of my manhood, which has been flagging lately. 

So what can I do? I usurped the role from Dr Wealth and did my own marketing copy:

"Disappear for five days, and get a plan to get the most significant raise among your peers when you return to the office!"

Initially, I was happy to have 175 preview attendees, 75% more than usual, but eventually, I became disappointed, as social media only accounted for about 10% of preview attendees. Sales were decent but did not come from my copy - sales were decent because local markets are great again.

But I can't conclude anything about the performance of one rookie attempt. I need to build up marketing muscle and experiment with different messages. 

So, I spent the past few days creating a more substantial LinkedIn presence and taking some nascent steps to build my "personal brand." I've created a draft of my next marketing copy using LinkedIn's newsletter feature. 

There are so many questions I have for myself as I turn myself into a marketer:

• Do those marketing scripts work? "Give me 5 minutes..."
• Should I continue this blog or migrate to LinkedIn newsletters? Does Gen Z even use RSS feeds?
• Does my tone offend LinkedIn connections because they are so sterile and buttoned down? "I am humbled to receive...."

In an era when the latest version of ChatGPT can render entire professions obsolete, the ability to hustle, build marketing funnels, and seek ways to survive is more important than ever.

We are all into BDSM now.

BDSM = Business Development Sales and Marketing.

I thank my mastermind group of young hustlers and collaborators for convincing me that my personal obsession with the psychology of personality would make me a reasonably competent marketer.  

  

Letter to Batch 37 of the Early Retirement Masterclass

Dear Students of Batch 37,

It's been a great honour and privilege to conduct a 5-Day Early Retirement Workshop for you.

Just like that, investors in Singapore blue chips are no longer the underdogs as STI heads into all-time-high territory. Local banks found favour from the possibility of higher inflation arising from Trump tariffs. REITs, however, have also started to recover, and the US Fed is still seeing two interest rate reductions in 2025. The overall effect is that Singapore stocks remain fairly priced at a PE ratio between 13 and 14 with decent equity risk premiums.

This portfolio's current yield is 7.1%. As the batch size remains small, we have again created a very focused portfolio of 12 stocks, not counting the Bank of China. We remain excited about the new SDR launched in markets like Ping An Insurance.

Also, this batch of students employed ChatGPT on Jardine C&C, and an AI-generated analyst report has been shared with the ERM Facebook community. Initially, the student used a free version of ChatGPT, which gave an outlandish target price projection, so we discarded the results on the spot. Moments ago, I recreated the report using the same methodology but using ChatGPT-4o, and the numbers became much more realistic. Researchers have confirmed that later versions of ChatGPT have performed better on mock CFA exams.

Artificial intelligence is improving rapidly, and the ERM program will continue to evolve toward greater use of AI. To ensure we stay at the cutting edge of AI use for retail investors, I will examine an automated generation of analyst reports using Python code and Agentic AI.

Lastly, I hope Batch 37 will participate actively in the FB group.

Hope to see you then!

Christopher Ng Wai Chung

Don't let the wrong finance ideas live rent free in your head

 

Those who have been following the news can imagine what might happen next. All thanks to a message from an influencer, spooked folks will try to withdraw money from a financial platform but will see withdrawals delayed. Financial advisors will strike at this point, trying to spin this as a bank run triggered by influencers, pushing regulators to tighten the rules.

In the end, even small-time bloggers like me would have to stay in touch with regulators, all because everyone lets the wrong financial ideas stay rent-free in their heads. 

This article is about wrong ideas. It attempts to expand on a previous article about ideas that are too true to be good (link).  

a) High-yield savings products

Any savings product yields higher than Singapore Savings Bonds, which is currently pegged at 2.83% for the first year, so you should not spend time rent-free in your head. 

We've learnt that high-yield savings products may either lack protection under SDIC or cause you to lose liquidity temporarily due to withdrawal delays. Still, we've known that for many other offerings, the higher returns can be nerfed or come with conditions that involve buying insurance or unit trust from banks.  

