Dear Students of Batch 9,
It’s
been a great honour and privilege to be able to conduct a 2-Day Early
Retirement Workshop for you.
The
highlight of this session is that we managed to successfully conduct a new version
of the Emigration Exercise that used to be done for earlier batches. In this
exercise, students get to roleplay an emigrating singleton and to investigate one
destination that they would like to emigrate to by digging out the economic
data of a target country. Once they reach their destination country, students
will have to determine whether they can live on the dividends generated back
home in Singapore. Students will also get to present one new stock that they
would like to purchase once they open their trading accounts in their new home.
We
were unable to pick a favourite destination today after looking at the data because
New Zealand (Wellington) and Thailand (Bangkok) garnered equal votes. The results
of this fun and enlightening exercise will be shared in a future article on the
Dr Wealth blog.
I
have also learnt quite a bit from Batch 9.
The
first thing I learnt is that I can reduce my expenses further when I pick the
GrabHitch option carpooling feature when calling for a cab. I will make it a
priority to try this out from Bukit Panjang this week.
During
the qualitative analysis segment of equity counters, the discussion on OCBC was
unusually lively. Students shared useful
insights on how OCBC is resonating with millennials with their first mover
advantage on CDAC accounts and the tactical positioning of the Frank sub-brand.
The class also unanimously agreed that OCBC apps and webpage were more
user-friendly compared to the other local banks. As I am not an OCBC customer,
I was pleasantly surprised that my previous impression of OCBC as a stodgy old
bank no longer reflects the reality experienced by their customers today.
The
biggest pay-off from teaching Batch 9 came was when I discovered that one really
smart student is an actuary in real life so I jumped at the chance to ask her
what kind of insurance does she buy for herself. Her answer – just term life
and H&S, totally made my day. If you ever want insurance advice, you should
mirror the moves made by the folks who actually create them for a living.
By
this batch, the ERM has more or less settled down with our methodology of
stocks selection and this batch of students has managed to choose six blue-chip
stocks and six REITs to form the core component of the portfolio. I find this
class even-handed and balanced in their approach of stock elimination, so I
look forward to investing with my trainer fees before the end of this week.
As a
response to feedback during this course, I will be taking steps to align the
final portfolio closer to the asset allocation exercise done as part of early
stages of the course. We are always improving our material after your feedback,
so you can expect a supplementary write-up to be posted on the FB group within
the next few days.
Christopher Ng Wai Chung
This is gold, Unknown !
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