Saturday, May 22, 2021

Letter to Batch 20 of the Early Retirement Masterclass

 


Dear Students of Batch 20,

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

This class may have been the most challenging class to teach, thanks to the pandemic restrictions which came into existence just a week ago. Initially, there are no restrictions to conduct a face to face class. Still, regulations disallow the serving of bento boxes in classrooms, so I had to scramble to create a half-day course focused on portfolio creation for Batch 20. On top of these restrictions,  I was trying to juggle software demos and updating spreadsheets over Zoom, which is not something I look forward to doing again.

Nevertheless, we could have a better program with more class participation thanks to allowing alumni to participate in a Refresher class for a token fee. This improvement will not be felt until we meet face to face in July or August, where seniors can guide juniors in stock discussions and assist me in answering questions.

The portfolio for Batch 20 is exceptional because analysts reports have yet to factor in heightened restrictions due to the pandemic. The write-ups would be more optimistic than usual. However, we also employed a different approach to select our stocks, allowing voting to take place and picking only half of the stocks shortlisted by the financial model. The result is a very conservative mix of defensive investments that can tide us through a bad patch if we end up with another Circuit Breaker.

Our relationship is not over, and we will meet face to face when the restrictions are lifted. Meeting face to face will ensure that you can thoroughly revise the concepts taught in class and build a portfolio from scratch again the next time we meet.

Lastly, I hope that Batch 20 would participate actively in the FB group. Until we meet, the community and I would be happy to assist you in any queries.

Christopher Ng Wai Chung

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