The issue arises if we spend much time obsessing over these products. Sometimes, returns cannot match the inflation rate, and oftentimes rates are unsustainable. It takes up a lot of energy to track different options, and opening accounts just to park your money for a small gain can be a waste of time. 

b) Better "miles systems" or more efficient credit cards

Another thing that baffles me is that there is so much effort spent on converting credit card utilization into point systems that influencers who track these incentive programs have such a strong following in Singapore.

This is funny because to generate these points, you need to spend money first, and behaving more frugally will result in much more money in your pocket than those miles that you earn. I've been on the same VISA classic card since I graduated from university, and it works fine. It gives me a $20 popular voucher every six months. 

Life should not be this dramatic.

c) What is an influencer's net worth or recent dividend payout 

Some folks use their blog to track their net worth or dividends. That's fine and good. I even have to share details of my previous years' annual dividends and net worth during my previews. But readers get excited when someone makes their first million or gets a massive monthly dividend payout. 

The problem with gawking at someone's figures is pointless unless that person has an actual plan on how to get there (like me), or by sheer coincidence, you have the same background and advantages that guy has. 

You should be focused on your net worth instead. 

There are a lot more ideas that institutions want to squeeze into your head, such as information on products that mix insurance and investments. Financial advisors or maybe an influencer might want to play the expert on "bonus units" for ILPs when we know that the entire product line is questionable if we can educate ourselves to invest our money in the markets. 

Ultimately, the folks pulling the strings are the institutions that sponsor the influencers and give the FAs commissions to distribute these marketing messages. The wise thing to do is to realise that if these marketing messages succeed, only by buying the shares of these institutions will earn a dividend for savvy investors.  

In a future article, I will share the financial ideas that you should have in your head. 

They even pay rent. 

The case for having no Integrated Shield Plan

 

Ok, I need to close the loop for the last article for my mum's hospitalization. Thank you for all the well wishes and very important folks have read the last article after Investment Moats notified his bosses of my experience.

Before I proceed with my insights, I want to shed more light on my mum's Class C Ward stay. The top line cost is about $37k - 3 days high dependency wayrd + 27 days normal ward, government subsidies reduced it by $19k, medishield reduced by a further $6k and about $12k was deducted from my Medisave account. My final cash bill is a big fat zero, which was a hugely pleasant surprise for me as I actually prepared $6k from my cash reserves to pay off this bill. 

So my Medisave has been fully reloaded, the sums removed from cash reserve have been returned and dividends from Wednesday this week can be fully deployed to expoit the volatility from Trump's administration.

So my insight for today is the question of whether there is a case for having no Integrated Shield Plan or ISP.

For a start, I did not get into this position of having no ISP willingly. My bloodline has been deemed too expensive or impossible to insure, so I could not afford H&S insurance even if I wanted to in my 20s. But over the years, as I grew my portfolio, I watched premiums paid by peers skyrocket. Along the way subsidized Class C wards was what my dad used his entire life and prior to my mum's brain bleed, she is a cancer survivor. In all these cases, I was saved by a full-to-the-brim Medisave account and 1 year of living expenses uninvested in cash.

So I believe very strongly that there is a case for NOT having an ISP. But like buy term and invest the rest philosophy, we need to very clear that there is a price to pay to do so. 

The biggest problem is that there is no commissioned salesman who is willing to support my position, so please forward this blog to your friends to read.

a) Don't listen to your FA, we can absolutely rely on default Medishield

The first thing that we need to be aware of is that we can rely on default Medishield that allows us to go up to Ward B2 in a government hospital. And we don't need listen to fearmongering from financial advisors. At Woodlands Health, my mum's ward was 6 patients, there was a screen to watch Youtube, and air cooler exist. It may be more uncomfortable at older hospitals but I suspect older hospitals get better acute care. 

b) You need to be responsible for yourself and become your own insurer

While ISPs can be costly and you will have more sums for yourself, you will need to imagine what your peers are paying for their expensive Class A or private plans and set it aside for investing purposes. This is similar to the BTIR investment philosophy. You need this discipline to make it work but dividends from this portfolio can cover a greater of range of risks - my cash reserves have paid for my daughter's Invisalign and my mum's proactive angiogram. Try calling your insurer to pay for that. 

c) Rush towards Basic Healthcare Sum as soon as practicable. 

