Donald Trump Is The New POTUS

What a stunning upset.

I am disappointed tbh, as I had hoped for a HRC win.

Yet there is nothing much anyone can do about it and the American electorate has spoken.

All we can hope for is that things are not as bad as forecasted and Trump governs with a rational mind.

Look how markets were affected:

During thre course of counting, just like BREXIT, the initial counts had Clinton leading and the market started off a wee it optimistic. Then it slowly became clearer and clearer that Trump would win, which led to a violent tanking of the S&P and a spike in Gold as risk came off.

Finally it was confirmed that Trump won. Maybe the markets felt overreacted, maybe his victory speech gave hope (he spoke of infrastructure spend), maybe the market was just irrational.

S&P suddenly began rising, slowly and apprehensively at first, and then jumping higher near the day's closing. Gold conversely plunged as risk off took control.

I still think markets are going to be very volatile for a few more weeks as markets adjust to Trump's intentions, policies and plans.

Stay safe out there.

Personal Financial Investment Seminar 2015 Review

Last year I attended the Value Investing Summit 2014 and decided to give it a miss this year. In it's place, I chanced upon the Personal Financial Investment Seminar 2015, organized by Wealth Directions and cost a mere fraction of the VIS 2014 price tag. This was held from 12pm to 6pm yesterday at the NTUC Auditorium (Raffles Place).

Was it worth it? Hell yes it was.

This was touted as a blogger event where a few prominent finance bloggers were invited to speak. It was an interesting concept because I've never encountered it being done before, with such a large collection of influential personalities in our small community.

Something I have been left very impressed about this event is the simple fact that there wasn't much hard selling or pushing of any products (I'm looking at you with a frown CIMB, although I kinda understand) and there wasn't all that silly cheapo money giveaways nor secret snatch and grab seminar space yada yada, for those freebie-dwelling aunties and uncles.

At $8 per person, it was unsurprising that the tickets for the event sold out almost immediately, way back in October of last year.

So here's a quick review of the speakers and events on the day.

We came early because I wanted to snag good seats, so by 12.30pm we were seated in the auditorium. Dr Tee from Wealth Directions was presenting on the use of ShareInvestor.com's stock screener. It was very interesting. I might just buy into Keppel Corp in the coming weeks.

At 1pm the event started proper and here were the speakers:

1) Jared Seah - singaporemanofleisure.blogspot.sg
He spoke very cryptically about his topic, "Who Are You?". It was quite deep, and was about imagining ourselves to be zebras on the African savannah doing an exercise evaluating where in a herd you (the audience) were at. I think he wanted to illustrate and help us discover where we were as retailers in the investment world. He gets an A for effort to be creative and interesting, but a C for delivery. I think half the audience absolutely caught no ball. He blogs about it over here.

2) Calvin Yeo - drwealth.com
He spoke about financial planning based investing. I think he was just trying to sell the DrWealth platform for personal portfolio use to the audience. Didn't really get much out of his time slot to be honest.

3) Lionel Yeo - cheerfulegg.com
Wah this guy was so handsome and suave that even the wifey was mesmerized once he started talking. I have to admit Lionel really carries himself very well and is very presentable. He wasn't all just good looks either. His presentation on index investing (mainly ETFs) and the 80/20 rule - where 20% of your activities give you 80% of the results, was very enlightening. I learnt a few things here that I felt I would like to apply with my current portfolio.

4) Leries Goh - CIMB
CIMB was a key sponsor of the event, so certainly they'd be given a speaker slot. Firstly, this lady Leries is damn bloody HOT! She's chio, and sounds like she knows a thing or two. Unfortunately, she spoke with an agenda (CIMB obviously), so we decided to walk out on her halfway to go for a late lunch. I cannot stand broker macro talk and reccos because I get blasted with enough of this on a daily basis.

5) Alvin Chow - bigfatpurse.com
Alvin spoke about another concept which left me very impressed. The concept of conservative net asset value (CNAV) approach to stock picking. I felt like I picked up a thing or two on improving my stock picking skills from him. One key takeaway was to be selective when finding undervalued stocks that could be value traps. Selecting low Price-to-Book (PB) but being selective on what's counted in the books, if the very difference in using CNAV instead of just NAV. Here's his take on the event proper.

6) Dr Tee - Wealth Directions
Here he as again. Yet I felt like I could hear him talk all day. His concept of maximizing profits by buying at the very very low and selling at the very very high, is not that unattainable afterall. My key takeaways were aplenty during his talk, and they were probably the most value for money during this seminar. Here're some key points:
Maximizing profits in stocks
- Find the giant
- Wait for the giant to fall down
- Help the giant get up
- Say goodbye when the giant is strong again
This sound silly but if you sat through his talk, it all makes perfect sense (albeit metaphorically)
Also another one was
When to sell > When to buy > What to buy
Lastly, the CAGR %optimism line.

Finally there was a panel discussion where everyone went back on stage and showed their portfolio allocations and then took questions from the floor.

Once again, was the event worth it? Hell yes it was.

And if they had it again next year, you bet I'll buy my tickets 3mths in advance again.

Investment In Funds

Recently I invested into two funds, hoping that smarter fund managers can help me grow my funds better that what I can do. Specifically I invested into two dividend paying funds particularly for yield.

1) First State Dividend Advantage
Wow, this is such an old fund that almost 10 years ago when I was an RM in the retail banks, this was one of the popular products to sell. I have invested in this fund before and now I'm doing it again. The investment objective of the First State Dividend Advantage is to provide investors with regular distributions and long-term growth from high dividend yielding equity investments focused in the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan). The investment policy of the Sub-Fund is to invest all or substantially all of its assets in the First State Asian Equity Plus Fund, a sub-fund under the Dublin registered umbrella fund known as First State Global Umbrella Fund plc. The Underlying Fund invests primarily in securities in the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan). Such companies will be selected on the basis of their high dividend yields and their potential for long-term capital appreciation. It pays a targeted annual dividend of 4%.

2) HSBC GIF - Global Emerging Mkts Bd Fund
This is my first time venturing into this fund. I like it that it's risk classification is far lower than what I normally would do. The Fund seeks total return mainly through a diversified portfolio of investment grade and non-investment grade rated fixed income (e.g.bonds) and other similar securities either issued by companies which have their registered offices in emerging markets around the world, primarily denominated in US dollars, or which are issued or guaranteed by governments, government agencies and supranational bodies of emerging markets. It pays a targeted annual dividend of 5%.