Letter to Batch 14 of the Early Retirement Masterclass.

Dear Students of Batch 14,

It’s been a great honour and privilege to be able to conduct a 2-Day Early Retirement Workshop for you.

The business of investment training has become more challenging lately as the lockdown stretches further and we’re grateful to be able to conduct a class of such decent size in June. This batch will be the third class that we can conduct during a COVID-19 lockdown period.

Markets have also been quixotic one week before the course. It reversed from a bullish trend on the days before the class weekend wreaking havoc to the Z-Score spreadsheets I compiled the week before. As I do not want the class to be hit by another wave of selling, I made a decision to do a little bit of market timing to withhold purchases until the downturn reverses itself.

Unprecedented times demand unprecedented measures.

Fortunately, we managed to receive some good news on Monday night when Phase 2 of the loosening of lockdown restrictions was declared to begin on Friday 19 June that will have a positive impact on markets.

With the Singapore economy slowly edging back to normalcy, I hope that physical classes can resume as soon as possible. Our priority right now is to finalise the timings to conduct the one-day hands-on session that has been owed to you since the webinars. 

Batch 14 has been quite fun and spontaneous. The unique trait about Batch 14 is that on the final day of the class, students are able to explain and answer questions posed on the chat, making the Q&A much easier for the trainer. This is the kind of learning spirit that I hope that you can take on as you engage with fellow ERM alumni on the Facebook group.

Unless the lockdown gets re-established at a later date, Batch 14 may be the last batch of students to undergo the 4-webinar + 1-day lab session format. The ERM program’s complexity has grown by quite a bit since the lockdown started, and future sessions may no longer be constrained to 2-day duration.

I hope to see you again soon during the lab sessions and I look forward to your active participation in our Facebook community.

Christopher Ng Wai Chung