So one of the best moves a young guy can do is to keep moving CPF-OA to CP or RSTU until you hit your FRS. The second best move for folks with marginal taxes above 10% is to push as much of your earned income into CPF-MA until you hit a BHS or $75,500. 

The beauty of ths move is that it reduces taxes, secure 4% interest rate ( better than Chocolate finance ), and when it overflows, excess can be fed into CPF-OA or CPF-SA to give you more flexibility.

Obviously, you probably won't benefit from doing all this until after your 40s where weird operating procedures become the norm, but your future self will thank you for it.

Also, after a hospitalization, have the ironclad discipline to refill your CPF-MA, so that you are ready for the next medical crisis. 

Finally, we need to really see ISP for what it really is. 

It is not a product to hedge your medical expenses because the increase in premiums is so brutal every year after age 50. 

The ISP is a compensation plan: not just for the FA, but for the private medical doctor who has a heavy incentive to practice defensive medicine on you to rack up large bills that is paid by the insurer. But this will ultimately bite you in the ass as insurers are not dumb - they will raise premiums year after year and reduce claim benefits. So in the end - it's the healthy folks who buy these plans who are subsidizing the sick folks who make claims from it. 

ISPs has poisoned the well not just for private patients with ISPs for also for those without insurance. When some private doctors hear that I'm uninsured, they know that I will scrutinise each bill and each scan carefully so some will give me a "sian jee pua" kind of face.  

Anyway, this chapter should be closed after today. 

But life goes on, and a medical crisis is probably just around the corner for my household. 

 

   

Fiscal marksmanship and planning for medical expenses

 

I finally managed to get some information on my mum's hospitalization.

In brief, my mum had a bad fall and hit her head while under a regime of blood thinners. It led to bleeding in her brain, affecting the brain regions that cover speech and movement. I hospitalized her after she could not speak coherently. 

While that time was excruciating for me, my mum's recovery was speedy, and she was discharged after a month from Woodlands Health. The hospital continues to look after my mum via a mobile team of doctors and nurses.

I thought perhaps revealing my expenses could help other readers plan ahead for medical emergencies. My mum is a PR, so Medishield does not apply to her, but we stayed in a Class C ward. There was no surgery, but there was 4 days of ICU stay with teams of allied health professionals working on her speech and physical recovery. Now, I know that some folks might gloat and say that I did not pay for an ISP, but my mum had a history of high blood pressure, making it impractical for my family to insure her even when she was younger. 

I don't have a serious breakdown of the fees yet, but the CPF website already has some information. A $12,250 deduction has already been made to my Medisave, and I will likely receive a $6,050 bill much later, which I need to pay in cash. 

So, it is likely that my bill is slightly above $18,000. This is an outstanding deal as the Class C ward in Woodlands Health puts 6 patients in a room, and there are air cooling units in the ward and Youtube access. 

In the grander scheme of things, a $6,050 fee payable in cash is significant but not something that will break a family's back, although I suspect a Singaporean will pay way less. However, I decided to top up my Medisave immediately with our accumulated cash reserves, hoping we would be prepared for our next medical disaster. In the meantime, I get to compound at a rate of 4% and even get tax benefits.

One big lesson readers can learn from this is that, predictably, I know some parts of my family will question my decision to put my mum in a Class C ward. I don't understand why people keep asking my mum whether she can afford the hospital stay when I'm the guy ultimately responsible for finding the money to do it. The answer is simple - my mum is a PR who is not insured. Some relatives will try to demonstrate or insinuate their superiority because they can do it under private wards - I think as fiscally prudent people, we need to resist all calls for it. My medal of pride is that I'm by my mum's side in hospital 6 days every week because I need to teach in a Poly on Thursdays. 

Ask their kids whether they can do that.

So, we are our own insurance company, and we have a six-digit uninvested sum to deal with medical emergencies. If any family ensures a senior for price hospitalization right up to their 70s will pay so much in premiums, they would not have their Medisave constantly overflowing to their CPF-OA account, a privilege I enjoy. 

My family also regenerates this hospital bill via dividends in a matter of weeks and not even months - I just need my mum to lay off buying 4D and Toto expenses for a while - I don't issue CDC/Toto vouchers after our family's version of the pandemic.

This is the essence of fiscal marksmanship. 

If there are ways to be frugal, just do it, and don't bend under pressure. 

There will be plenty of expenses after hospitalization. I'm still paying about $300-$400 for monthly house calls, and I need to pay about $700 more for two months of physio. 

Penalising a family or government is unfair if they have a significant surplus. If anything, a person's Medisave should be reloaded as the next medical emergency will not be far away if seniors are in the household.  

   

About adult literacy in Singapore

 

I was supposed initially to talk about my mum's medical expenses, but the Singapore Government was not in a rush to bill us as they are wealthy this year. Even though I took the pains to configure my access to my mum's medical bills via the HeathHub app, I can't get billing information.

Instead, I'd like to discuss my work teaching Law at a Polytechnic. Some adjuncts have not renewed their contracts, so we have no guarantees that we will have (earned) income next semester. Naturally, some of my colleagues feel a bit nervous. It will seem more like a disappointment for me because I enjoy teaching pre-employment students, and I take the liberty to give them some extra material I deem essential to young adults, which I wish someone would have taken care of when I was in JC.  

One issue I was passionate about was the low Singaporean adult literacy skills reported on mainstream media. I wanted to verify whether this was the case in young adults. Before asking for more details on their books, I reminded everyone that reading is a hobby that women find attractive, even though I know guys tend to buy fewer books than women.

Most of my students read a non-academic book over the past 6 months. 

They could also tell me about the books they read.

Finally, I recommended a book for those who generally don't bother to read anything. Michiko Aoyama's What You Are Looking For is in the Library would be a great way to start, as it is about how reading oblique book references can lead to massive improvements in a reader's life. 

There are a lot of folks out there who want to apportion blame on why literacy rates amongst adult Singaporeans are so poor. I read about some literature teachers blaming our policy of de-emphasizing the humanities as the real reason this is happening. 

Examining and testing folks on English Literature is to blame because Singaporeans who need fiction to pass exams will not be intrinsically motivated to read. My first serious literature was shoved down my throat when I was 10 years old; it was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, but still today, my belief is that once you understand Mr Darcy's cash flow from his estate, you don't really need to know about rest of the work. I also think it's very colonialist to force Singaporean teenagers to read books written by dead white men. 

I will never choose Shakespeare over Gary Gygax. What is the point of understanding Macbeth and the nature of human ambition when the 1st Edition D&D Dungeon Master's Guide already provides rules on the pentagram you need to draw to summon or entrap demons? Lady Macbeth can't fight a Type V Marilith demon. I read more than 95% of the Singapore population because I knew when I was 10 that digesting hundreds of pages of RPG rules makes me competitive in the RPG gaming tables and, subsequently, in some math/verbal exams. One of my greatest moments was seeing the word "necromancer" on my SAT verbal exams.  

Anyway, while we are on the topic of reading, I just completed the first arc of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives. 

The first arc of the series is contained in 5 brick-sized volumes. Reading it was a massive effort that took up much of my life. 

My motivation?

The Cosmere RPG based on this series generated $13M on Kickstarter, and I don't want to miss out on this new generation of RPGs.

Even fantasy has evolved beyond what my generation has enjoyed, like Dragonlance, Magician or Game of Thrones. This series ended up weaving concepts of mental wellness into a fantasy work. 

Sadly, I must teach myself to remain open-minded and enjoy this series. 

Five volumes are a serious investment of my time, and there are five more to go!